Gas Prices Were Lower Last Year Because Last Year Was Really, Really Awful

And Trump is taking full credit.

Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline has risen to over $3, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This is up from $1.96 this time last year. As our most recent former president observed, "I'm sorry to say the gasoline prices that you will be confronted with are far higher than they were just a short number of months ago where we had gasoline under $2 a gallon."

Well, yes. But why might gasoline prices have been lower a year ago? Thanks to former President Donald Trump's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. GDP decreased at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020. In addition, the national unemployment rate in May 2020 stood at 16.3 percent. Americans without jobs and income were less inclined to travel. While the AAA estimated a record 43 million Americans hit the road during Memorial Day weekend in 2019, only 23 million traveled in 2020. Demand for gasoline was impacted by the fact that total vehicle miles traveled in 2020 fell by 13.2 percent, the lowest level in two decades. So yes, Trump is indeed partially responsible for lower gas prices last year.

The Biden administration issued a press statement asserting that Americans "are paying less in real terms for gas than they have on average over the last 15 years—and they're paying about the same as they did in May 2018 and May 2019." In fact, that's about right. According to Energy Information Administration data, the average prices of gasoline were $2.96 and $2.82 in the last weeks of May 2018 and May 2019, respectively.

Of course, there have been both significant jumps and slumps in the price of a gallon of gasoline over the decades.

(U.S. Inflation Calculator)

Still, it is quite remarkable that the annual inflation-adjusted price of gas since 1978 has hovered in a narrow range from a high of $2.438 (1978 and 1979, the second oil shock) to a low of $2.242 (the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic). If Trump really wants to take credit for the pandemic-induced low gas prices we had during Memorial Day weekend in 2020, he's welcome to do so.

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

Blames it on Trump.
Unreal

[Nardz]

Ron Bailey played a role in tens of thousands of people dying because they were denied access to hcq.

Gonna be a bitch when someone delivers what’s coming to him.

[Doris Shake]

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[Sarah Palin's Buttplug 2]

Trump blamed himself for trying to take credit for low 2020 gas prices.

In fact, Trump can take credit for the 500,000 lost jobs in the oil & gas sector too.

He can also take credit for that 16% UE rate.

Give Trump credit for that record low .095% GDP over four years.

Also give Trump credit for that $3.1 trillion deficit in the last fiscal year.

MEAN TWEETS! my fucking ass. Trump sucks ass.

[JesseAz]

Lol how is your 12 trillion in spending requests going as a biden cultist?

[JesseAz]

“I love those barrettes in your hair. Man, I’ll tell you what, look at her she looks like she’s 19 years old sitting there like a little lady with her legs crossed.”

Bidens comments to a 6 year old girl. Is this why you like him so much?

[DesigNate]

Nah, it’s just cause he’s a dem shill.

[Lord of Strazele]

Why Republicans Have Become Obsessed With Accusing Their Opponents of Pedophilia

BY CHRISTINA CAUTERUCCI

On the disinformation-addled right, it’s not just Hunter Biden who’s been targeted by baseless pedophilia claims…

These smears are part of a long history of conservative politicians and commentators accusing Democrats, with no evidence, of the actual sex crimes and child abuse they’re unwilling to condemn among their own political allies. 

Two years ago, after credibly accused child molester Roy Moore was endorsed by Donald Trump, funded by the Republican National Committee, and only narrowly lost the Senate seat he was running for

[Earth Skeptic]

Now do Epstein.

[Sevo]

And Clinton on the “Lolita Express”.

[Echospinner]

Someone already did while the guards “accidentally” turned off the cameras.

[damikesc]

Hmm, weird that the source of the article does not get mentioned. Just a flat out stealing of somebody else’s terrible content.

[Peter Mathewson]

That’s because she writes for Slate & even Lord of JazzHands is smart enough to know Slate is a terrible, terrible source.

[Mother's Lament]

Tell me how this compilation video of Biden pawing dozens of teens and preteens isn’t proof that they are totally right.

https://youtu.be/5XqF4wA-dco?t=5

The man is a pedophile, Stroozle.

[buckleup]

I’m guessing you didn’t score with the latest kid you tried to groom.

[Mother's Lament]

It’s hard to groom when you’re too fat to leave mom’s basement and all the kids are outside. Poor Buttplug is doomed to be the eternal virgin.

[One-Punch_Man]

Translation my team is wonderful, your team sucks! Biden is perfect and a genius. Completely not a pervert

[REASONABLE]

COVID 19 you moron. I bet you still wear a mask.

[Roberta]

Sure, blames it on the mishandling of testing that wound up having no long term impact anyway, and as handled by agencies that Trump tried to reform but were recalcitrant!

[loveconstitution1789]

The commies at unreason and hack writer bailey still work here?

Hahahaha.

Gas prices have been low for years outside commie high tax blue states. Gas got down to$.99 a gallon in Georgia in 2020 because people werent driving around the UsA, so Georgians got the benefit of cheap gas.

Trump was the best president in US history thanks to democrats and bailey knows it.

Civil war 2.0is not going as lefties hoped.

[shortviking]

TDS

[sarcasmic]

REASON SAID BAD THINGS ABOUT TRUMP! THAT MEANS THEY HATE FREEDOM BECAUSE TRUMP WAS THE MOST LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENT EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!11!!!!11!

[JesseAz]

You remain broken. Please tell us again how Republicans are responsible for failed schools again. That was hilarious.

[Earth Skeptic]

Hilarious in a bloody car wreck sort of way. (I mean sarc)

[Mother's Lament]

Let me guess.
Sarc failed in school, and he doesn’t like Republicans, so voilà?

[buckleup]

Started Memorial day weekend a little earlier than usual, did you screetch?

[sarcasmic]

Nah, just mocking you and the other Trumptards.

[JesseAz]

Lol. Youre not mocking anyone. You are just acting as dumb as Jeff, white Mike, and pod.

You realize it too. You just can’t admit you were taken for a fool last year.

[Sevo]

“Nah, just mocking you and the other Trumptards…”

Making an ass of yourself in public is “mocking” some one?
No, it’s “making an ass of yourself in public”

[Mother's Lament]

You forgot to tell us you were muting us today. Did you start drinking early?

[DesigNate]

More like: “Reason said dumb things about Trump even though it can be shown here, here, and here why they are wrong”.

And I’ll say this too: What kind of libertarian thinks there is a right way for a politician to handle a pandemic? What non-NAP violating actions could the president have taken in regards to covid?

[sarcasmic]

Give it a few years. The right-wing trolls will lose interest and be replaced by left-wing trolls calling Reason a conservative rag that hates Democrats and wants Trump back in power.

[JesseAz]

Wait, you say you’ve been here for a decade. Leftist trolls are already here. You call them true libertarians. Lol.

[Peter Mathewson]

I doubt Reason or its commenter base will change that drastically with the Biden administration since Reason started its pivot to the left during the Obama administration & not during the Trump administration.

So until major reshuffling of writers and funding sources, Reason will carry water for Biden just as they did for Obama (though maybe not quite as pronounced).

[loveconstitution1789]

Commies at unreason use caps now to emphasize their TDS.

MAGA

[JesseAz]

Lol. What the fuck reason. I’m sure all the canceled permits for drilling and pipelines have no effect.

[JesseAz]

that the annual inflation-adjusted price of gas since 1978

And of course the wild spending sprees have zero effect on inflation….

[Sarah Palin's Buttplug 2]

Trump’s wild spending spree or Biden’s?

Right now Trump has spent more.

They both suck.

[JesseAz]

It really is amazing watching your ignorance om action. Do you realize that bidens budget request puts a deficit of over 5% for the next 8 year? And that’s with his rosy growth projections.

[JesseAz]

5% of gdp*

[Sevo]

“It really is amazing watching your ignorance om action…”

Not any more; it’s boring.

[TJJ2000]

^^^THIS

[buckleup]

So Biden is saying you’re paying higher prices just like you did when his boss was Obama and he was simple Uncle Joe.

Inspiring. The midterms are going to be worse for dems than 2010.

[DesigNate]

God I hope so.

[Liberty Lover]

Gas prices were lower since 2014, and until the day Biden was sworn in and issued his 40+ royal decrees.

[Mother's Lament]

But Ron Bailey doesn’t think that cancelled gas pipelines have any effect on gas prices. Nosiree. It’s all somehow Covid.

Brown envelope journolisming at its finest.

[loveconstitution1789]

Bailey sure does work cheap. Smallest envelope ever to write propaganda for commie lies.

[loveconstitution1789]

Notice commies at unreason dont scream about el presidente Bidens banana republic decrees?

We all know that trump was the last president America had until civil war 2.0 is resolved. Its why nobody cares what the commies do in government. It will all be reversed.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

I don’t know who exactly runs “coinnews.net” (the website that’s hosting this graph) you posted, but it looks like whoever they are, they don’t know how to do a graph properly. That red line is not the inflation adjusted cost at all, it’s the average.

Everyone reading this, if you just go to Google, enter Inflation Adjusted price of gasoline in the search field, and then look at the images, you’ll find plenty of graphs right on top that are accurate, not misleading, and from way more credible sources of data than “coinnews.net”.

[JesseAz]

But this picture is on Twitter making the rounds. Thats as much inspection as Bailey needs.

[DesigNate]

https://inflationdata.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Inflation-Adjusted-Gasoline-Price-Feb-2020.png

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

There we go, that links point to an accurate graph, created by someone who actually knows how to create a graph properly.

Honestly, if I was running Reason I would be embarrassed to leave this post for the sake of my credibility. A friendly word of advice, you guys should always check the sources of where you’re getting your data from VERY carefully.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

“”A friendly word of advice, you guys should always check the sources of where you’re getting your data from VERY carefully.””

Perhaps their boss doesn’t want that.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Gas Prices Were Lower Last Year Because Last Year Was Really, Really Awful

Why was last year so awful?

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

“Gas prices.”

LOL

Koch / Reason libertarianism strives to create an economy that works best for people with net worths in the tens of billions of dollars, like our benefactor Charles Koch. IOW people who might gain or lose hundreds of millions of dollars in a typical trading day. We’re not concerned with deadbeats who can’t pay the rent because a gallon of gasoline is 3 bucks instead of 2 bucks.

Heck, gas could be $30 / gallon and the Biden economy would still be fantastic from our POV as long as billionaires are getting richer.

#InDefenseOfBillionaires

[Jefferson's Ghost]

I do not “like” Trump. I didn’t like him long before he was President or a TV star. On the other hand, I also don’t think he was the worst president ever. In fact he was most definitely the best one of this century — and the current one looks to be a complete disaster.

On the other hand, even an idiot knows that when the demand for gasoline decreases, so does the price. The pandemic certainly did decrease the demand.

So when Trump blames a predictable, natural rise in gas on the policies of the current idiot in the White House, frankly, he looks really silly.

It’s not like he doesn’t have several Trillion other reasons to attack Biden.
He should pick some of those and go for it.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Obama wasn’t too bad in his second term because he literally didn’t do anything.

[IceTrey]

He’s a big Coolidge fan.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

Yeah, I guess he had run out of nations to invade and US citizens to assassinate…..

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

What do you get for the man who’s done everything?

[Jefferson's Ghost]

+

[THX1138]

What do you get for the man who drones everything? FIFY.

[JesseAz]

We have entered the era of libertarian thought where emotions and words mean more than reason and action. It has been a downward spiral since about 2010.

[JesseAz]

So when Trump blames a predictable, natural rise in gas on the policies of the current idiot in the White House, frankly, he looks really silly.

Except future availability of a resource does play into a current market setting. If a resource is believed to be abundant for many years the price will remain stable even with some growth in demand. When growth of demand occurs in presence of actions to reduce future supply you get a market reaction of fast climbing prices.

Joe has used executive orders to shut down new gas lines and new drilling exploration permits. Both effect future supply. So no, you can’t say the price is agnostic to Joe’s policies.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

This has been done before (I am NOT saying I support it).
Obama did both — opened it up and shut it down.

Biden has stopped exploration and new drilling on federal lands. This accounts for about 5% of the oil produced in the USA. Again, I don’t support it, but I doubt one is going to see a significant price-rise out of it. I hear Venezuela will soon have lots of oil to get rid of….

[JesseAz]

Obama did not do it. That was his claim, but not reality. Growth of energy exploration happened on private and state lands, not federal. Federal exploration and permits plummeted. Nearly all the growth was in markets Obama had no control over. But he sure did take credit for it.

[Kazinski]

Tellingly he didn’t try to take credit for it during his presidency because he saw it as a negative. When Trump starting taking credit for the continuation of the trend and putting federal lands I the mix Obama changed his tune.

[Jefferson's Ghost]

“Growth of energy exploration happened on private and state lands, not federal. ”

Yeppers.

[Roberta]

This is true. It was obvious a lot of prices were depressed over the past year, hence the stimulus. It was also predictable that the stimulus money that got saved over that time would get spent once the pandemic ended, hence rising prices.

[Brett Bellmore]

Price is a result of both demand AND supply. The problem right now is that you’ve got the administration trying to drive down supply.

[Jerryskids]

It’s hard to blame Trump for fucking up the pandemic response that killed so many other Americans (and nobody else until the Chinese vaccines bailed us out) when he was spending all his time plotting the coup that very nearly succeeded in overthrowing the government.

[shortviking]

The coup would’ve succeeded if not for those meddling kids

[Peter Mathewson]

lol @ …the coup that very nearly succeeded in overthrowing the government…

It was like, 90% there, but then the protesters decided to go home.

[Homple]

He who takes credit for the sunshine gets blamed for the rain. True enough. But he who gets blamed for the rain whether it rains ot not might as well credit himself for any sunshine he can.

[Ersatz]

^THIS^

[Peter Mathewson]

Agreed – they’d be blaming him if gas prices were too high, so why shouldn’t he get credit for gas prices being low?

[Full Of Buckminster]

The US economy tanked because Trump mismanaged the pandemic? This is ludicrous. The entire world economy tanked, because virtually every country fell victim to the pandemic. Did every politician mismanage the pandemic? More specifically, the economy tanked because state politicians shut it down. But Trump was advocating for less restrictive measures than our health “experts” wanted. If Trump had listened to them and attempted to direct the entire U.S. accordingly, the entire U.S. would have been even more shut down.

[JesseAz]

Reason now shuns federalism for some reason. They actually wanted trump to force policies across the nation and then declare him a tyrant. It has been amazing to watch.

[Roberta]

No, they just wanted to declare Trump lousy no matter what he did. You think they would’ve applauded those policies?

[damikesc]

Note he was a monster for clearing out rioters threatening the WH while he was ALSO a monster for NOT clearing out protesters in the Capitol.

Which he also did not do during the Kavanaugh hearings.

[Sevo]

“The US economy tanked because Trump mismanaged the pandemic?…”

Check Bailey’s link on the *HORRIBLE* mis-management; it’s a paean to Bailey’s TDS.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

“”The US economy tanked because Trump mismanaged the pandemic?””

It’s a way to take the blame away from the governors with a D next to their name.

[Cyto]

Gas prices are the most they have been in the last 7 years. They were low throughout the Trump administration, even before covid stopped consumption.

Stop with the motivated reasoning already.

If you want to to write an interesting article about petroleum prices, perhaps talking about the power of belief. That would be an unusual take. Trump was able to jaw bone prices down simply by announcing his intentions. He did the same thing with illegal immigration… And Biden also managed to jaw bone massive changes in illegal immigration, albeit in the opposite direction.

They talk about the bully pulpit, but these are some unusual and concrete ways in which it actually does affect your daily life.

[IceTrey]

Is it bad if the nominal price is the same as the adjusted price?

[TangoDelta]

Meh, still working from home and the company is looking to cut office space costs so hopefully I’ll never have to go back. Gas prices could be $7.38 per gallon and I wouldn’t care. That said, I do try to top off the tank every two or three months whether I need it or not and toss in a can of stabilizer.

[Kazinski]

Well let’s just look at what the US EiA says about gas prices

From 2009-2019 under Obama they averaged 2.96375

Under Trump from 2017-2020 they averaged 2.4775, excluding 2020 they were
2.58.

So under Trump any way you slice it
gas prices (2017-2019) were at least .38 cents lower than under Obama or Biden and averaged over his whole presidency .46 cents less than they are under Biden now.

That’s a real look at the numbers for gas prices, not the crap above.
Under Biden

[RandomQuestions]

Trump absolutely bungled the COVID response and is single-handedly responsible for the economic downturn. He didn’t do enough ultra-effective lockdowns and mask mandates that have been proven to be so effective worldwide, he didn’t open the borders enough or encourage enough untested immigrants to cross the border so he could cram them in cages and then release them randomly throughout the country, and he peddled assine conspiracy theories about lab leaks and China being responsible for stuff. HE DIDN’T EVEN trust the WHO!! This article is awesome.

[Sevo]

Sarc?
Sure hope so, since you’d have to find Tony or turd to find this level of stoooopid.

[mad.casual]

OK, now do dimensional lumber prices.
Then do ammunition prices.

The lockdowns and stimulus spending completely fucked pricing across all kinds of industries. Trump is responsible for the low prices then and the high prices now inasmuch as he didn’t prevent the lockdowns and agreed to the spending.

[JesseAz]

They can add the word transitory to the beginning of every issue to blame trump. See transitory inflation.

[Brett Bellmore]

Kind of hard for a President to NOT agree to spending passed by veto-proof majorities; It’s not even legal for him to refuse to spend it!

[Peter Mathewson]

Trump…didn’t prevent the lockdowns…

Since the lockdowns were done through state and local ordinances he had no ability nor authority to do anything about it. It’s not like he’s Obama and can just wave his hand over an executive order and have SCOTUS call that the law. He’s Trump and had he tried anything like this everyone would be calling for the tyrant’s head.

[J W 2]

Well, yes. But why might gasoline prices have been lower a year ago? Thanks to former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. GDP decreased at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020.

Good grief, you’re an idiot.

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[Jerry B.]

In December 2019, before the pandemic hit, the price of a gallon of regular gas was around $2.50. May 29, 2021, it was around $3.05.

https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts

[TangoDelta]

Nice chart. It was interesting to add Cali & Texas to find that Texans are paying as much for gas now as Cali-ans did back in April 2020 when the prices hit a low. Also educational to expand it to a decade and see the price gap between Cali and the rest of the US open dramatically from about 20 cents to over a dollar.

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[Agammamon]

What about the three years prior?

Last year’s gas was just the trough in a trend of decreasing prices over the previous years.

[Agammamon]

Also, no one was using less gas.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Gasoline prices were lower last year because oil prices were low. They’re higher now because oil prices are higher. This ain’t rocket science.

Why have oil prices been relatively low for the last 6 or 7 years? Because of oversupply. Where did the oversupply come from? Fracking in the USA. Which Biden and his climate warriors hate and want to stop. What will prices be if they get their wish? Breathtaking.

You really don’t think that Biden’s energy policies have contributed to the rise in oil proved the last year? This administration trying to claim low gasoline prices is monstrously dishonest. Honest would be “damn right they’re high, and we want ‘em higher so you’ll quit using the stuff”.

And their press release yesterday about this was peak stupidity. But let’s just keep talking about last year’s problem in the White House instead of the current problem in the White House.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

One of his very first acts upon taking office was killing the Keystone Pipeline! You would think given the events of the last couple of weeks, that even left-wing idiots like Bailey would understand the importance of functioning pipelines. He lives on the east coast, so it’s a near certainty that he got to experience all the joys of empty gas stations all around him.

[XM]

But it’s not like he lifted sanctions on Russia so they could run THEIR pipeline. Trump really showed his Russian connection with that move.

Oh wait, that was Biden. There was no media freakout on that, or when Colonial paid ransom to foreign hackers? How strange.

[loveconstitution1789]

Fracking. America was at exporter of oil from fracking.

That flooded the market with oil that OPEC couldnt control and lower demand. Which led to lower prices.

[One-Punch_Man]

Agreed. Yes, gas was slightly lower because people weren’t driving. Hell, oil was being stored in ships out at sea. But to ignore the Demorats (yes rats) energy plan – ban on fracking, ban on coal, cancelling pipelines, etc is incredibly dishonest!

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[Earth Skeptic]

Wow. Is Bailey this stupid–and this much of a cunt?

[Sevo]

If you check out his link to Trump’s “mishandling” of the pandemic, you’ll find that Trump did offer some baffle-gab regarding testing but then got out of the way so it could be dealt with locally. And then “testing!!!” was a Bailey wet-dream; no one else put much store in it as an effective agent of control then or now. Trump was goring Bailey’s ox.
IOWs, the link should be titled “example of my (Bailey’s) TDS”.

[loveconstitution1789]

Yes.

[Peter Mathewson]

He wasn’t like this at one time – sad really to see him push this idiotic crap.

[Chumby]

Was Ron on the list of reporters that received CCP payments?

[Linwood]

Detractors are going to have a crow on their dinner plates very shortly when they see all energy prices under the leadership of, “Uncle Joe” Biden, go sky high.

[Moderation4ever]

Does anybody really care what the mad king of Mar-a-Lago says?

I can only image the former President walking the halls of Mar-a-Lago. Probably rolling steel ball bearings in his hand talking about gas prices to any of the undocumented staff that will listen. He could talk about the missing strawberries but I can not see him having an interest in fruit, so gas price is a better topic.

[loveconstitution1789]

Best president in US history.

Just like people started using “Lefties”. Cold war 2.0 and civil war 2.0 are being used because more and more Americans are accepting the reality and not listenign to commies in the MSM.

[Peter Mathewson]

He is a former president…so I guess people care as much about what he says as they do about what Obama says – even more interest in Trump speaking given his presidency was so recent, but keep being an idiot and act like that’s meaningless. It’s all leftists like you have – lies, lies, and more lies.

[XM]

What was gas prices in pre pandemic 2019, when a half senile green energy zealot wasn’t in the WH? It wasn’t 4 dollars per gallon in LA, and right now it’s approaching 4.50. And while holiday travels have increased, it’s still smaller compared to pre pandemic levels.

Reason damn well knows averages in vacuum is deceptive, that’s why they rightfully dismiss the value of a college diploma. Gas prices went up in the past when natural disasters hit refineries and OPEC and the like intentionally reduced supply to control prices. Unless that’s happening now, what’s the point of comparing prices from the last FIFTEEN years? If the WH increased taxes and showed that our cost of living was roughly the same as 2010, we should just be fine with that?

Biden discouraged domestic oil production and transportation, even if it was limited to federal land. The market took the signal. The gas prices would be LOWER than it would be now if not for Biden.

[wapexclusive]

These smears are part of a long history of conservative politicians and commentators accusing Democrats, with no evidence, of the actual sex crimes and child abuse they’re unwilling to condemn among their own political allies.( https://wapexclusive.com/ )Two years ago, after credibly accused child molester Roy Moore was endorsed by Donald Trump, funded by the Republican National Committee, and only narrowly lost the Senate seat he was running for

[Dan]

I’m no trump fan but if the foundation of your premise is he “mishandled” the covid situation. I corrected you there because there was no “crisis.” The rest of your argument is bs

[CannedSaltyHam]

It must be great being a Democrat and having the media constantly blaming the former Republican president for everything bad that happens during your term. Not so great for the rest of us who have to endure a major party that is never held accountable for anything they do.

[One-Punch_Man]

I used to have a ton of respect for Ron. That is waning do to his TDS and everything is climate change (Warming).

Yes, Trump shouldn’t take credit for the gas. Even though Biden, is currently doing everything he can to wreck energy independence.

As for mishandling Covid – lets see he closed travel from China – labeled racist. Remember Pelosi and Biden marching in New York?

Trump wasn’t the one that still has states locked down (Democrats – New York, PA, MI,..etc).

Trump actually did operation warp speed, that democrats are trying to take credit for.

I think the government – federal and state failed overall. But when have we had a crisis like Covid in the world? Did Trump do worse than the Europe countries? Oh remember when every hospital bed was going to be filled in New York? Than they didn’t even use the medical ship.

[One-Punch_Man]

Agreed. Yes, gas was slightly lower because people weren’t driving. Hell, oil was being stored in ships out at sea. But to ignore the Demorats (yes rats) energy plan – ban on fracking, ban on coal, cancelling pipelines, etc is incredibly dishonest!

[Echospinner]

The price of a lot of commodities has gone up. Look at lumber for example. Pretty much everything.

How much of that is due to supply shortages I don’t know but we are steering even closer to inflation territory.

[Brett Bellmore]

We’ve been in inflation territory for a decade now, it’s just reaching the point where they are having trouble lying about it.

I mean, you’re buying chicken for what beef used to cost, and you believe the official inflation numbers?

[Utkonos]

Hi, posting from California I’d like to ask: what does “lower gas prices” mean? The phrase rings a very distant bell, but that seems like a faint memory from another century….

[Vesicant]

“Mishandling”? Refresh my memory — was it Trump or the Democratic governors (cough Whitmer Cuomo Newsom et al cough) who issued the shutdown orders that nuked state economies? Was it Trump or the Democratic governors who fast tracked the vaccines? Once again a ‘reason’ columnist swims to the top of their communal cesspool to tell us what color the sky is in their world.

[Brett Bellmore]

“Still, it is quite remarkable that the annual inflation-adjusted price of gas since 1978 has hovered in a narrow range from a high of $2.438 (1978 and 1979, the second oil shock) to a low of $2.242”

I’m unclear how anybody who actually drives a car and buys gasoline could read such a line without a spit take. It’s the sort of claim that just cries out for you to go out and get the real numbers.

So, I do a google search for “inflation adjusted gas price”, and sure enough, the first result is that insane graph Solum used.

And it IS literally insane. The only way the curves for “gas prices” and “inflation adjusted” could be reconciled is if you assumed we were going through wild swings of double, maybe triple digit inflation and deflation. You’d have to be radically innumerate to take that graph at face value!

2012, the “gas price” is listed as $3.695. (Yeah, right, maybe in California…) By 2020? $2.20. So, we’ve been experiencing 7% per year deflation since 2012? How is it this didn’t make the headlines? I think I’d have heard about that if it was happening.

The second result was the one DesigNate posted above, and actually looks mathematically reasonable, as well as agreeing with my lived experience. Gas actually was pretty cheap in 2016, it actually managed to get briefly below $1 locally once you took discount cards into account.

[Brett Bellmore]

And here we go, from the site Solum relies on:

“The following formula shows how to adjust gasoline for inflation:

1978 Gas Price x (2020 CPI for Gas / 1978 CPI for Gas) = Adjusted Gas Price in 2020 Dollars”

IOW, that practically constant line that Solum is citing? IT ISN’T ACTUAL INFLATION ADJUSTED PRICES AT ALL! It’s a graph of what the gas prices would have been, if the CPI were accurate.

Solum didn’t prove gas has hardly changed its price at all in inflation adjusted dollars. He posted a graph proving the government Consumer Price Index is a steaming heap. And he didn’t even understand the graph enough to realize that’s what it was telling him!

[money]

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