Gas prices and mileage down, shopping up

It's time to make good on two promises.  First, I concluded The corner station jumps over the limbo bar as it is lowered with "I'll refrain from posting Professor Farnsworth until the corner station drops to $2.85."  I just posted another in the comments to Guide to entries that contain answers to 'The End of Suburbia'.*

Nebris: The low gas prices must be driving Jimmy fucking nuts. =D

Me: No. He's pointing to it as a likely cause of the bursting of the fracking bubble, which will result in more chaos in the financial markets. He likes that. Speaking of low gas prices, that's up next.

The "Jimmy" Nebris referred to is James Howard Kunstler, who Nebs knows.  I'll get to Kunstler's comments later.  Right now, I'll concentrate on the lower gas prices.

First, the corner station matched the rest of the neighborhood outlets over the weekend, so all the nearby stations are selling at $2.85.  Hence, Professor Farnsworth, as promised.

Next, KCRA in Sacramento has noticed the low gas prices, too, and reported on them in Gas prices down shopping up.

With gas prices continuing to drop experts are predicting that holiday shopping will robust in 2014.

$2.60/gallon in California?  Oh, my!  If the experts the KCRA reporters are quoting are right, this will be a good year for those giving off the stink of retail desperation.

As for what consumers are spending that money on, it's not all good news from my perspective, as KCRA also reported With lower gas prices, demand up is up for bigger vehicles.

With gas prices falling, the demand for big cars is up.

Don't let the lack of a preview image (so far) deter you from playing the video; it plays.  As for the content, it's evidence in support of the drop in gas mileage I reported in Michigan universities on buying cars.  I guess that's the flipside of the good economic news lately.

*I'm showing "The End of Suburbia" to my students again this week, so I shared the link for Throwback Thursday on Facebook, attracting Nebs' attention.

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