And I forgot to quote this:
If there's any inkling of truth to this, than gas increasing from (let's round) $3.50 to $4.25 will cost the American economy $105 billion. And there's not a single subsidy or assistance the government can offer to combat that? We'll just lose that $105 billion? Why not offer something to at least combat it? We'll still loose money (on top of trillions of dollars of debt, mind you) but at least the economy will remain stimulated so we will not lose jobs, exports, etc. along with it. I'd rather increase the already-laughable national debt than lose individual, American jobs that won't come back.
By the way, in our strangely-similar-to-this posts from a year ago, gas was expected to reach $5.00 / gallon by memorial day 2011. It never happened. Last year's high was $3.98. I'm not saying prices won't increase in the future, just that every single year since 2008, it's been like an annual panic attack as all these estimates come rushing in promising $5 or $6.50 a gallon gas that - so far - have never come to be. This very thread was made in response to an article with expectations that gas prices would start that sky-rocking process in summer 2010. Again, they didn't.