Gasoline Usage Still Way Down YoY; Oil Prices Rising

According to NDD at the Bonddad Blog, Year-over-Year gasoline usage in the U.S. remains significantly negative: 8167 M gallons this year vs. 8810 M gallons last year this week.  That’s -7.3%.

Yet oil prices increased this week by over $4 to $103.24 per barrel and gas prices at the pump rose $0.04 to $3.52 (national average).

Let ‘s state this clearly: it’s not American demand driving those prices up.  We can attribute part of the increase to other growing economies.  But as more people are figuring out all the time, a not inconsequential part of it is commodity speculators.  Then there’s tension over Iran that the Republican Teabaggers are trying to inflame – they just love them all the war and conflict they can gin up (as long as their family members aren’t required to actually serve, dont’cha know).  Finally, don’t discount the role of the giant fossil fuel industry here – do you think they’re taking the Keystone pipeline decision in peace?

As the folks at Bonddad Blog state, oil and gas prices this high helped act like a choke collar on the U.S. economy last year.  Given the relative growing health of the economy since, and the similarly growing prospects for Obama’s reelection largely as a result, that collar might be forcefully reapplied (or no action taken by some to remove it) in order to dim his electoral chances.

Thanks For The Awesome Job Market, Cons

Any Con worth their salt will tell you that the “free-market” will fix everything!  Their zeal to cram their fake religion down everybody’s throats led to the collapse of the U.S. economy in this first decade of the 21st century.  But there is a huge disconnect.  Thanks to both Cons and Democrats looking out for their Wall St. benefactors, most Americans haven’t and won’t feel anything close to a recovery for a long, long time.  While Wall St. has posted stunning gains since their lows earlier this year, millions more Americans have continued to lose their jobs and their livlihoods.

How bad have things gotten for the real average American?  How about a look at a paper published last month by Advance Realty and Rutgers: America’s New Post-Recession Employment Arithmetic.  Here are some choice figures for you to chew on [emphasis mine]:

• The combination of a weak economic expansion sandwiched between two recessions (2001, and 2007–2009) produced what will be a lost employment decade. As of August 2009, the nation had 1.3 million (1,256,000) fewer private sector jobs than in December 1999. This is the first time since the Great Depression of the 1930s that America will have an absolute loss of jobs over the course of a decade.

• To put this new millennium experience into perspective, during the final two decades of the twentieth century, the nation gained a total of 35.5 million private-sector jobs. During the current decade, America appears destined to lose more than 1.7 million private-sector jobs.

• This 1.3 million annual increase in the labor force means that in terms of private-sector payroll employment, the nation has to create an estimated 920,000 jobs per year.  Adding this to the actual private-sector job losses accumulated during the 20 months (to date) of recession equates to an August 2009 employment deficit of 8.6 million jobs. Given conservative estimates of further employment declines (even if the recession ends in the third quarter of 2009) and the continued increase in the labor force, the nation’s employment deficit could approach 9.4 million private-sector jobs by December 2009.

• Erasing this deficit will require substantial and sustained employment growth. Even if the nation could add 2.15 million private-sector jobs per year starting in January 2010, it would need to maintain this pace for more than 7 straight years (7.63 years), or until August 2017, to eliminate the jobs deficit! This is approximately 50 percent greater than the length of the average post–World War II expansion (58 months).

The “free-market” cannot and never will fix this.  It’s going to take the concentrated effort of the federal government working with the private sector to pull us out of this disaster.  Thanks again, Cons!

[h/t MB]