It's all relative, would you believe in July 2001 gas was .79 cents per gallon in April of 2009 $1.49 per gallon after almost 8 years now gas has exceeded $3 per gallon for almost 3 years running so if a 100% increase in price is cheap then might I suggest it's Normalcy Bias which has you believing gas to be cheap!!!
LOL @ Normalcy bias.
Yeah - I'm a mindless sheeple gladly taking whatever government or corporate America wants to put in my dog food bowl.
It is what it is.
My solution to it is to simply do better at making and taking other peoples money. Legally.
Cuz it ain't never going to go down.
Unless the entire world economy collapses - again.
Besides - I look at it as recycling.
I pay more for gas, but I also make more money selling my wares to the Oil & Gas industry, who have had some of their best years in a long time.
Sorta a wash.
You know - they say statistics are like prisoners.
They will say anything you want if you torture them long enough.
You conveniently cited April of 2009, smack dab in the worst economic collapse in a century.
The lowest point on the attached chart. Good choice of a data point to try to make an argument.
But if you look at the attached graph, you'll see that was a complete outlier - and an anomaly after the crash in all prices.
The price run began in the late 90's when the rest of the world began to really soak up the capacity.
We had it really good - for a long time. Now that was "normalcy bias".