Except blaming Putin does not work:

The median price of gasoline in the US in January 20, 2021, the day Trump left office, was $2.62.

The median price of gasoline in the US on February 24, 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, was $3.62.

See the chart here, use the three year scale:

https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price

PC

Well there's a bigger problem that cost of fuel right now. There's also a shortage of diesel fuel and a bigger shortage of Def in this nation. Farmers literally can't get their crops harvested near me because they have no Def for their equipment. I've heard we have less than a week supply of Def nationwide and 14 days of diesel fuel for the OTR industry right now. Some areas in the East and Southeast are experiencing spot outages of fuel as we speak. Not looking to good right now.

Who said anything about a normal increase in gasoline? This is about a severe shortage of diesel.

Ah yes, the diesel shortage, which if you actually looked at the chart looks pretty normal.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafH ... ISTUS1&f=W

Hearing the news say "there's only 25 days of diesel left!" sounds scary because they don't tell you there's normally only about 35 days of diesel stockpiled. It's almost like they want to scare you in to believing what they tell you instead of you forming your own opinion.

25 days of all fuel oil distillate types. That includes kerosene home heating oil diesel fuel plus bunker fuel types for ships. The kerosene includes all jet fuels. BTW that is based off a normal winter season but the bigger issue isn't the fuel itself the problem is with the Def. All OTR trucks built after 2012 require it to run. We run out of that and the carnage in the logistical system will make a railroad strike look like a popcorn fart. This stuff is also used by the railroads on their own equipment and by Amtrak on their newest locomotives.

I'd post a chart of the DEF supply but I can't find one, and all the information I found about a DEF shortage were from months ago, many saying "no there's no shortage".

Where's your data to back up your claim?

I was just looking at the returns for Colorado's 3rd Congressional district. CO-3 is a very interesting district to me because it has multiple counties with local economies that are driven by recreation and tourism (La Plata, Gunnison, San Miguel, Ouray, etc) as well as counties whose economies are still dominated by resource extraction (Moffat, Mesa, Delta, Montrose etc.)

The recreation and tourism driven counties voted for the Democrat while the resource extraction counties voted for the Republican. I thought that would be of interest to post here since nearly all for-profit rail preservation occurs in counties whose economies are driven by recreation and tourism, not resource extraction.

Actually…. Yes Chris, that’s a very interesting point to make!

Almost??? That's exactly what some folks want you to believe.
If the news and the internet can teach you anything, it's that scaring people is usually the best way to get them to read or listen to a message. Problem is, folks now make up the wackiest 'facts' to back up their agenda, you're left wondering if anything you read online is actually true at all.
And when anyone proclaims that "_______ is going to happen in ____ days/weeks/years," I don't give it much credence. Why? Because if people really could predict the future, they wouldn't be posting on random forums and instead would be making fortunes on the markets!

My sources are local farmers my uncle who farms 2000 acres and 3 friends who have taken over their families trucking companies from their fathers. One of which is over 250 trucks in size. If they don't have a clue as to what's going on with the Def and fuel supply in this nation then we have a problem.

One factor that may make a significant difference in the diesel fuel situation going forward is that friends in rail, marine, and truck transportation are saying that cargo volume is diminishing rapidly right now, and also that expenditures for advertising are imploding, that it is unusual for this time of the year and may signal a slowdown in diesel demand looking ahead.

PC

“ If the news and the internet can teach you anything, it's that scaring people is usually the best way to get them to read or listen to a message.”

Isn’t that exactly what the OP did when he started this thread? Complete with “I warned you 2 years ago” to make sure that people who vote the way that I do knew who he blamed.

Others have noticed:

https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2022 ... eased.html

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/11-s ... f-a-cliff/

There's an interesting video on youtube showing an enormous lot of repo'd cars; remember just a year ago, the used car market was scorching hot with all those stimmy checks chasing a jalopy upgrade. It was hell of a time be a teenager trying to replace a car that was totaled by an out of state guy with no English and less brakes-fortunately, he did have insurance. Still an '11 Hyundai with 110K miles and hidden suspension issues; $7,000.

Remember, large buyers secure their needs well in advance of the actual time of need through futures market; and if they sense a slowdown in demand, they may unwind those positions; this especially true given the rise in interest rates which represent the holding cost of such an asset. That opens up the spot market.

This probably means lower prices for petroleum products; the politicians will claim credit for it-of course cheap gas will be small comfort if you are one of Meta's 11,000 turkeys about to be slaughtered for Thanksgiving.

You know the episode of The Impractical Jokers where they try to convince people in a store to remember a non-existent TV show about a teacher who's tag line is "surf's up, asshats"?

Well I'm stealing part of it. Serf's up! Enjoy the show.

https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2 ... erial.html

Remember those of us that said you don't just slam the economy into emergency and throw money around-that there would be long lasting effects? Welcome to our nightmare.

Of course I'm writing from Pennsylvania, where we not only elected another cognitively impaired individual; and where we've graduated from allowing the dead to vote, we have finally ELECTED a dead man.

Please keep in mind that the “25 days” is not an absolute number and then there ain’t no more. That’s a daily average of current available supply. Yeah, it’s lower than normal. No, it’s not a reason to hyperventilate. Distillates have been sold a bit faster than replenishment. Supply is squeezed mostly due to a reduction in refinery capacity along with some of the reasons mentioned previously, thus supply and demand rules apply here. That will eventually correct itself for the most part. Will we get back to $3 a gallon fuel. No, not likely. We’ll see more volatility but the long term trend is for prices to increase just like they always do. The sky isn’t falling yet but we may bump our heads on it once in a while.

Looking very long range, we can’t depend so heavily on carbon based fuels no matter which side of the political fence you’re on. It would be smart to start looking into potential alternatives for our industry before the situation actually does become dire. That’s the kind of off-the-beaten-path info that I’d keep tabs on.

Looking very long range, we can’t depend so heavily on carbon based fuels no matter which side of the political fence you’re on. It would be smart to start looking into potential alternatives for our industry before the situation actually does become dire. That’s the kind of off-the-beaten-path info that I’d keep tabs on.

What "alternatives" would those be?

So far the big roads are using blends like B5 and B20, which is a reformulation rather than a replacement.

https://biodieselmagazine.com/articles/ ... -emissions