Unprepared News Brief: Falling Gas Prices Won't Last
Unprepared News Brief: Falling Gas Prices Won't Last
Plus: why Starbucks says America has become unsafe, dealing with the healthcare collapse, China's plans for Taiwan, and where all the workers have gone.
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We told you weeks ago that the current trend of falling gas prices won’t last, and it looks like we were right. The Washington Post reports that oil analysts are predicting a sharp uptick in fuel prices just in time for the midterm elections, with averages rising over $6 per gallon and the cost of a single barrel of oil tripling.
Of course, it wasn’t hard to see this coming, because the fundamentals of the oil market haven’t changed: Putin is still at war with Ukraine, nations around the world are sanctioning Russia, the US still isn’t producing much, OPEC is at capacity, etc.
And claims that gas stations are gouging customers are absurd. Gas stations make little to nothing from gasoline. The margins are all in things like snacks, drinks, cigarettes, those little roses in a glass that are actually just crack pipes, etc. If anything, station owners are incentivized to advertise lower prices to draw in more customers to buy the higher-margin items.
American Has Become Unsafe: That’s the word of progressive Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Starbucks is closing 16 stores nationwide due to safety concerns, and Schultz said there would be “many more.” In the video, Schultz said the stores “are not unprofitable,” they’re just no longer safe for the staff, and that since there is a Starbucks in nearly every community, it’s a “window into America.”
In related news, Knotts Berry Farm had to close early Saturday night because several fights broke out inside the park. Knotts Berry Farm advertises itself as the “friendliest place in the west.” And a a good guy with a gun stopped a mass shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana.
Healthcare Collapsing: Edwin Leap, an emergency physician in South Carolina, is warning that the healthcare system is collapsing due to the stress of COVID. Workers are quitting in droves and the few remaining or overworked and fed up. Dr. Leap recommends doing whatever you can to avoid hospitals and emergency rooms: keep up with your meds, get in shape, don’t do stupid stuff, quit smoking, etc.
A key tip from Dr. Leap is to purchase life flight insurance, which is cheap and could save you up to $90,000 if you have to be airlifted to a hospital. My wife bought this for us years ago and I thought it was frivolous, but she outfoxed me as she often does.
The Taiwan Question: As the war in Ukraine rages on, a hot-button question in geopolitics has been when or if China invades Taiwan. Dr. Pippa Malmgren’s crystal ball is as cloudy as ours but she offers an excellent analysis of the factors that could influence China’s decision to invade. Normally, the CCP is extremely patient and could wait out the conquest for decades, but tensions between Xi Jinping and the politburo could force his hand to retain power. China’s economy is in tatters and the country is experiencing bank runs and defaults of major firms like Evergrande.
Where the Workers Went: We recently discussed the crisis of despair, but a lingering question has been how all these people are affording to exit the workforce, even long after the stimulus money dried up. The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office may have the answer: parents are homeschooling their kids and moving in with their Boomer parents to take care of them in lieu of expensive nursing homes. The houses are paid for, so the minimal expenses are covered by retirement and Social Security.
I bought us a med evac policy before a lengthy international trip. It was cheaper to buy a year's policy than the three months' coverage we needed, so I did that. A few months later, back in the US, we were camping in a remote area when my husband had a medical emergency. I would never have bought that policy for our in-country camping trip but, because it was still in effect, it saved us about $60,000.