Saturday, August 16, 2008
Deflation?
Bloomberg yesterday:
That certainly helps explain something that I read in the Picayune, also yesterday:
Jefferson Parish sure got lucky, if it hadn't asked for bids at a time of falling fuel prices it might have ended up with bids like New Orleans received two years ago:
Of course, oil sold for about $60 a barrel in 2006, so...
So even though the advisory committee recommended the second most expensive proposal*, it's reasonable to ask whether Nagin and company feel more comfortable ripping off the poor residents of Orleans Parish than Broussard and company feel ripping off the middle-class residents of Jefferson Parish.
I'll examine some possible explanations tomorrow.
*Click the link to the draft report, included with this article, you'll find that the most expensive bidder, Richards Disposal, offered Jefferson Parish a much lower price than it receives from New Orleans for semi-automated garbage collection. Sometimes, home-grown businessmen just feel neighborly, I suppose.
Oil has tumbled 23 percent from the record $147.27 a barrel reached on July 11.
...
Crude oil for September delivery fell $1.24, or 1.1 percent, to settle at $113.77 a barrel at 2:53 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil touched $111.34 a barrel, the lowest since May 1, and declined 1.2 percent this week.
That certainly helps explain something that I read in the Picayune, also yesterday:
An advisory committee gave top billing Thursday to a Slidell waste company to begin hauling garbage from Jefferson Parish curbsides next year.
...
Coastal said its manual collection program, the type now used in Jefferson Parish, would cost $14.18 per unit per month. Its semiautomated service, using trucks with mechanical arms to empty garbage bins, would cost $16.59, according to the company's proposal.
...
Though it won the committee's support, Coastal's proposal didn't have the lowest price. A Houma company, SWDI, proposed manual collection for $12.44 per unit per month and semiautomated collection for $13.44.
Jefferson Parish sure got lucky, if it hadn't asked for bids at a time of falling fuel prices it might have ended up with bids like New Orleans received two years ago:
Figured per household, the cost would jump from $9.12 under the current Waste Management deal to $22 under the agreement with Richard's and to $18.15 under the deal with Metro.
Of course, oil sold for about $60 a barrel in 2006, so...
So even though the advisory committee recommended the second most expensive proposal*, it's reasonable to ask whether Nagin and company feel more comfortable ripping off the poor residents of Orleans Parish than Broussard and company feel ripping off the middle-class residents of Jefferson Parish.
I'll examine some possible explanations tomorrow.
*Click the link to the draft report, included with this article, you'll find that the most expensive bidder, Richards Disposal, offered Jefferson Parish a much lower price than it receives from New Orleans for semi-automated garbage collection. Sometimes, home-grown businessmen just feel neighborly, I suppose.
