2022: Gas prices continue to rise and set records

Days go by and citizens worldwide are increasingly affected by gasoline prices. The impact has been such that citizens of different countries are making a change of habits in their daily lives, reducing the use of vehicles or the number of outings they make with their means of transport.

These changes in habits are taking place mainly in people who previously did not have to establish these limitations; however, they found it necessary to do so because their salaries were cut in some cases by up to 40%.

Although this could represent a positive change for the planet, people who do not have access to quality public transport or those who are in rural areas are the most affected since they cannot do without their vehicle.

This has led the common citizen to adjust their expenses and modify their lifestyle.

Government contributions to mitigate the increase in gasoline

Several countries have adopted a kind of bonus that seeks to reduce the impact on the family economy. However, the disproportionate increase in recent weeks has already exceeded the amounts granted by governments of different countries, thus leaving people with no other option than to try to cope with the situation.

One of the questions that many ask is what will be the cost cap? The answer is that it is not known and depends entirely on a game of supply and demand, which has been strongly affected by the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

This conflict, whose duration was not correctly estimated initially, has had negative consequences on raw material industries, such as oil and gas; thus showing a strong truth: there was no prior emergency plan for a scenario in which an exporting country entered into a conflict that affected its exports.

Consequences of the lack of an emergency plan

What has been observed during these months is then the consequence of not having an emergency plan by the authorities and mitigating the impact on the common citizen has been a challenge that has been part of the causes of the current inflationary levels.

At this point, the emergency plans are based on the search for new exporters that can increase demand, which has been presented as a challenge due to the high consumption of oil and gas that society needs.

It is therefore to be expected that these increases in gasoline and electricity costs will continue in the coming weeks, so the common citizen is the one who will suffer the greatest impact and will continue to cut their expenses in order to adjust to this new normality until said market is normalized.