My experience suggests that if petroleum does not grow at least 0.8% year on year the economy is headed recessionary. Notice the plunge of '08 into the abyss of '09....
Gasoline usage history shows a small rise in '07, then a plunge in '08. Usage level for the next two years was flat, followed by a huge plunge now. I did not expect this plunge because gasoline is a lot less volatile in my historical analysis than the overall distillates, some of which are weather related, such as heating oil.
It raises the question, why have people stopping driving, because that is what is happening.Read the whole post at Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
US Petroleum and Gasoline Usage Plunges Last 5 Weeks Compared to Prior Years
by Michael ("Mish") Shedlock
10 comments:
Of course doom and gloom Mish could never consider that we are finally getting some efficiency gains in the fleet as people trade in their Hummers/Tahoes for Equinox, etc.... this takes time for the trade-in cycles to be realized (years) as leases and loans are up.
Everyone I know who has bought a new vehicle in the last couple of years have bought vehicles that got much better mileage than the ones they previously drove.... Hybrids, 4 cyls., etc...
Resp,
He does consider that, Matt, and discounts it. BTW, the rush is back to gas guzzlers again as light truck sales increase (chart).
Doesn't make sense in light of recent economic data. Is it a statistical glitch following the closure of a few refineries in the last couple months? The oil refiners have been complaining about falling gasoline consumption for a long time now. If this is accurate and the government data is fudged, it will certainly rain on my parade.
Matt,
you do realize that if you have been on unemployment for over 6 months, and then you get a part time job, and are then laid off again, you will not be counted among the unemployed, because you are no longer eligible for UI -- just the crummy way UI eligibility is determined. Remember, many of the "newly created" jobs were low paying part-time jobs.
What is important, is that the labor force continues to show a decline in the latest figures. From the latest BLS report -
Quote:
The civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to
64.0 percent
This represents a very siginficant decline of 625,000 people who have just stopped looking for jobs. This assumes a working age population of 200,000,000 - from US population Distribution, - 15–64 years: 67% (male 102,665,043 - female 103,129,321) and assuming a 300 million population (a slight undercount)
Sorry, should say over 400,000 people who stopped looking for jobs! I put in the number I had calculated using the total population instead of the working aged population.
The declining "labor force participation rate" is why everybody is jumping on the "structural unemployment" bandwagon. They cannot "afford" to admit that this is because the US is entering a depression!
Clonal,
Mish is a perma bear and gold seller. He is "Schiff Lite".
Yes I know we are in what is now a modern form of a depression.
In this one, the flesh eye does not see the same human suffering as back in the 30's, it is more elusive, but the spiritual damage is going to be the same.
After about 10 years of the one in the 30's, the human rage built up over the decade to the point where it resulted in humans eliminating about 2.5% of their population.
We've been in this one for about 3 years so we have about 7 more to go to get to that point.
I hope humanity does not let it get that far this time. Economic education will be the key to prevention. Keep up the good works.
Resp,
BLS numbers are too prone to wild swings in revision to be of much use these days. I find numbers like these and rail traffic (on Cullen's site) to be of more interest. We know consumer savings plunged, now we know they cut back on gasoline as well. This isn't painting a picture of a healthy consumer.
The Labor Force Participation rate is very interesting, and the chart from 2000 to end of 2011 is quite eye opening.
The chart
It seems that since 2008, the Grinch has stolen Christmas
Based upon the Labor force participation rate, and the current U-6, I would estimate, that since 2000, roughly 10-15 million families have people of working age not working, who would have been working if it had been the year 2000. The lower number because in some families, more than one person could be affected.
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