Price of gas low, price of groceries high - topsy-turvy interference

Monday, December 29, 2025 gas per gallon (ZIP 49505)

It seems like gas is about the same price at the end of 2025 as it was in 2010 or before that. Meanwhile, after 11 months of #TrumpConvictedFelon acting unpresidential in the White House, the normal government controls, accountability, analysis and recordkeeping is being obliterated so he can freely proclaim whatever it is that is on his mind via social media and pretend it is lawful by dint of the fingerstrokes on his phone screen: targeting critics with lawsuits, kidnapping immigrants and refugees, rescinding funding made by other agencies and departments, unilaterally imposing tariffs that consumers have to pay, proclaiming the economy is doing very well by looking at stock market numbers instead of consumer grocery, housing, and health bills.

This photo shows a gas station in the evening of late December 2025. Adjusted for constant dollars since the 1970s, the price for burning gasoline should be at least $3 or $4. But the prices are set by world markets, since supplies are available to refineries from diverse sources, not just the oil wells of North America. As a friend to fossil fuel producers of oil, natural gas (including fracking), and coal mining -- and being a short number of years from expiring himself, with no thought for consequences to those who follow and who will face budget deficits created by favoring rich tax payers today and giving no thought for air and water quality of those who live with warming climate and extreme weather destruction -- #TrumpConvictedFelon goes on to encourage maximum production, excess supply, and therefore lower and lower gas prices: short term "wow" for long term desolation.

Increasingly, the rich and powerful inside and outside of USA seem to disregard the wisdom and also the financial sense of stewardship; the idea that current powerholders are only placeholders in a much longer storyline. Instead, the vanity of the superrich seems consumed with self-absorption and disregard for everyone else: "I have gotten mine; let the Devil take the hindmost." And yet, all creatures are on the same ocean liner surrounded by the same icebergs. Merely curtaining off the "First Class Rooms" from the rest might stroke some egos or distract from what is happening in front of the ship, but the curtains will sink just as fast as the rest of the ship. 

The shape of things to come, together with software and day-to-day robots

self-driving inventory robot at grocery store, 12/2025

Not yet a common sight, there is every reason to believe that shoppers will get used to seeing more and more self-paced inventory robots for multi-sited stores having extensive inventory, large floorspace, and little risk of malfunction or human harm. This one is operating during daytime hours in a Midwestern grocery chain in Grand Rapids, Michigan early in December 2025. Perhaps it was piloted after hours to prove its reliability and to work out the obstacles or situations defeating its programming.

Although it is the stature of an adult who is smaller than average height, its lack of facial features or any aggressive, outward pointed appendages makes it big enough for shoppers to steer around and safe-looking enough to avoid anxiety.

As with all electronic innovations, there is a question of use-life; how long its parts and software will be supported by the maker or the distributor. Production and sales cycles seem to run shorter and shorter. Older models are antiquated as shiny new ones are showcased for trade-in, trade-up, or lease (even without 'planned obsolescence' business models). This raises the question about electronic waste - both in production and at end of life (repurpose, reuse, or recycle before landfilling what remains). Similar issues of environmental impact of making, using & maintaining, and disposal come with each technology: medieval shipbuilding, early internal combustion automobiles (now the battery-powered eV fleets), portable Internet communication devices like smartphones, or with spacecraft.

Seeing this photo sparks thoughts of "new normal" experiences of the youngest generation who grow up in this robot+(wireless/hackable) software cultural landscape. Recent and elderly adults, and those in-between, will form impressions and learn strategies for interacting with "facsimile 'sentient' devices" like chatbots online, restaurant table servers, floor cleaners, driver-assist programs in case of heavy traffic or extreme weather information & onboard sensors that sometimes 'know better' than drivers, and in-store robotic clerks. But the youngest generation will see these things as standard, normal, possibly desirable and inevitable, rather than to know that things need not always depend on software and robots.

The Luddites resisted changes in production volume and precedents. So did the French textile workers throwing the wooden clogs (sabot) for sabotage of the pricey and dangerous machines they fed. Maybe people of 2025 will resist robots and apps infiltrating their home and work life, too. But if history is any guide, things did not go well for property offenders of the 1800s. Innovations and "new normal" can be a race to the bottom (per unit cost reduced, radius of markets widened or else market share wrested from competitors) unless thinking people decide not to proceed. There is a long trail of technologies finding no market or those threatening to undermine profitable status quo. But to assume that grocery store robots necessarily will flourish is not necessarily a good bet. Times do change, but in unexpected ways, sometimes. Just like times of upset triggered by warfare: outcomes are not certain.