(Thomas Mitchell/4TH ST8) You just may have noticed that the price of gasoline is going up. That’s because the price of crude oil is going up. Right?
Well, not exactly. It just looks like it is. In reality the value of the dollar is going down. Even the Chinese are dumping dollars as Obama’s administration keeps the printing presses humming with quantitative easing and putting the groceries on the credit card.
(And what do our representatives want to do about it? Why raise the taxes on oil companies, of course, to give more money for windmills and solar panels that can’t compete in a free market and will require tax and ratepayer support for 30 years. That’s what Shelley Berkley, who is running against Dean Heller, did Wednesday.)
Actually, when viewed in relation to gold, gasoline prices are only 82 percent of their average over the past 41 years. Our Monopoly money simply is worth less, headed toward worthless.
Obama promised to not raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 a year. But inflation is a tax. It cuts into the disposable income of everyone, especially those on fixed incomes.
Before you protest that inflation was only 3.1 percent in 2011, I note that was the CPI. The American Institute of Economic Research calculates the Everyday Price Index, which includes only the prices of goods and services that the average consumer purchases at least once a month. The inflation for those items was 7.2 percent.