Reporters With Blind Spots -- November 15, 2015; Cheap Gas Means One Meal Out/Month For Family Of Four -- Big Deal

Another example of a reporter (or reporters) having a blind spot):

Headline in yesterday’s WSJ, November 14, 2015, front page, below the fold: “Cheaper Oil Fails to Yield Holiday Cheer for Retailers.”

The writers note that the protracted slide in oil prices is delivering little of the expected benefit to US retailers. There are two points to make here. First, the price of oil, which we’ve talked about many times before. Second, the blind spot, which we've also talked about before.

12,000 miles per year — at least that’s what everyone tells their insurance company. At 30 mpg that works out to about 400 gallons of gasoline / year. At $3.59 / gallon that works out to $1,436. At $1.89 / gallon that works out to $756. The delta is $680 or $60 / month or $2 / day, exactly the cost of a tall Starbucks coffee. Sixty bucks is one meal for a family of four at Applebee’s. Inexpensive gas is not the issue.

By the way, with gas so inexpensive, people are driving more, so let’s say that 12,000 miles/year becomes 14,000 miles / year. That works out to 467 gallons / year or $882 (at $1.89/gallon). $1,436 - $882 = $550 / year extra, even less than the $680 quoted above.

Bottom line: analysts are putting too much emphasis on the price of gasoline. I can guarantee you that the savings in energy won’t trickle down to how much you pay for a bag of potato chips.

What surprises me is that even the Wall Street Journal misses the bigger story. Let’s say that retailers are not seeing the benefits of cheaper gasoline. Why? One word: ObamaCare.

Almost everyone who puts 12,000 miles on their SUV are also seeing a $500 increase in their ObamaCare monthly premiums.

Another example of East Coast reporters, young, no families, no experience running a business and completely missing the impact ObamaCare has on middle America. A blindspot.

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OPEC: A Sham

We are now seeing that OPEC was a sham ever since it was created; it is run by Saudi and Saudi alone.

When "OPEC" controlled things, the various members produced well beyond their quotas and Saudi simply looked the other way; they were making so much money, anyway.

Now that we have a real glut and every last OPEC country wants quotas / production cut way back, there's only one country -- Saudi Arabia -- saying they won't cut production.

It was always obvious to anyone paying attention, but it's now obvious to even those who don't pay attention, there is no OPEC. Simply Saudi Arabia.

Venezuela. Tick, tick, tick.