Steve Hoffacker's Sales Quips

For the first time in seven weeks, oil closed at under $100 a barrel today at $99.80. The wholesale price of gasoline continued to drop as well - by 22 cents - while pump prices rose again (makes sense).

In the House today, by a bipartisan vote of 266-149, HR 1230 was approved. This is the bill "Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act" that will create jobs and supply domestic oil. SApeaker Boehner was committed to passing this "American Energy Initiative" and he is to be commended for his leadership in getting it done.

It faces an uncertain uture in the Senate. I placed a couple of phone calls today and was told that no one is sure when the Senate will take this up or what the outcome of a vote might be.

This is for America. We talk energy independence, and we talk about job creation. This bills supplies both.

The bill requires the Secretary of the Interior to immediately release the permits for the Gulf and Virginia that have been held up by the President.

Do not let the Senate drop the ball on this one!

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Not a day goes by - hardly an hour - where someone who supposedly knows what they are talking about proclaims that nothing can be done about high gasoline and oil prices. Ben Bernanke and Tim Geitner lead the list - along with the President and a host of economists and columnists.

It is all a lie.

Of course there is something we can do. In fact there is everything we can do.

Issue permits for oil drilling, and the price of oil in the Mid-East will drop immediately. Start producing oil from those wells, and we won't even need oil from the Mid-East - talk about energy independence!

Oil by itself is the first step but it need refining into gasoline, fuel oil and byproducts. Issue permits for refineries and fast track their construction. And for all the NIMBYs, I personally volunteer my yard.

Then's there's fracking and off-shore drilling. We are set to lose more drilling rigs from the Gulf to nations like Brazil (to the cheers of George Soros).

Other nations have no qualms about drilling in waters close to our country, but we can't do it.

If there actually are laws against offshore drilling, let's rescind them. The President and the EPA, among others, are holding the keys, but the Constitution does not give them this power.

We can do a lot, America.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Gasoline is up nearly a dollar over a year ago - 91 cents a gallon. Crude oil hit over $113 a barrel. At the same time, US oil reserves increased for the 10th week in the past 11 - to 357.7 million barrels. Gasoline inventories fell for the 6th week in the past 7 - to 216.7 million barrels - but still is considered to be at the high end of the average range for this time of year. Then factor in that demand for gasoline is off 1.2% over a year ago to 8.9 million barrels a day.

If we had refineries to convert the oil into gasoline, we wouldn't be seeing these outrageous prices. With the oil supply up and demand for gas down that certainly explains rapidly increasing prices, too.

Electric cars might be the future, but for now we need refineries and domestic oil production.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Saudi Arabia understands free market economics. Too bad the United States doesn't (as a government).

Saudi Arabia knows that world demand for oil is high. They know that US demand is high. They know that Libya's 2% of the total output is now offline. They know that Libya was the principal source for low sulfur oil. They know that they can jack the price up to as high as they like - even $200 a barrel. They also know that the world market will not sustain sales at this high price for very long. They have determined that they would rather have long-term dependable customers than make a killing at the pump, so to speak.

Therefore they have vowed to increase production to offset the drop in supply by Libya. OPEC limits the output from Saudi Arabia to 8,050,000 barrels a day, but for some time now they have already been producing an additional 400,000 barrels a day to help keep oil prices under $100 a barrel - in the $70-90 range.

They have spent a lot of money gearing up for this evetuality and can more than make up for Libya being offline. They can even use refineries that had been processing the Libyan oil - for increased capacity.

Compare that response to ours. No oil or gas exploration. No permits for new wells. A capricious moratorium in the Gulf. Prohibition against offshore drilling. No permits for nuclear plants. Regulations on coal extraction. Hardly the way to become energy self-sufficient or to respond to changing market conditions.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Remember when gas prices remained stable - at least for a week or two? We have to go all the way back to last month for that. See, wasn't so long ago that prices even fell a penny or two a gallon? They went up a couple of cents and then right away came back down. For several days, they didn't change at all.

Now it's an everyday thing - and sometimes more than once a day. This morning I filled up with gas and then went into the store for a few minutes. When I came back out, the price was a nickle higher. The station down the street was already 15 cents higher than what I bought, so I'm sure a nickle increase was just the beginning for the day.

My son mentioned that he got gas at a station near us, and when he told me what he paid, it was 8 cents higher than it had been just an hour earlier when I drove past.

I'm thinking that gas is going to hit $6 a gallon before anyone in government flinches. By then, the economic recovery will be history until after the 2012 election. It may be already.

I heard today that gas goes up 25 cents for every $10 increase in the price of oil - not overnight, although we are seeing that more and more. It used to be about a 6-week lag.

This means that when oil hits $200 or $220, that gas will be more than $2 a gallon higher than it is now.

So when do we hit $4? By Monday (the end of the month) or by St. Patrick's Day?

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

If it's a case of supply and demand - which we all know it isn't - gasoline prices should be dropping. For the third straight week, our inventories of oil in this country increased, according to the US Energy Information Administration. We added almost 2 million barrels (1.9) even in the midst of uncertainty in Egypt. This is even before today's developments in Egypt.

Gasoline inventories rose by nearly 5 million barrels (4.7) and are above average for this time of year.

At the same time, demand decreased slightly - 0.3 percent from the same period a year ago.

All the while, the national average price at the pump for gasoline rose for the 9th time in 10 weeks to $3.132 per gallon - roughly a half-dollar (48 cents) higher than the same week a year ago.

Based on normal market conditions, prices should be falling not increasing. This would be great for inflation if it were true. Meanwhile, grocery prices continue to rise in big jumps.

This would be a great time to start drilling.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.