Use your starting price of gasoline of 2005 and see what your inflation rate is?
Sure you can take short term oscillations up and down they will be above the average or below the long term average. I see + - 10% oscillations in a week in St. Louis – they mean little. The price you see at the pump is driven by speculators who are betting on the future delivery price of gas – they don’t care if that’s higher or lower; they really don't care - they just guess what prices will be doing 10 months from now.
When politicians fan the fire of fear, which they do on a daily basis, just remember that THEY are the ones who tinker with the laws of supply and demand and thus skew them for their benefit.
A golden rule that has worked for 10,000 years is this “Tax something and you will stifle it”, “Remove taxes and you will promote it”.
Politicians know this and this is exactly what they want – high gas prices so they get high taxes. Folks it’s really that simple.
Don’t blame the free market which is ALWAYS right – blame the politicians who cause these crazy shortages and wacko policies so they can grab power from you and control us.
Look at how gas and oil has fallen since just the hint of the US drilling on our own soil – don’t drill and you can expect shortages and thus higher prices which mean higher taxes which politicians love – why should they care a whit?
I'm not going to comment further since this will turn into a political forum.