William Yeatman:
According to CNBC, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew today told an audience in New York that low oil prices are “like a tax cut to the economy” and that increased U.S. oil and gas production is a “great success story.”
However, only a few hours after Treasury Secretary Lew praised low oil prices, Secretary of State John Kerry championed an altogether different viewpoint in an address at the 20thConference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Lima, Peru. I don’t yet have a transcript of his speech, but according to the Twitterverse:
John Kerry is finding any number of ways to say that lower cost oil has high costs.#cop20 #climate #UNFCCC
— Ben Geman (@Ben_Geman) Decemb
and
John Kerry on the hidden costs of cheap power of coal & oil: “It’s not cheaper.” #cop20
— Lisa Friedman (@LFFriedman) December 11, 2014
Plainly, Secretaries Lew and Kerry are sending mixed messages. I reckon the reason this is so has to do with an old Russian proverb: The fish rots from the head. By this I mean that the Obama administration’s confused take on the benefits of low energy prices mirrors the President’s confused take.
Sales at US gas stations is down over last year at this time by quite a bit.
In November, sales at gas stations fell 0.8% month-on-month and 2.1% year-on-year.
CHART: http://www.businessinsider.com/markets-charts-of-the-day-december-11-2014-12#ixzz3LdsZAZJ4
Kerry’s tweet is only a small part of what he said:
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/12/11/john-kerry-slams-climate-deniers-cop-20-what-happens-if-climate-skeptics-are-wrong-catastrophe
He’s worried about all those Chinese living in air pollution.
So worried he wants us to destroy our cleaner energy so as to make it easier for commie Chinese to breathe.
@Nanny: Even better than I left for R.T $59.30, 5.8%, 17,600, 4700, 2.17%, 3.5% $1210–hope you sold yours closer to $1800.