#731 Energy Cents

Recently I heard a news report on the price of gas. Amid all the negative economic news is the fact that if you had diversified your portfolio and invested some of your nest egg in energy stocks you’d be better off now.
Not that a skosh of a slice of a smidgen of energy stocks in a mutual fund will offset the gaping hole in your pocketbook chewed out by the gulping goblin at the pump but, you know, every little bit helps.
Perhaps if the folks at Bear Stearns had been a little more perceptive in that regard. Offset a touch of that sub-prime greed with a little crude behavior.
Every salad dressing needs oil to balance the vinegar.
In any event, the price at the pump is now 73 cents a gallon more than it was at this time a year ago. 73 cents a gallon in just one year. Now, prone to math as I am, I did a little calculating. If I were to drive my relatively gas efficient car a normal amount every week, I would need to put in about 15 gallons.
I drive my car 52 weeks in the year. That means that the extra 73 cents I pay a gallon, if it were to hold from this point forward, (which, you know, me and Bear Stearns have nothing else to expect), means I would spend .73 times 15 times 52, which would be $569.40.
Damn.
That pretty much shoots my $600 economic stimulus tax rebate. But hey, I’ll still have $30.60 left.
I’ll put it in a savings account at my bank to help bail them out on their sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
So I was thinking of Priuses, or Pri-ie, or whatever, and it occurred to me that the one car salesman I heard a while back that scorned them because the cost of replacing their batteries was more than the savings they got on gas, probably missed on his prediction.
Because that was back when gas was in the 2’s. At $3.60 and climbing, we’ll should congratulate Prius owners for showing amazing Prius Prescience.
Whodda thunk it? Wall Street Bankers crashing and burning. And persnickety Prius owners?
They’re the prophets that profit.
America, ya gotta love it.