I don’t post a lot these days, but thought i’d weigh in here with a different perspective.
Retailers are not expecting a bumper take from this year’s holiday season. Wal-Mart of all places recently reported below expected earnings, and those were same store sales based. Fact is, when a place like Wally World is having trouble there is serious danger on the horizon. What do most people shop for at Wal Mart? - The essentials, basic boxed foodstuffs, detergents, TP, etc,…most don’t go there for a high end tv (they don’t have high end anything at Wal-Mart).
My take on this: If people can’t afford the basic necessities, at the retailer that sells them for the lowest price (and their earnings prove this) how are they going to spend money at Christmas? The simple answer is that they can’t, because they don’t have it. I suspect that commodities traders were tasked with lowering gas prices this year (artificially) so that consumers would feel less stressed and open their wallets for holiday shopping which begins in earnest at Thanksgiving. Consumers feel gas prices more keenly than any other cost, when gas is cheap they have that extra cash in their pocket and will spend it much more willingly. It also tends to have a psychological effect (optimism for the way things are heading) which makes those who have credit available more willing to utilize it.
For me personally, it was a rainy Thanksgiving, and I had a VERY heavy enclosed trailer to return this holiday season. I filled up the wood monster with Cash-O-lean and did about 80 down the freeway with her. Only cost me $48 to fill her up at $1.61/gal,…it used to cost about $140. I opted to stay clean and dry and hauled ass to the in-laws on this (temporarily) discounted fuel. For anyone wondering, I have pulled this trailer on wood many times, it’s an old girl and it pulls like a tank. On wood, my top speed towing her is about 45, which is OK for local 2-lanes but not so for holiday freeway driving, on gas 80mph is a breeze. It ALMOST makes me miss that added power, but I am one cheap bastard…
Wood is good, don’t fall for the temporary lull in fuel prices, and keep your eyes OPEN, there IS trouble on the horizon. I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe thanksgiving, enjoy the leftovers!
Hi Henry,
I’m generally an optimist, but I have a feeling something’s up. On the lighter side, I ran into a term I haven’t before and it cracked me up, Cash-O-Lean. Thanks for the laugh. Real good thought provoking commentary.
Pepe
I can’t take credit for it, I think is was Al Denniger I heard it from, no idea where it originated.
I’d like to be wrong, we need things to be optimistic and excited about - I just don’t see the wondrous recovery everyone is talking about in the media, not on main street anyway. I had to get some essentials this morning (payday) so I hit the local Wal-Mart in Charlotte, MI, a small community where it’s the only game in town. If people were Black Friday shopping, it’s where they would be, and it was a ghost town. I took these two photos at about 9:45 this morning. Notice the wood burner in the first photo ;
Wow, I wish Erie was like that. I stopped shopping in the big town, too crowded and too far to walk in those big stores. If I can’t get it in Union City, hardware store, NAPA, grocery store, I’ll get it online. Turns out that I have more time and money now. Vary rare will I go to the big stores now.
William is correct that we have a major glut. Down here in Houston, they have been building huge new tanks by the docks to hold more oil.
The pay off is for the large oil companies that are buying up all the independent contractors and wild cats that popped up during the boom. This is a political move that also allows the big boys who have large bank accounts to consolidate the field.
They don’t care if this starts another war as the price will just go back up then. The rich will have more oil, influence, and resources either way.
Thanks everyone, lots of interesting commentary! I tried to find info on how things are going on the Fracking front currently but reports I found are old, I know it costs more but it’s right here in the US, low shipping costs, they are also using this new Technology in Ohio maybe other places! I’m sorry to you guys outside the US, sometimes I forget we have a worldwide forum here! Are other countries using fracking Technology?
Tanking the market liquid and gasious DinoFuels is an Old, Old game. Back to good ol’ J.D. Rockerfeller. Price bottom it. Flood the market. Get the market ,driving out competitors. Then Jack-off the Market. They are just dependent/comsumers.
The “Seven Sisters” Majors in the 50’s - early 70’s. OPEC member states since.
Just so o-o-o damn easy to lead the shepple around by their pocketbooks. Individuals. Countries. Cultures.
Since I have no accessible usable personal hydro, wind or solar BUT can grow trees why I am so wood-for-power insist.
One of my walk by neighbors an avid bad-hair Presidential candidate supporter pulled out his woodstove chimney this last summer.
Wind storm power out twice now this cold season I’ve had woodheat, hotwater: and could of had wood for-lights/refrigeration/DVD/TV anytime I’d wanted/needed.
The bad-hair candidate advocating neighbor; the dated pants-suit candidate advocating Leaf driving neighbor; and the pulpit thumping screeching revolution candidate advocating Prius driving neighbors were all in the cold and dark for over 24 hours.
TopDown dependencies suck no matter who the shreeking, screaching, throw-out the baby-with-the-baby-water TopEnder is doing the Top Downing.
I’d guess you fellows with the high Dino use prices are subsidizing a lot of social progressiveness. That takes a lot of well paid bureaucrats. We in the US with the lowest retail Dino prices can’t say much. Takes a heck of a lot sacrificing to support a military reaching enough to ensure the OPEC majors the ‘freedom’ to 2X, 3X jack us around too.
My own trees still been growing thru all of this last 65 years of up and down jerk-you off TopDown energy pricing/supplying.
This is all why I very unpopularly say here on the DOW that only those doing wood-for-power because they insist on the personal freedom of it are the only ones who will stick with it.
Once you put a price on it you can be bought out.
I think you’ll have to be a bit more specific there… They all have bad hair by one standard or another.
From the limited context, I gather you’re referring to the wild-haired one from Vermont?
Here in Kansas they blame tracking for earthquakes, its hard to believe a well could cause an earthquake along a 700 or 1000 mile long fault, in Kansas we pay around 30 cents per gal tax, 50 cents more in Colo. Govt makes the money.
Fracing is not like a normal well: they are literally making hundreds and thousands of smaller fault lines which can trigger bigger faults.
It’s like taking a cutting torch to a few key structural beams on a bridge. Sure, it only makes a single small “break”, but that makes other beams take extra and off-balance stresses.
Soon the whole bridge comes down, maybe not right away, but maybe the next time a dump truck goes across it.
I for one don’t care how cheap gasoline is ,even if it’s below a dollar a gallon, I’m still going to keep working on building my system. The personal freedom it offers is priceless.
America reached cheap-peak-oil some years ago. The junk-bond market was used (and abused) to finance fracking of expensive oil. This is rapidly coming to an end. The expensive-oil producers are going bankrupt.
“IHS, the consulting firm that held the energy gathering in Houston last
week, is forecasting that U.S. oil output could fall from more than 9
million barrels a day to as little as 8.3 million barrels a day by this
summer.”
You can bet that when U.S. domestic oil production is cut , prices will go up. Canadian oil has a similar problem. The oil glut will be worked out as producers go bankrupt. As worldwide oil consumption drops, only the low-cost producers will survive. Even Mexican oil is expensive and the State run oil company, PEMEX, has just lost $ 32 billion.
The price of oil will go back up. The price of trees will remain constant.
Gasoline is always an unknown. I never remember feeling anxiety over anything growing up until our Gas Stations posted “No Gas” on cardboard signs in the 1970’s. Long lines, waiting for hours to buy 10 gallons only was the norm.
I feel I will never get over this. People don’t realize how fragile things are if they haven’t lived through periods lIke this. Gas prices were completely out of control again in 2007 when I was stationed in South Carolina for the RR. Nearly 4 dollars a gallon. Almost as bad as not having any gas at all when you can’t afford to buy it.
I was reminded again and felt compelled to figure out another way. I proved to myself that hydrogen generators were a waste of time, at least for the lack of performance enhancement I was looking for. I ran on to the Engineer775 and Mr. Teslonian videos, very crude, but interesting. From there, I found my first Wayne Keith/ Mother Earth video and the rest is history.
I can always make wood for the truck regardless of petroleum supply or price. If necessary power for my house. Makes me smile with just the thought of you all doing this every day and knowing that I will be joining you soon.
I do not think there will ever be a natural end to petroleum.
It might be regulated into oblivion, but I doubt we ill run out naturally or see it priced so high no one buys it.
I do see the possibilities of short term scarcity of refined products.
Storms fires accidents ( Zombies… joke ) political induced troubles yes.
The world will be better off when our consumption of fossil fuels for begins to decline because of cleaner technology and smarter ways to get around.
I sure would like to come up with some sort of hybrid electric wood gas system.
I dont know maybe, maybe not. But I do not believe that we can not switch to ethanol and biodiesel fuels for one bit. The technologies and infrastructure are here for both fuels, It would take a weaning off potrolium while this industry is developed and set up but I believe it could be done in a short order of a decade or so. If cars were made run ethanol only they would get more comparable fuel mileage to current gasoline versions. The reason flex cars don’t do so well is because they don’t have the proper compression ratio and cam overlap timing. Other petroleum products can be made in synthetic forms now. Yes it does go way beyond energy concerning petroleum there are tons of other products that are effected and that is root of why we are not making these transitions. Not because we cant grow the crops and many other excuses I here of why we can not. But I can tell you our very technology that we are all working on here is capable of making high octane gasolines there are multiple large scale plants already doing this, but there funding has ran out.
That also already exist and is going to continue to gain momentum. The electric cars are here and getting better all the time. Eventually I hope to build a model specific for fast charging a car.
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