The Doom And Gloom Report for September 18, 2006

A couple of topics are on my mind as we start the new week.

Oil and Gas

Seems to be that evergy prices have run into a classic investment wall...the correction.

A correction is when investors push their investment vehicle (stocks, bonds, real estate, energy) in one direction. For the most part you see a sustained upward trend. At some point if you have a large "paper" gain on your investment it is a smart thing to take the money and run or to cash out. Now you have money in your pocket so to speak rather than it showing on paper only.

It doesn't matter what the trigger was for the correction. Alot of this is psychological. How long do you hold onto your investment without risking any potential profit you could gain? Sell now and you made some good money; wait and your profit could be cut in half and you'll end up kicking yourself.

So several weeks ago people who invested in energy were asking themselves the same thing. They also took into consideration that American motorists cut back on their driving this summer so gas inventories are up. They saw the hurricane season as pretty much a no show this season with nothing happening in the Gulf of Mexico.

Taking into account just the previous two bits of information and you could see not much would move the price of oil higher so it is a safe bet to get out of the energy investments as the potential for further gains is low.

At this point in time, barring any single cataclysmic event or several energy related interruptions we should see significantly lower energy costs through the heating season when compared to last year.


Jihad

Have you ever run into someone whether it was at the school playground when you were a kid or maybe it was at a bar or club after work when you were out for a few where you maybe glanced over in someone's direction and a thug (for lack of a better word) wanted to beat you to a pulp just because you "looked at him"?

Today it was reported by Reuters that a militant group declared Jihad over the Pope's speech. That reminded me of the above mentioned context. It also reminds me of a Nazi official who could not eat breakfast before finding someone to kill. He would run out onto the street and it didn't matter what religion, race or whatever they were he wanted to kill. Perhaps it was the need to fullfill his own grandiose vision of being master.

Granted not all muslims are of the same cloth...no, just the schoolyard thugs are. Thugs who are offended 'cause they didn't get so much as a "By your leave" scream jihad. It was a speech and whether taken out of context or not, whether meant to inflame or not doesn't matter as a thug will use any and all excuses to thump his chest and proclaim himself a force to be reckon with.

This doesn't apply to just a single religion or people. Christians are guilty of it as well, just not on the same scale in recent history.

So when you have someone who uses any reason to encite, enrage, maim or kill the innocent what you have is a modern day school yard thug.....a dangerous one.