[Heineken]

Why not? Another round of the party! People were heading out the door, but now they're pausing, lured by the siren song of lower commodities prices and MORE FUN.

For example, why not come on down to the car dealership and take a gander. SUVs have never been so cheap!

The old girl, Ma Earth, has a few more turns in her, n'est c'est pas? Let's see just how much more juice we can squeeze outta her.

[dinopello]

Fun fun fun until her daddy takes the T-bird away!

I have a friend putting in a built in lap-pool and another buying a second home in the Florida Keys. Whee!

[Ferretlover]

Interesting how excited everyone has gotten over the temporary 'stimulus' provided by the borrowed-money-bribe provided by the government.

[vision-master]

Why not? Another round of the party! People were heading out the door, but now they're pausing, lured by the siren song of lower commodities prices and MORE FUN.
For example, why not come on down to the car dealership and take a gander. SUVs have never been so cheap!
The old girl, Ma Earth, has a few more turns in her, n'est c'est pas? Let's see just how much more juice we can squeeze outta her.

The final swirl down the drain.

[Duende]

Party on!

The price was overstretched a little bit, and Americans in particular DID cutback - to the tune of 40 billion fewer miles driven this year than last. That's the easy efficiencies to get - it's fruit so low hanging it practically falls off the branch for you.

We'll ramp up again and hit even new economic heights. And the same damn price run up will occur again. But this time it'll be higher, and there will be less fat to cut. That one's gonna hurt. How many more billions of miles can we lose? We'll find that out in time.

Until then, crank up the stereo, shake some ass, and get me a rum and coke!

[killJOY]

OK. Here it comes.
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
ready?
V
V
V
V
V
ECONOMIC
.................B O O M !

[joeltrout]

Several of my friends/clients in Bakersfield, that are about the same age as me (25yrs old) are getting excited because housing is getting affordable in California. Many figured they wouldn't be able to buy a house for at least 5 years due to high downpayment. Now they are seeing houses that cost $400,000 a year ago selling for $150,000 or below.

Down payment for $400k house was $80,000.
Now at $150k the down-payment is $30,000.

A huge difference.

They all work in the oil industry and are making good salaries out of college and are able to buy house within a couple of years.

joeltrout

[emersonbiggins]

Joel,

Sounds like they are in good shape, relatively speaking. If I were just now hitting college, I would definitely go the PLM route, or the engineering route. It's a lot of math, but the hours are predictable, and the money is nice.

[BigTex]

I smell a rat.

[joeltrout]

I think the San Joaquin Valley would be a great place for post-peak oil living for the following reasons:

Most of the valley is rural.
Produces close to 25% of the US agricultural production(in $ value).
Largest cotton farm in the world.
Natural gas fields in northern part.
Oil in the southern part.
Plenty of water from the Sierras.
Amtrak services.
Perfect spot for solar.
etc.....

joeltrout

[Duende]

BigTex wrote:

I smell a rat.

My ears are perked up. What kind of a rat?

[BigTex]

I smell a rat.

My ears are perked up. What kind of a rat?

Oh, nothing in particular. This whole current atmosphere just feels like a total bear market rally where everyone is admiring the ice castle of optimism.

I see ZERO fundamentals supporting anything good in the near term.

It's good that oil has dropped, but the fundamentals are exactly the same as they were six months ago--peak oil is here and a little demand destruction here and there doesn't even begin to address the problem. In fact, as we all know, lower prices just aggravate the problem because lower prices encourage more consumption.

I went ahead and bought some SLV at $12.68 today. Why not?

[3aidlillahi]

Interesting how excited everyone has gotten over the temporary 'stimulus' provided by the borrowed-money-bribe provided by the government.

That's a good point. Notice how we went from $100 to $140 when the stimulus checks were going out? And now that everyone's spent them all, prices have tumbled. Supply and demand. When people had money, they put it into cars. Now that they don't, they can't, so prices fall.

If you're into oil and you hear another stimulus rumble, pick up some more contracts. I'll bet you'd make a quick killing. Especially if Obama's $1000 package ever comes to pass. $175 anybody?

[heroineworshipper]

The economy is too globalised to have the kind of booms we did in the 20th century.

[frankthetank]

Bro just bought an almost brand new fully loaded Chevy... $18K with 17K miles. Stick was almost $40k new. Lady who had it must have had a head full of rocks. Car guy said he had 5 cars going out that same day. Said last month he sold 37 cars, this month looks better, and avg month is 20 or so.

I'm driving to my mailbox just to see if i forgot any mail in it.

Let the good times ROLL!!!

[americandream]

I have said this before and I will say this again. With China and India providing wealth credit, the Saudis circumscribing the oil markets and Sovereign Funds underwriting a whole new raft of asset derivatives, the global capitalist system has another 50 years to run before its runs out of capacity, climate wise and in terms of resource surplus yet to transform. There will always be plentiful labour capital but without the environment and resources to apply the labour to for the creation of surplus, the system effectively reaches saturation point and implodes on itself.

[Daniel_Plainview]

I see ZERO fundamentals supporting anything good in the near term.

It's good that oil has dropped, but the fundamentals are exactly the same as they were six months ago--peak oil is here and a little demand destruction here and there doesn't even begin to address the problem. In fact, as we all know, lower prices just aggravate the problem because lower prices encourage more consumption.

Exactly.

[pedalling_faster]

when i was a kid my family was on a road trip & i had the
urge and insisted that i needed to go to the bathroom.

this involved driving maybe 15 minutes out of our way,
or so i was told. my Dad gave me so much flak that by
the time i got to the Rest Room, i was experiencing
massive anxiety.

i labored as hard as i could & finally produced one tiny
little deposit.

i then insisted on showing my Dad, "see, Dad, see, I
DID need to go to the bathroom !"

and so the news people will be saying, "SEE ! the
economy GREW last month ! See - those rebate
checks WORKED !"

TPTB did do a job on the GNP numbers last quarter.
the Numbers say, "the economy grew" ... we're officially
not in a recession.

i've been impressed by how the dollar has recovered
the last few weeks. i don't know how they did it. it
seems a little like getting one of those 20 foot long
laundry hoses back in the box after you've let it expand
out of the box, hard to do.

how did TPTB get other countries to go along with a
dollar rise ? it seems like the US has spent the last
5 years SCARING (is that it ?!) the world with our War
on Terror, then the last year the entire world has been
finding a lot of their American investments turn to mush.

there's got to be some major financial market manipulation
going on.

[Heineken]

I've said this before, although perhaps not in this way.

The System is as resilient as it is evil. It will pull out all stops to keep the party going. It has deep pockets, fantastic connections, and endless charm. It controls everything, most importantly the media and therefore the public mind.

In "Inside the Third Reich," Hitler's former armaments minister, Albert Speer, describes how he was able to keep the economy of Germany functioning deep into the autumn of 1944, even though most of the country's infrastructure had been bombed to smithereens. The country was still producing enough ammunition, tanks, artillery pieces, etc., to inflict the greatest casualties ever inflicted on the US in a single battle (the Battle of the Bulge). The German people were still eating and still clothed, although there was considerable hardship too.

It will take so much to end our insane party, just as it did to end Hitler's. So much more than we can imagine. But the end will come, and it will be worse than we can imagine.

[BigTex]

What a great bedtime story Heineken!