A Change Occurred

I just checked a commodity research site to which I subscribe. The gasoline demand chart shows current demand vs. last year and the 16 year average. Last week's drop was a singular event. This year's demand had been trending a bit below last year, but the drop last week puts it at a new, lower level. Perhaps the summer driving season will not occur. Last week's gasoline demand was about at late-March levels. Is the US driver finally acting rationally and seriously cutting back on driving ? Doing something instead of just griping ? The drop vs. last year's demand is not large - about 4%. I think people can cut 4% of gasoline demand easily, by combining trips and thinking first about taking the SUV or the compact to go mall. Perhaps the public is doing it.

I'll monitor this for awhile and provide updates.

The implications would be that the commodity peak might pull back to a sustainable plateau. My guess has always been the $100/barrel of crude area and time frame around the Beijing Olympics. Time will tell.

Ruling Classes

WSJ: "WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to approve a budget resolution that includes more than $1 trillion in discretionary spending for the first time."

That's "discretionary" spending, not entitlements like Social Security or Medicare.

One trillion dollars is one million millions. There are about 300 million Americans. So that's spending over $3,000 per person. Considering that most common people get nothing from this, the amount is stunning.

Unrestricted looting ...

Word of the Day

"Sough" - verb, intransitive [$10] - pronounced "sow" to rhyme with "how" or "suf" to rhyme with "rough".
Sough means to make a moaning, whistling or rushing sounds as of a wind in trees, etc.
Sentence: Reading of the enormous size of the Federal spending sow feeding all the innumerable piglets made me sough in surprise as if suffering from food poisening. Uhhhhhhh.