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

Costco was $3.70 yesterday.

That's quite good. Around me, alcohol free gasoline means a trip to a marina, and the price is much rougher.

My account numbers are off putting. Higher numbers are better than lower numbers if they reflect an increase in values (part of the reason gasoline numbers aren't shocking most people), but if your portfolio doubles and you home value doubles and the price of your car doubles, it isn't real progress. Of course, it could be worse -- your portfolio could decrease in nominal dollars while prices also rise.

I have a gift to distribute and am supposed to have it all distributed in the next several years. I sell stock to make good on the gifts, but the prices keep increasing so that I have more now than I did four years ago.

 

....the stock market is doing astonishingly well...

 

Yes, and I'm going to be that guy who has to add a "but".

My manufacturing clients are also doing great business, but they have a rough time finding people under 40 who are employable. It's been six years since the covid panic interest rates near zero and houses in my area are still selling before they can be listed. Tradesmen of all sorts are in short supply.

Is all of that just from increased demand?

 

and some data centers have contracted off book rates of 1-3 cents per kwhr

puts your off peak to shame.

also lends credence to the fact that cities can likely provide contracted free street side and streetlight L1 charging (outlets) in downtown regions using the 1-3 cent production cost electricity during specific hours. If they charge for a monthly parking pass or meters anyway they are already getting their road taxes.

anywhere there are street lights you already have infrastructure, our lights are 277vac and 15+ amp rated, with some converted to led you have 24 hour surplus power

 

Rhetorical Question, obviously.
Nobody spends $300,000 and 6 years of time to get a degree in home electrical wiring....or plumbing - and jobs in the trades are "AI" proof.
Why else do you think that there are so many people battling against data centers - and why they are being funded so lavishly by entities that want to stop the US from "getting there first?"

Price in my home town $3.079-3.099
I researched my HOME Town (in Indiana) this time.
My last fill-up was 3.319 because I passed up a grungier place at 0400 that's trying to put a new series of Indian gas stations out of business with gas at 3.299.

Dot, not feather Indians.
There's rez land hereabouts somewhere but I do not pretend to know what they sell it for.