A Slight Rise in Price

| August 8, 2018

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil rose on Monday (Aug. 6) after Saudi crude production unexpectedly fell in July and U.S. drilling appeared to slow, although the price is still almost 10 percent below its 2018 high of more than $80 a barrel.

Here’s the link to the entire article:  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil/oil-gains-after-monthly-saudi-output-unexpectedly-drops-idUSKBN1KR039

How this will affect the CPI calculations remains to be seen, but the price of gas at the pump has been slowly rising since April.  While the price of food at the checkout stand appears to be relatively stable, it will be affected by a rise in the CPI, as well. I did notice a slight rise in the price of chocolate ice cream and sweet corn in July, as well as a rise strawberry prices. A rise in the cost of fuel for deliveries can also affect the cost of your ammo at the gun shop counter.

You can find local gas prices by going to Gas Buddy or one of those other consumer-reported price indexes. The price of oil at the commodities market does have an effect on a lot of consumer items, including gas at the pump, delivery costs for consumer products such as groceries and plastic straws. The article does not go into that, but the effect is there. California is now banning straws, which may also have a small ripple effect on the price of straws everywhere.

Pres. Trump wants to roll back the fuel economy rules put on automobile manufacturers by the Obama administration. While the engineering to make current vehicles more fuel-savvy and fuel-saving, the price of gas at the pump has risen in concert with those economies of style. Removing those restrictions from vehicles won’t roll the price of gas at the pump back to the level of 2001, when I could get gas for $1.119/gal or 1974, when Nixon’s ineptitude made the price jump from $.259/gal to $.509/gal overnight and the talk was that there might be a rise to (gasp!) $1.009/gal. The horror!

My guess about this “drop” in production at the well heads is that the Saudis cut production to bump up the price of crude at the markets, and nothing more complicated than that.  As long as it doesn’t go back to that ridiculous $140/barrel price some years ago, which was the original cause of the overthrow of Venezuela’s government, it’s fine with me.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the determining factor in COLA increases (or lack thereof) in government-directed programs such as SSRI and whatever title welfare goes by now, and it is based on the price of commodities such as oil at the markets and gas at the pump. The CPI for July will be announced on Aug. 10. Any COLA increases will be announced in October, as usual.

Now may be the time to stock the ammo supply, the pantry shelves and the freezer.  They can just try to keep me from getting my hands on chocolate ice cream or radishes.

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves"

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Roh-Dog

“Now may be the time to stock the ammo supply, the pantry shelves and the freezer”
It’s always that time, Ex! (At about 6 months supply, I’m working on a year!)
I’m wondering if the Saud’s dumping of Canadian bonds has anything to do with this. It ain’t the same ol’ kingdom over there…

Roh-Dog

I put the blame squarely on the Canadian progressives’ shoulders along with their ring master Tru-duh.
The gf and I went to a hill to watch/listen to the lightning roll in, so I tuned a far AM station and got one from Ottawa.
They were tearing Tru-Dumbass a new one. The pissed off locals make Rush Limbaugh callers look like lefties.

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

Oil rose on Monday so it must have gotten up real “OILY” in the morning- Couldn’t resist the comment.

Bill R.

Funny that you have strawberries as an accompanying photo. I have close friends that live close to Plant City, FL. They grow millions of strawberries and even have their own Strawberry Festival. In Florida, a small, clear plastic box of strawberries go for approx. $3.99. A couple years ago they came up and visited with us in Michigan and went to a local Kroger. There, they saw the same boxes of strawberries for $1.99. This is after shipping them 1200 miles north for retail sale. Beef, which is Florida’s biggest export, is similarly priced.

AW1Ed

They can just try to keep me from getting my hands on chocolate ice cream or radishes.

And face death-by-skillet? Not a chance!

*grin*

AW1Ed

You know who ELSE liked strawberries?

AnotherPat

Please don’t forget to stock up for Ms. Punkin, ’cause today is International Cat Day….🐈🐱

A Proud Infidel®™️

I’m sure the Saudis heartily wish for the good old days when they had a stranglehold on oil prices, but due to us tapping our reserves that no longer exists, so it’s tough kakashka for them!!

Claw

Speaking of things like this reminds me of a message for all those millennial SJW’s out there:

“Without farming you would be hungry, naked and sober!!”

So if you happen to cross paths with a farmer in your daily travels, simply shake their hand and say “Thank You.”

Remember, Farmers are outstanding in their field./smile

26Limabeans

“roll back the fuel economy rules”

YES!
Next, put the lead back in the gas and bring back Sunocco 113 octane at the pump.
Make gasoline great again.

Claw

“Sunocco 113”

Hah, reminds me of that sign at the An Khe POL Point that said:

“Super Shell with Platformate will get you places that you don’ even want to go to.”/smile

Perry Gaskill

One of the things I found strange about the new Obama-era fuel standards is that they seemed to be put together by people who never bothered to talk to an engineer about what it would take to actually meet the new standards.

Slightly OT – my K1500 GMC came back from a California smog test this week and passed with almost zero emissions thanks to a more-or-less recent crate engine install. The beast is now 27 years old but keeps going. It also has the optional after-market dog-hair upholstery, so it’s got that going for it. Which is nice…

David

Speaking of ammo, a California Superior Court has held that requiring microstamping (in at least two spots) on cartridge cases is legal to be mandatory on new guns in California. The fact that the technology to do so does not exist was brought up, and the judge essentially said “I don’t care.” Meanwhile they are letting murderers out of jail and allowing illegals to vote in local elections.

Mason

Wasn’t the line something like “the impossibility of compliance with a statute doesn’t invalidate it”?

So they can require all cigarettes sold in California to first be sent to the moon, exposed to vacuum, and rolled in moon dust before they can be sold.

It really is the inmates running the asylum out there, isn’t it?

Perry Gaskill

No matter how bad you think it is, it’s actually worse, he said cheerfully.

Still, if you look at the bright side, someday around the year 2080 you might be a be able to spend $500 for a ticket to go 35 miles from Merced to Madera on Jerry’s high-speed choo-choo. The fact that nobody in history has ever wanted to go from Merced to Madera except under duress apparently being beside the point…

Mason

Yeah, how many billions are they going to l̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶E̶l̶o̶n̶ ̶M̶u̶s̶k̶’̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶c̶k̶e̶t̶s̶ invest in the Hyperloop before they realize they’ll never get the land to build it, it’ll be prohibitively expensive, and it’ll never work as advertised?

Mason

Since I don’t watch the MSM, I’ll assume this news is reported along these lines?;

-“Oil production drops, confirming global warming”
-“Trump’s unstable nature has cause OPEC to cut production”
-“Planet Earth running dry of oil. Imminent social and economic collapse predicted”
-“Experts say that rising oil prices indicate that now is the time to crack each other’s skulls open and feast on the goo inside”

Anyone want to risk a trip to CNN.com to see how close I am?

5JC

No reports on oil on their front page or money page, not even mentioned. After the whole Peak Oil fiasco they don’t report much on it.

5JC

The US is poised to once again become the world’s largest producer of oil. We have already knocked the Saudi’s out of the #2 spot. This would have happened faster if not for a certain weirdness going on at the Whitehouse 2009 through early 2017 where increasing oil delivery infrastructure was a bad thing. That seems to be all cleared up now.

NHSparky

I read a story on Bloomberg yesterday about the man camps they’re building in the Permian.

One is a 500-bed unit in Orla, TX. Orla’s permanent population?

2.

And 10,000 workers within 10 miles of that intersection (it’s a 4-way stop) any day of the week, to where it’s a 90-minute haul to either Pecos or Las Cruces (both 40-45 miles away.)

They just opened a Pilot truck stop that they can’t keep stock or gas in, there’s that much business.

So 500 bed camps? Drop in the bucket. Holiday Inn Express is still charging $350/night in Pecos and Las Cruces, if they aren’t sold out.

NHSparky

Correction to my last. Replace Las Cruces with Carlsbad.

I have a bad case of old timer’s disease today.

5th/77thFA

I try to keep a 6 month supply of all the non perishables up & including fur baby food. Freezer stays full will rotation by date. I would rather try to sand paper a wild cats behind inside a phone booth, than to stand between Ex-PH2 and her chocolates and radishes.