The big banks are back in print about "Peak Oil". Raymond James, Goldman "The Anti-Christ" Sachs, Barclays, Bank America et al are back on the beat.
Bank of America and Barclays Capital, two leading oil traders, have told clients to brace for crude above $100 (£64) a barrel by next year, before it pushes relentlessly higher over the decade. This is a stark contrast from recessions in the 1980s and 1990s, when it took years to work off excess drilling capacity built in the boom.
"Oil has the potential to flirt with $100 this year. We forecast an average price of $137 by 2015," said Amrita Sen, an oil expert at BarCap. The price has doubled to $78 in the last year.
"The groundwork for the next sustained step up in oil prices is now almost complete. Global spare capacity is likely to be reduced to low levels within a relatively short time. The global economic crisis has postponed, but not cancelled, a crunch which would otherwise be starting to bite now," said Barclays.
Their arguments are well presented in the article. Better late than never.
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Soc Gen's boss is out saying the breakup of the European Union is inevitable, and of course its inevitable. Europe's generous social programs will bring them to ruin just as the U.S. social programs and military budget will bring us to wish we never heard of FDR (Europe did not have the U.S.'s entrenched underclass to contend with, so they grew one.)
The U.S. should not be so smug, either, about Europe's break up. "There, but for the grace of G-d, go I"; or us.
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Ron Paul leads the pack in today's Republican straw poll. For those of you that have been reading me for awhile I was an early supporter of Congressman Paul last time around. Not that I think he has a shot at the nomination for 2012, but its nice to think about it...
Anyway, I got an email from a friend of mine with similar political leanings today:
A $50 Lesson
I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day.
Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, “If you were President what would be the first thing you would do?”
She replied, “I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people.”
Her parents beamed with pride.
“Wow...what a worthy goal.” I told her, “But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house tomorrow and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.”
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?”
I said, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”
Her parents still aren't speaking to me.
The Cheap Oil Free Lunch Extravaganza is going to come to a screeching halt in the near future. If you really want to help your fellow man, you will help him learn to provide for himself because he is really, really, really going to have to. Or else. Those stories in the media about "jacking the age" for social security and medicare benefits are not some figment of your imagination. Collapse of SS and Medicare does not mean 100% no more payments. Taking away 50% of the promised payments qualifies as collapse for me, and for the MORONS on the economic Left to claim that Social Security and Medicare was SAVED (HAHAHAHHA ROFL!!) by reneging on a contract made with people that have already PAID is just a TAD disingenuous...
In the mean time... Relax and enjoy! We've got crazy people flying planes into government buildings and nutty professors sending Anthrax to gain funding... both these guys killed themselves but felt the need to take a few innocents with them... At the base of their insane motivations are some pretty outrageous expectations, I would be willing to wager. This is no time to "rage against the machine". For myself I am going, as I always have, to pay my taxes on time, obey the law right down to things like the speed limit, and do my best not piss anybody off. People seem just a bit stressed at the moment... I wouldn't have wanted to get into a road rage incident with the "IRS pilot"... he probably wouldn't have thought too much about blowing somebody away on his way to the airport, if you catch my drift... It is nice to be nice!