The Oil Drum

So now it's the Japanese who are the supermen, "YEN continues to strenthen"YEN CARRY TRADE! YEN CARRY TRADE! YEN CARRY TRADE!

Damm funny ain't it....The Japanese, a nation that has to import EVERY drop of oil and every foot of natural gas it uses, are suddenly the bad azz on the block...gee, you would have thought that peak thing would have affected them...

Meanwhile, the mainstream media attempts to fan the flames of hysteria...

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071124/doomsday_scenario.html
""We haven't faced a downturn like this since the Depression," said Bill Gross, chief investment officer of PIMCO, the world's biggest bond fund."

Wonder if Bill Goss is old enough to remember the Depression...or even the 1970's for that matter...

So just how bad is this little catastrophe? Well, let's listen to the "experts" (sarcasm intended)...

"Meanwhile, the number of U.S. homes in foreclosure is expected to keep soaring after more than doubling during the third quarter from a year earlier, to 446,726 homes nationwide, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. That's one foreclosure filing for every 196 households in the nation, a 34 percent jump from just three months earlier."

So, one home foreclosure in every 196...and the end of the Western World!!

I live in a town of 1200...that would be some 300 houses if every house had 4 people (they don't, but let's make it easy to count), so that comes out to, what, let's guess to the high side, some 3 or 4 houses in town in foreclosure, let's double that and say 6 houses in town, just to go to the highside and give the benefit of the doubt.

Now there probably are that many houses in town that are in foreclosure....but in truth, there probably has always been at least that many.

Granted, certain markets are in much worse shape...California, Florida, some parts of Arizona....

But the pictures of hoards of Vikings coming through and wiping out the copper plumbing in whole neighborhoods based on the "Mortgage collapse" as being somehow a nationwide problem exceed the realm of probability if we look at the real numbers...and if peak oil is the cause of a cascading catastrophe in America, one would have thought the Japanese would have noticed first....to repeat, they are married to the world oil and natural gas market in a way the Americans even today are not....

This whole thing stinks of a whipped up hysteria....I would suggest we ask outselves who stands to benefit from creating fear and panic, and trying to sink the U.S. economy with these idiotic rumors....

There are those of course who believe that home and auto ownership for the masses was a mistake from the start. I always love to read Kunstler, who's whole philosophy could be distilled down...."the serf's think they have the right to a house and a car?! The nerve of them filthy prols, what in the helll gives them the right??? How dare them, put them back in the worker slums riding the bus where they belong.

The U.S. and the world does, absolutely does, face serious energy and environmental concerns. It has for for many years, whether it was noticed or not.

But tying the idea of "peak oil" to every whipped up hysteria created by a bunch of elitist garbage and assisting the banks in what is a money and home grab of historical proportions reduces the credibility of those who speak seriously about the very serious energy issues we face.

And that is what this is about....the homes are still there, the land is still there, and the money is still in the country, although concentrated in fewer hands in the hedge funds and the Limited Liability Partnerships (the prols don't only want to own houses and cars, the actually think they can own stock in our companies? The nerve of the swine!!)

Folks, we need to get our head back on straight, and look at real numbers, and ask some real "back to the basics questions. We are becoming hysterical sheep, being herded about by every hysteria that comes down the pike.

RC