Posted on 05/31/2014 11:02:00 AM PDT by blam
Tyler Durden
05/30/2014
Submitted by Jeff Nielsen via BullionBullsCanada blog,
Regular readers are familiar with my narratives on the U.S. Greater Depression, and (in particular) some of the government’s own charts which depict this economic meltdown most vividly. The collapse in the “civilian participation rate” (the number of people working in the economy) and the “velocity of money” (the heartbeat of the economy) indicate an economy which is not merely in decline, but rather is being sucked downward in a terminal (and accelerating) death-spiral.
However, even that previously published data, and the grim analyses which accompanied it could not prepare me for the horror story contained in data passed along by an alert reader. U.S. “gasoline consumption” – as measured by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) itself – has plummeted by nearly 75%, from its all-time peak in July of 1998. A near-75% collapse in U.S. gasoline consumption has occurred in little more than 15 years.
Before getting into an analysis of the repercussions of this data, however, it’s necessary to properly qualify the data. Obviously, even in the most-nightmarish economic Armageddon, a (relatively short-term) 75% collapse in gasoline consumption is simply not possible. Unless we were dealing with a nation whose economy had been suddenly ripped apart by civil war, or some small nation devastated by a massive earthquake or tsunami; it’s simply not possible for any economy to just disintegrate that rapidly, without there being some ultra-powerful exogenous force also at work.
So how can this raw data, produced by the government itself, be explained? To begin with; the government chooses to measure U.S. gasoline consumption in a very odd manner: by measuring the amount of gasoline entering the domestic supply-chain rather than by measuring actual consumption at the
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(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
I was reading about this last night. Bogus!
do you suppose it is tied to the GDP??
gas consumption goes down - GDP goes down
just a thought
Blame it on those tea party members going Amish, they know a good thing when they see an over abundance of bull sh#t being produced by our government.
Diesel consumption would be a better indicator of the economy.
This is a depression. The democrats do not want the WH next time. They will "Hoover-ize" the next President ... unless the Republican Party changes direction and makes a sane attempt to save the Republic.
If the economy is not restored in the period 2014-2020, you can write off the American experiment. We'll no longer be a country of the first rank, and with our new demographics, we'll be like Brazil.
What is the official (or informed) rationale behind fuel prices right now. It cannot be a simple case of supply and demand.
Did anybody else notice the price dropping the same as the consumption rate? No? Yeah, me neither.
Please! If the government is giving you a number you know it’s bullshit. If it’s congress you know a senator or congressman is getting paid off.
Bogus govt data.
Going Galt?
Perhaps a few of us but remember the population is aging and after retirement the need for speed and by extension, gasoline, isn’t a big part of one’s budget. Lot’s of us Boomers sitting at home now. No kids to shuttle to school or soccer practice. The vehicles we are able to purchase are more efficient on fuel consumption. OK, OK, if you exclude the Vette and the Caddy XLR and the F-350 Dually we keep around for hauling landscape materials and the yacht. But I digress. What need is there of gasoline if those fewer still working are doing so to be able to send unemployment and disability checks to the ‘indigent’ who have no need of such a commodity. The larger that that category gets the fewer gallons of gas that must be consumed overall. It’s WIN WIN for everyone. sarc/.
Check the ordinate range.
Bogus Zero Hedge data. What’s shown is a shift from refiner-owned retailing to convenience/grocery/big box stores and some other factors like contract refining and freer imports/exports.
Very slightly less gas being consumed in the US due to the slow Obama economy, but no plunge.
Zero Hedge is just a collection of kook bloggers.
Yet the price continues to climb.
When did this country become a bunch of insider aholes that manipulate the market?
Amen, and on top of that production is UP.
Must have sold a lot more Chevy Volts than we thought./sarc
The book “How to lie with statistics” comes to mind.
ZeroHedge is better than kooks, but without question this posting by them was quite a humiliation.
The value of ZH is the comment threads, in which there seems to be signal to noise ratio that is better than most.
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