A small rant about relative pricing

[Orrex]

Again and again I've heard rightwing apologists harrumphing about how much worse, relatively speaking, gas prices were back in 1981. Things aren't so bad today, they argue, because 1981's gas price of $1.41 would be, in today's dollars, $3.07.

Well, that's just peachy. The comparison fails for a number of reasons, most obvious of which is the fact that minimum wage hasn't kept pace with inflation. The $3.35 wage in 1981 would equate to about $7.29 in today's dollars, and I don't hear any rightwing demagogues howling for an increase in the minimum wage—do you?

Anyway, now that gas here in western PA has hit $2.85 a gallon (which is, I understand, far below other regions' price), what happens to these rightwing slogans once we exceed $3.07, which should happen sometime in the next fifteen minutes or so, I'd guess.

Will they finally shut up and abandon this bogus comparison? Will they admit that Dubya's disastrous foreign policies have only exacerbated an oil problem that any reasonable analyst could have predicted long before the illegal invasion of Iraq? Will they admit that, had Kerry presided over a $3.00/gallon economy, they'd have had him impeached by now?

Nah, probably not…

[TimeChaser]

1. Some places have already exceeded 3.07 today

Hells, they might reach 4+ before it's all over...

[Orrex]

2. Right--I should have specified *average nationwide price per gallon*

But the point remains--will the rightwing echo chamber finally say "Yeah, this officially does suck" or will we continue to hear how double-plus-good everything is?

[Double T]

3. The old salesman's trick doesn't work anymore.....

bush and his cronies can repeatedly send out 'the message of the day' and no one is buying it anymore