prices

Death Valley, California, is known as “the hottest place on earth.” But, if you hear the news that the “Hottest Place on Earth Has Record-Breaking Hot June”—when “temperatures exceeded average June temperatures by about 6 °F”—it might be easy to ascribe the heat to alarmist claims of climate change. While Southern California was experiencing power outages due to a heat wave, Death Valley hit 126 °F—though the previous June high was 129 °F on June 30, 2013, and Death Valley holds the highest officially recorded temperature on the planet: 134 °F on July 10, 1913.

All of us loved paying less than $2 a gallon at the pump. AAA reports: “Americans paid cheapest quarterly gas prices in 12 years”—which resulted in savings of nearly $10 billion compared to the same period last year. However, oil (and, therefore gasoline) has been creeping upward since the February low—topping $45 a barrel, a high for the year. And that could be a good thing.

Plummeting oil prices, which are largely the result of the U.S. hydraulic fracturing revolution that has nearly doubled oil production in the United States since 2008, have left many oil-exporting nations around the world reeling. The price drops have been particularly hard on nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Myriad OPEC governments are now stuck relying on dwindling oil revenues to fund large portions of their important social welfare programs, many of which are essential to maintaining national stability.

In this episode of The Heartland Daily Podcast, managing editor and research fellow Jesse Hathaway talks with Salisbury University associate professor of economics Dustin Chambers about a new paper published by the Mercatus Center, examining how federal regulations affect the prices of consumer goods, and consumers themselves.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, host Donald Kendal introduces Heartland’s new Managing Editor of Health Care News (HCN) Michael Hamilton. Hamilton talks a bit about his background as well as several topics that will be featured in the upcoming issue of HCN.

Many energy-producing states are currently struggling in the wake of falling oil and natural gas prices. Thousands of people are losing their livelihoods in the energy sector, and lower severance tax payments are projected to produce numerous state budget shortfalls, which could end up reducing state spending on social programs.

Independent Communications Consultant Jessica Sena and research fellow Isaac Orr give the The Heartland Daily Podcast listeners the information they need to debunk advocates of this policy, which is impossible to accomplish from a practical standpoint, and incredibly expensive. “Keeping it in the Ground” will lead to higher prices for low income families in the developed world, and premature death in developing nations.

Recently, my patients with commercial insurance were paying $15 out of pocket per vial for analogue rapid-acting insulin. A Medicare patient was paying $40 per vial for the same insulin until she entered the “donut hole,” at which point her price went to $102 per vial.

Like it or not, lawmakers’ decisions have a large effect on our everyday lives. From increasing the cost of a car people need to take their children to soccer practice or go to work, to restricting job opportunities using occupational licensing rules (which reduce the supply of providers and raises prices), lawmakers’ actions have a serious and quantifiable effect on how much Americans pay for the things they need and want.

It is important to note that falling oil prices create economic costs as well as benefits. But The Badger Herald article would have benefited from a discussion of the good that comes from lower prices, and it relies on a quote from Bill Davis of the Wisconsin Sierra Club that presents some inaccurate statements about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing.

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and many of us will spend time with our families eating too much food and strategically waiting for couch spots to open up so we can sneak in a quick catnap when our unsuspecting relatives abandon their posts for another slice of pie. It’s a time when we are thankful for the friends, family, and food. We should also be thankful for fracking. Although many people may not know it, fracking has lowered the cost of energy and other goods and services, makes America more energy-independent, and it is done in an environmentally responsible way.

Enjoying low gas prices? How long will they last? In this edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Dr. Bud Weinstein, Associate Director of the Maguire Energy Institute and research fellow Isaac Orr talk about the Keystone Pipeline and the factors that influence the global prices of oil.

The media are, of course, almost uniformly Leftist – which means they just about always toe the Party line. Including the belief that in order to help the poor – government must perpetually grow. Of course we conservatives also want to help the poor – we just think shrinking government is the way to actually do it.