Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Usually, discussions of decarbonizing energy production involve solar, wind, tidal and geothermal. But nuclear power generation doesn’t generate greenhouse gas (though the large amount of concrete in conventional nuclear power plants does). Nuclear power generation has a bad name after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. While there is debate about whether the Three Mile Island and Fukushima accidents really endangered many lives, there’s no...

by Joseph Joyce The Coming Wave of Debt Restructurings The news that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in 2022 sooner than anticipated was not surprising in view of the continued high rates of U.S. inflation. While U.S. asset prices are falling in response to the prospect of higher rates as well as a smaller Fed balance sheet, foreign markets are straining to decipher the spillover effects on their economies. But it is only a matter...

RJS: Focus on Fracking December global oil shortage was 1,240,000 barrels per day as OPEC output was 625,000 barrels per day short of quota; global oil shortage for 2021 was 1,446,300 barrels of oil per day. Tuesday of this week saw the release of OPEC’s January Oil Market Report, which includes OPEC & global oil data for December, and hence it gives us a picture of the global oil supply & demand situation for the fifth month after...

The Arctic Hare and Walter Benjamin’s program for a proletarian children’s theater The hare was a child so badly treated and offended by the other people because he had such long ears that he went off to live alone. When he sees someone, he puts his ears back; for when he hears a man’s call, he thinks they are talking about his long ears. He doesn’t have a tail because he didn’t have one before. Walter Benjamin’s “Program for a proletarian...

New Deal democrat, “Historical Note on US Treasury Interest Rates and Stock Prices“ Over the weekend I was asked by two people what is going on in the markets. That’s usually a sign that there has been a sudden downside move, and people are getting emotional. Back 5 and 10 years ago, when I was doing perpetual battle with the DOOOMers, several times I was able to call a market bottom to the day – and once within an hour in real time – by how...

US oil inventories near 10 year low as Strategic Petroleum Reserve falls to yet another 19 year low; gasoline imports at a 53 week low; gasoline exports at an 82 week low; 3 week gasoline inventory increase is largest on record, RJS, Focusing on Fracking The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending January 14th indicated that due to a big jump in our oil...

A Flip In Oil Markets, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser  A long time ago, sometime before the 2008 crash, prices of Brent crude oil and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude ran close to each other.  WTI would from time to time would exceed Brent, with them kind of bouncing around as they moved along. This changed with the financial market crash of 2008, with Brent becoming chronically higher than WTI, nearly always by several dollars per barrel. For...

American capitalism has an everpresent desire for increased profits. Over the course of history, corporations had increased profits largely due to increased population growth. As we have seen from new data coming from the 2020 Census, population growth is beginning to stabilize and flatten, yet corporations are still expected to perform regardless of market conditions, and if population growth is no longer the cosmic funnel of operating revenues,...

Housing ends 2021 with a bang Housing ended 2021 with a bang, as housing starts (blue in the graph below, left scale) increased to 1.702 million annualized, and permits (gold) to 1.873 million annualized, in both cases the highest level since 2006 with the sole exception of last March / January, respectively. Single family permits (red, right scale), which are the least noisy, increased to 1.128 million annualized, the highest reading since May,...

RJS, Focus on Fracking, Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a new 19 year low; commercial crude inventories fall to 45 month low, total US oil supplies lowest since January 20th 2012; implied gasoline demand at 11 month low; largest jump in drilling rigs since April 1st as the Haynesville and the Marcellus are targeted for oil This Week’s Rig Count The number of drilling rigs running in the US increased for the 58th time over the past 69 weeks...