Even higher diesel prices are coming

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Kyle Rizdal** (0:32)
On the program today, not the debt market, not the labor market. Let's see, what else is out there? Oh, yeah, inflation from American Public Media. This is Marketplace.
In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdal. It is Wednesday today, the second day of September Good, as it always is to have you along, everybody.
There's a concept in economics known as the velocity of money, literally how quickly money changes hands out there. It's a useful indicator of how lively, I guess, any given economy is. We today here on this program are going to introduce a related but not officially recognized corollary, the velocity of prices, the vessel of choice, being diesel fuel. Yesterday, $5.63 a gallon. Today, at a nickel, $5.68, the highest national average since President Trump started his war with Iran, just $0.13 off the highest recorded price ever. And if we all needed yet another lesson that timing is everything, tariffs and wars aside, diesel prices usually do have a seasonal upswing in the fall. Marketplace's Caitlin Tan gets us going.

**Caitlin Tan** (2:02)
I took the Family Dodge diesel pickup to the gas station in Pinedale, Wyoming this morning. I'm seeing diesel prices here today, $5.75. Yikes. Okay, let's see what it costs.
Okay, grand total, $191.11. Almost $200. And even if you drive a gas vehicle, Gas Buddy Analyst Patrick Dehaun says diesel was still involved.

**Patrick Dehaan** (2:34)
And the cars we're driving don't get to the car dealerships without a semi-truck using diesel.

**Caitlin Tan** (2:39)
Same for your apples and carrots and bread. A diesel tractor tills up the crops, a truck brings them to a processing center.

**Patrick Dehaan** (2:47)
Then a distribution center and then the grocery store.

**Caitlin Tan** (2:50)
In University of Tennessee's Thomas Goldsby says companies often pass down those high diesel prices to consumers.

**Thomas Goldsby** (2:58)
Ultimately, they're looking to make sure that they cover their costs and can maybe make a dime here and there.

**Caitlin Tan** (3:04)
And diesel prices likely haven't topped out. Fall brings surging demand for harvesting crops. Plus, cooler weather means heating homes. And as Alan Schafer with the non-profit Engine Technology Forum points out, Home heating oil comes out of the same distillate fuel pool that diesel does. Combine those seasonal demands with current global politics? Well, you guessed it. Even higher diesel prices.
I'm Caitlin Tan for Marketplace.

**Kyle Rizdal** (3:34)
How about that fill up? Wall Street today, a little bounce back in equities. And hey, look, I made it three minutes into the program without saying the word bonds. We'll have the details when we do the numbers.
You know how, when you've only met somebody a couple of three times over like a year and a half, you kind of forget some of the details? Wait, you grew a beard. Did you always have a beard?

**Jimmy Orlandini** (4:16)
Always had a beard.

**Kyle Rizdal** (4:17)
You always had a beard? All right, well, it's been a while since I've seen you. How are you?

**Jimmy Orlandini** (4:20)
Good, how are you?

**Kyle Rizdal** (4:21)
Good, maybe it's a little bushier. Is that the deal?

**Ava White** (4:24)
It could be a little bit bushier.

**Thomas Goldsby** (4:25)
A little bit bushier, all right.

**Kyle Rizdal** (4:26)
That's Jimmy Orlandini. He's the owner of Altadena Hardware. We've been talking to him since his business burned down in the Eaton fire back in January of 2025 Today, we're about a 15-minute drive from where his old store used to be.
We're in a hardware store.

**Jimmy Orlandini** (4:43)
Yes, we are. Come on, man. We are in Arnold's Hardware Store.

**Kyle Rizdal** (4:46)
How did this come to pass? It's been a long haul.

**Jimmy Orlandini** (4:49)
It has been a long haul.
Back in the end of the year last year, one of our mutual salesmen's, mine and Arnold's, the guy that owned Arnold's at the time, he said, you know, I know you're having a hard time finding somewhere, but you might want to talk to Basil that owns Arnold's Frontier Hardware. I think he wants to retire.

**Kyle Rizdal** (5:14)
Music to your ears, right?