Comments on: Petrol Protest http://brickblog.net/2008/03/14/petrol-protest Brick blog, intended about Lego, but wound up everything else Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:33:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Tom (bro) http://brickblog.net/2008/03/14/petrol-protest/comment-page-1#comment-4322 Tom (bro) Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:41:42 +0000 http://brickblog.net/2008/03/14/petrol-protest#comment-4322 An old one which doesn't really hold water. In the northeast, for example, all the gasoline comes from the same generic suppliers (not Exxon-Mobil) which supply all the stores. There isn't any real brand specific fuel, other than Irving, as they truck it in from refineries north of us. The big issue we are facing is a global economic one. The value of the dollar on the world market (relative to the Euro, for example) has dropped dramatically. Currently, the Euro is a much more stable economic indicator than the dollar. If you look at http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD&to=EUR&amt=1&t=5y, you will see 5 years ago, a Dollar was worth about 0.95 Euro. Now it is worth about 0.65 Euro. So, while if we look at the price of oil in Dollars, it has skyrocketed in the past few years, in Euros the increase has been much less. The same holds true (generally speaking) for other major world currencies as well. The British Pound is relatively stable against the dollar, as is the Japanese Yen (both vary about 10 - 15% with respect to the Euro). An old one which doesn’t really hold water. In the northeast, for example, all the gasoline comes from the same generic suppliers (not Exxon-Mobil) which supply all the stores. There isn’t any real brand specific fuel, other than Irving, as they truck it in from refineries north of us.

The big issue we are facing is a global economic one. The value of the dollar on the world market (relative to the Euro, for example) has dropped dramatically. Currently, the Euro is a much more stable economic indicator than the dollar. If you look at http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD&to=EUR&amt=1&t=5y, you will see 5 years ago, a Dollar was worth about 0.95 Euro. Now it is worth about 0.65 Euro. So, while if we look at the price of oil in Dollars, it has skyrocketed in the past few years, in Euros the increase has been much less.

The same holds true (generally speaking) for other major world currencies as well. The British Pound is relatively stable against the dollar, as is the Japanese Yen (both vary about 10 – 15% with respect to the Euro).

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