hiss... do ya want coffee in your gas tank, it's a lot more expensive...

So, we're told that gasoline is getting outrageously expensive and the knock on effect of more price hike will be less consumer spending and an economic recession. Is gas really that much more expensive?

Even accounting for the fact that since 2001, petrol has increased a 3.5 fold in dollar terms, while in euros, it has increased a factor 2, gasoline is still DIRT cheap. Here's why. Suppose, you pay $4 per gallon at the pump, that's 3.125 cents per fluid ounce. Take an average cup of coffee- roughly 10 ounces, this translates to a whopping 31.25 cents per cup of gasoline. The last time, we checked, a cup of coffee at Dunkin Donuts, never mind Starbucks, was about $1.50 per cup, a factor of 4.8 less expensive, if you drank gasoline.

The same goes with crude oil. A barrel of oil holds 42 gallons (5376 ounces), so at $100 per barrel, it costs 1.86 cents per ounce. Therefore, to compete with coffee, another of those wonderful American addictions, the price of crude oil has to increase by a factor of 80, or more like $8000 per barrel of crude oil, for it to hurt, or get the Americans off their habit.

Now, that's expensive.