Going up fast. Over $4.20 this weekend, and that's about 10 cents more in just a week or so.

I bet the sales on Hummers will be amazing pretty soon. Same with all those luxurious 3-ton SUV's. Get 'em while they're hot!

Yesterday, for the first time I saw a couple pull up to the coffee shop on a pair of little Italian scooters. I expect to see a lot more of that in the coming months, and within a year I figure the market for electric scooters and mopeds will be about as booming as can be.

Zap futures, my friends!
.
Good times for Smiley! :-D

regular here in Phoenix.

There's going to /be/ a summer driving season?

I posted this on the newswire this AM, if you didn't catch it. According to Engdahl's analysis, upwards of 60% of the price is unregulated speculation/hoarding rather than inflation (falling dollar) or real demand (for actual use).

Wonder where the liquidity the Fed is providing is going? Again, taxpayers are paying to get screwed.

I get the impression the Cassandras [and I am grateful Agonist has its share] are surprised at how fast things are going to hell even if the reasons suggested seem to be playing out. Having used the ethanol hoax to link food prices to oil prices, we have sped up calamity somewhat. But I thought peak oil was to be a more gradual decline. Clearly other things are at work here. Is this a reasonable list :
1. Pissing away the value of the dollar by borrowing half a trillion to fight imaginary enemies in Iraq [our problem...no one elses]
2. launching or provoking armed hostilities in Iraq and threatening Iran have naturally disrupted supply and made all the buyers in the world wish they had greater strategic reserves of oil. I be the people who make tank farms are overjoyed.
3. insignificant incentives to reduce consumption by Americans
4. a little more of China driving to work every morning. India too.
5. actual declines in oil field productivity...are we even there yet?

that are in US dollars to Euros.

Very soon expect that oil will be priced in Euros that signal the final collapse of the US dollar. However, my family won't be protected from the fallout because Canada's economy is tied with that of the USA...so when the dollar tanks, we'll be in as much financial difficulty as Americans.

Is there any comfort in knowing when the USA economy fails, you'll have empathetic friends? :-)

Destroying the Trolley infrastructure in America's Cities and
Building an Interstate road system instead of rail
have a limited ROI (return on investment) when the idea depended on a finite resource: oil.

that first paid $100/barrel held onto his oil? The price reached $123/barrel today I am told.

Pretty good return on his investment for about a 3 or 4 month wait if he did.

Funny to think of $100/barrel as being a bargain when only months ago few thought it would ever fetch that price.

The good thing about $4/gallon gasoline is that it will soon cost $5/gallon.

I did inhale.

By mid-summer we may find ourselves longing for those good ole days when oil was only $120/barrel.

I did inhale.

When Americans claim that gas is expensive, they should note two things: the US is the developed country with the cheapest gasoline and the oil companies are paying for gasoline in an ultimately fiat currency, the so-called reserve currency. That ultimately that currency is only worth, idealistically speaking, whatever the word of the US government is worth and, realistically speaking, whatever the US military can force the rest of the world to accept.

So the US is the world's only superpower as long as the US dollar remains as a reserve currency, particularly, as the currency of exchange for oil contracts.

What is happening today is that the US is exporting inflation to Asia.

Talk of a US-based order as some kind of benign influence is PR/BS. In actual fact, the US has been having a free ride economically and in reality is getting the rest of the world (especially Asia) to fund its trade deficit, budget deficit and implicitly, its military (which in America-speech, is called defence).

Albert