This article is a rather unsurprising distortion of the facts. The truth is that the cost of fuel has gone down, which can be seen in our countries in the world since 2008. Our prices are really only a reflection of how worthless our currency is becoming, and that's the fault of everyone. It began with the pop of the bubble in 2000, continued downwards throughout Bush's presidency and is continuing still through Obama's presidency.
The gold index is a good indicator of the value of our currency since while our currency is elastic, the value of gold doesn't change in value all that much over time. And the value of gold shouldn't be confused with the cost of gold in a specific currency. An ounce of gold has always bought you the same equivalent things, even if the specified worth has varied.
The price of gold has gone from about $370 in 1996 to $288 in 2000 to $406 in 2004 to $480 in 2008 to $1384.74 in 2011. If you look at a smooth graph of gold values over time what you will see is an exponential growth of gold prices, which started in about 2001 after being fairly stable low value throughout the 90s.
So unless things change from the 9 year trend then you should expect to see gas prices continuing their climb at a quickening pace.
It should be noted that the economy is much more complicated than a direct correlation between the price of gold and the price of oil, but they are very much intertwined. Likewise other indicators such as the price of silver can be used and a similar trend can be seen. And they all point to a devalued currency.
As far as I can tell without doing a large statistical analysis our true value of gas should be about double, but our market manipulation has temporarily offset the costs. We'll see how long we can lie...
An obvious reason for our currency devaluation is the printing of money. This is the fault of all politicians and the people alike. We demand it and the politicians do it. The danger is the Federal Reserve since they give us this power and none of us have the responsibility to use it properly. We have a mixture of desires from increased services, tax breaks, military build-up, etc. and the combined demands required the printing of money.
We have also given away all of our jobs of worth. We have outsourced the fundamental manufacturing jobs. We have become consumers and service workers; neither of which are a strong way to build an economy for the long term. For this I do blame Republicans, but Democrats are a close second on this one.
In the end it all means we're getting taxed more, but we did it in a much more volatile way. The gas prices are just a form of taxation. Stop blaming the other side of the political structure and take responsibility for your own mistakes.
Great rant, and a true picture of how Americans demand the devaluation of the dollar. The politicians and Americans blame the increasing prices on the oil and medical and pharmaceutical industries for their high prices, rather than themselves and their money printing presses. Confiscate any income greater than 18k a year; make all have the same income and wealth envy will exist no more after a level playing field is created. Peace through taxation. King George tried to convince the American Revolutionaries of how important taxes are, they wouldn't listen, see where it got the US?
Though this statement has no known source, I believe the idea is correct:
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
* From bondage to spiritual faith;
* From spiritual faith to great courage;
* From courage to liberty;
* From liberty to abundance;
* From abundance to selfishness;
* From selfishness to complacency;
* From complacency to apathy;
* From apathy to dependence;
* From dependence back into bondage.
Sorry vernalx, the price of our gas is NOT just about devaluation of the dollar. Also gold is not this magic steady light in the darkness.
If you bought gold at it's peak price in the early 80s, adjusting for inflation (becuase it SHOULD at least be a very solid inflation hedge, right?), you STILL haven't made your money back.
The reason why gas prices are going up are because the latest round of quantitative easing was done in an environment where every other country decided it was time to ease off. That means we get inflation at a different rate than theirs. Which means they can buy energy denominated in US dollars at a discount.
Without that imbalance in economic policies, all you would have seen essentially boils down to a redenomination of the currency. Which is EXACTLY what was done on a relative basis with both gold and silver backed currency. Countries would get together and say the value of gold stores were A and are now B. With the decision pretty much always to increase the amount of currency in circulation.
As for Jobs moving.. they always moved. The United States used to be the world's China (not literally, but in terms of where you could get something good enough built cheaply). It happens. We replaced a lot of manufacturing jobs with "kowledge worker" jobs. The problem is that we behaved like those couldn't leave too, and we stopped innovating. Also rather than reducing some industries, we have eliminated them entirely. There are manufacturing sectors we simply can't compete in that are worth having as a domestic resource just to hedge our bets.
There is nothing magic about gold and I never said there was. It's the same with any commodity that is fairly stable.
And since gold is one of the most stable commodities we have then it can be used to judge the value of our currency. Of course there are bubbles because it's a traded commodity and because the amount mined does vary, but the general trend is a pretty good guide. Quick spikes in relation to a currency is usually a bubble, but it could also be a sign of an economic collapse and the two can easily be differentiated by using other metrics (such as, are you standing in a bread line?).
And yes, it is about the devaluation of the dollar. Major deficits and reduced output means that our money is worth less. If we buy lots but sell little then we're not a stable economy no matter how you look at it. And a recession that makes us buy even less means our worth to the global economy is suddenly greatly reduced. Knowledge workers are great, but not without exporting those services, which we do for Hollywood and for little else.
If you print money then the value of the currency decreases. And I'm not saying we should use gold as our currency, but we should stop devaluing our currency by printing and running on deficits over long terms. And if we don't realize this soon we won't be a superpower for too much longer.
When people blamed the then $4.00 per gallon gas on Bush, who was an oil guy with a bigger oil guy as VP and a lot of Saudi friends, the Loyalists cried and whined about the economics of supply and demand, the surging Chinese demand for energy, and so on. And rightly so, even a president who wants to turn the keys of the country over to energy interests has only so much to do with the price at the pump on any given day.
But now that the hated, foreign born, secretly Muslim, socialist friend of the bankers is in office, it is a different story; it is okay to blame him for anything and everything. I have read where he caused the Recession that began a full year before he took office, which is quite an accomplishment.
steamed
The FF will roll in the dough in Arab oil money since BO, by FF command, put a stranglehold on US oil and gas production.