I had to include a little graph and hope from Calgary as I leave the oil rich state of Alberta where there are tons of jobs and the economy is still booming!

                                                            
As well, I will include a couple of quotes from this New York Times article:

Oil has fallen more than $23 a barrel, or 16 percent, since peaking on July 3. Gasoline has slipped below $4 a gallon and is dropping fast as Americans drive less. Natural gas prices, which had risen the fastest this year as traders anticipated a hot summer, have fallen 33 percent since the beginning of the month.

That might cut my costs just enough to get home (grinning wildly).  Also did you note that grain prices had fallen drastically too?!!?

The declines in energy costs come after an equally sharp correction in the prices of many agricultural commodities like corn, wheat and rice, which took place a few weeks ago. These moves suggest to economists that global markets, in a near-panic early this year to find prices high enough to allocate scarce supplies, overshot the mark and bid prices too high.

EAT CROW SPECULATORS, EH?!!?  Laughing - that one is for you Lori!  (She drives a truck all year and heard that there was about $50 of the $130 due to speculation!  I said we'll see - here's some, I bet.)

Further, again from same article:


From China, on June 21, the Chinese raised gasoline AND DIESEL prices!!!!  THAT IS HUGE!!!  While still below world levels, that is the Chinese government is still subsidizing fuel, the markets believe that demand will slack at least somewhat in China.  Notice that Chinese consumers have had a long time to adjust to higher world prices and therefore most likely expected the price increase.

A final note that is great news for me:

Gasoline peaked at a nationwide average of $4.11 a gallon on July 17. Since then, retail gasoline prices have been falling briskly, to a nationwide average of $3.94 on Tuesday, according to AAA, the automobile group. Still, that is $1.05 a gallon higher than at the same time last year, when gasoline sold for $2.89 a gallon.

Natural gas settled at $9.22 a thousand cubic feet on Tuesday, down from a high of about $13.58 at the beginning of the month, as a cooler-than-expected summer helped curb the use of gas to generate electricity. That has led to a build-up of commercial inventories.