Interesting observation.

I seem to remember paying $4.25 a gallon for premium back then because my S/C Ford Lightning drank fuel like water and I was forever filling that thing up. Diesel had to be higher than premium.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but if it was $4.25 a gallon in little ole Sherman, TX back then the national average had to be higher.

The most I ever paid back in 2006/2007 was 3.69 a gallon for 87. I was in Michigan (right off the Interstate) and it was on a trip.

From my friend on another forum.....MrMann]
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I was doing Elliott wave 20 years ago. Like it or not, there are some things about fractals that appear to measure points in markets. I was a bear then but because the decline didn't resume, I had to look at the alternative. The alternative was the Dow was going to around 36,000 on a final wave.

Neil Cavuto just had a younger guy on the show and the both stated we were in better shape than the 1970's. I thought those drugs were illegal. There were a lot of thngs wrong in the 1970's, but I believe the inflation was due to monetary factors of floating the dollar, rapidly expanding adult population and rapidly expanding government spending. Throw in the Japanese and German expansion into manufacturing and there were headwinds. Demand was overstimulated, when it was already there to start.

We are looking at the mistakes of the 1970's on steroids. The difference is US real production has been replaced by theoretical production. Restaurants merely replace something people did at home. We are running $100 trillion monthly trade deficits and the export side is broken. The supply chains are broken. I think productivity has been largely affected by merely waiting for goods to arrive and the lack of labor in places needed to keep things moving. Is this about people having enough and not working hard, or is it flat burnout, because the people who had enough just flat quit and those people are missing.

The truth is we have had a pending depression covered up by money printing and government spending and it is a progressive disease. The government has been getting a free ride on finance, at least since 2008 and finances have gone to a point of no return. I have read the history of inflation and over time speculation takes over the economy, money flees to protective assets and real investment and production diminishes. The poorer people get poorer. Why work hard when you are broke the day you get paid? The wealth, the capital has to come from somewhere.

What happens, if government and the rest of the economy has to pay a 3% real rate, plus risk for money? Even at the target 2%, that is 5%. 5% on $30 trillion is $1.5 trillion, adding another trillion to the fixed costs and rising. The price of heroin just went up.

You cannot discount the destruction of capital. Throwing trillions into keeping resources inactive, like paying people not to work, takes away from what should be going into the economy, maintaining productivity and creating further increases. We might have a labor shortage, just because the components of production have been neglected and the resources went down the drain. Printing money isn't a replacement for real production necessary to create replacement capital.

Then there is policy. The Green new deal will swallow every dime of capital we have. Autos do have a replacement cycle, but everythng behind production and use imply another layer of replacement. The components to supply gasoline are already there. The power grid to supply electricity to replace 400 million gallons of gasoline is non existant and the procedure to get there, under rules created by fools is going to consume all. Destroying farmland with inefficient solar panels, which will hardly work at all, from fall to spring is an idea generated from a LSD trip. It might work in South Texas or Florida, places that are near the tropics, but the midwest Iowa and Nebraska? Facilities to recycle C02 from ethanol plants and pipe it are in the region of putting bags on cows asses. Living organisms are carbon neutral or consuming. Nothing can come out that didn't go in. There is no more capital consuming activity than destroying natural resources.

We are seeing why socialism and central planning doesn't work. Because the planners work off wishes instead of reality. Paying people not to work provides no production for what they consume. The costs are passed onto those who do. Destroying a working system of energy and transportation and replacing it with one that is certain to fail and destroy massive natural resources is a gamble with modern society. Filling in a hole to dig it again is the process.

That said, Karl's theory has some plausibility, but I think there a lot of factors coming together, besides people not putting in full effort. Government policy is to destroy demand, because they have the real econmy running in place. You can only sustain demand by destroying capital, which eventually takes supply with it. Buttplug was having a baby while the supply chain was broken. The immediate policy of Biden was to create an unreliable supply of hydrocarbons. The supply break has led to no parts for broken machinery, expensive housing, and many other factors. I bought lumber a few months ago labelled a product of Finland or Sweden. What happened to American lumber? Doesn't it take more labor and resources to move lumber from Finland or Sweden than from Georgia or East Texas?

The same is true, if you are importing oil, bringing gas from the US instead of Russia to Europe, hauling oil on trains instead of pipelines, growing crops without fertilizer. The goal of the DC idiots is to destroy modern man, not increase production. It has been that way for decades, but the lunatics have full control of the asylum, likely a bunch of Obamaites. Instead of a President, we have a fool on a hill.

Now we have a policy of shutting off Russian oil to Europe. Don't give these people another gun, because after shooting their toes off, they will be aiming for ours. Think we have bad productivity now, try to replace a major oil producer. Get ready for shortages and $8 a gallon gas. The automobile is a large factor in US productivity

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/34-retailers-couldnt-make-rent-april-new-survey-shows


read the comments.........I aintpaying 15 bucks for a sandwich and having to wonder what theyre spitting on my food.


we were spending over 3k a month eating out.............now im cooking and its about 800. 2 people. all of these huge car dealerships are next/

I bet taxes on gasoline have increased since then. You probably have additional environmental cost associated with the refining process as well. Just a guess.

I can assure you that operational costs were much higher in ‘08 than they are now. You are absolutely correct in thinking that the price of fuel does not correlate to the price of crude, between then and now. Who’s raking in that extra profit? I couldn’t tell you, but it’s not the oilfield service companies. We’re still taking a beating.

Back around 2000 I was paying $4.95 a gallon for diesel. Running from Abilene to Wichita Falls, I sometimes filled up the 26 gallon tank on my short bed F250 3 times a day. But I only l let it get to 1/4 tank, because the pumps would cut me off at $100. Yesterday I filled up at $5.29 a gallon and was down to 1/4 tank on a 50 gallon tank on my F350. The pump cut me off at $150, it probably would have held a couple more gallons. I’m just glad I’m onLy working occasionally now. Thanks Joe.

It is real easy. When you print trillions of dollars, every dollar you have is a smaller % of the total and therefore worth less. It’s called inflation and it didn’t exist in 2008 when this happened the last time.