Purple Needle Grass

I thought this an interesting picture. Native grasses stay green several weeks longer than the annuals that have taken over California, sometimes maintaining at least some green all summer. The following is an example where the purple needle grass is still green while the surrounding grass is all dead. If the whole landscape was native grass it would all be green:

Cheap oil?

I just ran into this Businessweek article from 2006 that reminds me just how expensive oil still is:

The tale of Mideast money is not just a local story, however. This year, with oil prices stuck in the $55-to-$65-per-barrel range, perhaps half a trillion dollars will land in OPEC coffers -- more than at any time since the boom of the 1970s and 1980s. The Mideast oil states alone will gather in $320 billion in oil and gas export revenues.

At that time $55-65 dollar a barrel oil was shockingly expensive. Businessweek was writing articles about this huge transfer of wealth to the middle east. After all in 2002 the price of oil was averaging $22 a barrel($26 if inflation adjusted). So the price had more than doubled in a four year period!

Today the price of oil on the NYMEX is $52 a barrel. That is exactly twice as expensive as it was in 2002. What is shocking about this price level is that we now think of it as cheap. OPEC is slashing production because many of its members simply cannot afford to produce oil at these prices. The biggest recession in my life time, and the price of oil is still quite high. If this trend holds, expect really expensive oil to return as soon as the economy rebounds.

Another home price graph

I ran into this graph from this article which I particularly like because it shows two things clearly: Inflation adjusted home prices usually stay in the range between 125k-16k; and housing bubbles have happened before but the post-bubble prices approximately equal the pre-bubble prices. So, when we hit a median house price around 140k it is time to be calling the bottom. We have been doing so much building that it may drop below this number for a while but don't expect prices to stop falling before then. I had previously predicted that home prices would fall to 2000 levels. Looking at this graph that shouldn't be too far from correct, 1997 prices look closer to long term trends but if income has risen at all than 2000 prices are probably sustainable.

There is a lot of talk in washington about stopping this decline in home prices. It won't happen no matter how much money people throw at the problem. People simply cannot afford houses unless they drop to this price range. Until then, rent.

Don't mess with people.

A couple of free divers managed to down a 12 foot long tiger shark the other day. It took them two hours, seven shot shots from a speargun, ultimately finishing it off with a knife. That certainly has to put them in the category of one of the biggest bad-asses of all time.

Foxes

This is one of my favorite evolution experiments. Taming of foxes. I had heard of it a long time ago, but seeing them in a video is sort of cool.





I want to repeat the experiment with servals or monkeys.

Decline in Manufacturing?

I am not quite sure why I always hear people saying that the United States should manufacture more. I suppose now that I think of it, I hear it mostly from people like politicians with little real background in economics. Still, despite all the talk, manufacturing in America it is doing just fine. As this article points out:

“Manufacturing makes up about two-thirds of U.S. exports, and contributed more to G.D.P. growth over the last 20 years than any other sector of the U.S. economy,” said David Huether, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington. “Our share of global manufacturing output has remained steady at 20 to 23 percent over the past decade.”

With 5 percent of the world's population it really seems to me like we are doing more than our fair share of the manufacturing. What has changed is low skill factory workers have been replaced by robots. So there are a lot less jobs in the field. This is a good thing however as it frees up labor for other tasks. Just like when we reduced the percentage of the population that worked on farms this will ultimately improve the lives of most Americans.

Too many people like me.

Ugh, Optisolar has just laid off another 200 people. I hope I got this Southern California Edison job because that is a whole lot of people looking for similar jobs to me who have more experience than me.