My barn kept quite a few drivers home this week including half-way meets and Indy turns due to lack of freight. TM says things are not looking good.
Gasoline should be around $4/gal by summer. Keep an eye on the US$ index as all oil bought by ANY country is paid for in US dollars. As the dollar weakens (as it will continue to do), exporters to the US raise their prices to keep up with profits and we all know we import nearly EVERYTHING! Remember, China, Japan and the Federal Reserve hold most of our $13,000,000,000,000 (Trillion) in debt in that order.
To keep up with the debt, the Fed prints more digital dollars out of thin air and lends it to the government which we have to pay the interest on with our Federal taxes to the tune of $500 million per day at present. When more money is "printed" is lessens the value of all the other dollars out there because it is backed by nothing, not even gold or silver anymore. So you can expect prices of everything to go up as we print more money which the fed just did with QE2.
Sad to say, but things will not get better. Think about. We have lost over 64% of our manufacturing capability with off-shoring, NAFTA, and all the other Free Trade Agreements out there! Tools? Nope, China. Textiles? Nope, China and others. Electronics? Nope, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Paper? Nope, imported from China with our timber that we cut and send to China for processing. Engineering Drawings? Nope, done in India. Customer Service for your city or any manufacturer or service that you deal with? Nope, India and the Philippines. I can go on and on, but you get the picture. With 15 million people unemployed, where in God's name are they going to work?
In the past, when we had a recession factories were idled until things got better and everybody gradually went back to work. In the past 20 years, the factories have closed and moved off-shore so the unemployed have no where to go. My rose-colored glasses have been broken and my heart bleeds for what they have done to a once great country.
Moderator: I know this went off topic, so please move it if appropriate.