starting now

Some US Plastic Shortages Seen From Natgas Price via LATOC

The US government should help repair damaged natural gas processing plants and declare a "national emergency" to make consumers aware of supply problems triggered by the storms, Liveris (chief executive officer of Dow Chemical) said.

"Soon the loss of chemical manufacturing in the Gulf will ripple through the economy in the form of shortages and higher prices," Liveris said. Some of the products that may develop shortages include widely used consumer goods such as plastic bottles and bags, he said.

"The short-term outlook for natural gas consumers is grim," he said. "If prices remain at or near current levels, manufacturers will be driven out of the market and many may not return."

The government should also "declare a national emergency" to shock consumers into awareness of tight supplies, he said.

For example, if all Americans turned down their home thermostats by 2 degrees this winter, an extra 3 billion cubic feet per day of gas would be available, Liveris said.

The shit starts now. The energy news of late has been so unrelenting, and so grim, that it is difficult for me to maintain an even keel in analyzing the situation. As a reminder, natural gas costs also affects fertilizer costs, in turn affecting food costs. Some of these price ripples are a month or two downstream. As the sales people might say: It's in the pipeline.

So far, broken infrastructure has been mitigated by mild weather and oil from Europe, and the lack of refinery capacity in the U.S. post hurricane(s) has kept the price of crude oil from bubbling too high. These effects will be temporary.

I still believe that the American economy is floating on a bubble of credit and wishful thinking. I'm not the only one. Nobody wants to look in the box, everybody knows the cat is dead. Who bells the consumer?

Many are saying this is going to be the winter that all hell breaks loose. Now, with the CEO of DOW chemical, Kunstler has some company. It appears he has been rubbing shoulders with reality all along.

Enjoy the Last Pancake Breakfast of our crap consumer culture, while it lasts.