Friday, May 20, 2011
A graph that matters
Me being me, I was looking at historical gasoline prices while watching reruns of "Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares," and it occurred to me that the pattern of the graph is not good political news for the current administration.
9 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat May 21, 08:41:00 AM:
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
By , at
Sat May 21, 09:05:00 AM:
Still not as high as June 2008 when avg prices were north of $4.10/gal. I think many people nowadays view the oil companaies as the bogey men for the head spinning volatility. People other than Republican senators, of course:)
By 
John, at
Sat May 21, 10:50:00 AM:
Tiger - this is exactly what the president wants to do. It is part of his plan to transfer wealth to the Middle East (his powerbase in units less than $20) and crash the entire US way of life.
I am not kidding.
By , at
Sat May 21, 01:26:00 PM:
this is exactly what the president wants to do. It is part of his plan to transfer wealth to the Middle East
Heh. And what was Dubya's plan??
Hey John, don't forget to check under your bed tonight....
By , at
Sat May 21, 01:41:00 PM:
Last week Papertiger posted to great comic video that says it all. If you haven’t seen it, it’s here: http://ncwatch.typepad.com/media/2011/05/awesome.html#tp
A little truth in every jest, indeed.
Gas went over $4.00 in the summer of 2008, but mostly because of a surging world economy. Econ 101 explains why: gas prices are inelastic in the near term. But nothing that a little global recession couldn’t fix!
Unlike then, prices are high now in the USA because of a falling dollar, increasing inflation and a flight to commodities from currencies as a store of value. So our gas prices can stay high even if our economy is stagnant or declines.
As spoofed in the linked video, O&Co actually want higher gas prices I suspect. It’s to stop us from being resource hogs, to save the planet, to force us to lose our roguish American ways so that we become more manageable Gaya-loving hobbits.
It’s also to make O&Co’s fairy tale energy policies economically viable. E.g., hybrids don’t make any non-subsidized NPV sense unless gas is over $8.00.
The average consumption per year per American car is around 700 gallons. After declining from over 800 gallons during the 1970s, this figure has become so steady over the last 30 years that it’s nearly a physical constant.
So going from $2.00 to $4.00 costs a typical car owner around $1,500 in after-tax income per year. Some of don’t feel this – many of us really do.
I assume a similar calculation is also behind Obama’s recent claims that owning one of his new-fangled electrics would save an American $3,000 at the pump, thus making his saying it literally true. ... The check’s in the mail (but without a stamp) …
By , at
Sat May 21, 05:28:00 PM:
Well, to be fair, way back in 2008 someone did rather famously predict: "Under my plan, energy prices would necessarily skyrocket."
By , at
Sat May 21, 06:48:00 PM:
Ironic that under the "One" we have both war for oil and the highest pump prices I can ever recall seeing.
Just sayin'
By Gary Rosen, at
Sat May 21, 08:21:00 PM:
"Ironic that under the "One" we have both war for oil and the highest pump prices I can ever recall seeing."
He can do it all.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sat May 21, 09:41:00 PM:
See, if the oil companies had held down the cost of gas in an under-the-table effort costing billions of dollars in order to elect Republicans, as they were accused of doing in 2004, then letting them rise again after the election instead of letting them drop further, this never would have happened.
I'm not recalling hearing any Democrats withdrawing that accusation, actually, admitting that it was bogus from the start. Though to be fair, there were Democrats who never made the claim.
