Gas prices continue to set records. On Monday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline rose to $3.72, up 10.9 cents in a week and the fourth straight record.

Diesel fuel jumped 18.2 cents to $4.33 per gallon. That's bad news not just for truckers and delivery van drivers: everyone will be affected by the rising price of goods.

Costly fuel "is acting like a battering ram knocking at the economy," Peter Beutel of energy-price consultant Cameron Hanover told USA Today.

Oil closed Monday at $124.23 for a barrel of West Texas crude oil for June delivery. It was the fifth straight trading day that oil closed at more than $120.

The high prices are diverting spending from other things. Mark Vitner, economist at Wachovia, told USA Today that only 43 cents of every dollar is "going to things we want to spend it on — golf, vacations, restaurant dining, clothes, new cars."

Yet analysts are grasping for new reasons to explain the rise in gas and oil prices. The largest gas price jump was in the Midwest — up 15.7 cents to $3.736.

Gas prices are already exceeding $4 in metro areas such as Bridgeport, Conn., Wailuku, Hawaii, and San Francisco, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, Calif.

All analysts agree there is no relief in sight.