The average price of gasoline jumped to $3.722 a gallon, the government said Monday, up a hefty 10.9 cents in a week and the fourth consecutive record.

Diesel, the fuel of semi trucks, delivery vans and railroad locomotives, shot up 18.2 cents to $4.331 per gallon, guaranteeing higher shipping costs that could boost the price of everything from TVs to tostadas.


Expensive fuel "is acting like a battering ram knocking at the economy," says Peter Beutel, head of energy-price consultant Cameron Hanover.

"It keeps marching upward as we see these crude oil prices continuing to defy gravity," says Jon Cogan, spokesman for the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which conducts the weekly fuel-price survey.

...High oil and gasoline prices "are making a huge difference, because they're diverting so much from spending on other things," says Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia. Just 43 cents of every dollar spent — a record low, Vitner says — is "going to things we want to spend it on (such as) golf, vacations, restaurant dining, clothes, new cars."

Analysts are beginning to exhaust logical reasons for prices to climb. "It seems momentum is carrying it up. It just doesn't want to stop," Beutel says.