I'm Bleeding... Not as much as I should

Feel like gas prices are bleeding you out of house and home, well not as much as they should be. Here's a chart showing the rise of gas prices over the past 6 years in relation to the cost of crude oil. Something that we know goes into it but is never closely looked at by the media.

It's not just the chart, it's true, the cost of crude has risen dramatically faster than the cost of gasoline in the last 6 months, only slightly faster since 2004, and tracked fairly closely prior to that. It could be said that the cost of gas is way underpriced based on the cost of the raw product.

Matter of fact in June 2002 the average cost per gallon of gas in San Bernardino County was $1.33 and Crude $22.00 a barrell. One gallon of gas was 6.05% the cost of a barrell of oil. Today with the a gallon running $4.00 and a Barrell running $133.00 the cost of a gallon of gasoline is a bargain price of only 3.00% of the cost of a barrell of oil. That's half the cost since 2002, so in pure economic devices we are getting a bargain.

Diesel has tracked it a little better and is more in line with the graph of the oil (I Think) I can't seem to get a chart for diesel. It makes sense however because diesel is basically just oil, there's little processing, no additives (such as ethanol) to skew it. Also because it does not get as much media attention it is not held down for the sake of public interest as regular gas may be. I've never heard a congressman questioning the oil industry over the cost of Diesel.

So what does it mean to have such a sudden and hard gap between crude and Gas. In my opinion it means that the government has been asking the gas companies to keep the price low anticipating lower oil prices in the short term. Or they may be doing it simply because of the public pressure. Either way if oil maintaines it's current price or close to expect substantially higher prices in the near future.

As it is you are already paying for the higher diesel in your groceries, and other commodities so soon inflation will have no choice to run rampant over all consumer goods. Gas will catch up, it has no choice, I'm left scared.