Gas prices

In May, just six months ago, I blogged about gas crossing the $4 mark. Last week, I paid $2.41 and it looks like prices are down a few pennies since then.

That means gas prices have dropped 40% in 6 months. I sure crude oil is down, but that's an amazing price drop. Has any good dropped 20% or even 10% in the last six months (stocks aren't really goods)? My gut is everything is MORE expensive now. Seems like a fake scarcity to me.

Here at Last

Finally the last day before the election. Likely tomorrow, we'll know who the next President of the United States will be. In fact, it's likely the major networks will call it officially at 8 PM Pacific when polls close in California, Washington, and Oregon giving Senator Obama 73 additional electoral votes and pushing him over the top. However, since not much West of the Mississippi is up for grabs, we'll really know three hours earlier if they can call the "close" states shortly after the polls close. Actually, at 4:30 Pacific time, Ohio and North Carolina close their polls and Florida and Virginia will have been closed for a while, and it might be over.

My prediction is Obama 53-45 nationally and winning 379-159* in the electoral college. He takes all of the Kerry states plus NM, VA, CO, OH, FL, NV, MO, NC, IN, the second district in NE, and MT or ND. I'm pretty convinced that the national polls underrepresent cell phone users and African Americans and both groups will come out strongly in support of Obama.

Best place to follow the election is HDnet or CNN on TV or fivethirtyeight.com online.

* Originally I wrote 382-162 but that's inconsistent with my breakdown as that would mean Obama would win MT and ND.