Does anyone have any suggestions for improving Bubble Meter? What do you like about Bubble Meter? What do you dislike?
I've noticed that some blogs have daily bits buckets posts, where readers can add comments on any topic they want. Would you like Bubble Meter to do the same thing?
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Oil is bought and sold in US dollars. US dollars are devaluing rapidly.
ReplyDeleteOPEC exports dropped by 600,000 barrels per day in the month of September.
The price of gas is dipping just before a presidential election? What are the odds of that happening?!
Oil and gas prices will rise again.
http://africa.reuters.com/energyandoil/news/usnLE336611.html?rpc=401&
Oil prices dipping has nothing to do with a presidential election - it has everything to do with demand destruction. Did you know that china hasnt taken a delivery of oil in over 2 months?
ReplyDeleteOil is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. In a deflationary environment, we use less. The third world switches from cars to donkeys, the first world switches from SUVs to sedans...less oil is used, prices come down to meet falling demand.
Back to the suggestion box. In a normal time, I would like this to be a more DC spedific blog - but these arent normal times. That said, if the fiscal crisis dies down or becomes old news, I do hope you will go back to more DC housing specific news.
If you had a bits bucket, I would post there about homes in MD, specific areas and neighborhoods, and the local market. I think it would be great to have a blog similar to the NOVA blog, with a MD focus.
ReplyDeletecan u give us the updated inflation-adjusted-since-late-1800's chart up till most recent data? thx
ReplyDeletePresidential politics tied to the price of oil, in words and pictures:
ReplyDeleteSaudis reject Bush’s advice to increase oil production
"George Bush and his good friend Prince Abdullah..."
Bush and Saudi Prince Discuss High Oil Prices in Ranch Meeting
Nope, nothing political about oil production. Not a thing.
So when OPEC cuts oil production, do we call that "supply destruction"?
From China's own news agency:
ReplyDeleteChina's oil imports up by double digits in first 5 months
www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-11 21:24:48 Print
BEIJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- China's oil imports posted double-digit growth in the first five months of 2008 as global crude prices more than doubled from a year earlier, the General Administration of Customs said Wednesday.
The country imported 75.97 million tons of crude oil, up 12.7 percent from a year earlier, with average prices rising 64.1 percent to 689.9 U.S. dollars per ton.
Imports of oil products jumped 17.3 percent to 17.34 million tons. Prices soared 66.9 percent to average 709.6 U.S. dollars per ton.
Analysts said booming domestic demand, notably from the severe winter and quake reconstruction, fueled imports.
Crude oil exports totaled 950,000 tons, valued at 570 million U.S. dollars, while exports of refined oil stood at 6.48 million tons worth 4.85 billion U.S. dollars.
I love the blog and it's probably the first thing I read in the morning at work besides prices on Zillow. I came here because I was interested in the DC market. While I know these are historical times, I'd love to have more info on the DC market (and the surrounding suburbs). This is a tremendous blog btw. Thank you for providing this much needed public service.
ReplyDeleteAnon Said...
ReplyDelete"Nope, nothing political about oil production. Not a thing."
Of course it does, but obviously not to the amount you suggest. Go back to your economics texts and study that chaper on "cartel theory" again, with the exception of Diamond broker Debeers, not a single cartel can do much to set prices for a world commodity.
They will try, they will try like hell to control it, but in the face of unrelenting demand destruction there isnt much they can do.
"Peter Beutel, oil analyst at Cameron Hanover, New Canaan, Conn., said history shows that OPEC cuts can rally prices for "a week, two weeks or a month." "But over a longer period of time, they're incapable of stopping major moves," Beutel said. "We've been down this road before, but OPEC refuses to learn this lesson."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081009/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices_113
"Anon said:
ReplyDeleteChina's oil imports up by double digits in first 5 months"
That article is from June - that is ancient history. Take a look at this from last week.
"In addition, No. 2 consumer China -- one of the engines behind the six-year rally in oil prices -- is expected to halt auto fuel imports in October for the second month in a row..."
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/081009/3/3q7xh.html
Can you imagine that? Can you imagine someone saying, after 2 months, nope were still good - we dont need anymore fuel here!!! That is utterly shocking.
What you are failing to understand is that the world essentially stopped spinning on its axis when this meltdown started last month. At that point, everyone was screaming, INFLATION, INFLATION, INFLATION!!! The hedgies bought into this and bid up the price accordingly.
That all changed 1 month ago. Since then 8.4 trillion dollars of the worlds wealth has evaporated in the stock market. Everyone who had something on margin, had to reign in their posisions in order to meet their calls. Now, cash is king, and what appeared earlier to be inflation is now clearly DEFLATION.
Now, to be sure, some day oil prices will rise again. However, all those concerns about peak oil being now, are not here anymore. In fact, it will be curious how much less the world actually uses as a result of this recession before someone tries to reset a position on when peak oil will occurr. Has this recession set us back 5 years, or has it been more like 10 or 20? Personally, I think its 5 but the markets seem to think something longer than that. Fascinating stuff!!!
"Now, to be sure, some day oil prices will rise again. However, all those concerns about peak oil being now, are not here anymore."
ReplyDeleteYou are correct.
But also, as this goes on, more oil is being discovered.
If this global recession lasts long enough, by the time demand is back up there may be enough supply to keep it at $70 a barrel, maybe lower.
Peak oil came and went. Production will never be as high as it was in 1999.
ReplyDeleteYou are in the denial phase of bubble psychology.
A wealthy oil man is not in denial:
http://www.pickensplanopportunity.com/
Great blog, but I need to echo some other comments for more local housing coverage. DC, MD, and VA.
ReplyDeletePickens is not in denial, he has just never dealt with deflation before, very few people living in the developed world have dealt with deflation before.
ReplyDeleteEven if peak oil was 1999, if thanks to deflation the demand goes back to say 1950s levels, will he be willing to invest so much money in infrastructure?
What about renewables? The whole point is to make it a cleaner planet. If deflation knocks demand down to 1950s levels, we are now that much cleaner based on current technology.
Im just pontificating here, but you all can see the point, this is a real game changer we have on our hands here. It caught a bunch of people with their pants down. Will this condition last for long? My gut says no, but I am willing to acknowlege the possibility that we may have just changed the game for 20 years or more!!!! Think about it.
I'd like to see more on the DC real estate and job market. In general I'd like to see more about the DC economy whether it is the tourism industry, government contractors, and non-government firms like Capital One and Microstrategy.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"can u give us the updated inflation-adjusted-since-late-1800's chart up till most recent data? thx"
It would be meaningless. The problem is that using increases in prices to compare increases in prices over time (especially long periods of time) is that you end up in a situation and egg problem. All inflation calculations are dependent on a "basket of goods" ... which represent what an "average purchaser" will purchase. Since over time both that "basket of goods" changes ... as does the "average" purchaser. So ... to get something that made sense, you'd have to look at all purchases made by everyone ... But in doing so, you end up with 0% inflation since the actuals become your average. Another way to look at it is this: the bricks and mortar were probably the single largest cost of building a house in 1880. Today, it would be its systems (a/c, heat, plumbing, etc.) Can you really figure out how much more that house costs to build today than yesterday .. when you aren't even building the same house. James can probably explain it better than I.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeletecan u give us the updated inflation-adjusted-since-late-1800's chart up till most recent data? thx
The most recent version of that graph is here. It is based on Robert Shiller's public data. His data only has annual numbers, not quarterly or monthly, so I can't give you a version that has 2008 prices until early 2009. (After 2008 Q3 data is released in late November, I can probably average Q2 and Q3 values to estimate the median home prices for mid-2008, which will likely be similar to the median home prices for all of 2008.)
If anyone knows of a way to create a single graph in Microsoft Excel that uses annual data for a period of time, and then switches to quarterly data for a different period of time, please let me know how to do it.
Lance said...
It would be meaningless. ... Can you really figure out how much more that house costs to build today than yesterday .. when you aren't even building the same house.
Lance is up to his usual B.S. The housing data from Robert Shiller is constant quality data. He tracks the same houses over time, so it doesn't matter that houses built today are built differently than houses built 50 years ago.
Sure an individual house may change gradually over time. It may be upgraded while owned by one owner, and then fall into disrepair while owned by another owner. However, these changes are likely very minor when looking at houses in aggregate because the improvements in some houses are offset by the degradation in other houses. On the whole, most houses don't change much from one decade to the next.
James said:
ReplyDelete"However, these changes are likely very minor when looking at houses in aggregate because the improvements in some houses are offset by the degradation in other houses."
Come on James, I expected better from you. You know as well as I do that that house from 50 years ago isn't the same house. It now has central a/c, good insulation, granite countertops, roofing material that was unheard of in the 50s, and double pane windows and no-lead washable latex paint. I really did expect better from you.
I would like to see more youtube style videos published here. There is no one single good spot that has replaced their bubble blog entries with selective bubble blog videos.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletemy only suggestion would be to require posters to register. anony-trolls are lame.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to read original analysis rather than mostly newspaper/website quotes (though that's interesting in it own right). Also, I would echo those who would like to see more DC-specific or MD-specific entries. If you guys can be even more specific (neighborhood based, for example), that'd be even better. I know that's a lot of work, but would improve the blog a great deal, imo.
ReplyDelete--SSH Anon