Sunday, June 8, 2008

Stuck in Suburbia

Bloomberg news is reporting that the value of homes with the long commutes is dropping faster than homes that are closer in to town and employment.  Wow!  Ya think?

It used to be that "you drove until you qualified for a mortgage".  The folks that followed that strategy are now fatter and poorer than they might otherwise have been.  More time commuting means less exercise and steeper declines in home values.  Americans are going to get a new mantra to live by: "More square feet does not increase the quality of your life."

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Now the Saudi's are calling for an Oil Summit.  I have just one question for the Crown Prince and Aramco:

If you guys are still the swing producer, why can't you swing production and swing the price of Oil down? (and why would you want to?) Why would the swing producer need to call a meeting of Oil producers and consumers if there was plenty of Oil in the system and prices were unjustified? (ok, that's more than 1)  The ONLY reason to call in the importers is to TELL THEM to CONSERVE!  That the producers can't keep up with their demand!  What the hell else would the exporters want to talk with the importers about?

Folks, there is no shortage of $134 per barrel oil.  There is an EXTREME shortage of $80 per barrel oil at the moment.  Want to know why oil is $134? (again, that was a rhetorical question) Because that is the price necessary to balance supply and demand in the market.  Oil is not pilling up in bulk storage around the world, like houses for sale in the U.S.  The oil market is CLEARING.  That means there are enough BUYERS willing to pay that market price to enough SELLERS so that inventories are not building nor drawing down too quickly for the market to react.  Of course, this could change...

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Food prices are going much higher next year, no matter what the pathological liars might try to convince you of.  The price of corn is "price input" NUMERO UNO for eggs, meat, and dairy, and is a big component of all that nasty stuff you probably should not be eating.  

Speaking of which, I have a question for the Moe Rons in D.C.  Since those scumbag speculators are the bad guys driving up the price of Oil, are they also the bad guys driving up the price of food?  Maybe we should stop speculating in food prices.  Sure - if you want to cause mass famine.  The jerks in D.C. know this.  It is one thing to blame faceless speculators for oil prices; it is another thing altogether to try that trick with agricultural commodities.  One consequence of which would be a severe decline in supplies of wheat, corn, soy beans, rice, etc... as it will likely lead to lower oil supplies as well.  Ya see folks, if it WEREN'T for these sky high oil prices, oil production would be lower than it is - and we would likely have out right shortages.  Beware lawyers/politicians bearing practical solutions (have you seen how our court system works?).

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Lehman Brothers leads the way down.  The mortgage money pipeline coming into Manhattan from every City, small town and village in America has been shut down.  In 3 years, the last of the big investment banks will have merged into history.  RIP.

Yours for a better world,


Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com


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