Not that I enjoy saying bad things about my hometown of Seattle, Wa. but when it comes to politics, most residents of the city are just plain nuts. It’s no wonder that the largest city in a state that was once dubbed, ” the 47 states and the Soviet of Washington,” is so far off to left that even great news, can be spun into catastrophe. That’s exactly what happened in yesterday’s Seattle-PI. In a very telling headline the question is asked, “The Money Squeeze: Is cheaper gas bad news?”
Huh?
What a stupid question. Of course it’s good news, if consumers can save 30% of their gas bill, can you explain to me why that’s bad? I know it’s bad for environmentalists, and all those who drink the Al Gore Kool-Aid. After all it just goes to show that crude-oil is king, and alternative energy sources like wind, solar, fully pumped tires, are all prohibitively expensive and fall by the wayside as crude prices fall. What happened to the whole alternative energy craze? Funny what $65/barrel oil can do!
According to the PI article: ” When prices at the pump surged this summer, maintenance technician Taylor Morgan decided to change the way he got to the downtown Seattle office building where he works. He started taking a bus from his South Seattle home a couple of days a week. And he told his wife that the bimonthly trips to see family in British Columbia had to be cut to once or twice a year. On Friday, Morgan said he was happy to be driving his Honda Accord to work every day again. He stood pumping gasoline at a 15th Avenue West Chevron station, where the price for regular had dropped to $2.99 per gallon.
“Things are getting back to normal,” he said. “But with the crazy price changes, you can’t really be sure. It’s really confusing.”
Morgan and other baffled consumers are far from alone. With markets exceptionally volatile, even the region’s top economists can’t say whether gas prices will continue to fall or rocket again.”
Excuse me. What’s confusing about gas prices dropping rapidly? Why is it an issue if economists can’t predict the future? I don’t hear anyone crying over the fact that 6 months ago most ‘economists’ where predicting $5 per gallon. Nice call!
Heck, maybe just maybe the cheaper oil will mean salvation for the near bankrupt US car industry. Instead of another government bailout, maybe cheaper prices at the pump will help jump-start new sales.
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Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Katsman has to look further ahead than his next credit card statement. There is absolutely no guarantee that oil prices will stay where they are. If the price rockets back up to $150/barrel, we’re all going to wonder why Al Gore was so darned smart and we were all so dumb to suddenly drop all the alternative energy methods.
Consumers (and Katsman) have to get away from thinking that oil is going to be pumped out of the ground at $50/barrel forever. It’s not.
And yea, even the hard-core Republicans are beginning to realize that there really is something to all that pollution warming up the planet.
I don’t want to wake up in 10 years and find that oil is $250/barrel (why is anybody smirking? a few years ago you all laughed when somebody suggested $100/barrel and that seems not bad a bad price these days) and we’ve closed down all our alternative energy programs.
Sure thing, the oil companies and their owners and major shareholders (sunuvagun those Republicans are everywhere) will be laughing all the way to the bank and will be able to afford alternative energy, but where will we be?
If the US auto industry is almost bankrupt, it has only itself to blame.
I’m going to keep working on wind energy, biogas and other sure sources. Here in Israel we have almost NO petroleum. As we say oy-va-voy on us if we get caught with oil skyrocketing up again and no other way of making our cars and trucks and ships go.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Gas prices are definitely crazy. I am pretty happy with prices down here so I decided to lock in gas prices for the next year at this site petrofix.com. I’m happy to pay $2.58 for the next year, I just don’t want to pay $5.