Sould we expect a retreat from these high prices or is this the beginning of a terrific problem that will affect all aspects of our way of life????????

-- J (jax@borg.com), January 24, 2000

Answers

I think this is the 'beginning' of something...we get to guess just what that something is.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 24, 2000.

I sure hope oil prices level off. I know ya'll up north are cold now and it gets pretty hot down here in the summer, especially with 100% humidity, which takes it to a whole other level of hot. I spent one summer in the past ten without air conditioning and it was not fun. I survived though, and I guess I could again. And this time I won't be seven months pregnant! Every summer now we have elderly and infants and children die because of the heat. I vote level off! Level off! Level off!

-- Just Curious (jnmpow@flash.net), January 24, 2000.

J,

As Cherri, LMAO and the other polly trolls have said, this is an optical illusion. You misread the pump or the receipt. Gas is cheap, the market is strong, and life is good.

Ah, but if there is an energy crisis, its due to all that rust in the machinery and has nothing to do with y2k.

TIA

-- Mork (planet@ork.org), January 24, 2000.

you definitely need to read Downstreamers post below that starts out OT (oil topic)

-- bookworm (helping@home.com), January 24, 2000.

Nothing polly about saying Y2K didn't happen... because it *didn't*. BUT, the low price of oil has been a luxury for our economy for far too long, and while it's become fat n happy because of it, it won't last. Short term: prices will retreat from their peaks, but will remain higher than the <$20/barrel prices of not too long ago.

Those in the Northeast are hurting more because so many heat with oil up there... even utilities that use oil for power generation. The rest of us will pay too, as the price increase bleeds down through the transport chain to the middlemen to us. Inflation is around the corner; as it and higher rates hit corporate earnings, the stock market will go down. Welcome to 1974 all over again.

-- Just (anotherbuckeye@columbus.not), January 25, 2000.