The $3.45 average price of gasoline in 2024 was not quite 7% higher than the inflation adjusted price of $3.23/gallon from 1978

 Gasoline prices are moderating slowly in 2025 even as the inflation-adjusted price rises to $3.27.

Gasoline actually averaged $3.27 in the first half of 2025, dead on the money for what it should cost if it were only adjusted for inflation since 1978.

Gasoline retailers like convenience stores don't make their money on gasoline, with profit margins on gasoline in the 2% range. They make it on stuff like milk, the free-market price of which is a great mystery. AI thinks the unregulated price of milk right now would be about $4.00/gallon.

At the corner convenience store near where I live, a gallon of whole milk is a whopping $4.99, but eight miles down the road at my grocery it's only $3.45, so it's a mark-up of 45% for the convenience. 

But my grocery offers a routine discount coupon of 60 cents per gallon of milk, which brings the price down to $2.85, which Sam's can't beat at $3.23. Milk is my grocery's loss leader to get me in the store, like rotisserie chicken is a loss leader for Sam's and Costco, or like gasoline.

Gasoline this morning at Sam's is $3.01/gallon.

My momma told me, you better shop around. 

Meanwhile average fuel economy in 2023 is 27.1 miles on a gallon of gasoline, up from about 17.6 in 1978.

Seems like we should be doing better in that department. 

 

Farmers and Republicans are thick as thieves with illegal aliens and sanctuary cities

It ain't just San Fran Freako, folks.

ICE Raids Dairy Farm Where Illegal Alien Accused of Killing Mollie Tibbetts Worked:

Illegal alien Cristhian Bahena-Rivera, a 24-year-old from Mexico, has been charged with first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ death after police say he admitted to confronting and chasing down the young woman. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities, as Breitbart News noted, and an initial autopsy report revealed that Bahena-Rivera allegedly stabbed Tibbetts to death. ...

That dairy farm where Bahena-Rivera worked, Yarrabee Farms, owns the property and trailer where the illegal alien had been living and which, allegedly, many Mexican nationals frequented, as Breitbart News reported.

Eric Lang, one of the chief executives of Yarrabee Farms, is the brother of Craig Lang, who was the president of the Iowa Farm Bureau. The Farm Bureau has chapters all over the United States, with the goal of increasing the number of low-skilled foreign workers, specifically those on H-2A visas, who are allowed to enter the country every year.

As Breitbart News reported, Eric Lang is also married to Nicole Schlinger, who runs the GOP fundraising firm Campaign Headquarters in Brooklyn, Iowa.