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Originally Posted by jamesqf
Not necessarily. If the price of everything goes up because of a dilution of the value of the currency, that's inflation. If early-season strawberry prices go up because there was a freeze in the Imperial Valley, that's supply & demand working off a crop failure. Really, this is just economics 101, you know :-)
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You only chose one fruit to exemplify. With global production, produce comes to us from many different countries now, not just one local valley. Besides the example is based upon there being no crop failure - not interjecting one for the sake of argument.
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What I'm saying is that there's no connection: that the price of gas goes up (mostly) because of factors related to oil supply & demand, not because of inflation.
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If you recall that's not the point I made. I never said the price of gas is caused by inflation alone. (You are ignoring my point about the cartel, etc.) I said that when the price of most things rise, that IS inflation.
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Excuse me, but that has to have set an all-time record for dumb claims. What does the fact that I don't know where all the oil is have to do with the unarguable fact that the amount of oil must be finite, simply because the Earth is finite? Likewise for exploration: some fraction of the finite earth has been explored already, leaving an ever-decreasing amount that hasn't.
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You said: "Fixed supply (actually decreasing, 'cause ), increasing demand, of course the price is going to go up over the long term."
The supply isn't running out any time soon, or even long term. It's a red herring, for you are again injecting a point that is not relevant. The supply is no less viable than it was 30 years ago. Yet the price is higher. It is NOT due to purported dwindling of "supply".
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That's (mostly) wrong to begin with: in most places they're pumping as fast as they can. It's like drinking a milkshake through a straw, No matter how big the shake, you can only suck so fast. And regardless of whether you suck fast or slow, sooner or later you run out of shake.
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Cutsie analogies won't make your argument more believable. Pumping proceeds at whatever the efficient rate is, not subject to emotions (I'm pumping as fast as I can!"). When you do finally "run out of shake" you can find another one elsewhere and drill and insert another "straw".
OTOH if you are atop a sea of oil (as in Arabia) it doesn't require much looking to know where to find it, or as much effort to "insert another straw". But if they don't want to, the ones who control the dispensing of your "milkshakes" control the market for them.
First you say:
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Increasing population, fixed supply of land. And notice how these days they build on ever-smaller lots? My house, built half a century ago, is about 1300 sq ft on a couple of acres. Nowadays they build 5000 sq ft McMansions on lots of a quarter-acre or less.
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Nothing but the lack of several hundred million dollars, at a minimum. You just can't buy huge tracts of land these days, unless your personal net worth is up there in Ted Turner territory.
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First you moan about Mc Mansions being built upon small lots (as if you live in a city) and now you say that you need hundreds of millions of dollars to buy enough land for a home. How absurd.
Your argument about "limited supply" is just as ridiculous applied to land as it is to oil. There is no
shortage of either. You don't need a million gallons of gas to run your vehicle(s) nor do you need a hundred acres on which to have a single family home.
Maybe we will all move there.
