Saturday, April 07, 2012

Rewriting 2008 hits a bump

Most people remember a couple of things about 2008. Oil got expensive, and the financial system crashed.



Not too many remember why the Tan Man should be in jail for the rest of his unnatural life.

I don't think anybody knows the full cause & effect here. The massive fraud fueled bubble in real estate & debt instruments was going to blow up pretty soon even without an oil crisis. It does seem pretty clear that the collapse in oil prices followed the economic collapse. And that we're all headed for New Appalachia



with bad teeth & less hairspray, but probably no children drafted into fights to the death.

But those are real questions, that require actual work to answer. Our topic today is much easier : Lying. Let let API President Jack Gerard have his say:

That July, Gerard said, the price of oil fell abruptly after President George W. Bush announced he would allow drilling in parts of the Outer Continental Shelf that for decades had been off-limits. As Gerard told it, “the price of crude oil over three days dropped $15 a barrel and continued to move down.” The lesson, he said, was that “markets are driven on a global basis by expectation. If the market heard the president of the United States say ‘I’m serious about producing my vast energy resources,’ you will see an impact in the market.”


I'm really kind of shocked that this rubbish was in a Washington Post article. Not because it's rubbish, of course, but because of, well...

The tale was an indictment of President Obama. But there’s one hitch, say oil experts. It doesn’t hold together.


& Steven Mufson proceeded to systematically demolish the whole load of rubbish.

Project #2 is to pretend that the collapse started in January, 2009. That one is so absurd, it will be October before it gets any traction. I'll be watching.


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