Energy News Tidbits: EVs & Oil

European countries made a decision following the 1970s when OPEC held the world hostage for oil.  They decided they were going to diversify their energy portfolios and reduce the impacts that OPEC would have on their economies.  Renewable energy has found quite the secure home across Europe.  Their problems aren’t completely solved today, but they’re far closer than we in the U.S. are.

In the past few years, a push for electric vehicles has taken root in Europe.  Spain wants 1 million hybrid or electric cars on its roads by 2014.  25,000 charging stations could be in England by 2015.  France is building a national network of charging stations.  Europe is in the growing stages of a race to deploy electric cars.  The U.S. continues to lag far behind European countries in fuel economy standards because our domestic auto manufacturers’ executives stuck their fingers in their ears and made fun reality as it passed them by.

Overall, investing in electric cars is up.  Charging stations, regardless of country, will have to be built.  Standards will have to be decided upon.  Our past decisions will heavily and negatively impact our ability to lead the world in future decisions.

Back to OPEC – one of the deciding factors on the acceptance of electric vehicles will be the availability and thus the cost of oil.  World oil reserves are likely only 2/3 that reported by the oil cartel.  With that much of a discrepancy, even $2.80 gas is underpriced.  When shortages appear in the upcoming years, price shocks will result because of OPECs unwillingness to tell the truth.

Interest Rates, Inflation, Housing Starts and OPEC

The Federal Reserve cut its federal funds rate to a record low yesterday: it will hover between 0% and 0.25% for the forseeable future.  I don’t think this action will do anything very meaningful since there was very little room downward for rates to move anyway.  The Fed has cut the rate for a solid year and a half, which followed a steady rise in rates in an attempt to recover from “Bubbles” Greenspan’s rate cuts in the firt half of this decade.  Bernanke’s current approach looks too similar to Greenspan’s for me to have much confidence that it will manifest it’s supposed intended response: a rise in economic activity by a majority of Americans.  The last thing our economy needs right now is for another bubble to grow and pop.

Consumer prices in November fell by a record amount (don’t you love all the records the Republican economy is setting?).  Prices fell 1.7 percent, surpassing the previous record decline of 1 percent set in October. It was the largest one-month decline dating to February 1947.  Part of it really is good news: energy prices were the main driver, which means some money is freed back up to pay for other goods and services.  If prices continue to fall, we’ll see how devastating deflation can be.  The early signs aren’t good: companies that saw their profits slipping fired workers instead of taking a hit; workers (consumers) haven’t seen a real increase in wages in 20+ years, they’re carrying massive debt on their credit cards, and they tapped all the equity on their homes, which means they have no more money to spend; fewer sales mean fewer profits which means more fired workers.  Fewer employed consumers means less buying.  And so on.  Compounding all of this more recently was the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, which mandated that borrowers pay off their credit cards before their mortgages, which led to more foreclosures than those just from the sub-prime lending fiasco.  Put all of this together and the picture moving forward isn’t pretty.  That’s why it will be necessary for President-elect Obama, as well as state and local officials, to initiate and sustain projects that will re-employ workers.  That’s the only way out of this mess.

The Commerce Department reported last Friday that retail sales dropped by 1.8 percent in November. The decline was the fifth straight monthly drop, a record stretch of weakness.

In other economic news, the Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes fell in November by 18.9 percent, the biggest drop in a quarter-century. The steep decline pushed construction down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000 homes, the slowest pace on records dating to 1959.  The Cons goal has been to make American life just like it used to be.  How’s that looking now?  Are home sales at 1959 levels a good thing?  From the article: “Builders continue to be discouraged by the prospects of a housing turnaround amid what’s likely to be the worst recession in decades, spurring rising unemployment and foreclosures.”  Things aren’t likely to change any time soon.

Keep in mind that Bush’s Treasury Department has largely wasted $300 billion by giving it to banks so they can buy up their competition.  No bad assets were taken care of, no jobs were created.  The economy will be the worst since the Great Depression and the “Compassionate Con-servative”, who has utilized the most expansive definition of executive power in our history, does nothing.  This will be a good lesson for Americans to learn: we can take action early on in a crisis and pay a little bit or we can delay action until the crisis grows out of control and pay a whole lot more.  Most Americans will end up paying a very high price for Bush’s actions.

Finally, in a move that should shock absolutely no one, OPEC decided to cut their production by 2.2 million barrels per day.  OPEC decided just a short time ago to decrease output by 2 million barrels per day.  So since oil has backed of its speculation-fueled record high price in July, OPEC has cut production of oil by 4.2 million barrels per day.  That’s a very significant cut: it’s 1/6th its total production.  Moving forward, America needs to promote hybrid and all-electric vehicles.  OPEC countries have no love for the U.S. and we’ve transferred too many billions of dollars to them as it is.  If we as a country can make oil more irrelevant, we should do so.  Our security and the state of our climate would benefit from such moves.

In The News 10/24/08

A campaign volunteer for John McCain in Pittsburgh, PA made up a story about being robbed at an ATM, then being assaulted by the robber once the 6’4″ black man figured out she was driving with a McCain sticker on her car.  The story was ludicrous when it first came out, but that certainly didn’t stop propaganda outlets like Fox from running with the story as hard as they could.  Ashley Todd made up this disgusting story.  She filed a false police report after inflicting the wounds on herself.  Seriously, what has happened to the Republican party?

Lots of economic news again today.  First up: OPEC’s supply decision.  OPEC will cut production by 1.5 million barrels per day.  They think there’s too much supply in the system.  What they’re really saying is that $140 oil makes them more money than $70 oil.  That might sound like a “Duh” type of statement, but it should serve as a lesson to the pro-drilling crowd.  Any additional supply the U.S. might bring to market in 10 years will simply be taken off the market by OPEC.  That means we’ll pay more for gas (not less!) because OPEC wants more for its oil.  The drilling fetish folks are looking to grab some of the profit along the way.  What do we get out of it?

“Too-big-to-fail” insurance giant AIG has not just already blown through the original $85 billion loaned by the government (corporate welfare with taxpayer money), it’s nearly blown the additional $37.5 billion extension loan too.  It doesn’t stop there: AIG may ask for even more money.  Remind me again why American taxpayer dollars are bailing out firms when we’re not allowed to know where the money is really going.

Foreclosures are up 71% over last year’s level.  Nationwide, nearly 766,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in the last quarter, as reported by RealtyTrac.  Remember, RealtyTrac isn’t keeping track of foreclosures in 900 rural counties nationally.  The numbers could have been worse.  Many states have initiated foreclosure-delay programs.  Without additional work, I expect an artificial ‘explosion’ of foreclosures in this quarter.

Meanwhile, the number of new applications for unemployment insurance rose to 478,000.  People without jobs cannot pay their mortgages.  Corporations continue to announce massive numbers of layoffs.  The economy is going to continue to get worse before it gets better.

Cry me a freaking river.  The recession is beginning to hit rich folks’ golf communities.  People that live in the communities are not that upset about the decrease in their home values.  They’re upset because they can’t golf everyday.  They’re upset because they can’t hang out in the clubhouse all day.  These are some of the same people that are upset over inheritance taxes.  They don’t provide labor to the economy, and they think they’re so much better than the rest of us that they shouldn’t have to pay for their fair share of the nation’s infrastructure that they use.  Meanwhile, middle- and lower-class families are becoming homeless and jobless.  The fact that this article was even written is sad commentary on the state of our society.

Inside Colorado, a successful sale of bonds by the state will finance 12 construction projects on college campuses across Colorado:

1. University of Northern Colorado: Butler-Hancock Renovation

2. Colorado Northwestern Community College: Academic Building, Craig Campus

3. Colorado State University at Pueblo: Academic Resources Center Remodel

4. Colorado School of Mines: Brown Hall Addition

5. CSU Fort Collins: Clark Building Revitalization

6. Auraria Higher Education Campus: Science Building

7. Western State College: Taylor Hall Renovation and Addition

8. Mesa State College: Wubben Hall Expansion and Renovation

9. University of Colorado at Colorado Springs: Renovation of Science Building

10. Morgan Community College: Nursing, Technology & Science Building

11. Front Range Community College, Larimer Campus: Science Classroom Project

12. Fort Lewis College: Berndt Hall Reconstruction

Around the Blogosphere 10/21/08

Matt Stoller did an analysis of League of Conseration Voters endorsement patterns of incumbent Democrats and Republicans.  The result: it looks as though Democrats must reach a higher lifetime LCV score to receive an endorsement than Republicans.  Does LCV include Republicans, even though their voting patterns aren’t as strong as Democrats, just to appear bipartisan?  Is there a similar trend with other single-issue advocacy groups?  CONservative groups aren’t shy about discriminating against Democrats.  Think of the NRA.  A Democrat would have to be very conservative before the NRA endorsed them in a race.  Now think of NARAL.  They continually endorse Republicans that are anti-choice.  The progressive movement needs to do some serious self-examination moving forward.  A progressive agenda cannot be fought for and enacted when advocacy groups get behind people who don’t believe in that agenda.  LCV asks activists for money.  Activists would do well to keep track of how LCV operates when deciding whether or not to donate.  A table of Colorado officials can be found after the fold.  The LCV Scorecard can be found here.

Sarah Palin is a super-socialist.  She’s touring the country trying to scare voters into believing Barack Obama is a socialist because of his tax policy.  What kind of tax policy does Sarah Palin believe in?  A policy that dispenses tax money from oil and gas drilling to Alaskan citizens.  Is that oil and gas exclusively sold to Americans?  No, it’s sold overseas.  The rest of America then pays more for oil and gas that we buy from overseas.  So mainland U.S. consumers are paying more at the pump to give every Alaskan a $3,200 check every year.  There’s no way I’m voting for this hypocrite.

I’m voting for Barack Obama in spite of Colin Powell.  Powell continues to demonstrate he’s more interested in power than standing up for what he believes.  If Obama was behind in the polls, I doubt very seriously Powell would have endorsed him.  Powell wants Obama’s ear.  I hope Obama doesn’t give it to him.

Vote for McCain.  The last 10 seconds are hilarious!

Talk to your parents about McCain.  Some really clever videos are being produced this election cycle.

Proponents of “drill or bust” purposefully leave out an important part of reality.  In ten years time, off-shore drilling, for instance, will produce ~200,000 barrels of oil per day.  OPEC is holding an emergency meeting this Friday (three days from now) and they’re proposing to cut current production by 2,000,000 barrels per day.  OPEC wants oil to cost $70-$90 per barrel, which this year meant $3.00-$4.50 gas in America.  Any gain in supply from the U.S. will be met with cuts in supply from OPEC.  There will be no cut in oil or gas prices if we drill more.

Do you enjoy “Are You Smarter Than a 5th-Grader?”  Sarah Palin shows she can’t answer a 3rd graders’ question.

How “green” is your bathroom?

How the Banksters Made a Complete Killing Off the Bailout is a good article.  Much was made in the corporate media about how strong the oversight over the Bailout was going to be.  I didn’t trust that it would be there and the details in this article validate that view.  The Democratic-led Congress is going to own the fallout from the financial crisis.  I really hoped they would make a hard push for tough oversight.  They still can…