Really? OK, maybe that IS the reason. If so, it seems reasonable that if the delays were "temporary" (the question then is how is "temporary" defined. As Steven Wright says - "anywhere is walking distance if you have the time.") then the 9.7 million was simply delayed for a day or 2, and will show up the following week. So, should we be expecting a 9.7 million barrel gain tomorrow? It seems to me that that was what the EIA was suggesting. Or is there going to be a permanent fog setting up shop in the Houston ship channel? My bet is the 9.7 million does not show up tomorrow. If it does, my hat goes off to a government agency that actually got it right.
-----------------
It has been reported that G.M. is considering dropping its Hummer line of ridiculous vehicles. Now there's a surprise. You mean American drivers are not going to be interested in driving 6000 lbs of steel around, at 8 miles per gallon, to pick up the kids at soccer practice? Who'd a thunk it? GM pays tens of millions of dollars to corporate jerk offs to come up with this kind of strategic planning? Want to bet those strategists went to Harvard Business School? Nobody there saw higher energy prices KILLING their franchise? UGHUGGHGHGH!!!!!
-----------------
Speaking of the "What the F*^$! am I paying you for department"...
Standard & Poors FINALLY downgraded the big investment banks to within sight of junk status. S & P, dripping egg from the face and suffering from foot in mouth disease likely will not be pulling any punches in the future. Institutions holding mortgage paper are doomed. Investors holding mortgage paper are doomed. ANYBODY holding mortgage paper is doomed. If you think housing is bad NOW... just consider that that market started to "sh-t the bed" (that is technical Wall Street speak for a market entering a prolonged period of significant contraction) long before oil broke $75 per barrel. Think about it: Debtors were defaulting on their mortgages over $300, $400, maybe $500 per month too much payment. Now throw in a $300, $400, or $500 monthly increase in total energy costs (gasoline, heating fuel, electricity) for the same homeowner... Might as well hand them a rope, a couple of razor blades, and a bottle of sleeping pills. As for the poor suckers left holding the mortgage paper... that paper is just dead men walking looking for their final resting place.
---------------
What a terrible time to be old, poor, and heat your home with heating oil. Hell, its going to be tough being young, fabulous, and rich if you heat your home with heating oil. At $4.50 per gallon, those McMansions folks were buying during the latest housing boom look like good bets for the scrap heap. Does anybody over the age of say, 7 really think that folks are going to pay the mortgage on a house they cannot afford to heat? Gee, I wonder what that means for Lehman Brothers, and the rest of the mortgage complex. Me? I would prefer to slam my finger (or any other appendage you can think of) in a SUV door repeatedly than be long THAT sector.
So here we are: Airlines are raising prices and cutting capacity and services, the auto manufacturers are closing plants building SUVs and Pickups, and the white elephant oversized homes are going to blot the landscape, abandoned because their occupants could not make the heat payment, let along the mortgage payment.
Now I ask you: What else would the beginning of the FINAL energy crisis look like?
Yours for a better world,
Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com
7 comments:
Locally (here) it may also look like storm (in this case, tornado) damage that will never be repaired or replaced.
You kind of alluded to this previously regarding Florida and natural reclamation via hurricanes, etc. In my case, the nearby hollowed out and crime-ridden city, whose heyday coincided with the burgeoning smokestack economy during the first half of the twentieth century, was hit by two freak tornados a few weeks ago, turnning what is already a modestly scary place into something resemblign the south Bronx or lower Detroit. Few can afford to repair or even clean up, including the local gov't, and exactly who is going to waste money rebuilding damaged/destroyed homes or commercial real estate in this economic atmosphere?
I now pack a gun when I have to visit (such as today, for a funeral), and this from someone who both worked and went to college there.
Fallout:
What state are you in? I think you mentioned Georgia at one point but I am not sure...
I have been through a couple of hurricanes here in 2004 and 2005 and they were Cat 1 and 2, and missed by 100 miles. I cannot even imagine life after a Cat 5 direct hit on a major florida city - energy crisis or no. However, if a storm like that should come to pass in the middle of some kind of fuel shortage we would have a 5 million person refugee camp. And people would be grumpy in the Florida heat.
In order to feel comfortable during winter, it is not necessary to heat a house to 70 degrees. In fact, dressing properly and heating the house to not more than 50 degrees can provide for a comfortable life. When I was young in the 1950's, bedrooms were not heated in winter at all. On a weekend and during holidays the living room was heated. During the week, only the kitchen was heated. Saturday was special: that was the day where hot water was avaiable in the bathroom for the whole family. That time was in many ways the most exciting time of my life. I do not remember that I ever had the feeling of freezing.
Robert S.
An addendum: Any house requiring heating is a case of an engineering failure. Houses can be designed in such a way that they do not require any heating at all (except on unusually cold days). The waste heat from generating hot water is enough to keep the house warm. The essential point is the quality of insulation.
However, insulating old houses is not easy and can be expensive in terms of labor. The question is, whether it is not cheaper to insulate our bodies against heat loss instead insulating our houses. Perhaps investing into quality winter cloth makes more sense than worrying about the cost of heating. In a world which is overpopulated, heating does not really make sense. Put many people into one room and it will get pretty warm soon without any heating.
The real problem we should be worrying long term is food and water availability.
Robert S.
Hi Greg. Yes, I live up in central Georgia.
Robert makes a good point, as I noticed during some time spent living in the UK that the average Britain wears a sweater and sometimes even a hat indoors, leaving the thermostat around 50-55 degrees. My wife, on the flip side, claims to be freezing to death at 65.
Heat I could live without (in this climate). A/C, on the other hand, I would miss immensely, even as a Deep South native.
Side note: It is definitively hotter here now than it was when I was a boy.
Insulation works both ways. It insulates the house against low temperatures in the winter as well as against the heat outside in the summer. The trick is to have the right combination of thermal mass inside and the right amount of insulation outside. Have your even been in a large cathedral during a hot summer day? They are very comfortable in the summer, yet no air conditioners. The huge thermal mass of the building makes the difference.
Robert S.
WHen I was a kid in the 60's my parents kept the house in the mid 60's - and it was a SMALL house.
Much CAN be conserved my living small and modest. It is the adjustment that is going to demolish the economy and the currency.
Post a Comment