It's going to cost the average household $600 more a year just to put gas in their car. Ticket prices for things at Wal-Mart and Target. Ticket prices for airplanes. Ticket prices for just about everything are going to go up.

It's like having your own car, without the gas prices.

With gas prices and maintenance on a car, why bother?

It's like having your own car, without the gas prices, the insurance and the maintenance. There's always one there, and the car's always clean.

So with gas prices going up about a buck since last year, that means about $1.5 billion more in taxes. Having said that, that same money would have likely gone into other taxable goods and services.

Gas prices are the classic pocketbook issue for the average person and the average family, and these are things that they notice very much. It helps explain the paradox we see in the polls: The economy is very good, but right now a majority of people say it isn't. The hurricane, and its aftermath, will only exacerbate this problem.