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Page added on May 31, 2020
Post-Pandemic Energy Might Not Change Much
When talking about the movement of oil prices, I often refer people to the movie “Trading Places,” and specifically to the scene where the elderly investment bankers are explaining the futures market to street hustler Eddie Murphy, and he says, “I get it. You guys are bookies.” One of the brothers turns to the other and says, “I told you he’d get it.” To many, Wall Street, stock and commodity markets, appear like gambling which serves no purpose, which is a complete misunderstanding of their function. (Topic for another day.)
Granted, the sudden swings in the market seems to many to resemble gambling more than investment, and the scene in “Trading Places” where brokers shift their trading on a dime based on a piece of news or rumor does not help correct that impression, but the point is that, in the long run, all of those pieces of news add up to market information that informs the traders and helps to determine the appropriate prices.
That said, far too many take individual pieces of data or events as evidence of long-term trends and fail to differentiate between transient events or exceptions to the rule and long-term or fundamental trends. Examples include the Shah of Iran, who sold an individual cargo of oil during the first Oil Crisis for $17 a barrel (about $80 adjusted for inflation), far above the posted price, and didn’t realize that was an aberration reflecting specific needs of a buyer, but thought it represented the true ‘value’ of oil. Needless to say, the Shah was not a microeconomist.
Many others made a similar mistake during the Iranian Oil Crisis, which was a complex situation but dominated by the loss of nearly 6 million barrels of day of supply because of the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent political disruption in the world’s foremost oil producing region. But ultimately, as expert reports weighed in, the conclusion was that the problem lay in the scarcity of oil resources, with the U.S. Secretary of Energy predicting that global oil production would never surpass the then level of 65 mb/d. (It has hit 100 since.)
Now, there are many looking at the pandemic and arguing that it will accelerate the date of peak oil demand given likely behavioral changes including much more working from home, less business travel and more virtual meetings, and far less airplane travel and long-distance tourism. Others have argued that renewable energy usage will be boosted by the pandemic, pointing to instances where renewables’ share of power generation surged.
The first problem will all of this is that we are still in the midst of the pandemic, and not even sure whether it’s the third or seventh inning (out of nine, for those not familiar with baseball). Consumer behavior post-pandemic is highly uncertain and the current anecdotal evidence is of minimal value. Commuting to work is still down, but recovering and once a vaccine is widely available could increase dramatically. Outdoor dining in areas where the lockdown has been eased has surged, and people show a strong desire to engage more in social activities, from going to restaurants to amusement parks, but whether that’s a post-lockdown surge that will fade is uncertain.
There are analogues which are instructive. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, travel dropped off sharply and videoconferencing increased, which some thought would persist. But at the figure below shows, passenger miles in the U.S. dipped, then recovered until the 2008 recession, when they dipped again and recovered. The trend line does not appear to have been altered by either of those two instances. I hate the annoyance of airport security as much as anyone, and it imposes an economic cost, but it hasn’t deterred me from flying.
U.S. air passenger miles (millions)
The author based on Dept. of Transportation data
And just a few years ago, the 2008 recession and the subsequent rise of ride-sharing apps led to a belief that the days of widespread car ownership were ending. Millennials were not only not buying cars, they seemed less interested in obtaining drivers’ licenses. Detroit’s business model was on the verge of obsolescence. Yet observe the figure below, which shows auto sales (in dollar terms, not units) in the U.S. and it becomes clear that the 2008 recession and dip in sales was a transient—the trend line is, if anything, up in recent years.
Millions spent monthly on automobiles
The author from St. Louis Fed Data
Over the next six months, there will be an endless parade of pundits describing the massive upheaval in public behavior and economic structure after the pandemic, and while some of them might be prescient (more luck than insight in most cases), a healthy degree of skepticism is in order.
36 Comments on "Post-Pandemic Energy Might Not Change Much"
Abraham van Helsing on Sun, 31st May 2020 10:30 am
Incredible creative illustration of what a chain reaction really is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss-P4qLLUyk
Best video in a long time!
makati1 on Sun, 31st May 2020 5:34 pm
Forbes, pushing the elite’s propaganda about what THEY would like the future to be, more $$$$ for them, not the Greatest Depression it will be.
This is NOT anything like the 2008 blip they talk about here. This is a major change in everything. Wait and see.
makati1 on Sun, 31st May 2020 5:43 pm
Meanwhile…Summer in today’s Amerika.
Police arrest 1,700 people across 22 cities in 3 days
National Guard activated in 12 states
Trump’s conservative media allies urge him to address the nation
Target temporarily closes 175 stores in 13 states due to riots
Curfews enacted in two dozen major cities; Los Angeles issues mandatory curfew for the entire city
345 people arrested in NYC on Saturday, 33 officers injured
One killed in Indianapolis in shooting amid protests
Biden states protests urges understanding but cautions against “needless destruction”
28 arrested in Nashville during riots
Atlanta police arrest 70 people amid social unrest
Denver police arrest 18 as demonstrations ease from the previous two nights
Miami-Dade Police arrest 38 people, suspends all transit services on Sunday
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/social-unrest-across-nation-results-national-guard-activation-and-curfews
I’m glad I am 8,000 miles away in a peaceful country. Pass the popcorn…
Davy on Sun, 31st May 2020 5:52 pm
“I’m glad I am 8,000 miles away in a peaceful country. Pass the popcorn…”
That makes two of us and I hope you never return
Duncan Idaho on Sun, 31st May 2020 5:52 pm
Trump is the ultimate Karen
https://www.salon.com/2020/05/31/trump-is-the-ultimate-karen_partner/
JuanP on Sun, 31st May 2020 5:53 pm
“It’s A Setup”: Mysterious Brick Piles Appear Throughout Major Protest Cities
Mysterious pallets of bricks have been filmed throughout major riot hotspots across the country, in what appears to be more evidence that organized groups are using the George Floyd protests to incite chaos and terrorism throughout the US.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/its-setup-mysteriously-staged-bricks-appear-throughout-major-protest-cities
Theedrich on Sun, 31st May 2020 5:54 pm
Dems and media shill for Negro crime. After 3 media seconds saying that rioters trashing and burning down cities and injuring lawmen might be naughty (“Tsk, tsk!”), they spend half an hour berating Whites and their “racist” sinfulness. They never mention the inherent violence and stupidity of Negroes with their average 85-IQ. Lately the death of a Negroid forger might have been partly caused by an unbalanced cop in Minneapolis:
But it became another crisis terrible to waste, thus the mayhem so long urged by the Leftist “Resistance” crowd was unleashed, resulting in untold millions of dollars in damages, and businesses and livelihoods destroyed, and general fear.
The Democrats are exploiting the disaster for all they can get, expecting to win the November presidential election on the back of White guilt. Because the most basic psychological characteristic of White Americans as Americans is the œdipus complex — an underlying hatred of one’s own father and, by extension, of anything seeming to be patriarchal or paternally authoritarian. It is derived from the excesses of the Protestant Reformation and the religious wars which ingrained fierce, anti-authoritarian anti-papism in the Protestant mind of the original colonial settlers. Added to the primitive belief in the inexpungible Original Sin of all Whites, the infantile urge to destroy all patriarchal inheritance is the inherited result. Today, destructive reversion to universal childhood promised by the socialist Democrats is their hope of gaining power.
The Left’s aim, in other words, is conquest through White genosuicide.
JuanP on Sun, 31st May 2020 5:56 pm
more liberal crap:
Female Athletes Fight To Keep Biological Men Out Of Their Sports
Two Idaho University female track athletes are teaming up with the state of Idaho to dismiss a lawsuit that that would allow transgender women to compete in their sport. Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Brad Little signed into law a statute to ban transgender athletes from participating in the other sex’s sports, but the American Civil Liberties Union and Legal Voice filed a lawsuit in April, arguing that the new state law violates the U.S. Constitution.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/female-athletes-fight-keep-biological-men-out-their-sports
Davy on Sun, 31st May 2020 6:03 pm
Yeap juanPee. Your last too comments prove how screwed up this country really is. Maybe mak is onto something after all.
JuanP on Sun, 31st May 2020 6:15 pm
I am leaving on my saleboat soon to south Amerika. These riots gots me sceerred.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a5/d3/51/a5d351286318fa97441ac724eaa63f56.jpg
Davy on Sun, 31st May 2020 6:21 pm
I wish I had a yacht like you do juanPee. Our Italian backup didn’t work out to good. They won’t even let us out of the country any more.
makati1 on Sun, 31st May 2020 7:16 pm
Davy, why would I want to return to a dying, police state headed to a Bangladesh like future? I live in a growing country, in the new power center, Asia. No freezing weather, no racial discrimination, etc. A religious population, mostly Catholic, that still practices what they believe, unlike Amerikans.
I don’t even plan to go back to the US for a visit as the lock-down will be an ongoing event there and I don’t want to get trapped in the Amerikan Gulag. I can communicate with my friends and family on the internet or by phone as I have been doing for the last 12 years. If I want something I can always use Amazon or Alibaba.
YOU are the one stuck in the swamp with the alligators, not me. Another sunny Monday here in the land of eternal summer. The rain showers happen mostly at night, leaving the day nice and green. ^_^
Duncan Idaho on Sun, 31st May 2020 8:05 pm
My sister in law can’t leave the PI for Guam.
Maybe mid month—
makati1 on Sun, 31st May 2020 9:18 pm
Duncan, The US Embassy has been arranging rides for Amerikans wanting to leave the Philippines to the US, only to California I think, but I have seen no mention of any other destination. And, unlike the other countries repatriating their citizens, if you want to go to the US you have to pay. The US did not send free planes for its citizens.
Davy on Sun, 31st May 2020 10:00 pm
Were not citizens anymore Old Bat. Were consumers.
REAL Green on Sun, 31st May 2020 10:36 pm
So true Davy. So true.
Consumption is what capitalisms all about.
No consumers. No capitalists.
Davy on Sun, 31st May 2020 10:49 pm
Wait till the lynch mobs start showing up REAL Green.
Were so screwed. Them 3am flashes is lookin better all the time.
REAL Green on Sun, 31st May 2020 11:14 pm
Thats why we built are monestary of doom Davy. We have more then enough to go around. We just need to learn how to git along. If we don’t. Were gonna suffer real bad like.
Nutter on Sun, 31st May 2020 11:28 pm
Yer not the sharpest tack in the barn Davy.
JuanP on Sun, 31st May 2020 11:32 pm
So true Nutter. So true.
I AM THE MOB on Mon, 1st Jun 2020 1:12 am
German Official Leaks Report Denouncing Corona as ‘A Global False Alarm’
“The people who die from Corona would statistically die this year, with any random everyday stress (including the approximately 150 viruses currently in circulation).
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/05/29/german-official-leaks-report-denouncing-corona-as-global-false-alarm/?fbclid=IwAR38WTecCLZ1fCtMZU6Yf3A92cdytlv87inSKyuXyFnkAJwm2wu_U8lIWWA
We know the pandemic is fake since they had to take people’s rights away to create a false crisis. The loss of liberty alone creates a real crisis to stand in for the fake pandemic.
If there really was a pandemic you wouldn’t need the lockdown, since people would see others falling ill, and voluntarily not leave their house, no violation of rights is necessary for keeping one from jumping from great heights etc. because it is real it enforces itself, so there need be no law banning our movements during pandemics since real pandemics enforce their own laws by the power of their deadly nature
Richard Guenette on Thu, 4th Jun 2020 2:23 pm
Amerika is falling like a house of cards.
joe on Thu, 4th Jun 2020 2:47 pm
Duterte is proud now?
“https://youtu.be/vzWcbR-XC60”
joe on Thu, 4th Jun 2020 2:51 pm
Duterte is proUS now?
“https://youtu.be/vzWcbR-XC60”
Asshole JuanP sock on Thu, 4th Jun 2020 3:23 pm
Richard Guenette said Amerika is falling like a house of cards.
Richard Guenette said Hate propaganda should be blocked on the Internet…
Richard Guenette said Send of all of superrich to prison.
Richard Guenette said Human beings have the right to respect and dignity…
Richard Guenette said There is one way to stop the US government- DISOBE…
Joe on Thu, 4th Jun 2020 11:56 pm
The left is going to blow up America. States which defund the police should have walls built around them. Quarantine lawless states.
Davy on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:17 am
So true Joe. So true.
Anyone that does not agree with are rabid extremist right wing views, has to be drawn and quartered. Or shot.
Freedom and Demockracy 101
joe on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:29 am
What lies ahead
The Cultural Revolution, formally the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in China from 1966 until 1976. Launched by Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), its stated goal was to preserve Chinese Communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society, and to re-impose Mao Zedong Thought (known outside China as Maoism) as the dominant ideology in the CPC. The Revolution marked Mao’s return to the central position of power in China after a period of less radical leadership to recover from the failures of the Great Leap Forward, which led to approximately 30 million deaths in the Great Chinese Famine only five years earlier.
Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution poster.jpg
Cultural Revolution propaganda poster. It depicts Mao Zedong, above a group of soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army. The caption reads, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is the great school of Mao Zedong Thought.”
Literal meaning
“Great Cultural Revolution
“Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution”
Mao launched the movement in May 1966 with the help of Cultural Revolution Group, soon calling on young people to “bombard the headquarters” and proclaiming that “to rebel is justified”.
“https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#:~:text=The%20Cultural%20Revolution%2C%20formally%20the,China%20from%201966%20until%201976.”
Defunding the police is subversion sttrategy designed to encourage conflict with gun owners. Ending the second ammendment rights and kowtowing to China are at the heart of the liberal deepstate elites who want to gain financially from access to Chinas markets and they will create the conditions that allow a racial bloodbath to get get it done.
joe on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:36 am
. The 1975 Banqiao Dam failure, one of the greatest technological catastrophes of the world, also took place during the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand, senior officials, most notably Chinese president Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, Peng Dehuai and He Long, were purged or exiled. Millions were accused of being members of the Five Black Categories and were persecuted, suffering public humiliation, imprisonment, torture, hard labor, seizure of property, and sometimes execution or harassment into suicide. Intellectuals were considered the “Stinking Old Ninth” and were widely persecuted; notable scholars and scientists such as Lao She, Fu Lei, Yao Tongbin and Zhao Jiuzhang were killed or committed suicide. Schools and universities were closed with the college entrance exams cancelled. Over 10 million urban intellectual youths were sent to the countryside in the Down to the Countryside Movement. Red Guards also destroyed historical relics as well as artifacts, and ransacked cultural and religious sites.
joe on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:42 am
Students out roiling up the poor, ritual humiliation of those at hand to look like the ruling elites, tearing down historical monuments? Ultimately this will not lead to a new utopia for liberals. THEY ARE THE ULTIMATE TARGET OF THIS CULTURAL REVOLUTION!!!
Wake up liberals, you are on the dinner plate too!
joe on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:43 am
Watch out for a massive failure of Americas electrical grid, crippling America evrn further. Some other disaster to create the symbol of failure.
joe on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:45 am
‘White Privledge’ is a Marxist slogan. Better Dead than Red!
joe on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:58 am
where is Americs heading?
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the new paramount leader of China and started the “Boluan Fanzheng” program which gradually dismantled the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution and brought the country back to order. Deng then started a new phase of China by initiating the historic Reforms and Opening-up program. In 1981, the Communist Party of China declared that the Cultural Revolution was “responsible for the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the Party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People’s Republic”.[9]
China turned its back on ‘woke’ politics decades ago. Learn from China, dont copy them.
joe on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 1:20 am
“Re-education camps”to end ‘white privledge’
“https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps#:~:text=As%20of%202018%2C%20it%20was,internment%20camps%20which%20are%20located”
Soon white kids will be forced to do a course on how they are the opressors and now must apologise ritually and accept their role in slaver (note to reader, most white Americans today came to America as penniless peasents, after slaves were
freed)
Davy on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 2:09 am
JuanP on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 12:17 am
“So true Joe. So true. Anyone that does not agree with are rabid extremist right wing views, has to be drawn and quartered. Or shot.
Freedom and Demockracy 101”
Fuck that juanPee. There are so few extremist right wing and most of them are uneducated. There numbers are so far below the extremist left. dumbass
Davy on Fri, 5th Jun 2020 2:12 am
“Re-education camps”to end ‘white privledge’
LOL, joe, the extremist leftist are sending their kids to these things but they are dying and almost dead. Talk about derangement. They are guaranteeing Trump 2020. Most sane liberals see this and many even think Trump better.