Over the last two days there have been two follow up articles in the NY Times to my post from Monday: The Fuel Cost Balance.
Home Energy Prices are expected to Soar by Jad Mouawad
Some of the fun tidbits:
- Heating oil is 36% higher than last year (and last year was expensive)
- Locked in prices aren’t being offered like other years
- The average heating bill in New England is set to rise by as much as $1500
- The impact will start to be felt by September and October creating an election impact
- Lehman Brothers predicts $90 barrel of oil by the start of next year
Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, said before the vote,
“The economy is tough, and the reality is that we will have people
freezing to death this winter if there is no substantial increase in
Liheap funding.”
Booming China Suddenly Worries That a Slowdown Is Taking Hold by Keith Bradsher
Some of the fun tidbits:
- The post Olympics slow down has already begun (the actual games don’t factor that much into the actual economy but it is a mental perspective)
- China’s growth is slowing from 11% to 9% – that is still tremendous growth
- 1.3 Billion people
- The Southern parts of China are feeling it first. That is where many consumer goods are made
- The northern parts of China are doing fine so far. That is where more industrial good are made
- The earthquake doesn’t appear to have hurt the economy
- The Chinese infrastructure is built for efficiently moving goods and it is just now starting to open up many parts of China
“People have made huge investments in the infrastructure, and it’s not
just the physical infrastructure,” Chris Woodard said. “It’s all the training and
people development.”
Working Thoughts 