As you pointed out Europeans have long been paying this much for gas. On a percentage basis their increases are much smaller than ours. The Euro is much stronger than the US dollar. We are paying 50% or more today than a year ago, the Europeans more like 20-30%, depending where. I have done the math and while they're in a box of shit they have relatively more cat liter, we have none.

Europeans drive shorter distances with smaller cars. The entire country of France is only about the size of Texas.

Americans will migrate to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles and I think that is a good thing.

I believe that China and Israel are getting the oil from Iraq. I have not been there recently to confirm this.

Our attempt (successful for two days?) to oust Chavez did not endear us to him. Hence, no oil from Venezuela.

We have also fallen from the Iranian Christmas card list. So with three of the four largest suppliers not supplying, the market is extracting its pound of flesh.

This will not help the Bush legacy which is promising to be the worst ever.

Just wait and see.

What's that mean, Tut?

Well let's see,

We will pay much more for fuel, we are less prepared, Bush legacy shall be the ruination of America, the Euro will be the monetary denomination oil is purchased in, America will become the equivalent of a third world country, the first to move backwards, food will become exceptionally expensive, riots will develop in all urban centers, and that is enough for now.

TuT

[url=http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN3031617020080530]Inflation outlook makes consumers' mood grim
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence fell to a 28-year low in May, a survey showed on Friday, as soaring prices for food and fuel soured sentiment and pushed long-term inflation expectations to the highest in more than a decade.

The rising expectations conflicted with a government report showing price growth moderated last month. Together, the reports heighten the challenge facing the Federal Reserve, which wants to avoid inflation perceptions becoming reality.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers confidence index fell to 59.8 in May, the lowest since 58.7 in June 1980. Its gauge of five-year inflation expectations rose to 3.4 percent, the highest since April 1995.

"Consumers are running scared. These price data are bad for consumers and businesses," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's Ratings Services in New York.

THIS REPORT IS FROM JASPAR'S NEWS LINK. IT TALKS ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY PEOPLE ARE HAVING IN SELLING UPSCALE HOMES IN GREENSBORO, NC...

The Trouble in Housing Trickles Up

THE market here isn’t like those of Florida or California, which have followed a boom-and-bust pattern, or of Cleveland, where foreclosures have overwhelmed entire neighborhoods. Instead, what’s playing out here is a kind of paralysis, with wide swaths of the market frozen and only the very top end showing signs of life.

This may hint at what’s in store for other real estate markets around the nation that managed to avoid the excesses of the last decade but still find themselves struggling now. Indeed, the recent economic trajectory of Greensboro, a city of 242,000 smack in the middle of the rolling Carolina Piedmont, has run parallel to that of the country as a whole.

Sales of existing homes here are down 22.5 percent from the first quarter of 2007, according to G. Donald Jud, a University of North Carolina economist who tracks the market for local Realtors, compared with a 21.7 percent drop in home sales nationally. Unemployment in the Greensboro area averaged 5.1 percent in April, versus 5 percent nationwide. The mortgage delinquency rate of 4.04 percent, meanwhile, is nearly identical to the country’s rate, 4.35 percent.

With down payment requirements of 20-25%, you have guaranteed partial paralysis of real estate markets.

so this mortgage problem is not lack of money...is just people not willing to pay more into over valued properties and bailing out? but high gas prices will have to effect inflation and make this worse.

High gas prices are really cutting into most people's budgets, but especially into those who bought huge homes, huge vehicles, including Hummers, and lots of other toys that have been so marketable.

The I, Me, My crowd are having to pay the piper now, and some of them simply can't do it. They didn't educate themselves before they jumped into those neat mortgage deals. This thread alone is an education within itself about such matters.

Mortgage Problems: What if you Can't Pay?

[url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/19/business/mortgage.php]Affluent homeowners, too, have mortgage problems
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[url=http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm1881.cfm]Subprime Mortgage Problems: A Quick Tour Through the Rubble
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thebeach, as Catherine's links point out, it is not only the guys trying to keep up with the Jones' who cannot pay. Plenty of regular people who got ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) are having great difficultry (these were usually lower income people). They were promised by the lenders that they would be able to refinance before the rate adjusted higher, then there was no refi available, they were screwed with payments double and triple the amounts of their original payments.

There are also the get rich quickers who thought that they could do that neat little scam of flipping houses and are now stuck with several ARMs on expensive houses they never expected to keep but a few months at the most. These people I don't feel very sorry for. Have you ever seen the stupid "flip this house" shows on TLC or whatever? Its like the whole scam is to buy a turn and then polish it up and make it "purty" and then see who will pay the most for the turd. The haughty toddy attitude of the flippers really got under my skin!

Anyway, while some may still have the money available to pay the mortgages but don't want to, I am pretty sure the vast majority fall into the don't have enough money to pay them crowd.

Here in my teeny tiny Mississippi town, we're still in the middle of an amazingly huge real estate bubble because there is a major university located here. Developers salivate over the kids coming to town loaded down with their parents credit cards and condos, apartments and these little shotgun houses are popping up like weeds. The rents are outrageous. What goes for $400 bucks rent a month 20 miles from here is rented for at least $1000 here. And houses sell for about 3 -4 times their actual worth. I am scared to see the ghost town its going to create when people quit paying these prices and make their kids stay in the dorms. It makes it very difficult to be an average Jane and live all right in this town.

Blah, blah. As usual I have said too much!

[url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12400801/]Price of oil jumps as U.S. dollar declines
At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices rise to a new record near $3.99
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NEW YORK - Oil prices rose back above $128 a barrel Thursday after the dollar fell in response to comments by European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet suggesting the bank could raise interest rates. At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices rose to a new record near $3.99, and are likely to hit $4 soon.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery rose as high as $128.26 before retreating slightly to settle up $5.49 at $127.79 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, easily regaining all ground lost earlier in the week.

Trichet spoke after the ECB left a key interest rate unchanged amid concerns about inflation. While Trichet said a change in rates was not a certainty, he said some of the bank’s governors favor an increase.


Gas in my area is already over $4.00 a gallon. If you want to trade in your SUV, you aren't going to get much for it as the dealers can't sell them. I passed by one of our largest car dealerships. Sitting in their used car lot were several Hummers, numerous large, king-cab trucks, and a few Expeditions.

CNN reporter: Bush excuse for unemployment rate 'ridiculous'

During an economic speech today, President Bush partly blamed a dramatic rise in unemployment on new workers entering the workforce. Later, in a CNN interview, Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao also said that the increase the unemployment rate was "caused in part by a surge of young entrants into the job market."

CNN senior business correspondent Ali Velshi weighed in that Bush administration excuses for the poor economy were "ridiculous." Velshi explained, "I just wish they wouldn't say that. President Bush said something earlier about how the unemployment rate today -- the increase -- was because a whole bunch of teenagers have joined the workforce, that's the point. 100,000 people join the working age working force every month. If we don't create 100,000 jobs every month, we're not doing the right thing."

Video is from CNN's Newsroom, broadcast June 6, 2008.

LOOKS LIKE THE SAUDIS WILL CONTROL US...AGAIN! Go ahead and start driving those gas guzzlers again, folks...if you are really, really ultra-selfish...and mentally challenged.

Saudi oil output to rise in July

Saudi Arabia will increase its oil production by 200,000 barrels a day next month in a move to meet growing world demand, the United Nations says.

The news was announced after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon met Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi in Jeddah for talks on the high oil price.

Last month, the Kingdom increased its production by 300,000 barrels a day.

The country is thought to be the only oil producer with the ability to pump substantially more crude.

It argues that the current high prices are caused by speculators rather than any shortage of crude oil.

Oil prices fell by almost $2 on Friday after reports that Saudi Arabia might boost oil production. US light, sweet crude was trading at $134.86 in New York.