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Guest Post: U.S. Gasoline Consumption Plummets By Nearly 75%
Submitted by Jeff Nielsen via BullionBullsCanada blog,
Regular readers are familiar with my narratives on the U.S. Greater Depression, and (in particular) some of the government’s own charts which depict this economic meltdown most vividly. The collapse in the “civilian participation rate” (the number of people working in the economy) and the “velocity of money” (the heartbeat of the economy) indicate an economy which is not merely in decline, but rather is being sucked downward in a terminal (and accelerating) death-spiral.
However, even that previously published data, and the grim analyses which accompanied it could not prepare me for the horror story contained in data passed along by an alert reader. U.S. “gasoline consumption” – as measured by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) itself – has plummeted by nearly 75%, from its all-time peak in July of 1998. A near-75% collapse in U.S. gasoline consumption has occurred in little more than 15 years.
Before getting into an analysis of the repercussions of this data, however, it’s necessary to properly qualify the data. Obviously, even in the most-nightmarish economic Armageddon, a (relatively short-term) 75% collapse in gasoline consumption is simply not possible. Unless we were dealing with a nation whose economy had been suddenly ripped apart by civil war, or some small nation devastated by a massive earthquake or tsunami; it’s simply not possible for any economy to just disintegrate that rapidly, without there being some ultra-powerful exogenous force also at work.
So how can this raw data, produced by the government itself, be explained? To begin with; the government chooses to measure U.S. gasoline consumption in a very odd manner: by measuring the amount of gasoline entering the domestic supply-chain rather than by measuring actual consumption at the other end of the supply-chain – i.e. “at the pump”.
Why does the U.S. government, which (among other things) leads the world in the manufacture of statistics not produce any simple/direct measurement of gasoline consumption? How can the St. Louis Fed produce nearly 100 different charts on gasoline and diesel prices (for any/every price-category which can be imagined by these statistics geeks), but not a single chart on gasoline supply/demand?
There are several reasons for this unbalanced, anomalous, and simply absurd statistical methodology. First of all; the reason why the U.S. government produces a near-infinite number of charts on prices is because prices are what the Gamblers (i.e. bankers) use as the basis for their $100’s of trillions in gambling in the rigged casinos which the bankers call “markets”.
While supply/demand data is of utmost importance in the real world; the banker-gamblers don’t dwell in the real world. As regular readers already know; their derivatives casino, alone, is roughly twenty times as large as the entire global economy. To the bankers; the “real world” is nothing but fodder for their insane gambling.
Why use this data, at all, since it is such an inferior/distorted means of measuring U.S. gasoline consumption? Because the EIA uses exactly the same data to publish its own “estimates” of U.S. gasoline consumption:
Note: Product supplied measures the amount of gasoline that went into the supply chain and is used as a proxy for gasoline consumption. [emphasis mine]
The other half of this ridiculous statistical hodge-podge, where endless quantities of trivial/irrelevant price data are trumpeted, while any/all data which actually measures the (real) economy is suppressed (if not buried entirely) displays a government desperately trying to hide this massive economic collapse.
If you choose to measure the amount of gasoline leaving U.S. refineries and entering domestic inventories and call this “gasoline consumption”; you can hide the actual collapse in gasoline consumption – until those retail inventories are overflowing, and there is simply no more room in the storage tanks.
This is what we see today in the U.S.: a gasoline market which had been deliberately-and-dramatically over-supplied with gasoline at the wholesale end of the supply-chain (the refineries) has now practically ground to a halt. The same nation which previously amazed the world as it accumulated more automobiles and more miles of highways per capita than any nation on Earth (and by a huge margin) now has such an insane glut of gasoline that it’s massive chain of refineries have had to simply turn off the taps – until this pathetically anemic economy manages to burn-off some of that glut.
This conclusion becomes even more visible/obvious when we view the gasoline data just from the start of the mythical “U.S. economic recovery” to the present. At the start of the “U.S. recovery”; U.S. gasoline consumption was at a rate of 52 million gallons per day (already more than 20% below the 1998 all-time peak). In the five years since the start of this pretend-recovery; U.S. gasoline consumption has fallen all the way to 18 million gallons per day.
Since the beginning of “the U.S. economic recovery”; U.S. gasoline consumption has plummeted by nearly 2/3. As the pseudo-recovery began, and supposedly “strengthened”; U.S. refineries were ordered to fill up the inventories of their dealer network, in anticipation of the increased gasoline consumption which would have occurred in any real “recovery”.
But there never was an increase in U.S. gasoline consumption, because there never was a U.S. economic recovery. Rather, the Greater Depression has simply (and relentlessly) continued to pulverize the U.S. economy like a meat-grinder. To hide this devastation (as well as is possible), the government produces a wide array of its pseudo-statistics, that all contain myriad “adjustments” – which make it possible for these liars-with-numbers to distort the statistical picture of the U.S. economy beyond recognition.
Meanwhile, any/all statistics which measure raw data (and thus cannot be perverted with “adjustments”) are either suppressed (like the civilian participation rate), or not even measured, at all – as is the case with U.S. gasoline consumption. At the retail end; none of the “sales” statistics are adjusted for inflation, not even with the absurdly-fraudulent “CPI” numbers.
By not deflating sales data (at all) the collapse in U.S. gasoline consumption “at the pump” is hidden within all this unreported inflation. As explained in previous commentaries; it is this same, unreported inflation which allows the U.S. to convert its large, negative, GDP readings (which would otherwise reveal the Greater Depression) into “economic growth”. It is this same, unreported inflation which allows the government (and employers) to hide the fact that U.S. wages have collapsed by more than 50%.
But what the liars-with-numbers cannot hide (any longer) is the collapse in U.S. gasoline consumption which has accompanied the continued, downward spiral of the Greater Depression. The storage tanks are now all full. The only way to (temporarily) hide the collapse in U.S. gasoline consumption any further would be to construct even more storage facilities. However, there is no possible economic justification for increasing storage capacity in a market of steadily/relentlessly declining demand.
Indeed, the exact opposite is true. The U.S. economy of the 21st century (a mere hollowed-out husk of what it was only 20 years earlier) will require less and less gasoline storage facilities over time, reflecting a supply network for a steadily shrinking market. As the One Bank completes its plundering of the U.S. economy, and completes its transformation of the U.S. Middle Class into the Working Poor, it is also simply using up more and more of its economic lies.
The Great Inflation Lie will continue to allow the U.S. government (and other Western governments) to crank-out absurd/imaginary positive numbers for GDP. It will continue to allow the U.S. government to crank-out absurd/imaginary numbers for retail sales (and hide the ongoing collapse of the entire U.S. retail sector).
But it can’t hide the fact that U.S. refineries have nearly stopped producing gasoline for the most-motorized society/economy the world has ever seen. It can’t hide the fact that there haven’t been so few people working in the U.S. economy (on a percentage basis) in 35 years.
Readers who are stubbornly faithful to the plethora of pseudo-statistics which the U.S. government uses to hide this collapse may have been skeptical of my original denunciation of the “U.S. economic recovery”. They may have been more skeptical with assertions that this Wonderland Matrix of lies is being used to hide a Greater Depression.
However, there is no further room for skepticism when official, government numbers indicate a near-75% collapse in U.S. gasoline consumption over a mere 15 years, and a 65% collapse in consumption since the start of the (supposed) Recovery. Numbers such as this can only be encapsulated with acronyms like “DOA”.
When we look at the EIA’s “gasoline consumption” numbers, and when we see the St. Louis Fed’s chart of the U.S. velocity of money (heartbeat of the U.S. economy); we don’t see an economy which is dying. We see an economy which is already dead.
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Less demand should mean price of oil falls, but oil price is not driven by demand but by QEasy money.
The moronic parasites have killed the host
The Communist bankers are in control.
You want control?
Eliminate the Communist bankers.
Communist banker is what is known as an oxymoron...
Now, if you had said Fascist Bankers....
These bankers are 100 billion percent corporate anti-communist.
What is Fascism - John T Flynn - Von Mises - youtube http://youtu.be/4Ml7-aDXrgQ
You have been poorly educated, Murrikin, to use all the wrong words. This deception was planned before your birth: you can not fight the enemy you can not comprehend & typical Americans can not comprehend what they can't properly name.
A communist banking system would force all accounts of all people to be equal at all times no matter what else. CEO, janitor, all forced to be equal dollars, euros, yen, etc.
You have not considered the supply side of the equations and the cost of production.
One part of the reason that shale oil in the US is being produced is because of the cheap, to no cost, of borrowing money.... (thanks QE). Fracking has been around since the 1970 and these reserves have been know about since the 1930... but they are VERY Expensive to produce, have a fast decline curve and slow extraction rates.. If you look at a well count to productions graph it becomes obvious they are running to stand still. Here is a link to the EIA data, note the production from new wells, than note the decline of the "legacy" wells (pay attention to the scale...lol tricky bastards...)
http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/pdf/dpr-full.pdf
There is some scuttle butt that shale oil is a "slight of hand" ponzi scheme.
edit..
Just to frame some of the cost for you each new well runs about $7 to 8.5 MILLION..... in 2014, here is a chart from EIA that shows historical cost for wells in the US... has not been updated since 2007.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/e_ertwo_xwwn_nus_mdwa.htm
The next component is refining that oil... this shit is not light sweet crude.... it cost more to refine it... Those numbers can be found on the same site with a little search.
I'm with Tyler on this one. The one major contributing factor is the true unemployment number which should include those who are no longer counted. On average, one tank of fuel (approx 18 gallons) is used per week commuting to work for the average person. That is just for work. What about weekend travel/vacation and shopping? No work+no money=no gas. This indicator is the economic canary in the coal mine and a damn good indicator of how bad things are getting.
something of truth here, even with the nit pickers, fuel eff autos sure, urbanization sure, work from home, sure, but mostly it's those never seeking out of the labor force poor souls who are not using gas, our population incr but those working drops..go figure it out on the impact on energy.
Speaking of fuel efficient cars, when they introduced ethanol into the blend, efficiency dropped by about 10% or more, which required that much more fuel to go the same distance. I would travel from Boston to Rochester NY, at the time Boston still had the good gas. It would take exactly one tank to make the trip one way. Coming back, I had to fill up with e-15 and it took 1.25 tanks to go the distance on a relatively flat route.
edit:
After Boston switched to the new blend, it would take 1.25 tanks to go to Rochester.
Wow, the enviro-nazis must be wetting themselves over this news.
If consumption has fallen so much, how come gas is still around $4.00?
Agenda 21 in-play.
Spike food and energy prices.
Force more bankruptcies and private property sales.
Force relocation (voluntary, at first) to high density population zones.
Destroy the family by unemployment and inflation.
Wow, mission being accomplished.
Rendition facilities have vacancies now!
Who wants to be a great American?
From middle class to working poor in a generation.
More like confirmation bias and a misleading writer...
Is it not misleading to trust those in authority?
Why would they lie to you?
You're a very special human being.
So long as the number of dollars that can buy gas are up then the price will be. The volume of gas able to be purchased is NOT growing to match the number of dollars.
The Mystery of David Bird Deepens ,A Wall Street Energy reported who went missing
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2540825/Mystery-credit-card-Wall...
What's gas got to do with it? What the US needs now is jobs, not just for the rich, but for everyone....
What's energy and its consuption have to do with economic growth?
Were you dropped on your head as a child?
The true extent of slowdown in the world economy can be judged by the data points which are not subjected to adjustments by the government. Eg. Fuel consumption, Change in Electricity and Fuel consumption, Ratio of working population to the total population of a country, Miles driven, Baltic Dry Index, Change in commercial Rental Rates etc.
There is no economic recovery because all the efforts of politicians, government, central banks etc are focused on saving banks instead of targeting job creation which is the only way economy can recover.
The weakness in the democratic process ensures the victory of the Wall Street over the Real Economy for the foreseeable future. Things are definitely going to get much much worse before they get better for the real economy i.e. for more than 90% of the population.
www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article40231.html
Why is gas at 4$ a gallon???? Ummmm....ya know what..just forget it...
On second thought you are right it is because Obonma is a Marxist , Muslim and he doesn't really like Muricans , yes that is why gas is so expensive ......holy shit wake the fark up
I think some of the ZH posters will be cocked to discover that this information has been given well in advance. Some of us are historian’s when predicting the actions of Central Planners.
Meh. in 2000 I owned a car that got MAYBE 20 MPG and had a commute of maybe 20+ miles. For my own reasons (time commuting/cost) I now own a car that gets about 50 MPG and my commute is about 2-3 miles, plus I now telecommute often. Both are true of my wife as well. Add that to whatever improvements have been made to industrial applications, plus the ever-expanding bullshitting of numbers plus the ever-changing way in which a lot of these numbers are gathered and/or calculated, and I am not surprised at all at a 75% figure.
Calling HUGE bullshit on this article. 75 percent? Not even close. From the EIA:
In 2013, about 134.51 billion gallons (or 3.20 billion barrels) of gasoline were consumed in the United States, a daily average of about 368.51 million gallons (or 8.77 million barrels). This was about 6% less than the record high of about 142.35 billion gallons (or 3.39 billion barrels) consumed in 2007.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=23&t=10
There was obviously a big change in how gas is distributed to stations, but overall gas consumption is down only slightly from 2007. The best way to tell is US Government gas tax receipts. The per gallon rate is unchanged since 1993, so that tax revenue is exactly proportional to consumption. Many states have prohibited refiners from operating gas stations and require franchise owners to be independent. Nothing to see here, move along.
Strange how some tribal groups... lagging far behind the evolutionary curve... name their offspring "Sir"... or "Doctor"... or "Chief"... or "Chakka Maca Caca HooDoo"... to try to garner immediate respect from other groups... but these primatives always end up the laughingstocks of the groups... who still just refer to them as "Lancelot Link".
wow, thas jus all kinds uh tha rayciss.
I just found a new place that is a minute from work. My gym is only 2 minutes from work. Soon, my entire commute, from Home -> Gym -> Home will be around 10 minutes and my gasoline consumption should drop to almost nothing.
And you live in a 200 sq ft box near the train tracks?
Do you have a toilet in your box?
Wow Fr Jack doing exercise Feck........if you get really fit then you can walk to the gym, were your car is, then drive work from the Gym. Any shopping and such drive home unpack then drive to the gym and walk home.
Humoric Answer
Maybe the drop in Cosumptiom is due to all those GM cars being fixed due to the Recalls
Worring Answer
People have been paid off their jobs due to Obamacare and the ones that are still working only have to go 3 days not 5 day.
GAS SALES FLAGGING?
even if smoke and mirrors MUST HAVE WAR IMMEDIATELY!
http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-close-to-authorizing-military-training-of-syrian-rebels-1401198550
What does it take to make the average Amerikan idiot understand that this nation - of the people, by the people and for the people - is over? I've been observing this decline since 1978. Unplug and wake up! Read Huxley, Wolin, etc. And read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, also "A People's History of the U. S. Supreme Court" by Peter Irons.
This is nice and all, but completly ignores the radical increase in MPG for cars since 1998. In order for this chart to mean anything, we need to know the change in miles driven since 1998.
What fumes are you huffing? There's 30 year old carburetor engines that got 50 miles per gallong and today that's considered "impossible". The industry makes it impossible & for a good reason. Control.
saying your 6$ gal is not possible ?
rendez vous 2017....
with make believe 20x reality..... facts are no longer relevant
print moar supply-lines!