by Peleg » Wed 30 Jul 2008, 03:02:17
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Farknight', '[')web]http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a8QLru4vOjx0&refer=worldwide[/web]
Looks like $4 a gallon has those Hummers and Escalades sitting in the garage near the RV. It shall be interesting to see how this demand decrease plays out in the overall economy. It certainly can't be good for an energy intensive society built around easy transport to conduct business.
You gotta love Yogi. A credit to the profession.
'That restaurant is always packed. That's why noone goes there anymore.'
Alot of folks are suprised that $4 turned out to be so influential. Empirically we have to take note. That said we do have the housing crisis, credit crunch, and we did max out our ability to refinance and use cards. We were encouraged after 9/11, told it was our patriotic duty to keep spending and borrowing, so we did. Now that bandaid has dried up and fallen off and the sore is now infected. If we had been at the 1998 time stage in the credit crisis, and not had these companies pandering to every false hope of the American public and depletion were giving us $4 I do not think we would see the same impact. The truth is that $4 does not touch everyone equally. But the masses mostly make below the median income, the distribution is not symmetric, so we have to come up with some relief or the low payed service sector is going to tank and that is the economy now that all the industrial jobs have been farmed out. We have not admitted to ourselves that service sector will always be bigger than manufacturing, which will always be bigger than information, as far as jobs go. You have to protect the foundation of the building or eventually the building crumbles.