Inflation/Gas Prices/Rising Prices in General

[Slava]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Well you have to do something with it, you can’t just throw it in the garbage and you don’t want to give it back to people, right? So what do you do with it that fights inflation?

Not driving at anything. Pretty straightforward question.

How about just don’t spend it? Things change, and what seemed like a good idea a few months ago might be a bad idea today.

And the whole “it was in the budget” way of thinking is a different point than what I’m alluding to. The question here isn’t whether we can afford this, it’s about demand. This could’ve planned last year, but when people get the funds today it’s new money to them and they spend it now. Policymakers ought to recognize that this is going to boost inflation, which is what they’re working against here.

I’m not suggesting that there’s an easy answer for them here. But fighting inflation by spending money is a new one, I think.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Slava

How about just don’t spend it? Things change, and what seemed like a good idea a few months ago might be a bad idea today.

And the whole “it was in the budget” way of thinking is a different point than what I’m alluding to. The question here isn’t whether we can afford this, it’s about demand. This could’ve planned last year, but when people get the funds today it’s new money to them and they spend it now. Policymakers ought to recognize that this is going to boost inflation, which is what they’re working against here.

I’m not suggesting that there’s an easy answer for them here. But fighting inflation by spending money is a new one, I think.

To not spend it, you’d have to then justify the positive impact on individuals in terms of inflation of not spending it vs the negative impact on individuals who then miss out on the promised supports. How do you do that? What’s the number difference here in terms of money in the pocket that we can show people and justify “hey, we’re not going to do this thing, but you’re better off because _____”? How much is this actually boosting inflation?

And it’s not like it’s exactly “money in the pocket” for some people. For many, especially BECAUSE of inflation, it’s the difference between being able to afford to go to the dentist or not (for example). And then you get into the question of whether the long term healthcare costs of that are higher or lower than the inflation it causes.

[BlackArcher101]

Getting angry at a government spending money already set aside, on programs to help low income earners and seniors.... Okay I get it, no one likes spending, but come on....

I'm middle class and make enough to get by so don't classify for any of this help except for the dental program, and I'm feeling the pinch these days. I can't imagine what someone who meets the criteria for these programs is feeling. Has to be stupid difficult to survive now. Frankly I saw one thing missing from the announcement that should be increased, it's EI. That program is laughable on what you receive now. It even used to pay rent and have a bit of money left over for hot dogs, now it barely puts a dent into someone's expenses.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Slava

How about just don’t spend it? Things change, and what seemed like a good idea a few months ago might be a bad idea today.

And the whole “it was in the budget” way of thinking is a different point than what I’m alluding to. The question here isn’t whether we can afford this, it’s about demand. This could’ve planned last year, but when people get the funds today it’s new money to them and they spend it now. Policymakers ought to recognize that this is going to boost inflation, which is what they’re working against here.

I’m not suggesting that there’s an easy answer for them here. But fighting inflation by spending money is a new one, I think.

Would you be cool with them just randomly raising taxes mid-year to pull $9B out of the economy and generate more government revenue to account for that? Then the net impact on inflation would be basically zero. Or does that sound like a bad plan because announcing something for a fiscal year and then randomly changing it overnight is a terrible idea? Particularly when the impact of the spending on the inflation rate of a $1.65T economy will be nothing anyway.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

@DoubleF I largely agree with what you're saying.

But, just as a hypothetical example, could geothermal plants produce power that then gets directly fed into producing hydrogen, thus removing the need for electricity transmission lines? (Edit: It's being tried in New Zealand)

Or, say, solar and wind power gets stored via other storage types (such as compressed gas or gravitational storage methods), which then gets fed back into the grid when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.

My original point stands, that while there are complex hurdles and challenges standing between where we are now and where we need to get, we're much farther behind the technological advancement curve than we should be, thanks to the spreading of lies, confusion, and undue complacency.



This wouldn't result in the kind of emissions reductions that are needed to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Fossil fuel dependency needs to end relatively quickly.

Like it or not, we're a global community, and as a species we're all in this together. The "I'm just a Canadian living in Canada" line really doesn't hold much water.

That was literally my hypothetical. The issue is that Hydrogen cells are not complete in their R&D. It doesn't exist in the state that they can be mass produced and used by the average consumer yet. Even if they're close, they need to find a way to drop the price on them to make them economical.... but then you have an issue with the cost of hydrogen.

My partial hypothetical argument is that by vilifying O&G rather than have O&G partner with other techs like hydrogen for the production of grey hydrogen, we are behind worldwide. Had the mandate been to spearhead parallel technologies to reduce carbon emissions rather than vilify and destroy existing infrastructure in a replacement of non-renewables with renewables, I think we are further ahead today. I am remarking that I think you claiming that investing earlier would have helped isnt' necessarily true. We just hit this state earlier.

Non-renewables and renewables should have been asked to walk forward together from the get go rather than non-renewables asked to step aside to let an incomplete renewables strategy take over (ie: Hybrids).

IMO, it was this flaw in approach that is contributing a significant amount in terms of inflation and gas prices rising. Some O&G production was shut down and renewables demanded to take over and "figure it out/growing pains" and this is the result. Inflation and rising gas prices.

Had the plan been to parallel, in a case like this, perhaps we could take a step back to temporarily do things to reduce the gas prices rising and inflation, but it was struck off as a potential plan B or C. So here we are marching forward through this muck, towards this better electric future we are being promised.


Now, that being said, I think there's a major opportunity for Western Canada if the powers that be can get their heads out of their asses. BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan combined can become a worldwide energy superpower if it doesn't focus on energy as a primary and instead focuses on it as a secondary. If it focuses on information and research it could go farther with less red tape. This being my opinion and highly optimistic, so consider it an unrealistic dream scenario.

Build nuclear in Northern AB/BC/SK communities away from natural hazards and natural wind patterns that could blow stuff down to large populations. Produce energy for those northern communities for "free" via nuclear. Use nuclear primarily to address these two major global shortages: 1. Isotopes for research and medical technology (ie: X-rays) and 2. Helium for medical and other purposes.

Use the isotopes and helium and other required products to spear head more research and medical improvements in Canada, sell the excess to fund it.

For solar/wind/geothermal/hydro etc. Do lots of small batch projects that we retain the ownership of to research on efficiency improvements and sell the data to companies hoping to figure out the best approach for a more refined product worldwide. The data is primary source of income, the energy is a byproduct that we can benefit from.

But eh, I'm certain this ideal is problematic as well from a variety of other factors. I've just tried to eliminate the aspect where many feel the technology is ready when in reality, it really isn't yet. We can spearhead many other ideas with readily available demand and technologies rather than continue down the path of creating new technology to create demand for IMO. That might help with the inflation and rising prices of things we deemed as necessities.

[Harry Lime]

Does anybody know of a website that tracks the amount of ethanol in various gas stations gas? Over the last year the fuel efficiency on a number of vehicles I have access to have all dropped. Pretty sure it's not the cars.

It would be nice to know where to get gas, and where to avoid.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Does anybody know of a website that tracks the amount of ethanol in various gas stations gas? Over the last year the fuel efficiency on a number of vehicles I have access to have all dropped. Pretty sure it's not the cars.

It would be nice to know where to get gas, and where to avoid.

Here's a list of ethanol free gas stations and type of gas - https://pure-gas.org/

[Raekwon]

Where can I find unbiased information regarding Alberta Oil Sands? I want to learn a little about it but searches are just flooded with sites I wouldn't trust as credible.

Edit: no trouble no trouble

[KTrain]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

Where can I find unbiased information regarding Alberta Tar Sands? I want to learn a little about it but searches are just flooded with sites I wouldn't trust as credible.

AB Oil guys are going to come at you as already being biased when you call them Tar Sands.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by KTrain

AB Oil guys are going to come at you as already being biased when you call them Tar Sands.

Which is ironic considering that to my knowledge the industry coined the term.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by GGG

Better than raising interest rates.

Is it? Without increasing housing supply, there's no way to deal with the housing shortage. You can print as much money as you want, but it'll be just more dollars chasing the same rental housing units.

And at this stage, there's really no choice but to increase interest rates. There's a bunch of measure the government should be taking, in addition to increasing interest rates, though.

[Mathgod]

Very interesting column, well worth a read.

How Trump Caused Inflation
Trump Blocked Regulations Against Price Manipulation; Biden Has Yet to Acknowledge the Problem

Wall Street created the loophole almost a decade ago, to escape U.S. regulation of complex financial trades related to commodities like oil and wheat. Then the Trump administration fortified the loophole.

https://tyt.com/stories/53PsQvIKiZFzQPRRk91p2q

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

My partial hypothetical argument is that by vilifying O&G rather than have O&G partner with other techs like hydrogen for the production of grey hydrogen, we are behind worldwide. Had the mandate been to spearhead parallel technologies to reduce carbon emissions rather than vilify and destroy existing infrastructure in a replacement of non-renewables with renewables, I think we are further ahead today. I am remarking that I think you claiming that investing earlier would have helped isnt' necessarily true. We just hit this state earlier.

Why does it have to be either-or? Why can't it be both-and? In other words, why can't it be true that working cooperatively with O&G would have moved things along faster, but also increased public funding into clean energy R&D would also have moved things along faster?

One thing I'll say though, by secretly funding climate change denial efforts, O&G companies have made themselves rather hard to trust...

As for solutions, I'm more excited by the advancements in geothermal technology than any other (though wind, solar, and nuclear certainly have their role to play as well). Posted about it here: https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...11#post8336811

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Very interesting column, well worth a read.



https://tyt.com/stories/53PsQvIKiZFzQPRRk91p2q

Doubt it.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Doubt it.

Oh you need to go to the homepage and see the podcast / articles for the site

“ Trump Goons Lies Exposed” is the first one

I’m sure we’re getting fact based impartial articles

It’s as bad as some of the right wing articles we see. Sure they can be entertaining but if you think they exist for any reason then to get subscribers you’re out to lunch

[Mathgod]

If you don't want to read the article because of some bull#### ad hominem reason, here are two other sources warning about Footnote 563, more or less a nullification of Dodd-Frank:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3228783

https://www.fastcompany.com/90178556...repeat-of-2008

[GGG]

Originally Posted by blankall

Is it? Without increasing housing supply, there's no way to deal with the housing shortage. You can print as much money as you want, but it'll be just more dollars chasing the same rental housing units.

And at this stage, there's really no choice but to increase interest rates. There's a bunch of measure the government should be taking, in addition to increasing interest rates, though.

Interest rates is slow and stifles companies ability to increase production and invest in optimization as they still need to hit dividend targets and lots of debt covenants are based around LIBOR.

If your goal is to suck dollars out of the economy taxation is the fastest way to it AND instead of increasing debt servicing costs with prime rate increases you pay down debt.

Essentially if you are going to do economic damage at least pay down debt while you do it.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Very interesting column, well worth a read.



https://tyt.com/stories/53PsQvIKiZFzQPRRk91p2q

Credit default swaps are neutral they require bets on each side

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by GGG

Credit default swaps are neutral they require bets on each side

From the column:

... there’s no way to tease out the exact inflationary impact of swaps on any given commodity.

But in any industry, the pros can tell when the supply-and-demand fundamentals are out of whack with the market’s price-setting. That could mean price-gouging…but in that case, how come there’s no oil company hunting for market share by undercutting their price-gouging competitors? Those undercutters don’t exist, because everyone who actually sells real, black, gooey oil is outnumbered ten-to-one by traders who’ve never seen unrefined oil, let alone sold it.

“You can’t do it,” Greenberger says, referring to undercutting. “If somebody came to the market today and said, ‘I’m going to sell my oil at $80, it won’t work because of the futures/swaps price.”

So Wall Street dominates the swaps markets, which drive the futures markets (where Wall Street also bets), which drive the spot prices (ditto). Oil companies reap a benefit, for sure, but they couldn’t buck Wall Street if they wanted to.

But if Wall Street sets the price, why run it up? Because the bigger the bet, the more money they make.

If a Wall Street trader bets that oil will hit $80 a barrel, that bet influences how other traders bet. Someone’s likely to up the ante, even if it's just by a dollar. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I win the bet,” Greenberger says. Left unchecked, it’s a one-way ratchet. “The prices are always going up until they’re finally caught.”

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

From the column:

There are two sides to the bet though. There are equal numbers of people betting on lower oil than higher oil. Essentially saying it’s a one way process implies there is no one taking the low.

In the assumption of the article that these aren’t future sales of real barrels in which companies hedge to avoid downside risk there are equal pushes for the price to be exceeded best the price to tank.

There is no price undercutting by the market because barrels are being bought at the market price. Oil companies are price takers.