US Economy In One Graph -- March 26, 2015

Gasoline is "dirt cheap," and falling in price, and gasoline demand is falling to levels one year ago (dynamic link; graph at end of that link):

One wonders how much this has to do with loss of jobs in the oil and gas sector.

The narrative:

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged over 15.5 million barrels per day during the week ending March 20, 2015, 94,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average.

Refineries operated at 89.0% of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging over 9.0 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.4 million barrels per day last week, down by 104,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 7.3 million barrels per day, 1.0% below the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 443,000 barrels per day.

So, with all the hand-wringing by Saudi Arabia over market share in the US, crude oil imports were down a whopping 1% from a year earlier.

One word: speculators. LOL.

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Natural Gas Fill Rate

Unremarkable (dynamic link).  Coming to the end of the heating season.

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Global Warming Wiping Out Languages

In addition to the excellent article on snooker in this week's issue of The New Yorker, there is also an excellent article on the demise of languages around the world. Into the second page, I was almost wondering if the author would get around to blaming global warming .... and then, there it was, at the top of the third page of the article:

Nowhere is there a richer or more concentrated cluster of languages, some eight hundred, thanin Papua New Guinea, with its daunting topography of highlands and rain forests. In New Guinea, as in other hot spots of endangerment, indigenous languages are a user's guide to ecosystems that are increasingly fragile and -- in the fact of climate change [euphemism used by warmists for 'global warming'] -- increasingly irreplaceable.

But that can be ignored; the article is otherwise very, very good, and I think, sticks to the facts without a lot of political correctness editorializing.

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How Personal Is It Between Obama and Netanyahu?

Personal Enough For The Former To Encourage A Nuclear Arms Race In The Mideast

Israel National News is reporting:

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel's nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.

But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel's nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth. The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu's March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran's nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.

Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel's sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.

It really is quite incredible, isn't it? One starts to get the feeling why the US response to ISIS has been so tepid. 

If the dots don't connect by now, you are not paying attention. The president may have been born in Hawaii, but he certainly wasn't raised there. 

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Meanwhile, More Golf

Off to Florida as war breaks out in the Mideast.