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The price of oil - Christmas comes early!


Fragile Bird

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I'm stockpiling gas right now. I've been filling up garbage bags with it and my basement is now stocked with gas. All I could hear over the din of complaints about DOT regs and safety concerns while I filled them up was the little cash register sound in my head going "Ka ching Ka ching ka ching".

Larry, your middle names wouldn't be Curly and Moe, would they? :P

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I'm stockpiling gas right now. I've been filling up garbage bags with it and my basement is now stocked with gas. All I could hear over the din of complaints about DOT regs and safety concerns while I filled them up was the little cash register sound in my head going "Ka ching Ka ching ka ching".

You are a significant hazard to your neighborhood and it is quite possible you will make the news.

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Around SE Michigan it's about $2.49/gal. In northern Ohio I've seen it for about $2.29.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, which I'm not, I'd say that the real target is Russia and Putin. Apparently, this is really hitting them hard - so hard that the shine is dulling on Putin's halo for the Russian people. or so I've heard.

I'm sure the fact that it's kicking Russia in the balls is part of the reason some groups are going along with this.

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I remember when I was in Texas in the summer of 1997, gas prices were around $.75, that's the cheapest I ever saw. I'm sure it was less than that even in New York back in the late '80s, but I wasn't paying much attention to prices back then.



Last I looked, prices here in my part of Virginia were in the $2.29-$2.39 range. I don't see much change to my wallet though because I so rarely drive. I'm all about that public transit, and I generally only use my car once or twice a week for errands and whatnot, so I can go months without needing to refill my tank. I do sometimes end up going on longer drives, went 400 miles roundtrip just the other weekend actually, but now that winter's settling in it'll probably be a few months before that happens again.


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I'm sure the fact that it's kicking Russia in the balls is part of the reason some groups are going along with this.

The anchor on CNN could barely keep the smile off his face during a segment about the impact of low oil prices in Russia. Many people are going to suffer because of this, especially coming during the winter, and it will hit the poor and the old the hardest. I understand that the point of these tactics is to put pressure on the people in order to put pressure on the leader, but the least we can do is not be gleeful about it.

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The anchor on CNN could barely keep the smile off his face during a segment about the impact of low oil prices in Russia. Many people are going to suffer because of this, especially coming during the winter, and it will hit the poor and the old the hardest. I understand that the point of these tactics is to put pressure on the people in order to put pressure on the leader, but the least we can do is not be gleeful about it.

In the respect that it hurts the country's economy to get at Putin, it's exactly the same as the sanctions already in place.

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In the respect that it hurts the country's economy to get at Putin, it's exactly the same as the sanctions already in place.

Er, yes? I'm not sure I see your point. Like I said, I understand the purpose of the tactic; I just think the delight with which some people are responding to it is inappropriate. It may be necessary, but let's at least not take pleasure in their hardship.

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The anchor on CNN could barely keep the smile off his face during a segment about the impact of low oil prices in Russia. Many people are going to suffer because of this, especially coming during the winter, and it will hit the poor and the old the hardest.

Can you expound on this?

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The Russian economy is heavily dependent on the price of oil; as the price of oil falls, the economy will stagnate or even contract and the ruble will fall (it's hit 16 year record lows for the past two days); as the economy slows, the people at the bottom will feel it first and feel it hardest, as they do in economic crises everywhere.



That's the point of sanctions, it's exactly what they're intended to do and it may be necessary, but I think it's important to remember and respect that it comes at a human cost.


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True, but the human benefit from low global energy prices far outweighs any localized disruption



It will be interesting to what happens if/when Putin institutes capital controls.



The rich and powerful Russians will transfer their wealth to dollars of course, but what will other Russians do? Bitcoin perhaps?


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