Gas prices jump, comsumers feeling the pinch away from the pump

Baltimore, MD - Out of three stations on the corner of Falls Road and Coldspring Lane, the Carroll Fuel usually beats the other two's prices most days.

But the world also meets at this crossroads.

On Monday the Carroll was still the lowest at 3.09.

But unrest in Bahrain, brutality in Libya and revolution brewing in other countries...and now the gas is 3.19

It's still the lowest but three 19 a gallon?

Everybody knows what that means.

“It's a trickle down sort of thing grocery stores are going to be more expensive, milk eggs, oranges everything." Barry Watson of Baltimore says.

As of noon today, oil slipped over the 100 dollar a barrel; with prices fluctuating above and below that mark all day.

In the past week and a half the price per barrel has climbed by close to 20 bucks.

Oil markets depend on stability.
And with the world’s prime oil regions experiencing everything from protest to outright revolution higher oil means lower economic growth here at home.

“We have a problem with unemployment we need major growth of four or five years before we can make any major dent in unemployment but if this becomes a permanent increase in the price of oil we have to reduce our expected rate of growth by half a percent if oil rises by 30 dollars three quarters of a percent that's gonna make it even more difficult to put people to work." Towson University Economics Professor George Georgiou says.

Higher gas prices also mean higher everything else.

The influence of petroleum in production, transportation and packaging of food means that high food prices could slip higher.

And that's not all.

Petroleum is used in everything from pharmaceuticals to diapers.

So the cost of just about everything is going up.

Just ask J.J.’s Driveways Owner Ray Crum who puts spends 70 dollars a day in gas for his contracting business.

“The price of asphalt's going up seal coating up the price of the materials to put it down is going up it's all run by gas or oil everything gets run up they put ten percent on them, they put ten percent on me I put ten percent on my customers.” Crum says.

If you want to do your own math with gas prices for every penny gas goes up nationwide that take about a billion dollars out of consumer’s pockets.

That's less spending and less money that would go to fuel an economic recovery.