L.A. gas at $2.85

That's the average price of self-serve regular, according to the government's just-issued report - a drop of 35 cents per gallon in a single week and 38 cents lower than at this time last year (at many stations around L.A., you'll find gas in the $2.50 range). Actually, you have to go back to September of 2007 to find local pump prices lower than they are now. And compared with the all-time record high of $4.61 a gallon on June 16, well, as Everett Dirkson might have said, we're starting to talk about real money. My fill-up late last week was about $25 cheaper than back in June. The reason for this stunning turnabout is sharply lower oil prices - crude was trading today at around $64 a barrel, which is less than half what it had been going for in mid-July. Even if prices went up to, say, $80 a barrel, the energy dividend could be close to $170 billion, according to Barron's economics editor Gene Epstein. That's hardly enough to make up for all the losses in the value of equities and homes, but neither is it inconsequential. Actually, $170 billion is $18 billion more than the economic stimulus package that Congress passed earlier this year.