Article Source The President's press conference yesterday was meant to buttress consumer and investor confidence. I will leave it to others to evaluate whether he was successful in this endeavor [0]. I will also ignore his disingenuous remarks concerning how allowing drilling offshore and in ANWR [1] would somehow affect gasoline prices today in a noticeable manner, and focus instead on his repeated emphasis on the fact that the economy is still growing (although he never mentioned at what pace). This statement is indeed accurate if one focuses on real GDP. I present the log of real GDP in Chained 2000$, normalized to 0 at the NBER-defined trough in 2001Q4. I also present for reference log GDP in the previous two expansions, normalized to 0 in the previous troughs in 1991Q1 and 1982Q4. (For those interested in output gaps, the mean WSJ forecast predicts output will be ...

What I’m reading today …

The New Face of Oil ETFs

MacroMarkets new paired oil ETFs launched last week, replacing the previous oil ETFs (UCR and DCR) that were liquidated in June after reaching their termination triggers. Unlike the popular United States Oil (USO), these paired ETFs hold cash instruments and transfer funds between each other, instead of holding oil futures contracts. The paired ETFs will track the price of crude on the NYMEX, and will transfer funds dollar-for-dollar with the price of crude. The securities will use a “reference price” of $100 crude, and the funds NAV at inception is one quarter of the reference price. The funds have a 95 basis point expense, for essentially holding cash.

What People Spend Their Tax Rebates On When They’re Too Broke to Drive

This isn’t “new”

...

In all the excitement this week I skimped on some fundamental/economic stories to focus more on the market and transactions. So we have some catching up to do.I said long ago as the economy weakens the last things to go would be teenagers and their Abercrombie (ANF) $100 jeans, and video games/gadgets. Well it appears all we have left now are the video games/gadgets. You know Americans are "pooring" when they won't even splurge on their kids. (Note to Bloomberg reporters - $50 jeans? In what Abercrombie store did you not visit to file your report?) (Note to Wall Street pundits - what will it take for you to admit we are in recession?)The financial pressures of adults are finally catching up with American teenagers. Since summer jobs dried up, gasoline prices topped ...

Article Source: There's been a lot of discussion recently about the effects of high gasoline prices on the quantity demanded of gasoline, as well driving behavior (Jim Hamilton, Jim Hamilton, CR, CR, Paul Krugman). David Austin, whose work I have cited often on this blog, gave a fascinating presentation, entitled "Effects of Gasoline Prices on Driving Behavior and Vehicle Choice" at the recent Society of Government Economists conference in Washington, DC a couple of weeks ago. In it, he tackles some of these issues. (Note, these are his own personal views and do not necessarily represent the views of any specific organization.) I could discuss each of the graphs in detail, but I think I will let them speak for themselves. Figure 1: Gasoline consumption has declined as prices have increased. Source: D. Austin, Presentation at SGE, June 2, 2008....

Article Source

The housing downturn and rising gasoline prices are each exerting a significant contractionary influence on U.S. GDP. There is also an interactive effect between the two. Temecula, CA. Source: Los Angeles Times. Temecula is a community in southern California some 60 miles from downtown San Diego and not a whole lot closer to anywhere else. And yet I've known people who commute to work here from Temecula, having been willing to trade driving time for more affordable housing. The population of Temecula doubled over the last decade. But with gas now nearing $4.50 a gallon in San Diego, the housing-commuting tradeoff is looking a lot less favorable for these exurban communities. Via Calculated Risk, the Los Angeles Times reports that as many as 15% of the homes in Temecula are ...

All CNBC can talk about this morning is Lehman Brothers. How many people does that effect? Meanwhile, oil is not pulling back much from its biggest one-day surge EVER on Friday. Don’t you think that deserves more headline time? The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States hit $4 for the first time ever Sunday. I think that affects a heck of a lot more people than Lehman Brothers. More on gasoline prices HERE.Gold Rises in London as Dollar, Near-Record Oil Heighten Inflation Concern Gold rose for a second consecutive trading session in London as the dollar declined and oil traded close to a record, bolstering demand for the metal as a hedge against a weaker U.S. currency and faster inflation. Corn Climbs to Record on U.S. Midwest Flooding; Soybeans, Wheat, Rice Gain Corn jumped to a record as rain in the ...

The Labor Department gave us the latest reading on CPI yesterday and it was a little tamer than market expectations. Analysts were looking it to come in at 0.3% and it was reported to be 0.2%. Oh, hurray! What’s more, core inflation (excluding food and energy was pegged at 0.1%.Here are the year over year changes.

It is obvious that people are cutting back where they can (computers, clothes and furniture) to pay for rising prices on necessities — food, fuel and health care.

Does the Labor Department cook the books? In a word, yes. The Labor Deparment says that gasoline prices dropped 2%. Now, our “lying eyes” say that just ain’t so. But the government

…