Just a few months after President Bush scoffed at the idea of $4 for a gallon of gasoline, that day arrived and it arrived sooner than many analysts had predicted. But, as the morning of Friday dawned, it was quite clear that the $4 mark had been easily reached by many of the gasoline companies around. The price jumped from $3.94 the previous evening to $4.19 and while there was a difference of a few cents over or under at some stations, it was quite obvious that the latter figure was the one that the gas stations would be going for that day.

So, where does this leave us in the present circumstance? The answer is actually that nothing much has changed. It’s not like $4 gasoline is a surprise to anyone (even the President, incidentally enough, who quickly took back his words in a press conference that followed the one where he famously proclaimed ignorance of $4 gasoline projections), least of all the financial world that seems so dependent on the price of that one commodity. While $4 is definitely a benchmark, at this stage it is little more than that as most people in the know believe that gasoline prices will be going up much more in the coming weeks, months and years.

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