We’re #1! We’re #1! Chicago Has the Highest Gas Prices

Well- at least Chicago is #1 in something.

Apparently, it’s gas prices.

A Marathon station near the loop is now charging $4.25 per gallon for regular gas. Premium was $4.55 a gallon. But even better, the Tribune took a picture of a BP Amoco station at Fullerton and Ashland selling regular for $4.49 a gallon. Yikes!

Chicago has higher taxes than many of the suburban counties, but even DuPage County is seeing $4.00 and $4.03 (two prices I saw just late last week.)

The $4.00 gasoline prices are here. Will they stay? We are only now entering the busy summer driving season. Historically, prices peak around Memorial Day and then decline the rest of the summer. We’re still a week away from Memorial Day. But it doesn’t seem like we’ll see much of a pullback in the coming months.

Will we see $5.00 soon in the City of Chicago? It seems highly likely given that some stations are now over $4.50 a gallon.

People are cutting back. They are watching when they drive to the store, restaurants, the movies etc.

Maybe the highways will be less congested?

Nah…(not from what I can tell so far.)

But behavior WILL change.

Those of you with those huge Suburbans or Hummers? The last laugh is on you.

Gold, by the way, has quietly slipped back over the $900 an ounce level. Perhaps gold knows something that the rest of us are seeing every day when we fill up our tanks.

The inflation genie is out of the bottle. And it hurts.