How have the tumbling gas prices affected the Houston economy?
Gasoline here is in the $1.70s. But after paying more than $4 a gallon, the savings we are seeing now seem substantial. I think the lower prices are a temporary thing and that the prices will eventually go back up. I don’t think we’ll get back into the $4-a-gallon range, but I think $3.50 a gallon is very realistic eventually. We work with several customers whose businesses must budget for gasoline costs in 2009 and they were budgeting $7 and $8 a gallon for gas. We told them we could hedge their gasoline price at $5 a gallon so that they could set their budget and know for sure their cost for gasoline would never go above $5 a gallon, even if the actual cost went much higher. But now we will go back and adjust the hedge cost. We are still providing the same service, just on a different scale. The lowering of the price of gas has allowed them to better budget their funds. How will a new presidential administration affect the Houston economy? We don’t anticipate any rupture with the pas
