Dust Happens

**Doug Pike** (0:01)
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote? Because you were the TV remote? Remember when music sounded like this?
Remember when social media was truly social?

**Doug Pike** (0:17)
Hey John, how's it going today?

**Doug Pike** (0:20)
Well, this show is all about you.
This is 50 Plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances, good health, and what to do for fun.
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**Doug Pike** (0:52)
All right, here we go. Wednesday edition of the program starts right now. Thank you all for joining us. Welcome yet again to another balmy, clammy day in Southeast Texas. If our weather was an off-Broadway, gosh, already in the first minute. If our weather were an off-Broadway musical, it might be the longest running show ever. Cause it just doesn't change. It never changed. Same cast, same character, same songs, day after day. You walk outside, you feel like somebody's squeezing you. The air is just so humid and so heavy. Like somebody's sitting on your shoulders. Maybe that's a better way to think of it. And I wish I could tell you there's some new weather development on the horizon, maybe something that would cool us down a little even. But the only thing different at present, and it's not really all that different, is a big dose of Saharan dust headed our way. And I'm not upset by that at all, really, because Saharan dust, in case you're new around here, that dust travels all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and makes it really hard for storms to form over open water. And the more dust, the fewer storms. I would much rather deal with a dusty car, maybe a few sneezes, what else? Maybe the dust gets on a window or something like that and sticks and you have to go clean it off. I would much rather deal with any of that stuff than with a tropical storm or a hurricane. Highs today and throughout the next seven days in the low to mid 90s. Lows today, the low today in the high 70s, and that's gonna continue also for an entire week. And one of those rare times when the entire seven day forecast shows zero chance of rain.
Not even a little cloud up next to the sun is to intimate that it might be partly cloudy one of those seven days. It's just sunshine. Followed by sunshine, followed by a little more sunshine, ad nauseum right now. I don't know how far out this is gonna go. So remember to water your yard. We are not under any water restrictions up here, so keep it green if you like. I'll be doing that this afternoon. I need to run it. Looking at Wall Street, all four indicators, as you heard us a little while ago, very much in the green this morning and even more so a little while ago. On average, all four of those green up close to a full point on average around 1030 Gold took a nosedive and shed more than 100 bucks an ounce. It was down to about, around that same time, $4,041.
And that truly is, that's more than $1,000 in what, a few months.
I don't understand the movement of gold prices. I asked Brad Schweiss from Houston Gold Exchange once, I said, are we, are we in some sort of shortage of gold that the price is going up so fast? He goes, no. Are we mining gold every day around the world? Yeah, oh yeah. Is there any shortage in the mines? Is there some worry about that? Nope, not at all. So I really, that's one of the things that confused me most. I don't know why gold would be worth X one day, and then everybody does exactly the same thing they did with it yesterday. They do it again today, and tomorrow, gold's worth a little more or a little less, or a lot more or a lot less.
Looking at, I wish we had a drum roll, Will, because if we had a drum roll, I'd ask you to play it for the price of oil, which only a few weeks ago was tickling $100 a barrel. Think about that. It wasn't that long ago that we were all paying $3.79, $3.89. I think around Houston even, the weekly price got up very close to $4 a gallon. I have not paid that much. Knock on wood, I've never paid $4 or more for a gallon of gas. Not anywhere at any time. I've always been able to find it for less. And I have a hunch after today, or maybe within a couple of days when things move through the system, I'll be paying less than $3 a gallon. It was $3.14 yesterday where I bought gas. And this is at a branded station, too. You're sitting at a grocery store. It's not at a discount store. This is real gas with real additives that help your engine go a long, long ways. And I have a strong feeling that now that oil has dropped to $69.75 a barrel, it's definitely going to go under $3. No way. There's no way it'll be more. That's the first time since we got into this conflict with Iran. I really hope Iran follows the terms of this agreement between them and us. Their history says it won't take long for them to get caught cheating somehow. And I really hope they don't do that because the guy who's in office now, President Trump, is not going to play games. He's made it very clear that, and he said it, I think it was yesterday, if they misbehave, he will do what he has to do to stop that. And I'm kind of glad, actually. Very glad, as a matter of fact. Finally, somebody in office who will really stand up to them and not let them get away with what got them so very close to having nuclear weapons. And I promise you that if they, when and if they ever do pull that off, it'll take a different president, it'll take a different congress, but if they ever pull that off somehow while somebody else is at the wheel, and I can think of four or five people off hand from the left, that I would never want to be president of this country, we would just, we would devolve into a, just a hot, stinking mess. Hopefully we can stay this course with a very strong president who's not scared of anybody else, not worried about anybody else but us, and we'll see. We will see.