(Roughly) Daily

The price of gasoline is, as we experience it, an altogether artificial construct. What we pay is only marginally about the actual cost of the refined crude.  The price is hugely affected by the hand of government(s): on the one hand, there’s the burden of heavy taxation; and on the other, the (usually “invisible”) subsidies afforded in the provision of drilling rights, military protection, etc.  Still, it’s painful to pause at the pump…  and it’s getting more so.

The good folks at GOOD have ridden to the rescue with a little perspective, “Gallon to Gallon“: a comparison of the per gallon cost of a number of things that we routinely consume…

click the image above, or here, for a larger version

[TotH to Flowing Data]

As we are more cautious in our choice of nail color, we might wish a speedy birthday to Danica Patrick, the first woman to win an IndyCar Series race, America’s top level of open-wheel racing; she was born on this date in 1982 in Beloit, Wisconsin.  Patrick, who trained in England and the U.S. was named Indy Car Rookie of the Year in 2005, and won her first race– the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Montegi in Montegi, Japan– in 2008.  She continues to compete, and has found time to appear as a celebrity endorser for for a number of companies, perhaps most famously, the web domain purveyor GoDaddy.

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