You know what is funny? The people who 'make ends meet' will probably not get hit as hard(emotionally) as the middle and upper class who are use to luxurious lifestyles. lol
Its the people the government pays little regard to who will be able to cope more(especially if money loses its value to a large degree.)
The people who have gardens out of need and who already walk or bike miles and who can't afford most luxuries anyway.

Think about all the people picking through the dump in Mexico City looking for anything they can trade for food. That's what being poor is about. There may be a few people in America in places like Detroit, or the Pine Ridge Reservation that know poverty. Most Americans are clue-less. And guess what, most of those people that are really poor, they're dependent on government handouts for survival. What's going to happen when the handout isn't there?

As far as I can see, it's an across the board ratchet down. The rich will live like the middle class does now. The middle class will become poor. The poor will either starve, or be reduced to third world style poverty. If you think the poor are going to end up with enough land to garden, I think you're fooling yourself. America has much more elaborate mechanisms for screwing the poor. The top 0.01% who actually owns everything in America....they'll carry on like nothing happened.

Yeah they will carry on fine just like the Roman aristocrats continued on living the good life after the emperor was deposed by the Vandals in 476AD. Wait a minute they died too. Maybe in 2009 they will still be able to pretend nothing happened but when things go Mad Max they won't do so well. Of the aristocrats every single one of them was put to the sword.

The dollar is trading at $1.53 vs the euro, yet oil is pretty much above $136. I suspect that we are near a record in oil priced in euro's.

Right on. $136 = €88,89
Highest price in euro's ive heard of so far.

Back in march the price of oil was around 70 euro/bbl. That means 25% price increase in 3 months.

USDX has burst past 74 and heading for 76 and people are ready to flush crude oil down the proverbial drain and throw gold bars into the proverbial toilet. For once, the US dollar is showing more spine than the supposed speculators who have been pushing up commodity prices.

Great show going on.
Sit back and watch the fireworks.

Repetition doesn't make something a fact.

This was a huge move in the dollar. It's the first time in a year and a half that the USDollar has gone above the 100 day moving average.

Look at the chart below. Where's it going? Going to skyrocket and save the US? Probably not! Look at the 200 day moving average which is just above 75. It probably won't break that by much!
Below:
100 day(20 week) moving average is blue
200 day(40 week) moving average is red
[web]http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$USD&p=W&b=4&g=0&id=p89719368721[/web]

Doesn't crude look like it's forming a bullish pennant? That's like classic technical analysis textbook stuff there.
[web]http://charts.barchart.com/chart.asp?sym=CLN8&data=A&date=061308&den=MEDLO&divd=n&evnt=ADV&grid=Y&jav=ADV&size=D&sky=N&sly=N&vol=Y&late=Y&ch1=013&arga=&argb=&argc=&ov1=&argd=&arge=&argf=&ch2=&argg=&argh=&argi=&ov2=&argj=&argk=&argl=&code=XSTKIC&org=stk[/web]

Looks like, but the volume behavior is off. It should decrease as the pennant goes on, not increase.

It doesn't, but the likelihood of a possibly positive change in the Country's administration seems to IMO have resulted in some optimism for the dollar. The current administration has killed many efficiency measures and leveraged markets to the point where, regardless of whether or not they knew the outcome, prices spikes were seen. They've also likely dumped enough money to buy an efficient EV for everyone in America as well as all the electricity needed to power them for the next decade into a conflict that was impossible to win, to the point where "winning" had to be redefined, while preaching about addressing our oil "addiction". Not to mention the debacle w/ meds, w/ the government not able to negotiate w/ drug companies. The list probably goes on for quite some time given what I've seen of the administration's track record. So, do you think investors would be more willing to invest in a weak dollar if they felt that the country was going to stop, albeit slowly, flushing money down the drain at a rate never seen before, while certain sectors who are buddy-buddy w/ "you know who" are seeing record profits/revenues?

In europe we are nearly at $10 a gallon. There have been a few demonstrations from truck drivers etc but generally people are getting on with it even though it is getting expensive. This problem the US has is the classic addicts problem-$4 is actually cheap so america will be forced to become more efficient which will be painful. The US uses over twice the amount of oil as Europe for the same tasks because we have much higher energy taxes (should be even higher frankly) we have learnt to be more efficient over the past 40 years.
EU15 unemployment is 10.2%.
the employment rates is because europe has a strong social welfare system and the extra taxes for this results in a less efficient employment system. but this does mean that a 10% unemployment rate given the welfare support probably has a better community quality than the US's 5% with much less welfare support. the uk is basically a mix having lower unemployment but also slightly lower welfare support than mainland europe.

True, but the very strong volume on the flagpole and the classic lower highs, higher lows might make people unconcerned about the volume.

Oh, the heck with it, it's all a guess anyway. I still think it's going up inexorably do to supply constraints and increasing demand!

It's a pretty interesting question. I'm just learning about pennants and flags. Apparently their typical behavior is to breakout before the point and replicate the flagpole on the opposite end. That would mean another huge jump next week similar to the one last week. The issue with volume is suppose to be that as it consolidates at a range people lose interest and the volume progressively drops off until a sharp increase in volume which signals the breakout. When the volume pattern is reversed, like now it MAY signal an upcoming reversal instead of a continuation breakout.


Yeah sure. People will be forced to do the rational thing over time, but they'll also predictably do a lot of irrational things on their way there.