Summer gas price bombast flamed out bigly

Alothappened this summer. Let me tell you about something that didn’t — gasoline prices didn’t go up.

That’s important because a lot of pundits were saying the price of gas would soar. Why did they think that? Because the economy is doing better at least for now and because the wise guys in the predicting business thought hordes of people would take to their cars for long trips.

I don’t know how much driving Americans actually did. But it wasn’t enough to cause the high gasoline prices that the “experts” were expecting.

I wasn’t one of those predicting higher gas prices. In fact, I wrote a column on July 10 that carried the headline “Skyrocketing gas prices nothing but fumes.”

In that column, I said, “Gasoline prices have not skyrocketed. And they are not going to skyrocket.” That wasn’t only my prediction but also the view of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), which keeps tabs on the price of fuel.

I also said in that July column that the predictions about skyrocketing energy costs were starting to annoy me because they were being made with such confident ignorance. After all, how much effort would it have taken to call the EIA to find out what the real experts thought about the energy markets?

What particularly bothered me back then were casual statements like the one made by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, who said that “with slow wage growth, rising health care premiums and skyrocketing gas prices across the country, Donald Trump’s reckless policies are hurting millions of hard-working families.”

I realize Perez was just spouting his party’s line. Slow wage growth has been around for a long time, including when the Democrats held the White House under Barack Obama. And health care premiums have been climbing for even longer.

We are now nearing the beginning of the long Labor Day weekend when Americans typically will hop in their cars and go somewhere close. Let’s take a look at what gaso- line prices really did this summer.

When I wrote that July 10 column, gas was selling at an average of $2.84 a gallon. That was down from June’s level of $2.94 a gallon. Now? According to EIA’s latest stats, gas is slightly cheaper than in July at $2.83 a gallon.

The highest level this summer: $2.87 a gallon during the week of July 16. Wow, either the pundits were wrong or there’s a new definition of the word “skyrocket.”

And with summer driving complete, gas prices should now decline. That’s my prediction.

I was getting my car washed the other day and there was a sign: “We accept bitcoin.” Bitcoin! For a $15 car wash! So I asked the cashier. She looked puzzled. “I don’t know how to do that. It’s supposed to be a big thing,” she said.

Has anyone tried to use bitcoin? “No,” she answered.

Back in its heyday, when bitcoin enthusiasts were pumping up the price to around $20,000 a coin, there were some merchants advertising that they’d take bitcoin in exchange for goods.

When I get the time, I’m going to see how many vendors are still tak- ing bitcoin now that it has lost more than two thirds of its value.

Has the rise in corporate earnings justified the rich level of stock prices?

Actually, no. In fact, the stock market’s recent ascent to new record levels has made the market even more overpriced in relationship to how corporate profits are doing.

Corporate profits, of course, are up because the Trump administration pushed through tax cuts that have improved the economy and worsened the federal deficit.

According to Thomson Reuters senior analyst David Aurelio, the 500 stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index now have a priceto-earnings ratio of 17.1. That means that per-share prices are 17.1 percent higher than per-share earnings.

The average price of the 500 stocks has gone up 6.6 percent since July 1, while projected corporate earnings through the fourth quarter of 2018 have risen just 0.5 percent.

Historically, price-to-earnings ratios average around 12.5. So the stock market is still overpriced.

So, I’ll say it again — even if I get grief from the Wall Street crowd: The stock market is very high. And there probably won’t be another tax cut to make earnings look better and improve price-to-earnings ratios. The Conference Board announced the other day that its Consumer Confidence Index rose in August to its highest level since October 2000. Eighteen years ago! And that means the index is at the highest level since the World Trade Center attacks. I don’t put much stock in surveys like this. Still, the improved attitude in the US — if it holds for a few more months — could mean trouble for the Democrats in the November election. The Dems need to take control of the House if they want to fulfill their lifelong dream of making Donald Trump look like an idiot. The best the Dems can hope for right now is for the surveys to be wrong — just like when they were predicting that Hillary Clinton would be the next president.