The Return of Complacency

Well, I was wrong about the return of $3.xx a gallon gas. More like $2.xx. There is such a massive pullback in commodities this last coupla months -- presumably because investor's positions are so far upside down they are dumping everything they can to raise cash. At the top, you gotta be in cash...at the bottom, you gotta be fully invested, yet people are almost always backward on this idea. In 2006 everyone was fully invested -- in houses, in equities, in accessories...neighbors sat together in white plastic chairs in their driveways alongside their new Land Rovers & Armadas, sipping Bordeaux, chatting about how well their foreign growth fund was doing and how much better their rentals were doing now that they've hired management professionals to handle the bothersome chores of maintenance and rent collecting.


These people are now privy to the deflation boom going on. With oil at $60, even Saudi Arabia can't seem to turn a profit anymore, and there is no way, no way!, anyone will be looking at Palin's drill, baby, drill program in northern Alaska where lifting costs are in excess of $60 a barrel. The same goes for ultra deep water drilling -- the only two sources of new oil we have in this exceptional nation. $60 a barrel exclusively means continued increasing imports, to import it from cheaper Mexico and Venezuela. Even the Canadian tar sands don't pencil out at $60, no matter how many quattuordecillion barrels they are sitting on. All $60 oil will do is increase our dependency from 65% to 69%.

The gas crisis is over, and now we've returned to complacency. Discussions regarding Merikan energy independence are no longer relevant...only the cratering rest-of-everything.

To verify...this fine morning I rode the bike alongside a crush of Monday traffic that I haven't seen since 2007. Everyone seems to be enjoying the reprieve in energy prices as there is clearly a strong return to 'normal' commuting patterns, regardless of how many people aren't commuting to their evaporated jobs. All my co-workers lament the return of the extra 10-15 minutes to their commute times. We offloaded money for time; but apparently, it's a worthy trade.

In fact...with my prospects of being mortgage free in just over a dozen months and the rise of the dollar against other currencies and falling jet fuel prices, I'm gonna do the same. What, you think I'm an idiot? Goteborg. Palermo. Santiago. Bremen. I can prove to be just as complacent as the next.