Oh dear Lord, how I do love being right; even if it's only so often or for so long.
What you see in this chart, is a drop in oil price from it's high around $146, to today's close at $124. I know it's a little geeky looking, but basically each vertical bar represents the trading range for a given day; with the left pointing hashes representing opening prices, the right pointing ones the close. The columns across the bottom show trading volume.
This represents roughly a 13% loss from its high - on July 11th. Some of the more optimistic folks are calling this the ol' bubble popping.
I call it a response to the changing regulatory environment , obvious demand destruction, the long term possibility of the expansion of drilling operations in the U.S.; AND the bubble popping. The latest inventory report showed 2.9 million barrels of gasoline inventories; when only 500,000 were expected. Guess it got a little to expensive and people quit buying it, hm? Maybe? Yeah?
Yee haw.
"Why is cheap oil so important, when there are so many other financial problems?" you might ask. Well, as the price of oil decreases, it does two things that make you and I (as people with dollars in our wallets) richer. Firstly, it tends to shore up strength in our currency, since oil is bought and sold in dollars. Although it's not neccesarily a two-way street, there's a bit of cyclical action that ties them very closely. That action is the second thing that cheap oil does - it puts spending money in our pockets. Not just in the form of cheaper oil or gas; but in the trickle down effects of cheaper petroleum products in general, fertilizers, plastics, and every item that is brought to your home by anything (a plane, a train, a truck) that runs on petroleum based products. As Americans find they've got more spending money, they can pay back debts, make new purchases, and maintain a healthy economy. Healthy economy = strong dollar.
In all honesty, I'd be surprised if it continued to drop so precipitously. I'm still expecting it to drop in value, but there's a lot of dust left to settle; so I think it'll take some time. It'll be interesting to see how things take shape in the coming weeks.
Linkish Update: Ed Morrissey puts together a nice little aggregation of the facts on what increased production could do to global supply and, more importantly, U.S. dependance on unstable and unfriendly regimes.
When you did you get so fucking smart?
When I started hitting the hash pipe on the regular.
For every 1 American that can't afford oil, there are probably 100 Chinese that have just bought a new vehicle for the first time. The demand is not going down.
It's more like this is a temporary reprieve, for when the tropical storms start smashing away at oil production.
Perhaps I should read articles before I link them.. DOH...
lol - that was about Dolly missing the Gulf of Mexico ..
oops
I shall start looking for a used Excursion immediately.
Sorry to kill a topic by posting wedding dresses about it ad nauseum, but my God(!), I can't believe that wedding dress there was a time I preferred to use Qwest - that is, until Qwest DSL started giving me some problems. After abandoning Cox for two years because of the crappy wedding gowns service they gave me wedding gown in three different locales, the prodigal son returns - and it is great to be back.
Apparently two years makes discount wedding dresses all the difference. Cox has completely revamped their customer service. Sure, they have some snarky automated bitch cheap wedding dresses when you call tech support, but - and this is a tip for all of you Googlers out there who can't find simple wedding dresses this - if you're calling Cox tech support and want to bypass the automated system, just say informal wedding dresses "Technician". Apparently, that's the secret word and Cox's automated doorman lets you pass through the pearly gates to,bridal gowns surprisingly, competent tech support and dude's who really don't mind too much when you have bridal dresses a problem.
I had to call Cox twice yesterday, and unlike the horrible time I had with Qwest, they actually fixed my problems both times. It's almost as if they know what they're doing.
And as for speed; I had bridesmaid dresses to always assumed DSL was comparable stricly because with DSL, you're not sharing your network with anyone. I was wrong. Despite what other sites may tell you, cable broadband is way faster than DSL. Clocking my mother of the bride dresses download times, it's about 400% faster with Cox than it was with my DSL. I'm not exaggerating.
Of course, I also purchased their top tier bandwidth speed; at the basic package, it may be more plus size wedding dresses comparable. However, for a web designer, 400% faster means a lot more work is done in less time. And for a guy who actively loves to stream media, holy shit.
Anyway, I'm done now. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't a guy who only complains, but also compliments. Kudos Cox - ya won me over.