With each data release it seems more likely to me that the deceleration in the growth of borrowing from the banks is reflecting a drop in aggregate demand:No tax cuts, no infrastructure spending either. Trumponomics is dead in the water in Congress so far as the GOP engages in a circular firing squad. It's a party great at unifying on obstruction, but a bunch of losers on governing. The mid-term campaign season is nearing, so they had better change course quickly.
Growth of C and I loans has been near 0 since the election:
Trump had promised jobs, jobs, jobs. That promise remains empty.
And now add Harvey. This could be the shock that pushes the economy over the edge.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, rebuilding could have a stimulative effect.
It may depend on how much industrial capacity is knocked offline, and for how long. If the plants are running again two weeks from now, then no big deal. If it takes months to restore industrial production, then very big deal.
Trade deficit still going the wrong way too:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/amp/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/30FFA18A-8BE8-11E7-B2C2-F42D120DE456
"The advanced trade gap in goods — services are excluded — widened by nearly 1.8% to $65.1 billion in July, the Commerce Department said Monday. "
Probably caused the latest Trump comment
tirade on need for tariffs...
I don't understand how he could not see that by hiring only billionaires to run the economic side of his policy that those people are going to have obviously benefitted from the status quo and loathe to change anything...
He's going to have to hire all new people.. but if he keeps going to the same personnel pool of 0.1% ers I don't see how anything is going to be different... his association of being rich as a prerequisite to being competent might be his Achilles heel...
I was watching a recent documentary on Rush and Neil Peart said that their goal all along was "we didn't want to be successful, we just wanted to be good ...". There is a difference...
ReplyDeleteThe labor shortage in Houston was already acute. Hundreds of people per day arrive as they flee from blue-state oppression and violence, but even that was barely enough to keep up with demand. It's about to get real. Maybe we will get itinerant construction workers from surrounding red-states to fill the gap.
ReplyDeleteRyan I think the US will eventually take over ALL refining in the Western Hemisphere and then the ROW now that we can export the products in earnest... those coastal refining communities down there are going to boom for a while until the row might run out of USDs ....
ReplyDeleteI think the US will eventually take over ALL refining in the Western Hemisphere and then the ROW now that we can export the products in earnest... those coastal refining communities down there are going to boom for a while until the row might run out of USDs ....
ReplyDeleteAre you assuming that global warming is a hoax, which almost no one claims any longer, or assuming that burning carbon doesn't contribute to it, which even Exxon's research shows to be false.
Couple that with global youth prioritizing climate change as the 31 problem facing the world today, and he handwriting is on the wall for carbon-based energy.
"31" should be #1
ReplyDeleteFinancial market inefficiencies like rapid currency fluctuations and volatile market prices for inputs enable rapid arbitrage in this industry between European/Asian/Mideast/US major producers and buyers and distributors. There are frequent shifts of production between those major centers for oil/chemicals/plastics/fuels/fertilizers/refined commodities. Additionally strategic and security concerns drive countries to pay more to ship further to diversify supplies.
ReplyDeleteThe refineries in the major centers are so efficient and the technology advanced, with deep markets for all the secondary products that might be waste elsewhere, most regional smaller refineries can't compete to produce the clean, good quality fuels and chemicals so much. Things like sulfur, various salts, co2 and even mineral rich fossil water waste can be turned into useful products.
Tom short term it's all moving here look at Ryan's observations :
ReplyDelete"The refineries in the major centers are so efficient and the technology advanced, with deep markets for all the secondary products that might be waste elsewhere,"
It's complicated and you need the A team to win... that rules out MENA and south of the border they cannot compete unless there is $75/bbl of rent in the price that $75 can cover up a lot of incompetence/corruption ... they will be lucky just to get crude out of the ground to sell that for munnie to buy food...
Here Libya is even now fing that up:
https://www.google.com/amp/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1B70BY
These oil monopolist nations better figure it out pronto...
If we move away from carbon it will only make it worse for them...
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteModern society is very carbon negative except for fuel usage, so fuel usage can help offset those losses. Without fossil fuels, we'd probably cause all plants to go extinct within a couple decades as we are much closer to the minimum levels required for plants than maximum levels. Plants evolved with and are well adapted for C02 concentrations closer to 1000-1500ppm, and die in the <200-300ppm range. With fossil fuel use we've restored the atmosphere to near 400ppm saving many plants from extinction and reducing the frequent famines that used to plague humanity. When thinking about the cycle and extremes, it's important to understand the scales of inputs and losses.
The share of electricity production from renewables has barely increased from 19% to 22% in ten years even though most investment went to renewables. It turns out most of the investment was to harvest tax credits for coastal elites rather than to produce appreciable amounts of electricity. China leads in renewable solar but they are also, quietly, opening up 5x-more coal plants at home and abroad than they are adding in renewables. (They are closing plants in populated areas and moving them out further to improve local air quality). Japan, Germany and the UK are getting rid of nuclear but adding more coal/gas and renewables.
Ultimately, not everyone can consume unlimited amounts of energy like coastal elite Americans. Light passenger transport should be able to use electricity, which can use inefficient batteries for now but ultimately will go to fuel cells to convert fuel directly to electricity.
Think about it...
Storage:
Fuel tanks are cheap and do not wear out.
Batteries are expensive and wear out.
Motors:
Internal combustion motors are expensive and wear out.
Electric motors are cheap and don't wear out.
Most efficient combo is fuel tanks and electric motors. Luckily battery technology improvements inevitably lead to better, cheap fuel cells that don't wear out.
Light Passenger transport only uses a fraction of our energy however. Heating and cooling, air travel, manufacturing, heavy transport and cement, aluminum and steel production use enormous amounts. The shift will take decades to make. The popular view that once the solar panel is on the roof at home and whole foods market and the prius is plugged in, problem solved! Unfortunately... this isn't reality, the rest of society isn't going to shut down and everyone go back to the stone age. All that stuff that happens in China and Africa and India, midwest and else where off university campuses and outside the office towers, where they make all the stuff used to construct modern life uses enormous amounts of resources and energy.
CO2 itself is a scarce valuable commodity and when pumped deep underground in certain areas, the length of time it takes to reduce the CO2 back into gas is actually much shorter -- in years, not millions of years as text books used to say in the 1960s. It's fairly renewable in making natural gas. Alot has been published in the last few years. If I had to guess, coal plants will probably wind up doing it since renewables aren't really making a dent. But it will take a while before Dems are ready to go there and willing to admit not everyone is going to put a $20k cobalt lithium battery in their garage with a $20k/solar roof financed with $15k tax credits paid for by poor electric rate payers. The economics don't work.
LOL Ryan I told the poor kid selling solar leases door to door I would instead lease him my roof for $200/mo. he looked at me like I was from Mars...
ReplyDeleteAnd btw , my Prius batteries are going strong now over 100k miles... and I've read that you can get the batteries reconditioned for less than $1000 and get another 50k to 70k miles...
@Ryan where in the hell do you get this "information?"
ReplyDeleteyeah, it's better to buy the panels, their finance contracts are a sham, Matt. I was going to do solar roof tiles but the city permits were annoying. I'd have to replace my old electric panels and other stuff at the same time.
ReplyDeleteMaybe 1m miles for 60% capacity on a Tesla, I've read. I haven't read the prius technicals. It should get better as batteries improve too. I'm waiting for Lithium sulfur or lithium air to get electric vehicle. Pretty compelling value.
Which bit, Dan. I'll give you refs.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that global energy consumption per capita is rising rapidly with the deployment of technology, even with increased energy efficiency. For example, many areas of the global will be uninhabitable without air-conditioning, which gobbles energy. Proliferation of electric and electronic technology also requires a lot of energy.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty clear from the Chinese experience that most people aspire to live the Western lifestyle wrt to technology. Ecologists have been warning for decades that this will put a huge load on the resources of the planet.
How this is going to unfold is unclear, since there is little planning other than for expected demand, and no one can tell how fast the rate of development will rise as the undeveloped world emerges into the 21st century. Previously it was assumed that the developing world would track the development of the developed world but it is becoming obvious the leapfrog effect is taking over. Often the state of the art in developing countries is ahead of the developed world, since there are no sunk costs to deal with. No need to lay copper when a country goes directly to satellite, for example.
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