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.