Some very interesting data along with a graph looking at the affordability of gasoline over time measured as a ratio of gasoline price to real income. This is posted over at the Commons Blog, a site for scholars doing research in the area of free market environmentalism. Low and behold, gasoline has been getting more affordable almost consistently since 1946, and it is clearly more affodable now that it was back in 1978. That is, the price of gasoline has gone up by a slower rate than incomes.