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Art Cashin On Gasoline Prices And The Economy
We have read, and written, all of this before (and speaking of, since 2012 is still a carbon copy of 2011, we could so easily just repost articles from February 2011, change the year, and nobody would notice - we could even save on robo-posting costs) but there is always something just so enjoyable in hearing the Chairman of the Fermentation Committee point out the glaringly obvious to the vacuum tubes in charge of a market which is now a 6-8 week lagging indicator to reality.
From UBS Financial Services
Gasoline Prices And The Economy - With oil soaring, and on the verge of breaking out, lots of folks are wondering about the impact higher gas prices may have on the economy. Bloomberg’s savvy economist, Rich Yamarone, opined on the topic this morning. Here’s a bit of what he noted:
Every U.S. recession since 1971 has been preceded by an increase in the price of oil, currently up more than 7 percent year-to-date. With the economy barely advancing – growth in output is moderating by most measures – the economy may not be able to withstand the blow of a spike in oil and an ensuing increase in prices at the pump. While oil at $106 per barrel and gasoline prices averaging $3.59 a gallon are not yet at crippling levels, they seem headed in that direction.
He summed his article up this way:
It is estimated that a $.10 increase in the price of gasoline results in a decline of about $11.74 billion in personal income. [An average of 12,000 miles driven per year divided by an average fuel economy of 25 mpg, equals 461.54 gallon used per year per automobile. With an estimated 254.4 million registered vehicles, that comes to roughly 117.415 billion gallons used per year.]
Elevated prices at the pump are surfacing on the corporate radar screens. Lawrence E. Hyatt, SVP & CFO of Cracker Barrel said that given the company’s susceptibility to potential increases in gasoline prices, “it is appropriate to be suitably cautious about our third and fourth quarter traffic outlook.”
Wal-Mart also raised the likelihood of a consumer response to higher gasoline prices. On the company’s quarterly earnings conference call, executives observed a “challenging economy” and said rising gas prices will continue “to drive customers to seek value.” In the past, significant increases in gas prices over short periods of time have led to trip consolidation and higher tickets, executives said.
While prices to date haven’t yet climbed to levels that would alter consumer activity, any combination of in increase in gasoline prices or a late winter cold spell could prove problematic for the broader economy.
Looks like gas prices are really important to the economy. Ed Yardeni thinks that the President may open up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ease pressure on prices. May be delaying, lest there’s an Iranian “surprise”.
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There's that little factoid also reported here a while ago that each $ WTI goes over 90 a certain chunk is cut out of US GDP. I'll find it in sec here....
http://www.reelz.com/trailer-clips/43584/the-formula-trailer/
Arthur Clements: [proposing that Titan Oil can raise their gasoline prices] The people will accept the 12 cents now because we can blame it on the Arabs!
Adam Steiffel, Chairman Titan Oil: Ah, Arthur, you're missing the point: We *are* the Arabs.
...
Barney Caine: [Barney Caine to Adam Stieffel, Chairman, Titan Oil] What do you know about this nation? Don't you ever give a second thought to American citizens? You're the reason their money's worthless. You're the reason old people are eating out of garbage cans, and kids get killed in bullshit wars. You're not in the oil business; you're in the oil SHORTAGE business! You're an ivory-tower hoodlum-a common street killer. I wish to Christ there was some way I could nail ya'.
Oops, did I just trip over that electrical plug? Guess we'll have to shut down this refinery for a month or two...
Cue the clueless Obummer frantically scrambling around and releasing a token amount of oil from the SPR just so he can say he's doing something in an election year
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/02/price-shock-watch-cost-of-g...
Price Shock: Watch Cost of Gas Jump 10 Cents During ABC’s ‘World News’ BroadcastThat's bs--the stations where I live all installed electronic signs. They routinely jump the prices anywhere between 10 and 20 cents all the freaking time, sometimes even more than that. They might as welll install a ticker up there so you can watch oil and gasoline futures trading in real time.
Time to go long Fred Flinstone cars. Yabba Dabba Do!!
My corner 7-11 went from 3.49 yesterday on my way home from work to 3.54 on my way to work this morning.
You got off easy. Ours jumps 17-23 cents and then dribbles back 1-3 cents at a time. Fixed markets- Greater cincinnati area has several co's owning multiple different brands to give the appearence of competition where there is none.
My local Chevron (have to drive by each morning) went from $4.27 to $4.46 overnight for 91 octane - which, unfortunately, is what my vehicle demands. It's 8 years old, been cheap on maintenance, and performs well in every other regard, so I'm not about to turn it in for other fuel - - - yet.
With a few more eletrical cars on the road and better efficinies in gas, 50 mpg is within reach. And if 117 billion gallons are consumed at 25 mpg, then at 50 mpg and $3.50 per gallon, it would free up over $200 billion annually.
You just need to replace "254 million registered vehicles". No big.
1970's liberal propaganda, right up there with that other energy classic "The China Syndrome".
Have you ever noticed how the anti-capitalist/big-oil antagonists never point to "big-oil" revenues as a percentage of GDP, GNP, or GNI? Think about that for a minute. There's a very good reason they do not do so.
As for the "we are the Arabs" BS, right.... All the employees and people who have been overseas working for the oil industry are in on this conspiracy. Oh yea, and there's a long trail of dead bodies who passed under mysterious circumstances.
Grow up kids.
Hollywood is by far more corrupt than the oil industry.
So Europe (read: The World since the economy is now global) just issued Greece a loan to help it keep up with the interest payments they need to make on their previous loans.
Greece will require extreme economic growth to meet the terms of that agreement, let alone pay back the loan.
As we all know, growth requires copious amounts of cheap energy.
If anything were to happen to Greece’s energy supply, all economic hell would break loose.
Well wouldn’t you know it but Europe also has also put an oil embargo on Iran* who just happens to supply Greece with 15% of their cheap oil.
So Greece is being setup to default, hard.
When you know a fighter is going down in the 5th, what do you do with that information if you like money?
Now, look at this long list of big swinging dicks that quietly resigned just before the Greek deal was struck.
=================
1) Feb. 15, 2012 / World Bank CEO Zoellick resigns
http://business.time.com/?s=World+Ba… rchsubmit%3DFind
http://business.time.com/2012/02/15/…llick-resigns/
2) Feb. 15, 2012 / Anz Bank CFO Australia resigns
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/anz… fle-2012-02-15
http://www.proformative.com/news/147…s-amid-turmoil
3) Feb. 15, 2012 / Nicaragua Central Bank Pres Rosales resigns
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201… th-ortega.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0…-amid-row.html
4) Feb. 17, 2012 / Credit Suisse Chief Joseph Tan resigns
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201… n-resigns.html
5) Feb. 18, 2012 / GERMAN PRESIDENT Christian Ruff resigns
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti…ed-resign.html
6) Feb. 15, 2012 / Royal Bank of Scotland Australian CEO Stephen Williams resigns
http://blogs.wsj.com/dealjournalaust…-to-step-down/
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busi…-1226272513981
7) Feb. 13, 2012 / Kuwait Central Bank CEO resigns
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine… OAR_story.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0… abas-says.html
8) Feb. 15, 2012 / Nova Kreditna Banka Maribo CEO resigns
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0… s-resigns.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/… 8DF6K120120215
9) Feb. 15, 2012 / Nova Ljubljanska Banka CEO resigns
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0… s-resigns.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/… 8DF6K120120215
10) Feb. 6, 2012 / Bank of India CEO Chaturvedi resigns
http://www.livemint.com/2012/02/0616… itabh-Cha.html
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/… cle2865955.ece
11) Feb. 10, 2012 / Tamilnad Mercantile Bank CEO resigns
http://www.business-standard.com/ind… esigns/464259/
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/…w/11830538.cms
12) Feb. 18, 2012 / GOLDMAN SACHS CEO Blankfein Asked to resign, says No.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0… n_858647.html?
https://www.google.com/search?q=GOLD… resign&qscrl=1
=================
Source: http://www.facebook.com/BABYDIABOLICAL/posts/3250595713250
Please draw your own conclusions.
*Now that oil supply is inelastic it is getting ugly fast. Expect hoarding and new alliances. Hell the US sanctions are backfiring too. Forcing Iran into gold for oil contracts with rapidly growing countries like China and India is the last thing we want to do right now. So much for the world’s reserve currency.
That's a disturbing, yet impressive list. Well done...
I'm sure we will see this list on CNBC at some time during the course of the day.
Uh..do any of those links work? All seem to be 404...
DAMN you're right...
Damn copy/paste
Better Links on the page below...
http://www.dinarrecaps.com/1/post/2012/02/bulldog75-worldwide-bank-resignations.html
Much better thanks.
Heading to the bunkers.
It's a data point in a vacuum. How many CEOs resigned last year? I have no fucking clue what that means or if it is even related, but people on here will knee-jerk and say "heading to the bunkers." WTF?
the Hedge Fund Chief of Goldman resigned yesterday
Stopped at "As we all know, growth requires copious amounts of cheap energy"....FAIL
Agree on all the Greek Bankster notes, but everyone knows these folks are scumbags. What the Sheeple haven't figured out is how a fiat currency system really works, and WHY it works. Wen they do, it will be a stampede of cotton...which scares the sh1t out of the politicians and their cohorts in the private sector.
As for the growth issue.
Growth by definition requires either an increase in demographics &/or productivity.
The big kick in growth RATE from productivity through technology is over. The world is now dependent upon wage deflation from China, which of course creates its own problems.
Demographics, thanks to the Socialist mentality of wants becoming rights, e.g. unfunded liabilities, and debt, not energy costs, are the issues keeping the world from growing at the rates it did in the past.
If you follow the political flags planted by liberals/progressives, you ARE Chicken Little.
I take it that you have never taken a course in Thermodynamics?
Growth requires an increasing amount of energy....
Given that *real* growth involves the production and movement of *real* goods and not simply the pulling forward of future demand via financialization that it would seem to be the case that if the energy source that drives the worlds transportation infrastructure is unable to grow, then *real* growth will be very difficult, in fact, well nigh impossible...
So take your head out of your neo-classical economic asshole and expand your horizons.....
Actually Flake, my training is Physics & Mathematics. So yes, I know about thermo. But am not so stupid as to apply a law of physics to a body that is not ruled by its laws.
As for your assertion regarding energy and "real" growth, thank you for displaying how deeply up your backside your head is placed.
Energy is not, contrary to the BS you've deeply drank, the limiting issue. Demand, which is always and everywhere first driven by and limited by the numbers of people available to create demand, determines the growth limit and max growth rate. This is one area the Keynsian clowns are correct, demand drivers matter. One can not make more fires than people available to tend them. To do so would not produce a productive growth of heat but rather a raging fire of destruction which would destroy growth.
The same applies to economic products. Don't think so? Make more of anything than demand demands and what happens? ....Some thing very similar to OWS, a bunch of worthless objects sitting around creating more filth in the world. That's not growth son. It's called trash.
For some reason, I think you are well versed in trash.
When you have an economic system that relies on perpetual growth. and we know what growth means by neo-classical measures, i.e. consumption, you will hit an energy wall at some point...
Demand is droping here in the US because significant amounts of oil are used in a dead end means... Marginal users are burning it in the equivalent of joy rides, if you burn oil, you better be rich or using to to make money...
And both groups are decreasing demographiscs....
Moreover, Chindia is more than willing to pick up the slack...
Economic success is all about the leverage with which you use your energy and there is more to leverage than supporting debt that artificially brings forth unsustainable demand...
So Demand here is stagnant because Energy costs are biting into discretionary consumptive income,,,,the old trick of lower energy costs fueling demand and hence growth are over....
Hyperbolic expression is an impediment to rational debate and effective problem solving. Furthermore, casting aspersions and the use of code words to advance a rhetorical objective are counter-productive and unseemly.
The U.S. defense budget could easily also be included within the category of unfunded liabilities. The expansion of these unfunded liabilities to support illegal wars based upon wispy doctored intelligence and false war objectives is in itself a national security threat.
President Eisenhower clearly outlined the danger of a military-industrial complex coopted by an overriding profit motive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg-jvHynP9Y
Bravo dude. Impressive list and due diligence. I agree with your thesis as well.
The Impact Of Surging Oil Prices On The US Consumer: A Primer
I do love the chart porn. It's okay though, my broker understands a man has needs.
Much obliged. Oil price spikes have preceded 5 of the last 6 recessions... so um... there.
The next bit of the equation is seeing how this cost actually impacts the economy. I know it has been studied to death but showing how much different expenditures in a household recycle back into the economy clarifies the impact of fuel costs. Since in the US most oil is imported and it is effectively a commodity, in spite of the refining and distribution spin offs, that side of the story is not a big a plus as things like the food industry or health care industry that employs many people and recirculates the money more. The other really obvious factor is that the real hit on the economy is not families, but in energy intensive industries. In other words gasoline is an input for other industries, whereas food and health care are much less so.
But DC gave us a payroll tax break. You know, looting the SS fund for $40 biweekly. Surely this offsets any rise in fuel costs.
Then again, maybe not...
But DC gave us a payroll tax break. You know, looting the SS fund for $40 biweekly. Surely this offsets any rise in fuel costs.
Then again, maybe not...
looting the SS fund
Looting...what?
Hmm, rifling through a box full of IOUs = NOT looting...
It's just funny to be reminded what sorts of things people "believe in."
People often forget why it's worth studying things like logic and philosophy. It drives me to despair to see so much hostility towards a liberal arts education on these boards. What possible use can investigation into "types of existence" ever be?
But I'd say for certain there is actually value in recognizing the difference between "the Social Security trust fund" and "unicorns."
20 MPG? Most minivans get 17 in town. Most pickups 15-16 MPG.
http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick-tesla-motors-d...
“It’s A Brick” – Tesla Motors’ Devastating Design Problem
Tesla Motors’ lineup of all-electric vehicles — its existing Roadster, almost certainly its impending Model S, and possibly its future Model X — apparently suffer from a severe limitation that can largely destroy the value of the vehicle. If the battery is ever totally discharged, the owner is left with what Tesla describes as a “brick”: a completely immobile vehicle that cannot be started or even pushed down the street. The only known remedy is for the owner to pay Tesla approximately $40,000 to replace the entire battery. Unlike practically every other modern car problem, neither Tesla’s warranty nor typical car insurance policies provide any protection from this major financial loss.
Despite this “brick” scenario having occurred several times already, Tesla has publicly downplayed the severity of battery depletion risk to both existing owners and future buyers. Privately though, Tesla has gone to great lengths to prevent this potentially brand-destroying incident from happening more often, including possibly engaging in GPS tracking of a vehicle without the owner’s knowledge.
How To Brick An Electric CarA Tesla Roadster that is simply parked without being plugged in will eventually become a “brick”. The parasitic load from the car’s always-on subsystems continually drains the battery and if the battery’s charge is ever totally depleted, it is essentially destroyed. Complete discharge can happen even when the car is plugged in if it isn’t receiving sufficient current to charge, which can be caused by something as simple as using an extension cord. After battery death, the car is completely inoperable. At least in the case of the Tesla Roadster, it’s not even possible to enable tow mode, meaning the wheels will not turn and the vehicle cannot be pushed nor transported to a repair facility by traditional means.
The amount of time it takes an unplugged Tesla to die varies. Tesla’s Roadster Owners Manual [Full Zipped PDF] states that the battery should take approximately 11 weeks of inactivity to completely discharge [Page 5-2, Column 3: PDF]. However, that is from a full 100% charge. If the car has been driven first, say to be parked at an airport for a long trip, that time can be substantially reduced. If the car is driven to nearly its maximum range and then left unplugged, it could potentially “brick” in about one week.1 Many other scenarios are possible: for example, the car becomes unplugged by accident, or is unwittingly plugged into an extension cord that is defective or too long.
When a Tesla battery does reach total discharge, it cannot be recovered and must be entirely replaced. Unlike a normal car battery, the best-case replacement cost of the Tesla battery is currently at least $32,000, not including labor and taxes that can add thousands more to the cost.
...
Tesla’s Unorthodox Prevention MeasuresWhile customer and marketing communication about charging are focused on gentle reminders, behind the scenes Tesla has seemingly been scrambling to try to ensure existing owners don’t “brick” their cars.
After the first 500 Roadsters, Tesla added a remote monitoring system to the vehicles, connecting through AT&T’s GSM-based cellular network. Tesla uses this system to monitor various vehicle metrics including the battery charge levels, as long as the vehicle has the GSM connection activated4 and is within range of AT&T’s network. According to the Tesla service manager, Tesla has used this information on multiple occasions to proactively telephone customers to warn them when their Roadster’s battery was dangerously low.
In at least one case, Tesla went even further. The Tesla service manager admitted that, unable to contact an owner by phone, Tesla remotely activated a dying vehicle’s GPS to determine its location and then dispatched Tesla staff to go there. It is not clear if Tesla had obtained this owner’s consent to allow this tracking5, or if the owner is even aware that his vehicle had been tracked. Further, the service manager acknowledged that this use of tracking was not something they generally tell customers about.
Going to these lengths could be seen as customer service, but it would also seem to fit with an internal awareness at Tesla of the gravity of the “bricking” problem, and the potentially disastrous public relations and sales fallout that could result from it becoming more broadly known.
The same thing can happen to priuses when they run out of gasoline and the owner tries to drive home using what is left of the battery.
Funny thing is, when you discharge any battery fast it heats up, when you discharge a huge battery like what is in the prius or the tesla it produces significantly more heat and puts a lot of wear on the battery. I don't think electric vehicles should have ever been designed to use the batteries they are currently using. It would have been smarter to build some sort of hydrogen energy storage system that then converts hydrogen to electricity.
The other bad thing about electric vehicles that no one realizes is that even though they are being touted as the cheapest mpg vehicle when factoring in the cost of electricity, if even a third of drivers switched over to electric vehicles it would overwhelm the electrical grid and also cause electricity prices to skyrocket.
http://www.good.is/post/electric-cars-are-coming-but-can-the-grid-even-handle-them/
A steady state chemical combustion engine driving a generator. It's what drives the majority of the transport industry around the world. Why hasn't the civilian market picked up on this yet? It's far more efficient than the rest of the systems everyone is touting, and the provide performance doesn't require expensive and heavy batteries.
You run the thing off of cheaper and lighter Super-Capacitor banks.The actual engine can be a smaller turbine, think in the 5" total blade size range or smaller. Turbines are the most efficient engines in the world and can be designed to burn anything.
Seriously, why the fuck has no one done this yet?
Um, engineering limitations? You need to learn your history, and not get your science from the hype press releases that are full of "if" statements. Steam cars were made once, too heavy - and dangerous. Turbines, especially small ones, are not that efficient, see capstone for some small ones. They dont live that long - people would call them crap.
Supercapacitors aren't "there" yet. Even in the lab, they don't have the energy density of batteries so far - just rosy predictions for someday.
In truth, the Volt is about the best you can do with the tech that is actually available. On a long trip where you're using the IC engine, the electrics act like a flywheel so you can run the engine constant output at its efficiency peak but still have decent performance off a small engine. This lets them take full advantage of variable cam timing, computer engine controls and so on - the IC engine-generator in the Volt is far more efficient than most fixed plant generators - at any price. I know, because I own both and actually, you know, measured it.
Teslas problems were blown out of proportion by astroturfers. As were the Volts. It takes months to brick one - who doesn't drive an expensive car for months? Only rich collectors. Name one other thing with such a tiny market share that gets this level of AstroTurf-hatred. Somebody has an agenda here. Do you hear this much crap if a Jag or Ferrari has a problem?
Hydrogen is too damn dangerous at present to use in vehicles. If a fire three weeks after a crash scares people yeah, lets go for an instant gas detonation. That was all a scam by the bushies/oil-cos to keep us burning their oil, waiting forever till hydrogen found a way to be practical - with nothing in sight to get us there. All smoke and mirrors. It's considered so dangerous that the outfit that sells me acetylene can't get it for sale without extra safety stuff - and it's not like acetylene is all that safe itself.
I sort of disagree re: "the volt is the best". I think GM was way too conservative with the engineering. The battery pack that they chose has a LiCoO2 anode and a graphite cathode. This is a very traditional LiIon battery (easy to sell to insurance co's). IMO, the should have either gone LiFePO4 and graphite or LiCoO2 and titanate and then been more aggressive with cycling the battery. Also, I think they should have gone with turbocharged wankel engine for the genset.
"Cheaper and lighter" are we talking power or energy? Details matter....
Before stating "turbines are the most efficent engines in the world" you should use context. The clearance between the blades of a turbine and the housing are limited by thermal expansion and machining tolerances (the edges are generally finished using EDM). This tolerance is fixed regardless of the size of the turbine. The allows "blow by". The smaller the diameter of the turbine, the greater the percentage of total flow the blow-by is thus reducing the efficiency of the engine.
There are several other notable limitations for small turbines. Notably, combustion temperatures must be kept low thus reducing potential Carnot Efficiency and realized thermal efficiency. In large turbines, part of the intake air would be diverted to form a thermal shroud around the turbine. This isn't feasible for turbines below ~500kw in output. Turbines aren't exactly cheap either. If you want a turbine to achieve >25% efficiency each stage needs to go through the following process:
-Forging
-5 Axis Machining
-EDM
5 Axis machining is pretty common in mass manufacturing but the tool paths for a turbine are complex and the operation would be relatively slow. This is compounded by the fact that you'd probably have to use Inconel which isn't exactly a walk in the park to machine. EDM is slow and expensive.
Hydrogen leaks through solid steel. It can embrittle said solid steel. It's highly combustible and it's flame is invisible. It's a pain in the ass (and energy intensive) to liberate it from water (less so from methane).
Do you need any other reasons to avoid hydrogen vehicles?
Umm... the Pt catalysts for the fuel cells would be prohibative???
Hahahaha.... I actually forgot that one
Where does it say in that article that EVs will "overwhelm" the grid? (Hint, it doesn't). Most people aren't aware of this but the U.S. electrical grid is actually OVERBUILT by design. The grid is designed to peak capacity (which is about 30% greater than average capacity) which generally occurs between 11am and 3pm in respective time zones. EVs will primarily charge at night (when electrical demand is lowest). Utilities don't have to add any additional capacity for EVs. They'll just have to run existing capacity (such as gas fired mid-peakers) at higher utilization rates.
Converting car fuel from oil based to coal based (source of energy for most US electricity) doesn't seem to be particularly environmentally friendly nor efficient.
There have been many pier reviewed studies that conclude that, using the current fuel mix of our electrical grid, accounting for charging losses, and lifecycle emissions from manufacturing batteries, running EVs or PHEVs would be way more environmentally friendly than our current liquid fuel ICE powered vehicles.
How?
Consider that the ICE gasoline engines maximum efficiency on the otto cycle tops out around 30%. In the real world, load variability drops that efficiency to the 15-18% range. Even old and dirty coal fired power plants run Brayton cycle turbines with an efficiency of ~32%. Modern CFPs run in the 35% range with oxy-fueled bottoming cycle CFPs in the low 40s. Combined cycle natural gas turbines run in the low 40s. Super-critical CO2 turbines, which can be made of stainless steel and thus relatively cheap to manufacture, will operate somewhere in the high 40s to low 50s. They can be readily retrofitted to existing power plants and will sell like gang-busters once they're ready for prime time.
GP, welcome aboard, you are adding alot to these discussions and that is a good thing...
You should have seen what it was like here 2 years ago when it came to energy matters. The best description that comes to mind is a "goddam street fight using chains and baseball bats"...
Thanks!
Interesting but not useful. Unfortunately, I do not have a spare 100k for a Tesla.
You can also do a lot of damage to an internal combustion engine by not operating them properly. I was in the shop the other day taking the car in and they were working on a Bentley. Turns out the guy managed to blow his W12 motor. The project will take months and the cost makes a replacement battery from Tesla look like a walk in the park.
FYI if you're that concerned about it, you can buy an extended battery warranty from Tesla. But it's probably easier to just plug the thing in.
WTI
"Mixed with Evian, Blessed by Goldman"
Speaking of gas.. anybody take notice of this little gem?
How may Volts has Obama sold to date?
http://gas2.org/2012/02/20/ge-forcing-employees-into-chevy-volts/
What are they going to do. Fire employees who do not own a Volt?
Have a Euro version?
Given the progressivity of Europe, I am sure $10/gal will be no problem.
and of course the astronomical gas taxes have no bearing on personal freedom,
and have made such a substantive difference in the financial health of the continent.
Gas prices surging because we export too much???? Tell me why we export any gas at all!!!
(Tony Gutierrez) (AP)NEW YORK -- For the first time in at least 21 years, the top export of the world's biggest gas guzzler, is -- wait for it -- fuel.
Measured in dollars, the United States is on pace this year to ship more gasoline, diesel and jet fuel than any other type of export, according to government records dating back to 1990.
Here are the top U.S. exports for the past six years, according to U.S. Census records.
___
2011 (Through October)
1 -- Fuel: $73.4 billion;
2 -- Aircraft: $70.8 billion;
3 -- Motor Vehicles: $39.6 billion;
4 -- Vacuum Tubes: $37.1 billion;
5 -- Telecommunications Equipment: $33.2 billion.
Seems like I heard something about Japan's refineries being knocked off line driving this demand.
luckily, a majority of americans no longer use gas. they just sit at home and collect govvie checks every week. can do shopping online (internet paid for by gov't subsidy) and have it delivered at the expense of the retailer.
Good data here on total miles driven
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/11dectvt/11dectvt.pdf
12000/25= 480
Must be new math
The markets choose to ignore realty and would rather rise on hopium....Rally on. The cheerleaders at CNBC will have their 13000 rally hats and pom poms on today.
yep...Cramer's on (read: coke fueled rant) with a raging boner about Sears Holding and how this is a "great turnaround from the shorts spreading bad credit rumors". What a total fucktard he is.
Seems to me if we just removed our two aircraft carriers from the Arabian Gulf that wuld drop the price of oil considerably.
That combined with a slowing down of the printing presses might help ease prices.
Could you imagine if Ben's printers ran on unleaded?
Self sustaining CF.
pods
:(
I would love to see how oil prices would react to a rise in interest rates and stimulus jacked from the banks. It all begins and ends with the greatest farce of all: monetary policy.
King Barry wants them higher, no gain without pain.
This does not...repeat, DOES NOT, help Dear Leader Obamao's re-election chances.
They might have to re-kill Osama bin Laden again.
I see no way they can run thru a whole year. I doubt there will even be an actual election, with the frantic sabre rattling to attack Iran. Soon as that happens, all bets are off...gonna be a lot of losers too.
Even if there was an election would it still really be an election? Or a choice of more of the same?
I don't necessarily disagree. However, Obamao's re-election bid is very delicate at the moment. If the election were held today I think he'd win. From now until November anything could happen obviously. I don't see the Obamao camp risking casualities, negaitve press, etc. to interfere with re-election.
Now a Kinetic Military Action, that's another story....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-movie-to-be...
I don't think of Obama (or any US President) as anything but a puppet. The people who really control us want higher fuel prices. Obama was designed from the outset as a one-term black President who would simply continue Bush-era policies while pulling liberals (especially minorities) into line with the war and massive debt agenda. Think about all the hope and change agitprop--it didn't amount to anything, we all got poorer, especially people dare try to save. Next up will be another warmonger Republican who take the US into a disastrous war with Iran. Ron Paul only exists the way the resistance existed in "1984"--it's all just a stage-managed farce, designed to soak up popular unrest and blunt it. The Daily Show is also used for that purpose--comedy softens the blow while doing nothing to change the horrific policies. All the same policies will remain intact. You can't change anything from inside of this system, and the system is total.
I can't think of what world event short of a major asteroid impact that might shake us loose from the current course. The point being, whatever change does come, it will be from outside of the "system."
The US doesn NOT run on $4 a gallon gas.
In the first month, we will all hear plenty of crap about how the "consumer can withstand this" and by the second month we will start hearing about margin compression and by the 3rd month there will be covers on news magazines about how $150 oil has killed the recovery.
Conversely a killed economy will green light QE3....which in turn will help oil prices go even higher.
Damn the central planning geniuses are brilliant.
The true failure of "Central Planning" in this instance was not knowing (or admitting!) that Peak Oil would result in "The Saw Tooth Economy"....
Too easy for the Bankstas to skim the cream and not worry about tomorrow....
You really are a propaganda whore aren't you.
Can you tell the difference between coordination and just a bunch of greedy sociopaths that are acting in their own self interest??
Given a chance, these pricks would consume each other but there are enough sheeple to digest first...
Incompetance and greed is difficult to differentiate from conspiracy...
That being said, I am all for hanging a few FIRE execs...
and it will all be blamed on the rebuplicans
Besides ZH, nobody has linked the high gas price to Bernanke.
Which is amazing. Money supply doubled. Gas price doubled. Reason...uh... speculators!
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1?cid=25
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MULT?cid=25
MV=PY
Also, correlation is not causation. I'd blame the rise in oil prices more on peak oil and less on speculators.
On Squawk Box yesterday, they were all going off about how spiking oil prices were indicative of a percolating economy ready to roar. This was done as Sorkin and Joe "Ignore my hair plugs" Kernan were staring at Becky Quicks cleavage.
World war ready to roar.
Joe and Sorkin know what is good in life!
yeah, just like $140 barrels of oil in spring 2008 led to rip roaring economy later that year....shheeesh that was only 3 years ago and they spew this stuff like it never happened...
Damn those speculators at the Federal Reserve.
Gas prices very important to the economy? Then why arent gas prices factored into inflation statistics?
Oh right....because its ALL just fake to begin with.
WTI is inverse rallying
105.80?
Compared to the premarket high there, yes. Looks like Bernanke ran out of 100 March put contracts to sell.
British claims FED has ripped off/counterfeited $15 trillion dollars.
$15,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOO FRAUD EXPOSED in UK House of Lords - YouTube
WOW just finished watching that. Thanks for sharing
Yohannes Riyadi doesn't even have a wikipedia page?
Exactly. IMO $4 and up the US economy will start to implode.
You know it's fucked up when we're already getting slammed with "it won't hurt us" articles everyday. Yeah sure it won't.
Neverfear.......you can always buy a gas saver for $30k and skip the high gas with only a $500 monthly car payment and full coverage insurance. Problem solved according to Obama.
At the gas station last nite I saw a guy with an Escalade begging for money for gas. Somethings real out of whack here.
That's so 2008...
That's funny as hell! Everytime I see ordinary people in a big new vehicle a wonder at there optimism (blindness). Sooner and later the price of gasoline will rise. I recently saw where a politician wanted to add surcharge to using a gas pump instead of raising the gas tax to pay for road work. And there is always that nonsense of tracking cars so that they can bill you by the mile; that has to be a DHS thing.
My sheeple younger brother (real estate broker to boot) came to visit us a few weeks back for my kid's birthday, and rolled up in a shiny new Escalade. He lives in a suburb of Houston with a 30 mile commute. Sigh....
Bizarre consumption doesn't bother me as long as no one asks forces me to fund anyone else's retirement (Social Security) or health care (Medicare) or food stamps or welfare.
I will fund my immediate family and extended family, but please don't ask force anyone to take care of anyone else who made thousands of poor decisions of over consumption (which is the majority of Americans - who have cable tv, cell phone, pets, go to movies and restaurants, have more than three pairs of shoes, buy new cars, live in a house >1,200 sq ft, etc etc.).
I know -- it's too late -- everyone has bought into the government dependency agenda. Everyone is entitled and/or a victim. Everyone can not be solely responsible for themselves.
Great post. I love how the econoboxes are supposed to save us. I love how people forget how to "do" second grade math when asked to do a simple cost-benefit analysis of financing a new gas-sipper vs keeping the old beater that's paid for. So: either take it with a reach around and get a shiny new car, or just grab your ankles and pay for the damn gas. Either way its a massive, inevitable fail.
Then there are some of us who bought a cheap ass gas sipper when it was not fashionable?
Gas sipping beater with a heater. Well, AC.
pods
pods, like usual, there are always a few of us smarter and ahead of the curve.
Well you are smarter, I am just lazy!
I do all my own work on our vehicles, so I use KISS when it comes to cars. Would love to run a setup like you have running. :)
Right now as close as I am coming is designing LEDs for our house lights.
It's a start though!
pods
I would hear more of these LED house lights you are designing...
Fight heart-disease and terrorism: ride a bike.
I love that kind of idiotic reasoning. When gas prices spiked last time, I saw so many message board posts to the tune of "what motorcycle should I buy?" Idiots--how many years of gas for your existing vehicle could you buy with the $12K you want to spend on a stupid motorcycle? People don't understand math at all. I suppose if you are commuting 100 miles a day, then moving to a more fuel efficient vehicle might help, but the real question is, why are you commuting that far to begin with? I guess some people have to, but not many.
I only paid $400 for my motorcycle....
If we can piss off some more countries, maybe we can get the dollar to drop and increase oil revenues and tax revenues. Sure, we got new missiles aimed at Russia and India and Pakistan are pissed. We have an upcoming trade war with China and Europes gas prices willl go up, but what are we doing to piss off Brazil and Indonesia?
U.S. just being here is enough to piss anyone off now.
The global Pentagon is the single biggest institutional user of petroleum products (and is the world's single worst polluter). The US invasions, occupations, and embargos keep Iranian and Iraqi oil off the market. The US government protects the Saudi "oil"igoploy and billionaire sheikhs. Whatever speculation exists is driven by the constant US-Israeli threats of launching war in the Mideast. The US government hands trillion$ to the bankster tycoons, and fails to invest in an efficent national energy grid or public transportation.
But wait! the above has nothing to do with oil and gasoline prices.
Either of the two major parties ould fix everything, if only it were not for the other party,.... or so they say.
hmmm
Just imagine if all that money from two failed wars would have been used for upgrading to an energy efficient grid. Energy costs would be plummeting now (even with CTRL+P)... I think that answers why it didn't happen.
After liberating the currencies....er, I mean people, of Iraq and Libya, you'd think getting oil wouldn't be a problem.
Meanwhile, back at the occupied ranch:
Thank god Obamao is ending all our wars in time for the election...
We all know the direct impact to the economy. We all saw it firsthand in 08 when it hit the record price of $4-5 a gallon nationwide in Sept of 08. Anyone else remember what happened that month too?
Guess what we are well on are way to those prices by May!
Hold on because the shit is going to hit the fan real quick this year.
new york, 2/23/2012.
just another sunny day, highs in the 50's.
heating oil consumed this winter must be
about half of what was consumed last year
and the year before that. and ..
the homeless and jobless don't drive much,
not to mention all the store fronts with
for rent signs don't turn the heat up.
the real civilian economy is not supplying "normal"
demand.
"It is estimated that a $.10 increase in the price of gasoline results in a decline of about $11.74 billion in personal income."
I did not realize I was missing $11.74B - is anyone else? I'll have to check and see if I am a .01%.
Pete
NOT
The real cost of what we pump into our tank is a bit higher due to the inefficiency (lower energy content) of the ethonla blended in. E10 has 3% fewer BTU per gallon than straight gasoline The ethonal production itself is an additional $0.45 per gallon. Which of course represents another fleecing of the public. A tax by any other name......
China fills their SPR and Obama drains America's
Now just who has an energy policy?
Here in San Diego we can tell when gas prices are starting to bite, as the weekend migratory Angelenos stop plugging up our southbound freeways on Friday and Saturday. Last weekend, the 3 day holiday, it was noticeably less plugged, and the weather (as always!) was perfect.
Dont forget about the AZoners coming in on the 8 and taking up all the good parking at the beach.
Gas is still around 3.00 here in Denver.Filled the RV (50 gallon tank) and all the containers....another 50 on Monday.
Wish I had a 500 gallon tank.
Buying much more fuel effecient cars is what needs to be done. Problem: It takes many, many years to significantly improve gas mileage of the average vehicle.
It is estimated that a $.10 increase in the price of gasoline results in a decline of about $11.74 billion in personal income.
Bingo.
And guess who that hits the most?
As George Carlin said, "Remember folks, there's a Big Club. And you and I....ain't fuckin' in it!"
Italian Petrol prices gone to 1.80 Euros a Litre according to
www.energy.eu
I read or heard somewhere that the latest satellites (about the size of a truck) heading out in the solar system have small nuclear powered engines. I'm all for that in My truck. One about the size of a bread box would be nice. No one is dying on Nuke subs from radiation.
Sorry to dash your hopes but we don't exactly have a lot of stronium-90 laying around (NASA is having a hard time sourcing it). It's not that efficent in space and it would be even less efficient here on earth where the cold body for heat rejection is considerable warmer.
regarding oil we can clearly see the correlation in full without question Oil #Stocks Pause Despite Geopolitical Eventshttp://www.traddr.com/profiles/blogs/oil-service-stocks-pause-despite-geopolitical-events
I take the train to work and have averaged about 5500 miles of driving per year over the last 4 years. Many people in the USA live much further from the places they need to drive to on a daily basis than me. A bunch of jobs become economically un-workable at a certain gas price point. With the mild Winter in the Northeast I was hoping gasoline wouldn't go up until Summer. Its probably going to $5/Gallon soon.
The previous SPR release was a stroke of genius (for political gain) as it contributed to a huge gap between WTI and Brent pricing. Notice we have not paid a drop of it back to the SPR. Europe's economies are teetering on the brink of recession, the good old USA seems to be growing slowly. That's because our oil price was $20 to $30 barrel less than Brent over the last few quarters. Rest assured with the gap being closed, Obama's administration will do another release shortly so the economy will look good for the upcoming elections. Of course this can only be done so many times and then we will have NO SPR.
The average fuel economy of all vehicles, across all driving conditions, is 25 mpg?
Never believe a statistic you haven't falsified yourself...
Tyler Durden wrote:
Tyler, I would greatly appreciate your providing a hyperlink or URL to Art Cashin's article. I saw no such link above. Thanks in advance (TIA).
-- Paul D. Bain
paulbain@PObox.com