Friday 30 November 2007

Why only worry about the price of petrol?

Everytime the price of oil goes up, the media goes into a tizzy about the price of petrol.

Why aren't they worrying about the price of diesel?

More and more diesel cars are being sold each year. That's partly a product of more European diesel cars coming onto the market thanks to the higher standards of diesel refining that we have now, and partly because of the cost of petrol.

I have no idea what the proportion of diesel cars is as a proportion of the entire market, but it's surely growing year by year.

Anyway, the cost of diesel is much more important to our economy than petrol. The trucks that delivery your groceries to the supermarket run on diesel. The trucks and trains digging and hauling coal and iron ore and gold and zinc all run on diesel. The trucks that deliver the fish wrappers run on diesel. Diesel is the backbone of our economy. That's why I can't understand why the media never bothers to follow the price of it.

I guess that's because your average journalist has less understanding of how the economy runs than I have understanding of the mathematics of orbital decay.

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