Steel prices (and 7.62 ammo prices) sky rocketed when Bush's invasion kicked off. All the plate steel was eaten by no-bid contractors signed up to reinforce HUMVEE's from guerilla attack. It devoured all domestic supplies of domestic plate steel. The 7.62 AK ammo disappeared when Russian factories shifted all exports from American recreational shooters to Mid-east Jihadies. Try to find AK ammo these days. I know damn well because I have a hungry AK to feed.

Oh and By The Way this thread is about the artificially inflated cost of unleaded gas tapping out the disposable income of America, ruining the economy.

Ha ha, the price of steel is hardly driven by the "demand" for accessories for Humvees.

steel prices tripled around 2003 because the chinese started buying all our scrap, smelting it down and then selling it back to us for a lot more than we've usually paid. same deal with lead.

i was in the middle of a 4x4 project and ended up selling it because i couldn't afford to buy DOM tubing to finish it.

on the bright side, it cost me less than 20 bucks to fill up the corolla for the first time since i bought it. still miss the days when i had my little toyota pickup and could hand the cashier at the gas station a $10 and get change back after filling it up.