Whatever the regulators missed this time, that spike hardly compares to last summer's run. But averaging nearly $70 per barrel in June, the price of US crude oil just matched its average monthly price of the last four years.

No, that's not much of a recovery given the monthly top of $132 per barrel hit this month and last in 2008. And it's peanuts next to the record daily close of $145 hit on Bastille Day, July 14th '08.

This Fourth of July, however, and not least if you're out driving, spare a thought for just how much more expensive crude oil and thus transport, heating, detergents and plastics are today than back before the credit bubble morphed into the financial crisis and then into today's global depression.

Also note how the spike of '08 was only slightly tempered for European drivers and households when the North Sea benchmark, Brent crude, is priced out of Dollars and into the British Pound.

Whereas, if priced in Gold - a simple enough concept amid rumors and counter-rumors of Chinese grumping over the Dollar's volatility and the search for a new world reserve basis - crude oil is now back pretty much where it was throughout the low and falling trend of the late 1980s and 1990s.

Just a thought. Happy holidays if you got any independence to mark.

By Adrian Ash
BullionVault.com

Gold price chart, no delay | Free Report: 5 Myths of the Gold Market
City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and a regular contributor to MoneyWeek magazine, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at www.BullionVault.com , giving you direct access to investment gold, vaulted in Zurich , on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

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