How much is your local "Trump at the Pump Tax?"

If goods are priced at the percentage of the basic wage, not the average because the mega high income earners make the sort of money that distorts those figures, then a comparison of cost to earnings gives a better perspective of how the economy is really travelling now compared to back when ever

I'm wondering if any of the fuel costs will really matter soon, unless you own a vehicle in that magic yr range where you can still buy parts and the average garage or back yarder can do the repairs.
Because manufacturers won't pay proper rates for warranty repairs, most skilled auto techs have walk away from the trade they loved and into more industrial level fitter positions, because those positions pay for ever hr you work.
It's worth taking a look at how many vehicles are sitting in the dealers workshop storage area because they have no mechanics to fix them, or no techs with the required skill level to fix them .....

T1 Terry

 

We don't seem to mind licensing SECOND Amendment rights -eh?

 

Except when it does. As I close in on 70 I have several times run into the situation where I last purchased an item (or type of item) 15 or 20 years before, and have not paid any attention to it since. It can be quite disconcerting when shopping for the item now to find the price adjusted by all the intervening inflation.

Much like when you have two friends from college, one of whom you still see frequently, and one of whom you only see again after 40 years. They will both have accumulated the same amount of aging (more or less) but the amount of change for the second one will seem extreme, as the old face is being compared to a much younger version, whereas for the first friend the comparison is to an only slightly younger face.

 

Turned 71 today, it's not even the price of things these days as the total lack of them or anything that has filled the gap in the space that's left. Some things are returning on places like Temu or Aliexpress, but others are gone for ever it seems.
I guess 3D metal printing will eventually make parts as required, once you can get the drawing sorted in the correct format, at 71, I'm thinking those days might be well and truly in the past.

There was an electronics store over here in Australia that made kits in progressive stages to help with learning about components and eventually designing your own circuits and making proto type circuit boards .... all gone due to wealth management funds buying them and stripping then in a way that boarders on criminal, illegal in Australia but once it's an overseas based fund .... just too expensive to nail someone responsible to the wall to face what they had done ....

Most struggling businesses will end up going the same way, even successful ones it seems, those with too much money simply asset stripping small businesses to turn them into cash, then using the whole thing as a tax write off .... just wrong

T1 Terry

 

It looks like fuel prices are going up again. Just 20 cents away from $5 a gallon.

The problem isn't buying fuel. I stopped driving and am now just riding my bike to work and the store. The problem is the cost of groceries. Since when was a pound of ground beef $10? No wonder the dollar menu went away at McDonald's. A quarter-pounder has over $2 of meat in it.

 

Free speech is a double-edged sword - Unfortunately, once that BS catches fire, it's difficult to contain. That' why FOX had to pay Dominion $700+ million to settle the lawsuit, where they knowingly broadcasted falsehoods.... Unfortunately the damage has already been done and the company was sold and rebranded to Liberty Vote in 2025.

 

I admire your optimism.

 

In High School a Quarter Pounder with Cheese was $0.65, a gallon of gas was $0.35, and all you drink coffee at Sambo's was $0.10.
What did you pay 2 years ago? I guess that's Trump's fault too.

 

I think there's only one Sambo's left somewhere in the calif-Santa Barbara area.

 

Yep...the rest of them became Denny's and such. Think someone got their feelings hurt a long time ago.

Someone in here will probably say that was Trump's fault too.

 

Up? Not around here. Might you be getting hit by a local "Speedway"-cycle effect?

You in or near Colorado? Gasbuddy is showing a Colorado average of $3.89, AAA is showing $3.979. AAA also showing national average down 2.5 cents from yesterday, down 13 cents from a week ago.