A Christmas First?

Retail Pump Prices Hit 26-Month High

"The U.S. has never spent Christmas with a $3-a-gallon average price for fuel," Oil Price Information Service said. The national average now is the highest since October, 2008, according to OPIS, and if oil prices linger near $90 a barrel, it could reach $3 before the end of the year, several analysts say.

"We're within spitting distance right now," said Stephen Schork, an energy analyst and publisher of The Schork Report. "Whether we get there by the end of the year or by the end of January, as far as consumer's concerned, we're there already by a psychological standpoint."

For what it is worth, gasoline prices crashed in 2008. What was $4 in July and $3 in October was just $1.61 during that Christmas week.

Apologies to my European readers for mentioning $3 gasoline.

August 18, 2005
What if you had to pay $6.02 a gallon for gas?

LONDON — Even as American drivers complain about "gas pains," they can count their blessings that they don't live in Europe, where motorists pay more than twice as much at the petrolpumps.

Here's a thought. What if you had to pay $3 a gallon for gas but were making just $1 per hour in a Chinese factory? Then what?

December 5, 2010
China's credit bubble on borrowed time as inflation bites

If there is a hard-landing in 2011, China’s reserves of $2.6 trillion – or over $3 trillion if counted fully – will not help much. Professor Michael Pettis from Beijing University says the money cannot be used internally in the economy.

While this fund does offer China external protection, Mr Pettis notes wryly that the only other times in the last century when one country accumulated reserves equal to 5pc to 6pc of global GDP was US in the 1920s, and Japan in the 1980s. We know how both episodes ended.