Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Yeah, OK. I'm on it.

For the first time since late last year, prices at the pump are now higher on a year-over-year basis. It's a trend that industry experts expect to continue in the coming weeks and months, especially if Russian oil facilities continue to get hit by drone attacks.

This is an unwanted development for consumers heading into the spring. It's also a problem for White House and Federal Reserve officials hoping to declare victory over inflation.

The recent jump in gas prices is already causing headaches on the inflation front. Gas was the main culprit behind last week's hotter-than-expected consumer price index and a disappointing wholesale inflation report.


All of this is casting doubt on when the Fed will be able to start cutting interest rates. Hopes for a March rate cut have faded, and investors are now betting on June or July.

"Gas prices are going to keep going up," said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates. "This is going to cost the consumer more money. And that of course is not good for the administration."

The national average price for regular gas climbed to $3.47 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That's up from $3.45 a year ago and the highest price since Halloween.


The last time gas prices were up on a year-over-year basis was late December 2023, according to AAA.

The highest recorded price for unleaded gas was in June of 2022, when a gallon averaged $5.02, according to AAA.

The national average has jumped by seven cents in the past week and 19 cents over the past month. Gas prices are up by 40 cents since mid-January.

we can make more

some armaments don't require semiconductors

This isn't 1945. We can't do two fronts right now. Russia ain't gonna help out this time either. They are out to take us down.

Hell, we cannot even manage a pullout from a third-world country to get out of a war that should have never happened in the first place.

Our military is not competent. Nobody wants to join it anymore. Our allies are not strong.

If Russia goes all out on NATO and China goes all out on Taiwan and the Philippines, we are f*cked.

This isn't 1945. We can't do two fronts right now. Russia ain't gonna help out this time either. They are out to take us down.

Hell, we cannot even manage a pullout from a third-world country to get out of a war that should have never happened in the first place.

Our military is not competent. Nobody wants to join it anymore. Our allies are not strong.

If Russia goes all out on NATO and China goes all out on Taiwan and the Philippines, we are f*cked.

Get a hold of yourself, man.  Ukraine has stalemated Russia's "Second Army of the World" for 2 years using NATO's 3-generations-old technology strung together with clothes pins and bailing wire.  By itself Poland could take what little is left of the Russian army, and you better believe they're itching to do so.

And China won't make a move on Taiwan because they can't.  They can't get their forces across the ocean to occupy it, they'd be sitting ducks.  

Yep. But you know as well as I do that it was never anyone's intent. Truth is that they were the best. If you're a fabless semi company and you need a fab, who do you go with? To update the old saw, "Nobody ever got fired for buying TSMC."

I think the world started to wise up to the risk a while back, which is why Samsung got into the foundry business and Intel is trying. The world is trying to diversify...

...which incidentally could spur China to act sooner rather than later because of how much it would damage the West economically. It'll screw themselves too, but they might believe that post-reset their domestic capability can more effectively compete.

I might have agreed with this a couple or three years ago, but China's got about 4 different domestic economic crises crashing in on it at the same time.  If they take out TSMC, they're effectively finished as a world technology manufacturer.  Everyone will rebuild outside of any footprint that could fall under Chinese influence, and China's only options for export will be the other pariah states of the world like Russia, Iran, and North Korea.