How Oil Price Volatility Affects Everything You Buy
How Oil Price Volatility Affects Everything You Buy. The news of the volatile oil prices takes over the financial news but its actual effect goes way beyond gas station signs. Any product in the shelf of a supermarket, be it fresh produce or a smart phone, has concealed petroleum prices that go up and down with the crude markets. The concept of these costs being transmitted through the economy is what helps us to comprehend why some events or decisions of the OPEC which are located far away in the geopolitical space may cause our grocery bills and shipping prices to skyrocket, and our manufacturing prices to be suddenly raised. Oil is the invisible architecture of the modern world and its fluctuations up and down cause the economic waves, which almost all transactions in the world are subjected to. The Direct Channel: Transportation Costs. Transportation is the most apparent association between oil and consumer prices. The trucks that carry 70 percent of freight in the U.S., marine bun...