Monthly Archives: May 2026

Gasoline prices are NOT high. Diesel is much higher largely due to idiotic efforts to make diesel fuel super clean with things like DEF, catalytic converters that diesel will destroy and turbos that wreck engines. But historically oil prices are NOT high when adjusted for inflation.

It is no surprise with geopolitical tension festering since the early 1960s when the Arabs and Persians realized they were being screwed. Khadafi laid a pistol on the table and slid a contract towards Armand Hammer and told him to sign it or else. It was in Arabic. He signed knowing not to sign meant thrown out of the country and perhaps shot. Until then the oil company cartel led by Esso (Exxon), Amoco, and BP held the line of prices they paid. Once Hammer (Occidental) broke then all the OPEC countries suddenly were handed the whip hand.

And even so, remember in 2008 oil prices hit more than $100/bbl. Inflation adjusted $100 bbl. today would be $180 a barrel and WTI is now $101. We are a long way below the 2008 inflation adjusted price. We are more comparable to the price of oil in 1981 when Reagan came to power and Sen. Ted Kennedy was howling about oil going to $200 a barrel. It never has gotten close in those nigh 50 years.

Add to that the gas mileage of a 1972 auto was about 15 mpg if you bought an economy car. Today many SUVs and cars get double that mileage. Even pickups often get 20 mpg with more horsepower than any 1970s pickup could get. Oil is still cheap on a historical basis.

The myth of the “One Hundred Year Flood” continues as FEMA maps both the 100 and the 500 year flood without any reference whatsoever to actual flood records.  Today people are building houses in areas that are outside the “100-year flood zone” only to get inundated with water in their houses a few years later.

Yes, development in the watershed can cause that. But reality is that history, some of which is not recorded; in fact, MOST of history does not record these events.  And it would be rather meaningless if it did.  Climates change and we know that almost all areas see climatic changes over the span of thousands of years. The Ice Ages are well documented, and ice began to retreat some 15,000 years ago after peaking 50,000 years ago. At times the plains of Oklahoma were a dry tundra land and the Ozarks were devoid of any trees. Ancient landslides are common in the southern Ozarks north of the Arkansas River.

The Mississippi River hugged the Ozarks and used what is now the White River as a channel while the Ohio turned south and was, in effect, the Yazoo of Mississippi.  The “muddy” Miss was, in fact, much muddier take the detritus of the edge of the retreating ice sheets and redistributing it in the delta flatland.

Near the town of Gentry, Arkansas, Flint Creek is a small and unassuming clear water creek that rarely floods but in 1974 a storm lasting some 8 hours dumped 14” of rain on the watershed. The resulting flood caused bridges to be over-topped on Hwy. 12 near Springtown and washed out roads and bridges over a large portion of the western part of the county.  As a personal witness, I was unable to return home and sat out the storm on the west side of that Hwy. 12 bridge. Water reached 2’ or so over the banisters of the bridge and did not recede until nearly dark.  But today’s flood maps do not show that on the 100 year flood.

So how frequently does this happen? Every 100 years?  According to one old timer, who like me, was unable to return home, he recalled that a similar flood occurred in 1927, a year famous for flooding the entire Mississippi River basin.  And historically, 1892 saw a flood so large it flooded downtown Siloam Springs, washing away a small doctor’s private office-home killing him, his wife, and his nurse. In other words, these floods were occurring 3 times in less than one hundred years. So much for maps.

FEMA tries to explain that the 100 year flood is a misnomer, and only means a 1 in 100 chance of a flood in any given year. So a word of warning. If you are near a creek, buy flood insurance you never know what will happen.