Back when oil was crashing from $100 to $40, every day various economists and pundits, oblivious of the bloodbath in energy junk bonds and the imminent capex collapse, would explain how plunging gas prices were "unambiguously good" for consumer spending in the US. Well, the oil crash came and went, and retail sales since November have been unambiguously bad, not to mention US GDP in the first half is now poised for a negative print.
But while one could, at least superficially, make the case that for the US consumer (if nobody else) lower oil prices are indeed better than the opposite, we wonder how the same pundits will spin that according to AAA [2], not only are Los Angeles gas prices now back over $4.00 per gallon, erasing almost all losses from a year ago...
[3]
... but that the mecca of US motorists, the entire state of California, has seen its average gas prices soar from a low of $2.55 in January, a 40% discount to the $4.15 price a year ago to just above $3.80 [4], a single-digit decline from May of 2014, and a difference which at this rate will be completely erased in less than two weeks time.
[5]
At this rate a gallon of gas may soon cost as much as a gallon of water in California.
