Warning! A little rant about gasoline prices.
Why is the average American consumer so damn stupid? Just a few short weeks ago, the national gas price average was over $4/gallon and everyone was saying how we should have learned our lesson in the 1970's and started being more efficient back then. For a short while, people quit buying the huge SUVs and trucks and started buying smaller, more reasonable cars.
Now, gas prices have started to drop to around $3.50 (here at least) and truck and SUV sales are on the rise again. WTF? Are we really that stupid? Did we seriously forget what $4 gas was like?
That is all.
Or the rise is truck and SUV sales just might be attributed to the dealers cutting prices to very, very low levels. The Ford dealerships around here are offering $12,000 rebates on trucks that would have been ~$24,000-$28,000 sticker. Others are advertising 40% off the sticker price on new trucks.
$12,000 off of the truck means you can absorb the price increase of $3.50 to $4.00 for 288,000 miles assuming horrendous mileage of 12 MPG over the life of the vehicle. I wouldn't blame the consumer for recognizing a deal when it exists. If you are looking for someone to blame, you might want to look at the truck manufacturers, which aren't just American companies. Toyota and Nissan are doing these same things.