MikeH

The Relationship between Oil, Drillers and Refiners

Nice, but a considerate commentator would have written this article before I bought VLO and FTO. Refiners will rise again!

Greenspan's Latest: Oil Boom Will Likely 'Go on Forever'

At last, somebody who recognizes what an incompetent this guy was and how venal he has become; and, by extension, the Fed as an institution; and, by extension, all government solutions to economic problems. As your chart shows, government tries to steer the oil tanker economy like it was a speed boat and ends up being 180 degrees out of phase.

Greenspan Seemingly Suffers From Acute Amnesia

Greenspan is the banker's lackey. The Fed is the banker protection society. Will someone please explain to me what is wrong with a 1% prime and universal home ownership? Only one thing: ARM rates and banker profits are tied to the dependent indeces. The Fed is keeping ARMs artifically high for the benefit of their cocktail and golfing buddies. How many first-time homeowners realized the American dream as a result of cheap credit? Yes, a few in California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida will not have their bets pay off -- mostly because of speculators overheating those markets. Take away defaults in those states and defaults are actually down nationwide. Alan Greenspan drove the economy like it was a speedboat -- 12 up and 17 down. Good riddance. Now he can make a handy living giving speeches and writing books for the effete. Protecting people from themselves is the socialists' first last and always excuse for taking away freedom and interferring with the invisible hand of the market.

What Do Higher Energy Costs Mean For Inflation?

Economists are a pack of specialists on their knees with magnifying glasses -- one measuring the progress of an ant, the next tracking a stink bug. None of them ever see the herd of elephants coming up behind them.

I have read innumerable stories dissecting the direction of oil prices and consumer spending in this or that 12-week period and not a one of them ever takes into account THE single greatest source of inflation this year, last year, 100 years ago and 100 years from now: out-of-control government spending.

Oil prices and consumer demand accounts are just a working economy seeking equilibrium. So the CPI is 4% this year and the PPI is 3% the next? You call that inflation? I lived through Carter and the private economy hasn't had inflation since he went on his I Hate America world tour. Just natural friction in a machine popping on all cylinders for 20 years (except one lousy quarter). Meanwhile, government spending -- and just the third or so they carry on the books -- has been tripling year in and year out since Ronnie retired to the ranch. I say tripling, but no one really knows because they keep the books like Jeffrey Skilling keeps accounts. If they were smart, they wouldn't have sent him to jail; they'd have made him director of the GAO -- the same regard for GAAP, but better at stealing.

What do they do with the money? Find ways to be a drag on the rest of us who are pulling the wagon. The twin anchors of taxes and regulation don't sufficiently impede the economy and direct resources down wasteful allies. They have to get their root-routing snouts deep into industries that, left to their own devices, would explode with wealth generation for the benefit of the entire world. Look what happens overnight when they just let the heel up a little off the neck of telephony. Where would computing be if it was regulated? Why do I need a federal law protecting me from making more than 1% interest on a demand account? Will the economy collapse if banks have to compete for assets?

And I would love anyone to explain for me exactly what is wrong with a 1% Fed Funds Rate. I didn't notice the world ending in 2003. What I saw was a whole lot of people getting homes of their own that they otherwise couldn't afford -- and a few speculators. If, as the genius secular press predicts, the housing bubble is going to blow us all to hell and gone -- what, the Fed can't take a quarter-point pressur off the ARM indexes? Ooooh no, the annual CPI -- which is running about 2/3 of what it was this time last year -- might ratchet all the way up to 4%.

The current FFR is just the governing class taking care of its cocktail party guests at the expense of the people trying to scramble onto the first rung of the economic ladder. How much extra money has the greatest lobbiests and law writers in history made from rising ARMs? Greenspan was the governing class' bagman for a couple decades and it looks like Bernacke is just his dumber brother.

It's not the extra 25 cents an hour I'll make this year that is inflationary or corn growers making an extra buck a bushel. If you want to know where inflation lives, its inside the latest pork barrel -- any of them -- rolling through Congress this Monday and all those Mondays ahead.

You want inflation? Check the right metric. It's always bon pork roullet in government.

U.S. Home Prices Have Taken a Cliff Dive Without Signs of Recovery

I can't believe that you are ignorant enough to assemble this collection of moderate adjustments and print them in such a shrill context. You would think you were fleeing a tsunami.

In the first place, real estate is a local phenomenon and nationwide metrics that are the mean of widely disparate data points are absolutely meaningless. Your very premise is statistically meaningless -- besides being obviously cherry picked. Housing is down 6% in Detroit. Oh, what shall we do? Three straight years of growth of 20-30%, then a single-digit adjustment. Sub-prime mortgages comprise 1% of the mortgage market. Average sales inventory is 6 months, now it's 8 after three years of boom that just ended a couple months ago. Lets run in circles screaming.