Posted on 04/22/2008 10:07:21 AM PDT by shrinkermd
Regular unleaded was $4.28 in Happy Camp CA last week
“Technology is a godsend.”
Agreed!
Algore however would have us all living in solar powered grass huts and driving two wheelers from Walmart.
(All the while he commutes to work in a Gulfstream.)
If it doesn't, simply comparing “price adjusted for inflation” is irrelevant.
That is, if there is 10 times the supply of oil now than then, the current price (which is claimed to be a match for the 1950 price) would actually be far higher than in 1950, if the demand were constant. I know the demand has not been constant, I'm using hypothetics here.
Lord! where can I get my dollars converted to pesos?
Of course they’re in it for the money. You say that like it’s a bad thing. If there weren’t a profit to be made, the byproduct of kerosene production that no one wanted and that was a hazard to dispose of (gasoline) would never have been marketed as a fuel.
Why have unused capacity? Simple. Backup. Why do IT departments have only partially used and unused servers in their data centers? Backup. To share load. To switch to in an emergency.
Wanna do some research? Check into whether the Feds require each plant to have unused capacity to be used during emergencies. I’d be surprised if it didn’t exist.
Just checked my numismatic program - mint state (MS-65) would get you 10 gallons. ;-)
Look there aren’t lines in front of gas stations, ergo there is no supply crunch. You can produce all of a commodity that you want, doesn’t mean you’re going to sell it any faster, especially when prices are up. And gasoline is a perishable commodity, it has a 2-3 month shelf life before it starts turning into turpentine. There is only so much capacity in tank farms. It makes perfect economic sense that if the demand equals X, then I’m going to supply X amount. Surpluses drive prices down, meaning that this much vaunted slim profit margin BS would be exacerbated.
I didn’t say it like it was a bad thing. If there wasn’t money in it, nobody would be doing it and I’d be walking to work. Whose emergency??? You act like Valero Energy is a part of FEMA??? They have planned outages that they budget for. Data center backup and the cost of refineries is like trying to compare the cost of a bicycle to the cost of the Space Shuttle. Wanna do some research, go here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/
Reading several threads on FR yesterday regarding oil prices, I’d say never.
True. Did you catch some of the comments re mortagage contracts? ... Unbelievable.
Slim profit margin BS...what do you mean?
Sounds about right. But the actual silver itself would be worth closer to the one-gallon mark.
this is a terrible oversimplification, but currency inflation is indeed a part of the problem.
PS I have collected coins on and off for decades. What a pain it was before the grading systems were put into place!
ping
I mean even a small number times a very large number is still a very large number. According to the government data, on a daily basis, 626,598,000 gallons of gasoline, diesel, kerosene jet fuel, and residual fuel oil are produced. Now even if they only make $0.02 a gallon profit, that is still $12,540,000 per day, times 365 days a year is $4,577,100,000 a year. Hardly slim profits.
Yea....when I was about 6 years old, my parents would send me (walking) to the store (nextdoor- on a country road) to buy them their cigarettes.
except that oil prices have little to do with even inflation anymore since there is a commodity goldrush going on and it will keep going until it totally collapses (which will come about either through government regulation of trading or a massive recession in the US).
Just like ethanol, we’re literally doing this to ourselves. It’s governmental suicide.
An ounce of gold was fixed at $35 in 1972. The following year, the dollar was taken off the gold standard and an ounce increased in price to $42. It is $917 today. Regular gas would be at $8.09/gallon if it tracked the gold standard.
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