Latest gas price: $1.98

That's the average price of regular in the L.A. area, according to the government's latest report. You have to go back almost four years to find local gas prices this low. What's remarkable about these declines is how far they go each week. In normal times, a 20-cent change from survey to survey is very unusual; now, it seems to happen all the time. Mostly, this is good news, of course, but you do have to wonder what it does to the efforts at developing alternative energy sources. And whether it discourages conservation measures, and whether it encourages wasteful consumption.