Oil is $100 a barrel. Yeah, seriously.

A couple of guys at the exchange last week just decided they wanted to be the first ones to ever trade an oil contract at $100 just so they could get their names in the paper.

Realistically, oil is going to stay up here for a while. And if oil costs $90 or $100, you know that the prices of everything else we buy will cost more. Transportation costs more for everything we buy. All the yummy foods from the grocery are up as well.

But the headline for the foreseeable future is no inflation. $3 gasoline. $4 milk. A McDonald's double cheeseburger moving off the dollar menu? That's lamentable.

Why is there no inflation? Housing. This little bubble deal we've been talking about in this space since spring is causing something no one expected to ever be a worry again ... deflation. Try to sell a house in West Virginia, any house. Then try to go get a new loan or some sort of refinance yourself. Good luck without a note from your Mom, a huge down payment and proof of income.

Housing prices are down, at least if you are trying to sell. If you're a renter or someone with an adjustable rate mortgage, you're in a whole 'nother type of pain, but that's for another week. At least as far as the government's concerned, the 5 or 10 percent decline in the average value of your home is more than going to make up for a more expensive gallon of diesel or case of beer.

See, here's how the government scores inflation. On average, the American home spends about 5 percent of its income on transportation fuel (i.e. gasoline, diesel) and roughly 15 percent on food. That's for both groceries and your drive-through stops at Rax or wherever.

Housing costs? About 30 percent of your budget depending on whether you live in an urban or rural spot. Big picture? If housing is worth 10 percent less by next year, the price of groceries and gas would need to go up about 15 percent just to make up for it. In other words, it balances out. But it surely doesn't feel like it.

Inflation is a fact in a lot of things we buy every day, instead of that house you buy every 10 or 15 years. Business Week makes that point this week in one of its charts. In the past year, the price of oil is up 77 percent, corn 122 percent and gold 30 percent. Things like oil and corn and soybeans we can't avoid using daily. Aluminum is down a little, copper, nickel and zinc near flat, but all those will have their day again soon.

Gold's rise in price is the signal to us that inflation is real. And things can get a lot higher on that end. We saw $880 an ounce this week, but that's far from the inflation-adjusted mark of $1,763 that marked the Super Bowl weekend in 1980.

•••

Coal exports from the east had been rising exponentially for much of this past year. You know the deal: more demand from Europe, prices up $10 a ton on average, people willing to pay more to ship new thermal coal than for the coal itself. Well, that's going to slow down for a few weeks, which might push spot prices in Europe even higher.

Consol (CNX) is repairing a shipping pier near Baltimore that is the loading dock out of the U.S. for 6 million tons of coal a year. That's going to take a half-million tons of coal off the market if the facility is mothballed for two months as reported. Ironic thing is, Barron's had a nice write-up about Consol's extra export capacity last weekend at the Port of Baltimore. Oh, well.

Of course, the shipping problems are nothing compared to the month-long waits some shippers are dealing with in Australia. Mining companies there are getting back in the shipping business. Rio Tinto (RTP) announced plans this week to expand its port facilities in western Oz and buy three more giant ore-carrying boats.

Peak oil. Peak energy. Peak food. Peak boats? Why not?

Rob Cornelius watches energy, metals and markets for The State Journal. He's worked as a reporter for WTAP-TV, Ohio University Public Broadcasting and the Parkersburg News. Reach him at robcwv@gmail.com.