Oil doubles from $56 to $100+ a barrel over the past month. Who didn’t see this coming when the Iran bombing started?

Photo above – “It the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” (screenshot courtesy of "No Country for Old Men".

Congrats to everyone who bought a Tesla (or Kia, or Hyundai) EV before the rebate program ended. Your fuel savings will now be multiplied, because the price of crude has doubled. (The impact of higher oil prices on electricity is not yet factored in). See link below.

Pump prices are not yet doubled, but rising fast. I’m paying 20% more (40 cents per gallon) compared to a month ago. (I drive a 2025 Honda civic hybrid, with nominal fuel efficiency of 50mpg).

The gasoline hikes are likely to bring down the “as delivered” prices on brand new F150s, corvettes, mustangs, Porsches, and Mercedes, right? And soaring gas may revitalize the moribund sales of battery electric vehicles. I'm not expecting a large number of pickups and sports cars to be traded in though. The values of those are plummeting. Used car lots are overstuffed with all kinds of vehicles – gas and electric.

Who didn’t see this (higher gas prices) coming? To avoid that, Trump would have needed to do what Putin couldn’t – pull off an invasion and surrender in 3 to 5 days. Trump’s generals warned him this was improbable. Dozens of Iranian missiles are still soaring overhead. Now Iran is not just targeting US bases and Israel, but also regional civilian assets like airports, hotels, embassies, oil refineries, and desalinization plants.

I have no idea what fresh water costs in the middle east, but it can’t be cheap. Probably not as much as crude oil, however. Which will make you suffer first? No gasoline, or no water? This has become a terror war on civilian infrastructure against 12 of Iran’s unsympathetic neighbors.

Politicians from both parties are calling for diverting America’s strategic petroleum reserves to corner filling stations. This is probably an election ploy for the 2026 midterms, since it's hard to predict who voters will blame for their commute costs going sky high. And that oil release might work politically, except that in 2023 Biden order the release of almost half the US strategic petroleum reserves, in response to Putin’s invasion. A war which is still taking place. The 2023 reserve release also failed to deliver the White House for democrats in 2024.

America doesn’t have many good options here. And whatever we choose, it shouldn’t be informed by filling station prices. Or maybe it should? If we had asked the public 2 weeks ago “do you want higher gas prices AND a bombing campaign in Iran?” what do you think the answer would have been?

I’m just sayin’ . . .


Dollar surges as Middle East war sends oil above $110 a barrel

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/dollar-surges-as-middle-east-war-sends-oil-above-110-a-barrel/ar-AA1XMSJ0?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=69aea9d5cdbb4204969cd68d258bb9da&ei=100