$18 for a beer at the 2022 PGA Championship (Tulsa Oklahoma)

[Leo Enticknap]

Back in the 1990s, the UK government caused more than a little unpopularity when it decided to fiddle the figures by using CPI to determine the inflation target and spending figures (e.g. state pension increases), but continued to use RPI, which is typically 1-2 percentage points higher, to determine fixed proportion tax rises and other government-regulated prices (e.g. the cost of government-regulated train tickets).

Whenever Putin farts, prices go up or down.

I'd guess that Putin's renal system has a slightly greater effect on oil and gas-related energy prices in Western Europe than it does on this side of the Atlantic, though we're both trying to import it from the same alternative sources now (chiefly Saudi Arabia). Apparently we never imported a significant amount from Russia, but we do from countries that Europe is now trying to buy more from.

Fuel prices are all over the place here, between three countries you pay anywhere between EUR 1,70 and EUR 2,60 per litre

Which is the exact opposite of how it's traditionally been. When I lived in the UK, even wild oil price fluctuations had little effect on the pump prices, because such a high proportion of the latter is tax. When I emigrated, nine years ago, the pump price was around GBP 1.20 a liter, of which around 90p was tax. So even the price of a barrel of Brent Crude rising from, say, $40 to $100 would only add around 10p or so to the pump price. In contrast, in the summer of 2014 came the first oil price spike after I moved: gas shot up from around $3 a (US) gallon to $4.40 in the space of around a month, and was back down to the lower end of the $3-4 range by Christmas. I'd never experienced that amount of volatility in the price of a commodity that for me had never really changed that much (just crept gradually upwards). In total, I have bought gas at prices between around $1.80 a gallon and $6.35 in those nine years (though admittedly the $1.80 was on a visit to Texas - in California, the lowest I've seen it is around $2.50).

[Bobby Henderson]

Meanwhile, governments all across the board keep on publishing fake inflation numbers, to hide the real pain a lot of people are going through.

Yeah, I always laugh a bit at America's "Core CPI" inflation number, which conveniently excludes food and energy costs. The funny thing is people who don't make a lot of money have to spend a far greater percentage of their income on food, fuel and utilities costs.

Gasoline prices could rise considerably higher. Most of China is still locked down due to the government sticking with its zero covid strategy. If China allowed everyone to leave their houses and go back to work it would probably add at least another dollar to current gasoline prices.

The last couple of times the price of oil or gasoline hit record highs I heard some economists mention a warning term: demand destruction. If prices for various essentials like food and fuel get high enough it will kill demand for everything else. 70% of the economy in the US is driven by consumer spending. If consumers go broke paying for rent, gasoline and food they're not going to be spending money on anything else. Demand gets destroyed. Even the demand for fuel will drop if people just buckle down and stay home. Certain countries (cough, China) are heavily reliant on American consumer spending. If the US economy goes into a steep downturn the rest of the global economy will follow.

I keep hearing forecasts from economists where they're predicting a very busy summer driving season. People want to get out and about after 2 years of covid-related shut-downs and restrictions. But money matters. Early in 2021 our gasoline prices were hovering near $2 per gallon. Now it's almost double that price. At current prices I'll have to spend between $200 and $240 to drive from my house in Lawton to see my parents in Colorado Springs (depending on what kind of gas mileage my Chevy Silverado gets on the highway). It's costing me $80 to fill up my truck currently. I'm thankful I live only a few miles from my workplace.

I'd guess that Putin's renal system has a slightly greater effect on oil and gas-related energy prices in Western Europe than it does on this side of the Atlantic, though we're both trying to import it from the same alternative sources now (chiefly Saudi Arabia). Apparently we never imported a significant amount from Russia, but we do from countries that Europe is now trying to buy more from.

For the past few years the US hasn't had to import very much oil. In recent years the US has produced more oil than it consumed. Still, the prices are affected by the global marketplace. American oil producers want to sell to whoever is willing to pay the most money for their product. That's the chief motivator with new pipeline projects from oil producing regions like Canada and the Bakken Shale in the Dakotas down to Cushing, Oklahoma. The product then gets pumped down to Houston to be put on ships for export. The effort isn't about making gasoline prices cheaper for Americans.

I'm not sure what to think about Putin's "strategy" over his unprovoked war in Ukraine. The economy in the US may be getting strained, but the economic situation in Russia is getting flat out terrible. Putin has exhausted a significant chunk of the nation's military resources in just 3 months. That war could end up dragging on many more months or even years. Russia could end up being a far weaker country both economically and militarily by the time the war is finished. Even before the war started Russia's GDP was no bigger than that of Spain; it's practically a third world country with nukes.

[Mike Blakesley]

Nearly all LED-based fuel price digit displays on gas stations signs are not physically able to add a fourth digit to a fixed 3-digit display via any kind of software update.

That's why I said "software AND EQUIPMENT updates." If an existing sign had no space for an extra digit, I expect they would usually be able to replace it with one that has skinnier digits, or maybe even stick a skinny LED-lit "1" up next to it and connect it to the main sign.

[Leo Enticknap]

We're having to add fuel surcharges thanks to diesel prices.

And that's a double whammy, because if you charge more than the IRS mileage rate for this year, which is set in late November the previous year, you have to pay tax on anything above that you charge customers or reimburse employees for (currently $0.585).

[Lyle Romer]

Yeah, I always laugh a bit at America's "Core CPI" inflation number, which conveniently excludes food and energy costs. The funny thing is people who don't make a lot of money have to spend a far greater percentage of their income on food, fuel and utilities costs.

Gasoline prices could rise considerably higher. Most of China is still locked down due to the government sticking with its zero covid strategy. If China allowed everyone to leave their houses and go back to work it would probably add at least another dollar to current gasoline prices.

The last couple of times the price of oil or gasoline hit record highs I heard some economists mention a warning term: demand destruction. If prices for various essentials like food and fuel get high enough it will kill demand for everything else. 70% of the economy in the US is driven by consumer spending. If consumers go broke paying for rent, gasoline and food they're not going to be spending money on anything else. Demand gets destroyed. Even the demand for fuel will drop if people just buckle down and stay home. Certain countries (cough, China) are heavily reliant on American consumer spending. If the US economy goes into a steep downturn the rest of the global economy will follow.

I keep hearing forecasts from economists where they're predicting a very busy summer driving season. People want to get out and about after 2 years of covid-related shut-downs and restrictions. But money matters. Early in 2021 our gasoline prices were hovering near $2 per gallon. Now it's almost double that price. At current prices I'll have to spend between $200 and $240 to drive from my house in Lawton to see my parents in Colorado Springs (depending on what kind of gas mileage my Chevy Silverado gets on the highway). It's costing me $80 to fill up my truck currently. I'm thankful I live only a few miles from my workplace.

I had an interesting discussion with an older guy in the parking lot of a supermarket in Iowa a few days ago while passing through on the way back home. He was commenting about what he just paid for just a few items and then commented on the gas prices. He said pretty soon people will stop going to work because it costs so much to get there.

100% agree on the "core CPI" point. The most important items to people's budgets ARE food and energy costs (plus housing). It doesn't matter that much if the cost of a towel or a power drill triples but if the cost of food and gas triples it makes a HUGE difference!

[Bobby Henderson]

That's why I said "software AND EQUIPMENT updates." If an existing sign had no space for an extra digit, I expect they would usually be able to replace it with one that has skinnier digits, or maybe even stick a skinny LED-lit "1" up next to it and connect it to the main sign.

I've been in the sign business almost 30 years. I've never seen any company that made electronic fuel price digits do a patch job to retrofit an extra digit into to an existing fuel price sign. It just takes an entirely new product and updated software to control it. If or when gasoline prices pass the $10.00 per gallon barrier a whole new generation of fuel price digit displays will have to be introduced.

I had an interesting discussion with an older guy in the parking lot of a supermarket in Iowa a few days ago while passing through on the way back home. He was commenting about what he just paid for just a few items and then commented on the gas prices. He said pretty soon people will stop going to work because it costs so much to get there.

Staying home isn't an alternative for many workers. They have to bring in a paycheck some how. High gasoline prices will force some workers to carpool or find other more creative ways to commute to work. Others may have to get new jobs closer to home.

High costs for various things and services have already been side-lining a lot of workers. Many mothers who would like to work are stuck home looking after kids due to the insane costs of day care. What's the point of working at some job if most or even all your check ends up going to a day care? Single mothers are in an even worse predicament. Lots of older workers eligible to draw Social Security, Medicare, etc have worked in various service industry jobs to supplement their income and just stay busy. However covid-19 presents a much greater risk to those people. Plus there are lots of very unpleasant, rude customers. Sometimes co-workers are assholes too. So, a lot of older workers have chosen to stay home instead of putting up with any of that shit.

Anyway that's two huge demographic groups of people that are contributing to the labor shortage that's been going on for over a year. This talk I keep hearing from certain circles that "people don't want to work, they just want to stay home and collect welfare" is really a bunch of crap. Here in Oklahoma the state cut off stimulus programs well ahead of other states. Yet we have still had lots of businesses struggling to find workers even to this day. The simple fact is those employers are not offering enough pay/hours to make the jobs attractive. Zero people have any obligation to take a shit job flipping hamburgers if they can find something better. Too many service industry employers are still stuck in the mindset of giving workers part time hours with no benefits on schedules that go all over the place, making it difficult or impossible to work a second job. Yet they want to blame the lack of applicants on people staying home to collect welfare. Bullshit. The unemployment rate is at or near historic lows -at least for now. If this situation with inflation doesn't get dealt with soon all kinds of employers will start laying off people in big numbers.

[Mike Blakesley]

I've been in the sign business almost 30 years. I've never seen any company that made electronic fuel price digits do a patch job to retrofit an extra digit into to an existing fuel price sign. It just takes an entirely new product and updated software to control it.

Well... they might find a way to do it, if the cost of entirely new signage is too prohibitive. It all depends on which is the cheaper option. I remember when gas went over a dollar per gallon for the first time...most stations didn't have pumps or signs that could display four digits, so they started selling gas by the liter since that smaller quantity was still far under a dollar. Then eventually four digit displays became the norm and they all went back to gallons again.

[Bobby Henderson]

Much of the problem is the issue of geometry. The fuel price digits take up a certain footprint on the sign. And the signs aren't designed where an extra digit can be added later. In the days of analog price signs many of the numerals were just changeable panels that could slide in on track or something like that. Condensed style numerals could be used to take up less horizontal space to squeeze in a "1" when gasoline went over 99¢ a gallon. Some similar tricks were used again when gasoline prices went past $2.00 per gallon.

Many of these LED fuel product displays use "drop-in" parts to install into a larger sign cabinet. Each "8.88 9" fuel product price display is a one piece unit. Many convenience store street signs will have four or six of those units to display two or three fuel product prices on either side. If gasoline prices go past $10 per gallon all of those drop-in units will have to be swapped out for updated panels featuring more condensed digits.

Those price units have a limited life span anyway; they're not going to last much more than 10 or so years before parts start to fail. It's just like so many other pieces of "digital" gear. A company like Watchfire, Daktronics or Sunshine will switch out their product lines too. A Daktronics fuel price model from the 2000's isn't going to be able to get much serviced on it. The digit design on their current price displays is different, as our the components inside of them. I think it's going to be a pretty long time before gasoline prices approach the $10 mark on any sustained basis; the price spike we're living through today are all thanks to bad circumstances. If average prices hit $8 per gallon under normal circumstances then I could see the price digit companies re-tooling to offer a "18.88 9" or "88.88 9" style price display.

[Frank Cox]

A long time ago (in a galaxy far away), probably 50+ years now that I think about it since I'm sure I was a kid at the time, I remember seeing a mechanical pump for gas or maybe kerosene that was marked as being ten times the price shown. So if the pump showed 25 cents you owed $2.50.

Similarly, the natural gas meter on my building was changed last year but prior to that point it measured gas in cubic feet. There was a "conversion factor" printed on my bill where they said, "meter reading X times conversion factor = so many cubic meters. Now it just has cubic meters on it since that's what the new meter reads.

I guess the moral there is that what you see doesn't necessarily have to be what it actually is.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Over here in Europe, while laws differ somewhat between countries, the general rule for prices being displayed for end consumers is that they should be clear end-user pricing, including all taxes and other costs. Obviously, there are always companies trying to get around those rules in creative ways, but I guess a gas meter not displaying final pricing but something that needs to be multiplied by a factor would be deemed deceptive under those rules.

Many of these LED fuel product displays use "drop-in" parts to install into a larger sign cabinet. Each "8.88 9" fuel product price display is a one piece unit. Many convenience store street signs will have four or six of those units to display two or three fuel product prices on either side. If gasoline prices go past $10 per gallon all of those drop-in units will have to be swapped out for updated panels featuring more condensed digits.

I've seen some ugly hacks in the past where stickers in similar colors as the displays were appended to displays. So, you could probably add a "1" sticker in the same style and color as the rest of the matrix display, at least as a temporary hack... This would be the most low-tech and low-cost solution, at least when the underlying software that updates those displays can cope with it.

[Lyle Romer]

The unemployment rate is at or near historic lows -at least for now. If this situation with inflation doesn't get dealt with soon all kinds of employers will start laying off people in big numbers.

Don't forget, the unemployment rate only considers people looking for jobs. The people who do not want to work (whatever the reason is) don't get counted as unemployed. Prior to COVID, my mom was in that group that collected social security and also had a part time job for supplemental income. She doesn't want to take the risk of working so she is missing that income but she also doesn't count as "unemployed."

[Jon Dent]

Meanwhile, governments all across the board keep on publishing fake inflation numbers, to hide the real pain a lot of people are going through.

It helps to remember that the vast majority of politicians are at the top wage bracket and really have no friggin' clue or care what their average constituent is going through.

[Bobby Henderson]

A long time ago (in a galaxy far away), probably 50+ years now that I think about it since I'm sure I was a kid at the time, I remember seeing a mechanical pump for gas or maybe kerosene that was marked as being ten times the price shown. So if the pump showed 25 cents you owed $2.50.

There are regulations how fuel prices have to be displayed. There are even rules in many states regulating how many times the prices can be changed in one day. Stores can get into trouble about inaccurate pricing, such as one price being displayed on the street sign, but different prices are set on the gasoline pumps. Plus customers can be very argumentative and play the angles if prices are not specifically clear and accurate.

I've seen some ugly hacks in the past where stickers in similar colors as the displays were appended to displays. So, you could probably add a "1" sticker in the same style and color as the rest of the matrix display, at least as a temporary hack.

There are two problems with that hack. The first is geometry. Where is that "1" sticker going to be placed when there isn't going to be any room for it? Next is legibility. The existing price digits are defined using bright LEDs. A cut vinyl "1" that doesn't illuminate isn't going to read as being part of the fuel price. It's just going to look like someone stuck a "1" on the left edge of the sign as some kind of cheap afterthought.

Don't forget, the unemployment rate only considers people looking for jobs. The people who do not want to work (whatever the reason is) don't get counted as unemployed.

That's true. But there is still this persistent belief among avid viewers of anger pornography that there are countless millions of able-bodied people staying at home to collect welfare and get high. Oklahoma is about as far-red a state as there is, but we still have serious labor shortages in many job sectors. About the only way someone can sit home and collect government assistance is if they're a single mother with kids and no one around to watch her kids so she can work. It's possible to point to cases where men have played the system to get on government disability. I'm all in favor of cracking down on those abuses of the system. But they don't make up for all the lost labor.

Out of people who have left the labor market completely the two biggest groups by far are people over age 65 and married mothers with children. The other labor shortages are coming from people who leave one job to find a better job, even if it means leaving the state. Here in Oklahoma public school teachers were leaving the state in droves due to the shitty pay and hatefully shitty treatment they've received here. The state government came up with a hasty stop-gap measure, raising the gasoline taxes a few pennies for the first time in nearly 30 years to try to fund teacher pay raises. Texas has seen a great deal of population growth over the last 30 years. Oklahoma? Not so much. I wonder why.

It helps to remember that the vast majority of politicians are at the top wage bracket and really have no friggin' clue or care what their average constituent is going through.

They are grossly out of touch. That's going for both sides of the aisle. It's very rare for a working class political candidate to rise to a national level, like get elected to a house or senate seat or even a major state office like governor. The cost of campaigning is a huge factor. It's much easier to get elected if you are already rich and have a bunch of wealthy friends.

[Marcel Birgelen]

There are two problems with that hack. The first is geometry. Where is that "1" sticker going to be placed when there isn't going to be any room for it? Next is legibility. The existing price digits are defined using bright LEDs. A cut vinyl "1" that doesn't illuminate isn't going to read as being part of the fuel price. It's just going to look like someone stuck a "1" on the left edge of the sign as some kind of cheap afterthought.

It's going to look cheap in almost all cases, but it's a hack I've already seen being implemented. Something similar also was often implemented back when we changed from local currencies to Euros over here. Many gas stations just put some cheap stickers on their pump indicators or pricing signage, until there was a permanent solution, like a new inset.

Most pump indicators I've seen here are either still of the electromechanical kind with reflective paint on the 7 segments or LCD-type displays, with grey reflective backgrounds, so the hack of prepending a fixed one will probably be less noticeable here.

Many street signs with gas pricing info nowadays have been replaced with LED matrix signs and I guess they can be updated to a more condensed font. It seems like many older, fixed segment self-illuminated displays have been replaced over the last years. I guess they often still used incandescent elements, which wear out over time, while the electromechanical and LCD based units on the pumps enjoy a much longer lifespan.

But I hope that by the time the gas price hits more than 9.99 euro/litre, we've found some non-fossil-fuel-based power sources to power our cars.

[Randy Stankey]

But I hope that by the time the gas price hits more than 9.99 euro/litre, we've found some non-fossil-fuel-based power sources to power our cars.

Or... Until people start driving less.

It doesn't matter what you power your car with. A 2,000 lb. car still weighs 2,000 lb. and it takes a certain amount of energy to push it.
Where are we going to get that energy? Gasoline, diesel or electricity? Fairy dust?

Our electrical grid barely has the capacity to power all of our factories, houses and streetlights. What's going to happen when we start powering cars with electricity? The grid is going to have a meltdown!

Besides, even if all cars were powered by electricity, there would be no pollution from the tailpipe but pollution near power plants would increase.

Every time you start your car, you pollute. It doesn't matter what powers your car.
Every time you drive your car, you use energy and there is a finite amount of energy on the earth. Every bit of that energy, no matter what form, ultimately comes from the sun. We are never, ever, going to be able to extract more energy from our environment than the sun provides. We can't just go plug a power cable into the sun. We can only take what the sun gives us.

There is but one way to stop pollution and save energy and that is to use less.

Unfortunately, we are coming closer to the day when we will be forced to use less, much faster than we ever imagined.