economist carl tannenbaum says higher fuel prices in an anemic economy could force both consumers and businesses to tighten their belts. >> to the degree that they are tying to find room in those; budgets for hiring more people and maybe making those investments that would really grow the economy having to pay more for a basic commodity may delay those decisions and therefore delay us getting that extra strength into the economic recovery. >> reporter: analysts say even if isaac takes some refineries off line for weeks-- the combination of weak demand and good inventories could put a ceiling above prices at the pump. it's that weak demand that really makes people mad in these situation. having gong through isaacover the weekend, i saw lots of lines on saturday and sunday, plenty of supply. why should prices spike if demand is relatively low but there is still plenty of oil around. >> you know, tom t is sort of a delicate dance between the production and refining. we saw gases spike on the west coast earlier this summer because there were a couple of refining outages out there. so agai

economist carl tannenbaum says higher fuel prices in an anemic economy could force both consumers andanalysts say even if isaac takes some refineries off line for weeks-- the combination of weak demand and good inventories could put a ceiling above prices at the pump. it's that weak demand that really makes people mad in these situation. having gong through isaacover the weekend, i saw lots of lines on saturday and sunday, plenty of supply. why should prices spike if demand is relatively low but there is still plenty of oil around. >> you know, tom t is sort of a delicate dance between the production and refining. we saw gases spike on the west coast earlier this summer because there were a couple of refining outages out there. so again it's sort of a delicate dance and it's very difficult to move production from one refinery to another. so if they're short on supplies on the west coast it's difficult to just move refining production out that way. >> you know, diane we're entering the threat of isaac here with the gasoline inventories down about 4% nationwide, down 10% on the east coa