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Nov, 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov, 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

Oct. 31, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Our Immutable Noble Essence

Caroline B. Glick: Running against Bush

Oct. 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: The End of the Special Relationship?

Steve Lipman: 'Kid Kosher' Gets A Title Shot

Oct. 29, 2008

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: GET US THE TAPE THE L.A. TIMES REFUSES TO RELEASE, AND WE'LL GIVE YOU CASH!

Dr. Ari Korenblit: Making The Write Choice for President

Oct. 28, 2008

Mona Charen: Denial runs through American Jewry

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Sell-off to capitalism or sell-out to Islam?

Oct. 27, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Are tax deductions for charitable donations moral?

Jonathan Mark: The Mystery Of The Arab-American Vote

Oct. 24, 2008

'Why aren't all religious people vegetarians?': Response by Miriam Kosman

Caroline B. Glick: Testing Obama's mettle

Oct. 23, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama Would Fail Security Clearance

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A fast chicken dish with an Asian accent

Oct. 20, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Still One Torah

Jonathan Tobin: Government 'Gifts' Are Not Free

Oct. 17, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sukkos and the Great Meltdown

Caroline B. Glick: The disappearance of law

Oct. 16, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Copying DVDs: RIP OR RIPOFF?

Cal Thomas: Blaming the Jews (again)

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 9, 2005 / 28 Adar I, 5765

Gasoline prices 2005: An inflation-adjusted bargain

By John Stossel


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | They've been saying it on TV, morning and night: "The price of gasoline has risen again to a record high!" said one newscast, "The high prices are making it harder for some to keep their heads above water," said another. "Record high prices!" we keep hearing. "They don't even put the price on the sign anymore," joked Jay Leno on the "Tonight Show." "It just says, 'If you have to ask, you can't afford it.'"

Drivers aren't laughing. They think what they see at the pump confirms what they've heard on TV. One told me the prices are "scary." A woman said gas was "going up and up and up, and it's the most expensive it's ever been." And she was on a bike.

Well, it's time to wake up from the gas-price nightmare. All these media people are saying the gas prices are high for one simple, simple-minded reason: They are looking at big numbers — but they are not accounting for inflation. So the numbers look bigger than the costs actually are. That's what inflation does. The reporting is irresponsible and silly. Not adjusting for inflation would mean "Shrek 2" is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.

If you don't account for inflation, lots of prices keep going up. Comparing a price in the dollars of the 1930s — when "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" referred to a much more meaningful amount of money than a dime is today — to a price in 2004 dollars is like comparing a price in dollars to a price in yen.

It's not as if the reporters would have to work at doing calculations to figure this out. Not only are there instant inflation calculators on the Web, but the federal Department of Energy accounts for inflation in its annual report of gas prices. It says gas is actually cheaper now than it was throughout most of the 20th century. Yes, it's 65 cents more than it was six years ago, but it's nearly a dollar cheaper than it was for much of the 1920s and '30s — and more than a dollar cheaper than in 1980.

By failing to account for inflation, the media have some Americans so alarmed that we can't think straight. "What costs more," I asked customers at a gas station: "gasoline or bottled water?" The answer I got from almost everyone was gasoline.

At that very gas station, water was for sale at $1.29 for a 24 oz. bottle. That's $6.88 per gallon, three times what the gas station was charging for gasoline.

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It gets sillier. I asked gas station customers, "What costs more, gasoline or ice cream?" Most people said gasoline cost more. But a gallon of gas doesn't even cost as much as a pint of Haagen Dazs, let alone a gallon of it. At $3.39 a pint, "premium" ice cream costs about $27 a gallon.

We should marvel at how cheap gasoline is — what a bargain we're getting from oil companies. After all, it's easy to bottle water, but think about what it takes to produce gasoline and deliver it. Oil has to be sucked out of the ground, sometimes from deep beneath an ocean, a desert, or ice. To get to the oil, the drills often have to bend and dig sideways through as much as five miles of earth. What they find then has to be delivered through long pipelines or shipped in monstrously expensive ships, then converted into three or more different formulas of gasoline and transported in trucks that cost more than $100,000 each. Then your local gas station must spend a fortune on safety devices to satisfy government regulators and make sure you don't blow yourself up. At nearly $2 a gallon (an average of 44 cents of which goes to taxes), gas isn't expensive — it's miraculously cheap!

But all we hear from clueless people in the media is, "Record high gas prices! And they're going up and up." Give Me a Break.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

STOSSEL'S LATEST
Give Me a Break  

Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market. Sales help fund JWR.




JWR contributor John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." To comment, please click here.




03/02/05: Washington's labor laws now hurt children more than they protect them
02/23/05: Outsourcers are the bigger job creators?
02/16/05: Selfishness is bad, right?
02/09/05: Fifth Avenue farmers
02/02/05: Buy a bridge? This $200 Million one isn't for sale — it's being paid for by taxpayers and it leads almost nowhere
01/28/05: Aren't science and scholarship supposed to ask questions and open our eyes to facts?
01/26/05: Forced altruism

© 2005, by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.