Analysis of current economic conditions and policy
Jet Fuel Prices Up
Then, when next you fly; or ship something high value from abroad. From EIA (thru 10/9):
Note that the current price is nearing 2022 levels.
From IATA (through 10/16):
9 thoughts on “Jet Fuel Prices Up”
Macroduck
Off topic – housing data are looking pre-recessionary:
Pending home sales fell 7.3% in September, for an 11.3% y/y decline. Pending sales fell in all 4 major geographic regions in September and even the strongest local markets all suffered declines.
Existing home sales were up 1.5% in September, from a 2-year low in August. Pending sales lead existing sales, both in the sales process and in the data, so it looks like the September rise in existing sales is in for a big reversal.
New home sales, while nothing to write home about lately, did rise by 6.4% in September. New home sales are less troubled on the supply side by mortgage rate “locks”. That’s all the good news there is for the U.S. housing market. On Monday, the NAHB reported the lowest builder sentiment index since 2012, September single-family housing starts fell by 4.6% in yesterday’s data, while single-family permits fell by 4.0%.
As of 209, Ed Leamer was still convinced that “Housing Really Is the Economy”, even though residential investment accounts for only about 4% of GDP, on average.
There has been some re-evaluation of that view in the current cycle, but the linkages are still at work; when borrowing rates are high and job growth is slow, housing slides and soon other, less rate-sensitive sectors follow.
Baffling
Why are some republicans, like vance, siding with child rapists? It takes a depraved soul to blame a child for their rape. Pretty disgusting that your drive to win would put you in defense of a child rapist. And vance has young children of his own. Disgusting.
Macroduck
My suspicion, based on nothing, is that the Couch Cushion Casanova is too compartmentalized to realize how disgusting he sounds. He was thinking about the Republican presidential nomination, and figured that support for a Republican candidate who had made a huge gaff would be seen as a plus in professional Republican circles.
Compartmentalization doesn’trequire stupidity, and what he said was stupid. If he had not been so focused on inside-the-party advantage, he’d probably have seen how offensive his words were.
All that said, the Couch Cushion Casanova regularly says offensive things. It is part of his Thiel-minion schtick. By habit, he is likely to think offensive statements are good to say. That’s why he’ll never make it through Super Tuesday.
Baffling
And now trump is supporting a child rapist as well. Simply disgusting. Hey bruce hall, do you throw support behind the child rapist as well? do you believe its all right to blame the victim and support the sexual offender in the name of the republican party? Disgusting behavior by the republican candidate in ohio. And for trump and vance to support that behavior makes one seriously question their decision making capabilities.
joseph
Vance believes that Democrats are an existential threat to white nationalism — in which case literally anything is justified in its defense.
Recall that he justified his blatant lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets by saying “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” There is no shame. He sees it as a necessity.
James Harold McClure
Trump is a rapist so he thinks this is all good.
Macroduck
Well said.
Macroduck
On topic – Here’s a decent summary of the price and physical supply situation in the oil market:
The article highlights that supply shortage is no longer the big cause of high oil prices. Rather, it’s the cost of moving oil when Hormuz – not to mention Bab-el-Mandab – is restricted. The worry in the earlier phase was an actual shortage of physical supply has a much more recessionary effect than a mere price shock. Now, with supply somewhat less problematic, we see the cost associated with a slapped-together oil supply chain; still highly inflationary, but probably less recessionary.
The Brent/WTI spread reached its widest point since early in the Ukraine war over the past month, but has narrowed this week:
Today, however, Brent is blowing out on reports that Netanyahu may have talked the U.S. war-criminal-in-chief into another attack in Iran, while Iran attacks tankersnin the Gulf. Brent is up 2.3%, WTI up 1.3%. European natural gas prices are also near their Iran-war high – there has always been more harm to the rest of the world than to the U.S. from this war.
Gotta think that having oil supply back toward normal volumes is part of Netanyahu’s pitch to the war criminal – Iran has lost leverage. The other part is surely that Iran keeps insisting that the war criminal live up to the terms of the April MOU. When the choice is between living up to an agreement or a war, what’s a war criminal with a history of breaking deals gonna do? Both guys are facing voters very soon, with Netanyahu looking at going to prison if he loses. Roll the dice, kill brown people, maybe save his own skin?
The felon-in-chief feels power slipping from his grasp. He may roll the dice on reigniting the Iran war. He’s playing footsie with Russia, contrary to U.S. interests and U.S. law. And when he has been rejected by voters and cannot seek re-election, he may decide to burn it all down.
Our system of government has a number of checks on presidential misdeeds, many of which have proven inadequate under the felon. Last time he lost power in an election, he committed insurrection. He was impeached, but not removed from office because – said Senate Republicans – there was no need because voters had already voted him out. There is one last check, and we may need it:
25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Section 4
“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”‘
Here’s the problem – never have “the principal officers of the executive departments” had less independent public stature than in this administration. Except for the Couch Cushion Casanova, everyone in the Cabinet is doomed to obscurity if they’re lucky, prosecution otherwise, should the the felon-in-chief be removed from office. Vance might thrill at the notion, but he can’t round up a Cabinet majority to remove the felon. These guys also know that Republican primaries a infested with MAGA voters; if they do their duty to the country, they can’t hope to regain political power. Since power and wealth are their only goals, the felon-in-chief will be able to burn the country to a crisp without opposition.
Off topic – housing data are looking pre-recessionary:
Pending home sales fell 7.3% in September, for an 11.3% y/y decline. Pending sales fell in all 4 major geographic regions in September and even the strongest local markets all suffered declines.
Existing home sales were up 1.5% in September, from a 2-year low in August. Pending sales lead existing sales, both in the sales process and in the data, so it looks like the September rise in existing sales is in for a big reversal.
New home sales, while nothing to write home about lately, did rise by 6.4% in September. New home sales are less troubled on the supply side by mortgage rate “locks”. That’s all the good news there is for the U.S. housing market. On Monday, the NAHB reported the lowest builder sentiment index since 2012, September single-family housing starts fell by 4.6% in yesterday’s data, while single-family permits fell by 4.0%.
As of 209, Ed Leamer was still convinced that “Housing Really Is the Economy”, even though residential investment accounts for only about 4% of GDP, on average.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26614920
There has been some re-evaluation of that view in the current cycle, but the linkages are still at work; when borrowing rates are high and job growth is slow, housing slides and soon other, less rate-sensitive sectors follow.
Why are some republicans, like vance, siding with child rapists? It takes a depraved soul to blame a child for their rape. Pretty disgusting that your drive to win would put you in defense of a child rapist. And vance has young children of his own. Disgusting.
My suspicion, based on nothing, is that the Couch Cushion Casanova is too compartmentalized to realize how disgusting he sounds. He was thinking about the Republican presidential nomination, and figured that support for a Republican candidate who had made a huge gaff would be seen as a plus in professional Republican circles.
Compartmentalization doesn’trequire stupidity, and what he said was stupid. If he had not been so focused on inside-the-party advantage, he’d probably have seen how offensive his words were.
All that said, the Couch Cushion Casanova regularly says offensive things. It is part of his Thiel-minion schtick. By habit, he is likely to think offensive statements are good to say. That’s why he’ll never make it through Super Tuesday.
And now trump is supporting a child rapist as well. Simply disgusting. Hey bruce hall, do you throw support behind the child rapist as well? do you believe its all right to blame the victim and support the sexual offender in the name of the republican party? Disgusting behavior by the republican candidate in ohio. And for trump and vance to support that behavior makes one seriously question their decision making capabilities.
Vance believes that Democrats are an existential threat to white nationalism — in which case literally anything is justified in its defense.
Recall that he justified his blatant lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets by saying “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” There is no shame. He sees it as a necessity.
Trump is a rapist so he thinks this is all good.
Well said.
On topic – Here’s a decent summary of the price and physical supply situation in the oil market:
https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-us-navy-never-saw-this-coming-gulf-oil-exports-are-passing-levels-before-iran-war-but-tehran-keeps-firing-missiles/
The article highlights that supply shortage is no longer the big cause of high oil prices. Rather, it’s the cost of moving oil when Hormuz – not to mention Bab-el-Mandab – is restricted. The worry in the earlier phase was an actual shortage of physical supply has a much more recessionary effect than a mere price shock. Now, with supply somewhat less problematic, we see the cost associated with a slapped-together oil supply chain; still highly inflationary, but probably less recessionary.
The Brent/WTI spread reached its widest point since early in the Ukraine war over the past month, but has narrowed this week:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DCOILWTICO#
Today, however, Brent is blowing out on reports that Netanyahu may have talked the U.S. war-criminal-in-chief into another attack in Iran, while Iran attacks tankersnin the Gulf. Brent is up 2.3%, WTI up 1.3%. European natural gas prices are also near their Iran-war high – there has always been more harm to the rest of the world than to the U.S. from this war.
Gotta think that having oil supply back toward normal volumes is part of Netanyahu’s pitch to the war criminal – Iran has lost leverage. The other part is surely that Iran keeps insisting that the war criminal live up to the terms of the April MOU. When the choice is between living up to an agreement or a war, what’s a war criminal with a history of breaking deals gonna do? Both guys are facing voters very soon, with Netanyahu looking at going to prison if he loses. Roll the dice, kill brown people, maybe save his own skin?
Krugman is saying what a lot of us are thinking:
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/donald-trump-is-politically-bankrupt
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-traitor-in-chief
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/nerobefehl-nation
The felon-in-chief feels power slipping from his grasp. He may roll the dice on reigniting the Iran war. He’s playing footsie with Russia, contrary to U.S. interests and U.S. law. And when he has been rejected by voters and cannot seek re-election, he may decide to burn it all down.
Our system of government has a number of checks on presidential misdeeds, many of which have proven inadequate under the felon. Last time he lost power in an election, he committed insurrection. He was impeached, but not removed from office because – said Senate Republicans – there was no need because voters had already voted him out. There is one last check, and we may need it:
25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Section 4
“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”‘
Here’s the problem – never have “the principal officers of the executive departments” had less independent public stature than in this administration. Except for the Couch Cushion Casanova, everyone in the Cabinet is doomed to obscurity if they’re lucky, prosecution otherwise, should the the felon-in-chief be removed from office. Vance might thrill at the notion, but he can’t round up a Cabinet majority to remove the felon. These guys also know that Republican primaries a infested with MAGA voters; if they do their duty to the country, they can’t hope to regain political power. Since power and wealth are their only goals, the felon-in-chief will be able to burn the country to a crisp without opposition.