If you haven’t realized it yet, the AP is totally untrustworthy.
Oil has topped $108 a barrel, the highest price since 2008. Regular unleaded gasoline now goes for an average $3.69 a gallon, according to AAA’s daily fuel gauge survey, up 86 cents from a year ago.
The higher costs have been driven by unrest in Libya and other oil-producing Middle East countries, along with rising energy demand from a strengthening U.S. economy.
Completely and totally wrong. The price of oil is at a record high because the value of the dollar is at a record low. Oil is priced in dollars. When those dollars are devalued and buy less, Oil becomes more expensive. You can thank the Federal Reserve for it.
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” –Milton Friedman
For you liberal reporters out there, “monetary phenomenon” means it’s caused by the central bank’s manipulation of the money supply*.
But you won’t learn that from the AP.
Why the hell would a mainstream media source want to be incisive, of all things? I mean, really.
Excellent point, thankfully we CAN do our own research!
There’s more to it than that….
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/dec2010/bw20101230_850060.htm
Nope, from the article you linked:
“too much liquidity” is econwonk speak for a devalued currency. The Dollar is devalued because of the Fed’s quantitative easing. As the article says capital seeks the highest return and right now, there is no higher return than riding the commodity wave of the start of a new round of inflation. (It’s a false return actually. No more than a hedge at best, but not losing money is better than nothing.)
When the money supply increases beyond the growth of the economy the inflation doesn’t happen all at once everywhere. It starts off in commodities. Gold, Silver, Oil, Grain. Then it shows up in increased transportation costs and higher food prices and trickles through the economy as margins are compressed and businesses are forced to raise prices and/or go out of business. Unfortunately wages are the last place it shows up.
And you’ll notice — something that ALWAYS ticks me off about every other news outlet there — no expert or source is quoted in that second paragraph. Where’d they get that conclusion? Who says? There’s no way my editors would let me get away with conjecture like that.
Ugh. I hate the AP, too.
Actually, one of the Dirty Little Tricks that Helicopter Ben is doing is that he told Congress (under Oath!) that his Q.E.2 plan is not “Printing Money.” The reality is, that the Fed is DIGITIZING Money and spreading it around on the ETF system. So which groups of Cronies is reaping the Rewards of this plan?
All those bankers that gave themselves multi-million dollar bonuses. The FED and the SEC are totally owned by the banks.
Can you say regulatory capture? Sure, I knew you could.
🙂
I still blame Bush. After all, Obama is awesome. *hand wave*
We get the same thing here. “Gold is up! Yay!* (dollar price). Oil is up! Boo! (dollar price). And the rand is strong! (against… the dollar)”.
No, you fools. The dollar is fscking tanking!
*We produce gold. A good gold price is good for the economy. And granted, gold is up quite a bit from two years or so ago. I suspect cunning investors have been converting dollars to gold.