Mike Berry column: Pain at the pump isn’t our only money problem
Some years back, the phone rang in the Star Courier newsroom. Since I was the only one around, I answered it.
It turned out to be one of those many occasions when I had to try to defend something we’d printed that I didn’t write.
Another staffer had written an editorial about gasoline prices, and the caller was the owner of a convenience store in town who wanted to take issue with the editorial.
“Take issue with” is an understatement. The guy wanted to take the editorial apart word for word, and let me know in no uncertain terms how stupid the guy who’d written it was. (I repeatedly emphasized to the guy that the writer in question wasn’t me, but that didn’t slow him down a bit.)
I don’t remember the details of the guy’s objections; the only thing i do remember from the conversation is that the store owner pointed out that gas stations are the only business that puts the price of their product on a big sign out by the street.
It’s true. Head down Kewanee’s Main and Tenney corridor and you’ll see the current per-gallon prices of regular and premium on half a dozen signs.
Fast forward to 2022, and the prices on those signs are now almost unimaginable. $4.74 at midweek when this column was written, and the way things have been going, the price might have jumped again by now.
Prices are up everywhere, not just at the gas station. At the supermarket where a gallon of milk cost 99 cents not that long ago, the price is now $2.99. Eggs (in part due to the avian flu) are up from less than a dollar to $2.59 now. And so on.
But it’s the price of gasoline, prominently displayed on lighted-up signs all over town, that fixes our attention.
Gas prices, I think, are one of the main reasons President Biden’s approval rating is below 40 percent. The government really has very little control over the price of gasoline, but people have to blame someone when things go wrong, and the president is a convenient target.
Inflation, which again shot up by more than 8 percent in April, continues to be with us, probably for the foreseeable future. There are numerous reasons: We’re trying to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, the issues with the supply chain sent prices soaring, the embargo on Russian oil has been a factor.
Add to that the nosedive the stock market has taken, and you see some real economic pain for many people.
I had a talk the other day with a local investment adviser, and I asked him how long these miseries are going to last. He said he didn’t know.
I don’t either. I can only pass along the advice the adviser gave me: Just hang in there. Things will get better.
Someday.
This article originally appeared on Star Courier: Mike Berry column: Pain at the pump isn’t our only money problem
