Friday - June 22, 2012

Free Fallin’

I always wanted to rewrite the old Tom Petty Free Falling song with Weird Al style lyrics to make a paean to allergy season -
Now it’s tree pollen, yes it’s tree pollen
which just shows you how dangerous the combination of an unhinged imagination and a hearing problem can be.

But that has nothing to do with this post, which is yet another bash against Teh Won. His efforts haven’t done squat to revitalize the economy, and things are going from bad to worse. Worse to worser even.

Oil prices fell Thursday, hitting an eight-month low, as markets continued to react to disappointing economic news across the globe.

The price of oil for August delivery fell to $78.58 a barrel as markets settled, down nearly 4% from Wednesday. This is the first time since October that oil prices hit below $80, what analysts consider a key psychological number.

Signs of a slowdown in manufacturing in China, Europe and the United States delivered the oil market another blow on Thursday.

“Prices have gotten clobbered, and it’s being driven by the deteriorating economic data,” said Matt Smith, a commodity analyst at Summit Energy Services [not the guy currently playing Dr. Who].

The oil markets also reacted to jobless claims, which analysts said showed little improvement. Prices were also still coming down from disappointment over the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady.
...
The sharp dive in prices over the last month and a half has analysts concerned. Crude oil prices are often indicative of what’s going on in the larger global economy.

“This is a tempering of optimism and expectations in economic growth beyond the oil market,” Smith said.

Gas prices fell below to $3.472 per gallon on Thursday, below $3.50 for the third day in a row after more than four months above that mark, according to AAA.

Kloza anticipates that gas prices will continue to fall as the summer driving season heats up, and well into the fall.

“The market is telling you that right around Election Day, the average price is going to be below $3 a gallon,” he said.

I watched the New York City news on TV last night, and their bit of coverage on this story said how NYC drivers going to the NJ shore would be pleasantly surprised with the price of gas on NJ’s highways, which averaged $3.42. This is cheap by NYC standards, because of the high taxes imposed by both the state and the metropolis. New Jersey taxes just about everything except gas, so our state always has the least expensive gas. But $3.42 is a rip. My station down the street here reacted to the latest price drop by lowering their price to $3.19. We’re down 50-60¢ in the past month; to heck with Election Day, I’m expecting $2.99 by the end of the month.

The economy is flatlined, still. Beeeeeeeeep. And all the stimulus in the world won’t defibrillate it, not with the Sword of Damoclse government regulation (EPA, Obamacare, et al) hanging over business’s heads. Way to go Mr. President.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/22/2012 at 09:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • Government •  
• Comments (4) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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