Posted on 08/17/2015 1:45:02 PM PDT by blam
Bob Bryan
August 17, 2015
Oil prices have hit six-year lows, and Cumberland Advisors' David Kotok thinks the worst may be yet to come.
"We could go back to $15 or $20, this is a downward slope, we don't know a bottom," Kotok said in a Monday morning interview on Bloomberg TV.
WTI crude oil futures are trading near $42 a barrel while Brent futures are just above $48 a barrel.
Kotok said that despite the oil industries apparent belief that things will get better, there is little reason for anything to change.
"Hope is not a strategy, it’s a myth," he said. "The fact is, we don’t have the drivers."
The good news is that there's good news. When asked about the lack of an increase in consumer spending despite the more favorable oil and gas prices, he said it will come.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
UNDER THE HOOD: An Extraordinary Look At What's Going On In The US Economy Right Now
Two things are true about the US economy: It is adding jobs and growing.
Economic growth over the last few years has been just so-so, though GDP is still growing about 2% annually.
Meanwhile, the labor market is on fire, with the economy adding more jobs in 2014 than any year since 1999
You will never see 19 cents a gallon because state and federal taxes are higher than that, and not going down
You can build a brand new one!
http://www.mustangandfords.com/parts/mump-0605-ford-small-crate-engine-guide/
How’d I ever forget about that! Washington just raised ours 11 cents so were up to 48 cents just in state tax on a gallon!
Here in Indiana, the state was making big bucks from casinos 10-15 years ago. Then all the surrounding ones (IL, OH) legalized gambling. I think legal grass will be irresistable to state legislators due to the financial windfall.
Big oil and the companies depend on high oil prices are going to suffer. Almost everyone else is going to benefit.
There is a process, part of a whole series of reformulations for natural gas, called “Fischer-Tropsch”, which has been well researched, and in fact was used by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, to convert coal into liquid fuel, as Germany had huge reserves of coal, but virtually no petroleum production within their sphere of influence, except for the Ploesti oil fields of Romania, which were destroyed in a daring 1943 air raid.
The process that works on coal works even better on natural gas, by first converting a mixture of water and methane into carbon monoxide and free diatomic hydrogen, then using catalysts to reform these into various forms of longer-chain hydrocarbons, just about any combination that makes up the best quality of gasoline (or Diesel fuel), and this can be done for the equivalent of perhaps $38 per barrel of finished refined product. This is an extreme variation on the usual sort of process used in refining petroleum into the various fractions, including gasoline and Diesel fuel.
And it is technically feasible, already being scaled up to industrial level.
Where do we sign up?
The Magic Negro as you call him has greatly upset America’s masters, the Saudis. The latest news is the Saudis have lost control of the price war they instigated. At this point they’re looking at rapidly decreasing foreign reserves. It’s starting to suck to be them.
“My first car, a gift from my mom, a 1965 Mustang. First year they came out. I also got a 1966 later which I didn’t like as much.”
Must be nice to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
I got a new ‘67 Mustang when I was 22. I had served three years active in the Navy and worked over a year in private industry by then. The only transportation my parents ever furnished me was a mule! No, I am not joking.
You still have the K code Mustang?
And those states will run it up to $4 a gallon to keep tax money flowing.
How can falling oil prices do anything but boost the economy.
“By way of a comparison, $0.19 in 1964 is the equivalent of $1.46 today.”
That is the official line, the truth is much, much worse. You could live a lot better on $1.90 an hour then than you can on 14.60 now, I mean a LOT better. It is not possible to make a straight comparison due to things being so different now but if you are comparing the cost of living now the way people lived then the ratio you quoted is nowhere close. If I buy a meal in an eating place now the sales tax I pay is well over what the same meal with sales tax included cost in 1964.
It hurts domestic energy producers which, in turns, costs jobs in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota and other Conservative states. The effects here in Texas are already becoming apparent with stores closing and vacant office buildings. All due to the Magic Negro and his bowing to the Soros/Buffett cabal as well as his fellow muzzies.
This is ridiculous.
The US economy is not growing at 2%. It is contracting. Oil prices are collapsing and so are commodity prices. That has never been a sign of an economy growing.
The labor participation rate is the highest it’s been in 40 years.
People on food stamps are at close to 50 million and it’s increasing.
The economy is not growing at 2%. In the first quarter it has grown at a minus .7% in the second quarter at an “estimated” 2.3 %. Add those two together and you get 1.6% or an average of .8%. We do not know how Q3 and Q4 are coming in but they are going to be dismal. But let’s look at Q1 and Q2. A .8% gdp is recession country. How you extrapolate from that that we are growing at 2% is insane.
And then a 2% growth on the GDP is pathetic for the American economy. There is no way it is 2% as of today or that we are adding jobs. So you can throw that out. We are in very big trouble.
And going into the second half it will be even worse.
The Fed is unable to raise interest rates and all the bs about raising rates in September is total bs. It will never happen. The Fed will never raise rates because the economy is so weak it would implode if rates were raised.
Wage growth is zero and on and on.
Brace yourselves because September looks like it is going to be a bloodbath.
That the economy is doing well is complete nonsense.
Let me know when cheap oil means cheap gas and not that the sky is falling (for greedy investors) because it isn't $100+
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