Real Oil Price: Old Normal vs. New Normal

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4eEoMkmgClgHg1VdlfcWSgv-p98AdbfBoH5ht60Qvqur8mUfi9OSvuEvUE4HdXPD_JBt1BNjKfWDAzAmGXYp-lGitybFL5eVN12c5NpKgCeu3N53p_CvKM6LEGFL3x_Zkm_zSuvLG-Lo/s1600/Real+Oil+Price+v.2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4eEoMkmgClgHg1VdlfcWSgv-p98AdbfBoH5ht60Qvqur8mUfi9OSvuEvUE4HdXPD_JBt1BNjKfWDAzAmGXYp-lGitybFL5eVN12c5NpKgCeu3N53p_CvKM6LEGFL3x_Zkm_zSuvLG-Lo/s320/Real+Oil+Price+v.2.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click to enlarge.</span><br /><br />The Fed wants 2% inflation per year. If <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=rrw">real household median income</a> and <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=rrA">real household debt per capita</a> can't get us there, then oil will have to do.<br /><br />Here's the good news. If real household median income starts to fall again, then the Fed may help raise the price of oil to compensate again. In fact, the lower real median income goes, the more help they may offer! <a href="http://www.despair.com/government.html">Genius!</a><br /><br />Put another way, the less you make at work the more it may cost you to get to work! You know, just to balance it out and what not. This is such a great idea. Should give you all the motivation in the world to get paid more.<br /><br />What label should we use to describe what's going on?<br /><br />1. Deflation.<br />2. Inflation.<br />3. Stagflation.<br />4. All of the above.<br /><br />You make the call. As for me, I'm calling it hyperdefstaginflation! We'll need two words to describe what we're feeling as well.<br /><br />For the optimists: hyperdefstaginf<a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/elation">elation</a>ed!<br />For the pessimists: hyperdefstag<a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/infestation">infestation</a>ed!<br /><br />As a side note, one can probably deduce the typical feeling based on how little it costs to fill one's gas tank as a percentage of net worth. The closer you are to the top 1%, the more you'll feel hyperdefstaginfelationed! Well, not always. There may be a little bit of whining involved.<br /><br /><b>January 28, 2014</b><br /><a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2022773745_perkinsapologyxml.html">VC legend Tom Perkins apologizes for comparing attack on rich to holocaust</a><br /><br /><div style="color: #666666;"><i>Perkins told Bloomberg Television that he made the analogy between wealthy Americans and Jews because the rich are a minority, like the Jews who made up just 1 percent of the German population before the Holocaust.</i></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIABgzOaPZ7CUY5P0Qo3vyD_rKlPBJ3zM8I7T_5XbGYoSVY2nBY9DBAlHa4OsXnp6sbRFGqJuoWUsWR7Pka9uENnv4GFwSdoEVHGxlEmbGpfISYz2emT0zrxI0MrlyvorS8VEnW-HAuA/s1600/Wealth+Inequality.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcIABgzOaPZ7CUY5P0Qo3vyD_rKlPBJ3zM8I7T_5XbGYoSVY2nBY9DBAlHa4OsXnp6sbRFGqJuoWUsWR7Pka9uENnv4GFwSdoEVHGxlEmbGpfISYz2emT0zrxI0MrlyvorS8VEnW-HAuA/s320/Wealth+Inequality.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:If-us-land-mass-were-distributed-like-us-wealth.png">File:If-us-land-mass-were-distributed-like-us-wealth.png (Stephen Ewen)</a></span><br /><br />The 1% minority are being persecuted by that little red dot. Oh the humanity! Although none have lost their lives so far, there's been a great deal of emotional damage. When your net worth is over a billion dollars and you experience even 2% emotional damage, that's tens of millions of dollars! For a 200 pound billionaire, that's easily $6,250 per ounce in tainted <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/self-worth">self-worth</a>! Don't the poor realize this?<br /><br /><b>Source Data:</b><br /><a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=rrs">St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart</a>

Real Oil Price: Old Normal vs. New Normal

Click to enlarge.The Fed wants 2% inflation per year. If real household median income and real household debt per capita can't get us there, then oil will have to do.Here's the good news. If real household median income starts to fall again, then the…

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