High oil prices are supposed to get people to use less, yet oil consumption continues to rise in many places. That could be because oil really isn’t as expensive as it’s been in the past, according to some ways of looking at it. A recent article in the Economist says that because Western consumers’ incomes have risen considerably over the past few decades, oil prices would need to top $134 a barrel to have the same impact as prices in 1981. The price of oil was a mere $119 a barrel yesterday.
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