There's an element in gasoline pricing which is under-played to an extent--and that is the value of the U S Dollar (USD.)
During the reign of "Easy Al" Greenspan, the USD spigots were wide open--largely financing a home-price bubble, but previously financing the dot-com boom.
Of course, when you flood a market with anything, that anything's value will decrease--precisely what has happened to the USD versus the Euro (or gold, or iron, for that matter.)
Since 1/2004, the USD has declined from .93/Euro to .65/Euro--about 29.5%. Were today's Milwaukee gasoline prices to be adjusted for that change, the price would be about $2.40/gallon.
No, the slide in the USD has not accounted for all of the runup in crude prices ($29.75 to $93.00/bbl) in the same time period.
But it certainly didn't help.
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