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Article: Consumers not buying the temporary
- Article from:
- Sun-Journal Lewiston, Me.
- Article date:
- May 4, 2008
CopyrightCopyright 2008 Sun-Journal Lewiston, Me. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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To use a recycled analogy, the federal government is tilting at
windmills regarding stratospheric petroleum prices. Every floated
solution - the latest is a summertime federal gasoline tax
suspension - assumes this fuel crisis is temporary, and requires a
short-term solution.
Yet the conventional wisdom at every gas pump, from sea to
shining sea, is these prices are neither temporary nor solvable in
the short-term. And consumers are not behaving like they are.
The latest evidence came Friday, when The New York Times reported
sales of compact cars jumped in April, while trucks and sport-
utilities plummeted. One industry observer said, strikingly, the SUV
era is "over."
If consumers are ...