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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: quehubo who wrote (101341)	5/21/2008 10:16:34 PM
From: James W. Riley	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 206094

Quehubo, Don't know what effect it will have on demand but just completed a long drive up and down I-5 in Kalifornia and could not help but notice the trucks driving five and ten MPH below the speed limit. They were not alone as most private vehicles were holding the speed limit. Laying out fifty bucks to fill the gas tank is getting some attention. As fuel climbs, an attitude shift in heavy truckers By KEN BENSINGER LOS ANGELES TIMES Published Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 4:30 a.m. Last updated Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 12:18 p.m. If you think gas is expensive, be thankful you are not a trucker. Filling up an 18-wheel, 80,000-pound leviathan can top $1,300 these days. Because of short supply, the price of diesel has risen more than twice as much as gasoline in the past year, reaching an all-time national high of $4.33 a gallon last week. The run-up has been prompting radical cultural and technological shifts in the struggling trucking industry. Instead of obsessing over chrome trim or the latest cab amenities to ease life on the road, truck owners and operators fed up with getting 5 miles per gallon are delving into long-ignored subjects like aerodynamics, slower cruising speeds and more efficient tires. Engineers and manufacturers are furiously developing new fuel-friendly technology. And commercial fleets are using high-tech software to calculate every aspect of their drivers' routes, down to where they should fill up and where they should stop for the night. (more) "http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080521/NEWS/805210558/-1/newssitemap"

To: quehubo who wrote (101341)	5/21/2008 11:23:22 PM
From: tom pope	Respond to of 206094

Where is the impact of behaviour change in demand? Anecdotal, and to be treated as such, but my wife works at the local hospice thrift shop - proceeds go to fund the care of the terminally ill - and she has seen a remarkable change in the past few months. Gone are the donations from people throwing out perfectly good dining room sets to make room for a new one. New are the customers who seem not to fit the mold of the thrift shop customer - much better dressed. For a good part of donations they depend more and more on graduates from the various assisted care facilities around here. Like vultures sitting in a tree waiting for their prey to expire.

To: quehubo who wrote (101341)	5/22/2008 3:50:11 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206094

How I spotted demand change. I would look into the garage or parking lots and see how many cars were parked in a weekend of good weather. That meant people were staying at home. I looked how much the rods were clogged on a long weekend. That was 1979/1980 when I saw Brazil lost decade coming in. Way into the Lost decade -I was in Nigeria 1983-1991- I used to go to the super markets and see what people were buying. I saw them buying lots of carbohidrates and less meat protein. I went to the shopping malls and saw the type of clothes the shops were carrying. It was like every one or one and half years I would return and took an snapshot. There were no credible statistics since these were hyper-inflationary times. When the market is too big, as the US is, it will take a lot of changes to make the impact visible. In na analogy: if you put a straw inside a glass one suck and half of it is gone and you see. If you pout a pump inside a small lake it will take three days for you to see the water level at the margins receding down. But you know water is going out...