Anywho, one important question to ponder is what will be the near future prices of gasoline and has this recession changed projections of future prices…

Well this handy dandy chart I stole from Infectious Greed (HT Paul) gives some illustration.

For those less chart savvy, the above provides three different senerios as to the severity of the recession and the resulting less demand for oil.  It must be noted that while the Western world is using less oil, this is not true for Asia (China will likely increase demand 5% this year, as opposed to 12% last year).  Global demand will likely grow as a result of growth in developing countries.

If you notice that the X-axis of this graph begins at the point where oil demand exceeded supply…the result was rampant speculation and increase in prices (see chart below, the point is the first spike in the green line)..

The Green line is the price per barrel.  To adjust this to the price of gas let’s go to this little nugget of within info from the Energy Information Agency

So let’s just make simple.  Currently Light crude is trading at $63 and price at the pump is around $2.50 nationally…

63/2.5 = future oil price projection/x

So if we put all the charts together what could we get.  Well on the first graph if we take the middle point of the middle senerio (severe economic downturn) we find supply hitting demand in about May 2011.  Now if we plug that the projected price of oil into our other formula for that date we get this…

63/2.5 = 125/x

x= $4.96 per gallon. 

THE SAD IRONY IS THAT THE LESS SEVERE OUR CURRENT RECESSION IS THE QUICKER IT WILL LEAD TO HIGH GAS PRICES AGAIN.

I would start seriously thinking about how you use energy now and make the necessary lifestyle changes that will prevent you from having to cope with high energy costs.

Or for a different perspective…

Declines are true on the global scale…

“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the Eternal God, will rout you out.”

The G20 meeting begins this Thrusday in London.  This should be a meeting for the history books. Protests and arrests have already begun.  On a side note the G20 nations are said to be signing an agreement not to devalue their currencies.  I would be shocked in a few years if this is still the case.

Deflation today…Inflation tomorrow.

FTA: “Home sales will turn around by midyear and home prices will begin recovering by the end of this year after bottoming out at 35 percent of their value from peak to trough. Home prices won’t return to their values of a few years ago during the boom, but will recover from current lows, he said”

This is not the case. The only senerio I can envision where aggregated home prices only drop by 35% requires a boost of inflation, a false reality of wealth.  Please refer to chart below.

Housing prices will need to be cut at least in half from inflation adjusted national peak values before they are back in line with household incomes. That’s not all, there is a demographic factor. The baby boomers who own most of these houses out-number their children who are poorer. Gen Y and X simply do not have the means to purchase these houses, even before the bubble.

 

The Public Private Investment Program is a scam.  George Orwell should give these asses an award for doublespeak. 

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Housing Bubble today that helps bring to light some of the details of the program…

I remember when the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program was released back in the fall on the pretense that it was going to buy toxic assets.  Remember the storm that created?  The public was appalled and that initial gut reaction was proven to be right.  Ultimately the first $350 billion of the TARP went directly to banks as capital injections and did absolutely nothing for the health of our economy and ultimately was a major safety net for the banks.  Yet the bad assets remained.  No credit lending to average Americans.  Bad assets still there.  TARP 1 was a gift to banks and Wall Street.  Which brings us to the PPIP.

The problem with the PPIP is that it is designed to provide a major subsidy to so-called private investors to buy up toxic assets.  This is a misnomer.  Why is that?  Language is important in any legislation and especially when presenting a money grab like this one.  First, there is very little about this plan that encourages the “private sector” in buying these toxic assets.  At least it isn’t private in the sense that you and 95 percent of Americans would like to think of it as private.  That is to say, if you had some capital laying around and wanted to buy up some toxic assets yourself, you would not be able to do so?  Why?  Well let us take a look at the application for this PPIP on the Financial Stability website:

I’ll get into the details of the plan later in this article but this application pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with this program.  First, participating institutions must have the capacity to raise $500 million of private capital.  This is great for bailout participants that are deemed too big to fail since they’ll have that money easily accessible.  Next, they’ll need a minimum of $10 billion in market value assets under management.  This is important to keep out the riff raff of “small time investors” since only the big boys know how to mange money.  Finally, the deadline for the PPIP application is get this, April 10, 2009 at 5:00pm Eastern Time.  Bwahahaha!  They already know who is going to get the bids!  So much for that “open” market place notion.  They spent such a long time devising this plan and now they expect solid plans to come out in a little over 2 weeks?  The Treasury already has an idea who is going to play in this game on taxpayer funds and it is the same institutions that created this mess.

If you want a sense of who stands to benefit just look who posted massive rallies today:

Even though the market posted a “broad” 7 percent rally, many of these firms tripled that in the same day.  And don’t think this rally was somehow spurred by the retail investor sitting on the sideline.  You mean the unemployed ran back in to gamble in the stock market?  You mean to tell me that 50 percent of those in our country that are 1 or 2 paychecks away from financial trouble knew to invest in these firms that stand to benefit the most from this poorly planned investment program (the real PPIP)?  Amazing isn’t it?  This was a major gift to Wall Street.

Compliments of Barry Ritzholtz of The Big Picture…hat tip.

According to opensecrets.org, AIG has been a heavy hitter in the world of lobbying Congress for decades.  And I’m sure to the disappointment of all you political partisans on the left or right, AIG was an equal opportunity collusionist, splitting their donations 50/50 between the two major parties.

Below is a list of top political receipents of AIG lobbying over the last decade.  So remember, next time you hear one of these prominent people complain about corporate irresponsibility, keep in mind how they helped to perpetuate the corruption.