Yesterday I filled my Tacoma up for $22 and some change. The gas price at the Beaumont Kroger with my 3-cent discount was at a welcome $1.949 per gallon for unleaded. I say welcome. I mean more welcome than $4 a gallon for no lead a few months back.
Oil prices are just about at the point where oil company execs months ago said they should be, at around $60 or so a barrel. Should the prices continue to fall or even stabilize one might expect to see prices decline on other retail items which depend on petro for its delivery. And that would be, in the words of my favorite felon Martha Stewart: “A good thing.” Right? Well, a resounding “maybe.”
The expected deflation of prices from cheaper gasoline taken into context with the rest of the economy is something that makes me a bit nervous. Apparently I am no lone stranger. A CNN/Research Corp. poll in October found 60 percent of Americans believe a depression will be the eventual outcome of this current fiscal downturn.
That giant retailers such as Circuit City are dropping like flies and unemployment continues inching upward gives one additional cause for anxiety over the state of the economy and what will happen. That is even though the linked article above says depression will not likely happen.
A week ago I attended an annual reunion of retired and former firefighters I worked with in the late 1970s and early 80s while attending college. I remarked to one of my former colleagues that I didn’t really follow much of what was happening with the economy then. I had every reason not to care. I drew a salary that in today’s dollars is the equivalent of what I make today on my part-time job (which actually pays me more than I made working my last full-time job). In addition to the full-time job as a fireman, I was receiving a monthly check under the old GI Bill. That provided an extra $300-something a month. Back then a semester hour cost something ridiculous like $4 an hour. When I enrolled for the semester, I was normally able to pay my tuition and buy my books and then the rest of the monthly checks were gravy.
In short, I was doing good back in my college days and didn’t notice the recession that was taking place. But I pay attention to it today because it affects me in several different ways including my work which requires me to pay attention to such matters. Sometimes it seems like the sky is falling and it concerns me that if it falls far enough perhaps we might bottom out into a depression. But we may not.
I just hope that the good news at the gas pump is really what it appears — good news.