Author Archives: ape man

I demand a plausible lie

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From the Washington Post…..

The United States would recover most of its planned $50 billion investment in General Motors within five years, according to a preliminary Treasury Department estimate that foresees the company, now on the brink of bankruptcy, rebounding over that time to become a strapping global competitor.

I wounder how GM will become a global company when it will probably not be able to sell cars in Europe for a long time. If you read the whole article, you will see that the US was so confident of GM ability to compete that they made the German’s swear that Opel would not be allowed to sell cars in the US. It seems to me that the EU would be well with in its rights to demand that GM not sell cars in Europe.

Also, if you read the article you will see that US government seems to be planing on pulling some (most?) of GM production in China back to the states. How well do you think that is going to go over in China and how much luck do you think GM is going to have exporting cars to Asia?

The problem with bailouts is that nobody ever learns

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This post from Edward Hugh is to wonkish for most mere mortals to read. But everyone should pay attention to this….

So basically, “Big Ben’s” US bailout is fuelling specualtion on Hungarian debt!

And don’t miss this point from the Bloomberg article:

Deutsche Bank recommends investors sell the euro against the forint on bets the rate difference will help the Hungarian currency gain 10 percent to 260 per euro in two to three months from 286.55 today. Investors should also sell the dollar against the lira and buy the ruble against the dollar-euro basket, the bank said.

And it isn’t only Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs recommended on April 3 that investors use euros, dollars and yen to buy Mexican pesos, real, rupiah, rand and Russia rubles.

Why Are Gas Prices Jumping?

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A question was asked….

(1) Any thoughts on why the price of gas is going up? In my informal tracking, it seems the price of gas may have gone up $0.25 in about three weeks. That seems a pretty steep increase. It just jumped 4 cents today. What is the explanation?

(2) Back during the last gas price surge the cost of diesel sky-rocketed far ahead of gas prices. If my memory serves me correctly, the per gallon cost of diesel was like 1 or 2 dollars more than gas. When I drove past the gas station today I read this: Gas 2.43 Diesel 2.41. I couldn’t believe it. Why is diesel staying so low this time, when during the last spike it went even higher than the gas?

The standard answer being handed out is that the spike in gas prices is a result of the seasonal switch over from winter to summer gas. This is undoubtedly part of the reason for the recent run up in prices. Robert Rapier has an explanation of what the seasonal changeover is all about here and here.

But there may be more to the recent price rise then the seasonal switch over. One of the reasons I say this is that the price of many commodities has been mirroring the price rise of gasoline. (Keep in mind that you should only be looking at the part of the chart that shows the price action over the last couple of months if you want to see why gas has started shooting up. The charts themselves go back to the middle of 2007 but I am trying to get you see the an emerging trend that has started recently) For example, compare the price changes in gasoline with the price changes in copper. Or how about Platinum? Or how about Coffee? What these things suggest is that the recent run up in gas prices is part of a broader phenomenon and not just about the seasonal change over.

Even more telling is the way that the price of many different foreign currency has mirrored the rise in the price of gas. Again, keep in mind that you should only be looking at recent price action. For example, compare the price action going on with gas to how many dollars it takes to buy a Euro. Or how about the much despised British Pound? Or how about the New Zealand Dollar?

What this all suggest to me is that the recent run up in the price of gas has something to do with the loss of the dollar’s purchasing power on the world stage over the last couple of months. I think we can all come up with reasons for why this may have happened.

Certainly these prices increases are not happening because of economic strength. That brings us to our correspondent’s puzzlement over the price of diesel. Certainly he reveals himself to be young. Or at least, not to have been paying attention to fuel prices until very recently. Even in my relatively short life I have seen diesel cheaper then gas often enough that I do not find the occurrence all that surprising. In fact, it use to be normal. Here is the Energy Information Administration’s explaining why diesel has become more expensive then gas….

Until several years ago, the average price of diesel fuel was usually lower than the average price of gasoline. In some winters when the demand for distillate heating oil was high, the price of diesel fuel rose above the gasoline price. Since September 2004, the price of diesel fuel has been generally higher than the price of regular gasoline all year round for several reasons. Worldwide demand for diesel fuel and other distillate fuel oils has been increasing steadily, with strong demand in China, Europe, and the U.S., putting more pressure on the tight global refining capacity. In the U.S., the transition to low-sulfur diesel fuel has affected diesel fuel production and distribution costs. Also, the Federal excise tax on diesel fuel is 6 cents higher per gallon (24.4 cents per gallon) than the tax on gasoline.

So what has changed to make diesel drop back behind gasoline?

The simplest explanation is that diesel is primarily an industrial fuel. Gas is primarily a consumer fuel. Industrial use of transportation has fallen off far more sharply then consumer expenditures. In other words, truckers have cut back on their driving far more than have suburbanites. If I was not so lazy it would be simple to dig up charts that would prove this. But anyone who has been paying attention to the news should realize that fall in manufacturing has been a leading indicator, not a lagging one. In other words, where the truckers go, the suburbanites will soon follow.

Even if I am right about the dollar weakness translating into higher prices here in America, the drop in diesel usage is still going to cause the relative price difference between gas and diesel to change. But there is probably even more at work here than the simple fact that the users of diesel are cutting back faster then the users of gasoline.

Typically, America imports gasoline and exports diesel to Europe. But given that Europe is in far worse economic trouble than America if statistics can be believed, it is unlikely that Europe is buying much diesel from abroad at the moment.

None of these answers has been proved definitively. They can’t be until the question is moot. But hopefully they make more sense to you than the knee jerk claim that oil companies are evil.

Enough Said

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From an article from the AP regarding the shooting in Binghamton….

Police said they arrived within two minutes.

Hurray for the Binghamton Police. That is a good response time. But wait, there is this from later on in the article…..

Police heard no gunfire after they arrived but waited for about an hour before entering the building to make sure it was safe for officers. They then spent two hours searching the building.

They led a number of men out of the building in plastic handcuffs while they tried to sort out the victims from the killer or killers.

Why did they even bother to show up?

Is it time to start blaming the victims?

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As the whole world knows (here is the report from China’s English News Agency) 14 people got shot in Binghamton, New York today. It is just the latest in a long string of such shootings. Undoubtedly we will hear a lot about how we need to improve security or improve gun laws or some such. But when are we going to talk about the proper moral reaction to such an attack by those who are living through it?

I mean, after 9/11 it was generally agreed that people should never allow a plane to be hijacked again. Whatever it took and whatever it cost, people swore that they would take back the plane. Yet in the wake of multiple mass shootings no such consensus towards mass-murdering gunmen seems to be emerging.

To be sure, the pro-gun lobby will argue that this shows why everyone should be packing heat. But I think such arguments miss what is really wrong in this country. It is not a matter of arms, but of courage.

I remember hearing about a mass killing in California where the gunman made everybody lie down and then he started shooting people at point blank range. Needless to say he killed few people before the police stormed in to stop him. I remember hearing about a woman who survived the killings talking about how she lay there, listening to the other people getting shot, and hoped that the gunmen would not shoot her. Talk about making it easy for the killer.

Now I don’t know what I would have done in that situation and I don’t know enough about what happened in Binghamton to give an opinion on what happened there. But I do know that people don’t have to act like sheep. A man came to where I work armed with a gun, a propane tank, and the intent to kill. He was jumped by a lady in her fifties and he never got chance to get off a shot (granted she was a lot tougher then your average lady, and a man later came to her aid, but still….).

But the prevailing trend in our culture is not to celebrate the ladies who jump gunmen armed with nothing but their bare hands. Rather, it is to celebrate the people who chose to act as passive victims as this post from the Belmont Club makes clear. Moreover, this attitude that celebrates those who value their own lives above all else has even permeated our law enforcement agencies as this article from Paul Howe makes clear (For those that don’t recognize the name, Paul Howe is a former Delta operator who played a key role in the events of Black Hawk Down. He currently teaches tactics to law enforcement officers.)

I love it when Yuppies get an education

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Just watch this video for long enough to get to the end of the sheep story if you want a good laugh. Anyone who knows anything about sheep knows those stupid rubber bands are inhumane. But there are other ways of castrating sheep besides the way that he was taught to do it. After you get past the sheep story, the rest is just blather.

I already know that white collar people don’t know much and yet think they can tell us how to do our jobs. I already know that most safety regulations can’t be followed in the real world. And as far as a PR campaign for work goes, give me break.