Many people probably knew the feeling: you knew you were right, but if everyone contradicted you, you would start doubting yourself. Wanda was in exactly that state.
Her reason told her that this rise in oil prices was highly abnormal. Even the wealthiest people should have been shocked by an increase of that magnitude.
Globally speaking, oil prices in the United States were indeed not particularly expensive. The country produced oil itself and had fought many oil wars, so both its crude oil output and reserves were decent.
But in reality, oil was not that cheap in the United States either. Especially in high-cost states like California, there were fuel taxes on top of expensive gasoline. Those absurdly cheap prices were basically only found in godforsaken places like Alaska. Prosperous major cities were never cheap.
The numbers might not have looked that high, but the key was that the United States had nearly the highest per-capita car ownership and driving mileage in the world. If Australia was a country on the backs of sheep, then the United States was a country on wheels.
The United States had almost no other means of transportation. Aside from flying long distances, people drove wherever they wanted to go. The endless plains also provided excellent road conditions, so per-capita fuel consumption was four to five times that of other countries.
Under those circumstances, even a rise of a few cents in fuel prices was devastating. It meant a car's monthly gasoline expenses could rise by dozens of dollars, sending transportation costs shooting up.
And because the United States had few other transportation facilities—subways and major airports basically existed only in big cities, and trains or high-speed rail were out of the question—many American roads did not even have sidewalks. If people wanted to go