A dollar a gallon?! There are places in the US where the price of gas has already dropped that low. This latest break, which takes us back to the time of the ragtop and the whitewall tire, actually began on September 11th. A worldwide recession had been brewing and on that day, when fleets of aircraft stopped flying, the demand for oil dropped. Soon afterwards, OPEC ministers asked Russia, America's new partner in the war on terrorism, to cut its oil production to head off a steep fall in prices. Russia said "Nyet". For motorists today it's a bonanza, but oil price wars always have their own economic and political blowback, and what's good for consumers at the pump, may not be good for our Persian Gulf allies.
