Record High Gas Prices?

[aero84]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Oh, so you're converting to Swiss Francs? :-)

I certainly would not object to that!

[aero84]

Originally Posted by groar

aero84, you have a conversion tool available on EM.com.

You can also use cMPG.com's garage...

Have fun,

Denis.

I'd just like to have that cool ecomodder signature thing. xx% over EPA... That would be nice.
Thanks for the link to the conversion tool, but if I have to converse everything - km to miles, liters to gallons - I will still be here filling the database next month.

So the images from spritmonitor will have to do...

[gone-ot]

...why do the lyrics "...ain't seen nothin' yet..." keep ringing in my head when I hear people moaning about todays' "high gasoline prices"???

[jamesqf]

Yeah, it's a bit depressing: the $20 worth of gas that used to last me a month now only lasts three weeks.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I dunno - why can't the Europeans use dollars?

Well, they use Eurodollars. Which are not quite as worthless as American dollars (yet).

Indeed, they've got even less excuse for their monetary obtuseness: the gallon was around for a long time before the silly Europeans (actually the Revolutionary French, and you know what wonderful people THEY were) came up with liters, but the Americans simply adopted the existing Spanish dollar (from the Austrian thaler, and from which we get "pieces of eight", quarters being two bits, etc.) from Europe...

That was based on a gold standard - where you could take a genuine gold coin, cut it into pieces, and it would still hold its value, fractionally: a tangible, indisputable, divisible standard of value.

The American dollar is nothing more than fiat currency. ('Fiat' meaning: not the car, but the equivalent of 'this is now the definition of what money IS'. And the US government ("we the people"?) can always print more of it, if they want to.

It's based upon nothing more than the government's promise to pay; which is about the equivalent of campaign promises, or being the 'Emperor's New Clothing' of currency.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

That was based on a gold standard - where you could take a genuine gold coin, cut it into pieces, and it would still hold its value, fractionally: a tangible, indisputable, divisible standard of value.

In fact it was based on a silver standard: that's what the Spanish dollars (and similar coins) were minted from. See e.g. the Wikipedia article here Spanish dollar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Gold's just not really practical for a widely-used coinage, for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it's just too valuable. A 1/10 ounce gold coin is quite a bit smaller than a dime, yet is worth about $150 at today's gold price.

The American dollar is nothing more than fiat currency.

Gold has its own problems, though. It's subject to wild swings in price that're driven by speculation & hysteria. Nice if you bought at a low point, but I knew several people who lost significant sums by buying near the top of the last "gold rush" back in the '80s. Same with the current bubble: the "value" of gold has gone up by half or more, yet the price of most goods bought with dollars (or Euros, Francs, British pounds, etc) hasn't changed much at all. So if we were using gold as currency, we'd be seeing an extreme deflation.

[Creeper]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...why do the lyrics "...ain't seen nothin' yet..." keep ringing in my head when I hear people moaning about todays' "high gasoline prices"???

Come to Canada and see what high gas prices are the price is hovering around 1.30L here and in some places closer to 1.50 and its still going up. I get a kick out of the people complaining at the pumps while I'm filling up.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Gold has its own problems, though. It's subject to wild swings in price that're driven by speculation & hysteria. Nice if you bought at a low point, but I knew several people who lost significant sums by buying near the top of the last "gold rush" back in the '80s. Same with the current bubble: the "value" of gold has gone up by half or more, yet the price of most goods bought with dollars (or Euros, Francs, British pounds, etc) hasn't changed much at all. So if we were using gold as currency, we'd be seeing an extreme deflation.

The whole point is that a currency that is tied to a precious or semi-precious metal is more stable than one that is only tied to a government's promise to pay.

When it comes to inflation, the American government has been in denial for a long time: for more than a decade under the regimes of both political parties, they have taken the cost of fuel and food out of the inflation index.

Fleecing the foolish is an old American tradition. Is the government really clever? Or are we really gullible? Or is it both?

What we see as inflation is actually devaluation. Inflation is really not about "prices going up"; it's really all about the value of the currency going DOWN.

[McTimson]

Aero84, you could throw all you data into an excel (or any other spreadsheet program), and have it do the conversion. Can you export the data from your other site, or do you already have it stored somewhere? That way the conversions are done, and all you have to do is enter it in.

You could also add up all the tanks up until the last month or so and enter them as one huge tank, then enter the more recent ones individually.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

The whole point is that a currency that is tied to a precious or semi-precious metal is more stable than one that is only tied to a government's promise to pay.

The US had a gold standard, then FDR made it illegal for Americans to own gold (except as jewelery). As for stability, look at the price of gold since the '70s, when it became legal to trade in gold. Stable? Not hardly. There have been wild price swings like '78-82, when it rose fourfold, then dropped by half.

When it comes to inflation, the American government has been in denial for a long time: for more than a decade under the regimes of both political parties, they have taken the cost of fuel and food out of the inflation index.

But the price of food hasn't gone up significantly over that period (at least going by my shopping cart index, which admittedly contains little if any processed food). If anything, it seems to have declined a bit. Or at least meats &c seem cheaper than they were before then.

Gas, of course, is a different animal. The price increases aren't being driven by inflation or changes in currency, they're driven by supply & demand. Basic economics: increase demand for a product in limited supply, and the price rises.

What we see as inflation is actually devaluation. Inflation is really not about "prices going up"; it's really all about the value of the currency going DOWN.

Not entirely. There's inflation which is not devaluation, prices going up (or coming down - checked housing prices lately?) that have nothing to do with the value of the underlying currency.

Again, to come back around to the "gold is stable" theory, there's no way any currency devaluation and/or price increase tracks changes in the price of gold. If gold was stable, then over time you should (assuming supply & demand are constant) see most goods & wages remain constant when denominated in gold, but that simply doesn't happen.