A SERIOUS TONE

A lot people think the gap is a clothing outfit. And it is.

But there are many gaps around. One of the ones most important to consumers is, as the WSJ noted today,  "Gasoline Prices Could Be Even Cheaper," the one between the price of a barrel of crude oil and the price they pay for a gallon of gasoline at the pump.

Crude oil prices have dropped in the last year or so from $100 a barrel to around $50, give or take.
So far this year gasoline prices are down 28 %. A barrel of benchmark Brent crude oil is off 50% over the same period. The prices of the two commodities usually move in tandem.

According to the Journal, citing data from the Energy Information Administration, from "2000 to 2014 gasoline sold for an average 95 cents over the price of a gallon of Brent crude." So what's the big deal. Just this: Over this last year, the "gap climbed to about $1.16," a mere difference of 20 cents on average.

But mere like pulchritude rests with the beholder. "Multiplied by 135 billion gallons of gas sold in the past year in the U.S., that amounts to more than $25 billion." Now we don't want to get into a math buzz here. But even if the population of America is 320 million ( and nobody knows the real figure for sure), a whole bunch of folks don't drive, the terribly young, the terribly old and the terribly poor.

Anyway you slice it, $25 billion is a large number that somehow didn't find its way into the pockets of driving consumers. You can read all the supposed reasons in the article. The point here is auto-laden consumers are not benefiting as much as they ought to be from what the Federal Reserve considers to be cheap energy prices.

Even factoring in places like kooky California with its legions of pathetic politicians, environmental nuts and addiction to automobiles where pump prices are jacked up more than average, the Journal notes, "the difference between wholesale and retail prices and factored in the price of ethanol, a plant-based renewable fuel added to most gasoline," since mid-August this year "drivers have paid between $1 billion and $2.5 billion more than they would have normally."

Meanwhile, your friends in MSM are pushing how gasoline prices are the cheapest in 11 years. That's called slanting the news. A long time ago there was an Illinois senator who said: "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking serious money."  Keeping $25 billion from U.S. auto-addicted  drivers, in our view, has a serious tone to it.