STUFF

2 more years before NG prices rise. 3 reasons. Production hasn't fallen off despite price fall 2 years ago. Consumption won't increase much despite econ rebound. And producers are building a backlog of wells drilled, yet not in production.

Venezuala now claiming more oil than any country on earth. 297B bls. '09 exports decreased 6%.

2 Italian scientists say they have cold fusion. Nickel+H->Cu+E. To start shipping units next 3 months, mass production by end of year. M hm. El gen under 1 cent. Okeydokey. No nuke waste. I guess we shall see.

100% clean E power gen for world possible in 20 years says a study. Would only take 4M 5kw wind turbines, 1.7B 3kw solar roofs and 90k 300MW solar power plants. What's the prob, folks? Plus some wave, tidal and geotherm. O yea, and a 5-fold increase in rare earth supplies, especially neodymium (for the turbines). They left out nuke. Rare earths not needed for solar. Yet. But tech might eliminate the need. OK. That gives us clean air. But my think is first priority is eliminating the need for oil. Vehicles. We need non-food-based biofuels and EV's first. The price of oil is our first problem. But the cleaner our el, the cleaner our EV's. Let's go git it.

Net flow into muni bond funds - and prices - in steep dive since Nov (when I warned me brother). Now negative $3M/week. Yep, you might think that's insignificant. We'll see.

Last 2 years commodities have gone up 45% even with NG falling. Inflation is coming. Once it gets started it is a hell on wheels. Um, anyone remember 1980? Official v. unofficial inflation. Food. Gasoline. You know the drill. Hedge funds have increased their leverage to w/in 10% of the '08 peak. Since Lehman surrendered, up 43%.

Greenspan, the great Alan: "we've had an extraordinary rise in profit margins." G, with putting all the ex-employed on unemployment, who could see that rise? "This is coming to an end" Sir Alan added. Probably because they can't squeeze anymore out of that plan. Meester Greenspan said more, when asked about interest rates: "we are in the position we were in '79". Ut oh. Official was 14% in '80, 30% in Japan. And, o, by the way, GW Bush never vetoed a spending measure. In fact, when was the last veto we've ever seen?

Projected oil demand 89mbpd in '11. Supply fell to 88 last month. What do you think?