"You know what the news is-- in a minute, you're going to hear the rest of the story"- Paul Harvey
The stock market was rangebound for most of yesterday after oil prices finished at 118.30, up 23 cents on the day. The EIA released its inventory numbers showing Crude, Gasoline and distillates had larger than expected builds.
Crude is trading down this morning as the dollar rebounds. The front month June contract is trading down 93 cents to $117.37/bbl.
Commodity prices were lower in response to a stronger dollar.
United Parcel (UPS) lowered its full year outlook, but managed to meet estimates.
The Labor Department reported that claims for unemployment benefits declined by 33,000 last week to 342,000. This came as a surprise to many economists who had predicted claims would jump by 3,000.
Amazon (AMZN) and Starbucks (SBUX) said that weak consumer spending is hurting business, while Yahoo (YHOO) and Boeing (BA) beat analyst estimates.
The Rest of the Story
I am old enough to remember the 1970's. As Yogi Berra would say, "this is deja-vu all over again".
To predict what is going to happen in the future, you have to remember what has happened in the past.
The idiots in congress and Bill Clinton were responsible for the Sub prime Crisis when they repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. Glass-Steagall was enacted in 1933 to separate commercial banking from the securities business.
Once again it seems obvious that these government employees don't work for people like you and I, but rather for big business who write the "big" checks.
When I was a young college coach I told one of my colleagues, "Boy, I can't wait until next year when we get some of the new players in, and get rid of the one's with a bad attitude". He said, "Nothing changes but the names and the faces". I think the same goes for historic market cycles, economic mistakes, and the idiots that keep making them.
The pendulum continues to swing. Regardless of what we want to believe, back and forth the pendulum goes. The mistakes from the past are the same mistakes being made today.
In the 1970's, prices of goods and services shot up because the federal government caused the supply of money grow out of control to maintain full employment. The same thing happened in 2000-2003.
The housing market woes are nothing new. We saw the same problems in the 1980's. Loose lending standards, greed, and bankruptcy are nothing new.
Same Old Problems- Same Old Solutions
Is it just me? Or, has there been a concerted effort to push this "Green" movement you and I have been hearing about lately. All of a sudden, we are hearing "Green" this and "Green" that.
Oh, and the cure for our nation’s energy woes... Same old solutions again... Ethanol today was Gasohol yesterday (1970's & 1980's).
It’s kind of like cures for cancer. After billions and billions of dollars in donations, the best cures available are the same ones we had 40 years ago- chemo and radiation.
32 years ago (1976) during the last energy crisis an energy bill was passed to raise fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. To show you that nothing changes, congress and President Bush are putting mandates on the auto industry to raise fuel efficiency by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon.
Our nation’s stupid energy policy has caused massive inflation and food shortages around the world, but yet the energy bill calls for a six-fold increase in ethanol (gasohol) use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Now this is really stupid!
Mark my words, if the energy crisis persists, the next thing we will begin hearing about is states lowering their speed limits to 55mph like they did in the 1970's.
If the government really wanted people to drive slower to save energy, why do they allow the car companies to make vehicles that can go 140-160 miles per hour? We do not have a highway in this country that allows someone to drive 100mph.
If the government wanted to stop high speed chases, all they have to do is mandate that no cars can be made to go over 85mph. Oh, I get it. If vehicles no longer went excessive speeds then states would lose the millions in revenues collected by highway patrols and state troopers.
See, its all BS!
Like I said, nothing changes but the names and the faces.
