$6 USD PER GALLON GAS BY SUMMER?

This comes from CNBC.

A dollar plumbing three-year lows is hitting Americans squarely in the gas tank, and one economist thinks it could drive prices as high as $6 a gallon or more by summertime under the right conditions.

With the greenback coming under increased pressure from Federal Reserve policies and investor appetite for more risk, there seems little direction but up for commodity prices, in particular energy and metals.

Weakness in the US currency feeds upward pressure on commodities, which are priced in dollars and thus come at a discount on the foreign markets.

One result has been a surge higher in gasoline prices to nearly $4 a gallon before the summer driving season even starts, a trend that economists say will be aggravated as demand increases and the summer storm season threatens to disrupt oil supplies.

"All we have to have is a couple badly placed hurricanes which could constrain some of the refinery output capacity in some key locations," says Richard Hastings, strategist at Global Hunter Securities in Charlotte, N.C. "If you get weakness in the dollar concurrent with the strong driving season concurrent with the impact of one or two hurricanes in the wrong place, prices could go up in a quasi-exponential manner."

 [snip]

Hastings sees gasoline having "no problem" getting to $6.50 a gallon over the summer after increased demand and storm disruptions come into play.

The overwhelming majority of anime fans drive to their local conventions. Many of them often drive long distances (over 2 hours) to get to the conventions. With gas now hitting $4 USD per gallon in most parts of the country well before the summer driving season and could easily hit $5 USD per gallon before summers over could really make the summer convention season interesting.

High gas prices act as a tax if people are going to have to spend $70-80 USD to fill up a compact car gas tank its less money they have to spend on cons and anime products.