* Brent crude oil futures lowest since August
* U.S. jobs figures disappoint markets
* Biggest weekly drop in Brent since June
* Oil prices "comfortable" - OPEC
Welcome to Stag Nation, where the oil companies' expectations of future gasoline consumption just tanked, thanks to our stillborn "recovery."
Real recovery would include not only rising employment, but also a recovery of morale and nerve. To get there, we're going to have to create some jobs in infrastructure maintenance and new construction. That would be the natural place to push, since our bridges, water mains, and sewer lines are crumbling.
Instead, we get austerity in the form of the big C-quester, and now Obama proposing social security cuts. When everything the government does to "help" makes things worse, you have to wonder: would total laissez-faire be better than this?
But with the price of Brent crude descending rapidly toward $100, because gasoline consumption is either flatlining or falling, the bad news has silver linings: fewer greenhouse gases and lower gasoline prices.
3 comments:
I observe three bummer problems plaguing the US and the world: lack of ethics, lack of abundant resources, and lack of intelligence.
It turns out that modern civilization has been built upon fossil fuels and religion, and both of those are on the way out-- religion because the power of priests has fallen with the power of freer information flow, and fossil fuels because they are getting so hard and detrimental to extract from the ground.
I wonder if I should change that third one from lack of intelligence to lack of foresight.
Joe, I;ll have a 'worst problem" suggestion later today.
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