Here Comes The Double Dip Pt. 4 (merged) Archived

[Lore]

“The future is uncertain but the end is always near.”

[OilFinder2]

OF2, you've been debunked ...

No, actually, your garbage arguments have been completely debunked. I pulled out my spreadsheets, and the whole bit! You're too intellectually lazy to so much as pull out a spreadsheet and crunch a few numbers yourself.

So, as the downward trajectory is only just beginning, this may be one of the last and final employment reports that you'll ever be able to boast about.

You just proved my point: If we happen to get a bad jobs report, you will believe it and cite it as proof of your view. But whenever we get even a halfway decent jobs report, it gets explained away, and articles from Zerohedge get posted telling us how it was really a bad report. In other words, you do not want things to get better - you are routing for them to get worse! And you still have yet to deny this! Again, the image below is appropriate:

[Lore]

Why argue the short term when the long term outlook matters so much more? Posting economic headlines on quarterly data doesn't say much for the long haul which is pockmarked with holes so big you could swallow a nation or several in them.

[peripato]

Why argue the short term when the long term outlook matters so much more? Posting economic headlines on quarterly data doesn't say much for the long haul which is pockmarked with holes so big you could swallow a nation or several in them.

Exactly there is SOO much sh*t coming down the pipe ready to derail, permanently - the human project, that concerns about the near-term prospects of Unmerica, the Pueril-zone, Brazchindia or whatever, are akin to a smoker worrying about dying from lung cancer whilst jaywalking blindfolded through a busy intersection at peak hour.

But it's fun to poke your tongue at cornies - they'z so stoopid!

[Daniel_Plainview]

OF2, you've been debunked ...

No, actually, your garbage arguments have been completely debunked.

I completely disagree. Any rational person who considers the holistic, CUMULATIVE EFFECT of my interpretations will ineluctably conclude that this is a noisy, garbage-laden report filled with wobbly data and loosey-goosey assumptions. For this particular month (July), if you slightly alter just one of its many assumptions, you could easily achieve a dramatically different outcome, such that the CUMULATIVE EFFECT of all of its myriad of wobbly variables and questionable assumptions leads to pure garbage.

... whenever we get even a halfway decent jobs report ...

And you completely miss my point: (1) this IS NOT a halfway-decent jobs report (no matter what CNN or Cramer initially told you); (2) you need to look at the complete picture holistically; and (3) you need to peer beyond the govt interpretations and conclusions, and focus instead on the underlying economic realities (such as the fact that part-time workers are not differentiated from full-time workers; such as the realities of horrific civilian participation and employment/population ratio, etc.).

In other words, you do not want things to get better

I merely want the truth and reality. Give me the truth, and I shall be happy.

If the intrinsic, underlying economy is actually improving, then why are interest rates still at ZIRP?

Then why are so many US central bankers nervously and openly discussing more QE, more ZIRP, more twist, more asset purchases?

Then why is 66% of US's deficits being monetized by the Fed?

Then why is foodstamp use breaking records?

Then why has GM started accepting sub-prime financing?

Then why is US GDP being continually downgraded such that it is now below 1.6%?

Then why are so many politicians worried about sovereign debt, even amid unprecedented ZIRP?

Then why are so many cities and municipalities facing bankruptcy?

Then why is the percentage of Americans working worse than when the last recession purportedly ended?

Then why has the number of long-term unemployed persons doubled from 2.7 million to 5.4 million in just 3.5 years?

Then why is the average duration of unemployment triple what it was a dozen years ago?

Then why are 40% of all US jobs "low income" (vs 30% in 1980)?

Then why is the unemployment rate for Americans in their 20's over 13% (vs 6.5% just 5 years ago)?

Then why have 42% of the unemployed Americans been jobless for at least a half-year?

Then why have more than 220,000 small businesses folded during the recent recession, whilst the US has lost more than 56,000 factories since 2001?

Then why has the number of Americans "not in the labor force" escalated by 18m between 2000 and 2011 (vs. 1.7m during the 1980's)?

Then why have 8m Americans vacated the workforce in just 3 years?

Give me reality, and I shall be happy.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Why argue the short term when the long term outlook matters so much more? Posting economic headlines on quarterly data doesn't say much for the long haul which is pockmarked with holes so big you could swallow a nation or several in them.

Exactly there is SOO much sh*t coming down the pipe ready to derail, permanently - the human project, that concerns about the near-term prospects of Unmerica, the Pueril-zone, Brazchindia or whatever, are akin to a smoker worrying about dying from lung cancer whilst jaywalking blindfolded through a busy intersection at peak hour.
But it's fun to poke your tongue at cornies - they'z so stoopid!

Besides, this employment report generates more noise than a live Metallica or Cannibal Corpse concert.

It spews more garbage than New Jersey's biggest landfill.

It reeks of more crap than NYC's smelliest sewage network.

OF2 is trying to peddle this steaming pile of s***, and that is just intellectually impermissible.

[peripato]

Cornies will always argue, like petulant children, that the rational observer, having mowed down their pathetically flawed position, does not want things to "get better".


Pitiful!

[OilFinder2]

I completely disagree. Any rational person who considers the holistic, CUMULATIVE EFFECT of my interpretations will ineluctably conclude that this is a noisy, garbage-laden report filled with wobbly data and loosey-goosey assumptions. For this particular month (July), if you slightly alter just one of its many assumptions, you could easily achieve a dramatically different outcome, such that the CUMULATIVE EFFECT of all of its myriad of wobbly variables and questionable assumptions leads to pure garbage.

I pull out spreadsheet, and do calculations to put seasonal adjustment complaints into perspective. DP rants, makes claims which are nothing more than his own opinions, and is generally too lazy to quantitatively back up his rants. Case closed.

And you completely miss my point: (1) this IS NOT a halfway-decent jobs report

Yes it was. Granted, it wasn't a barn-burner, but I would categorize it as "halfway decent."

I merely want the truth and reality. Give me the truth, and I shall be happy.

You have the truth. You just don't like it.

If the intrinsic, underlying economy is actually improving, then why are interest rates still at ZIRP?

Because we have a dovish-tending FOMC who are being as cautious as they possibly can, arguably too cautious.

Then why are so many US central bankers nervously and openly discussing more QE, more ZIRP, more twist, more asset purchases?

Fed does nothing. And as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

Then why is 66% of US's deficits being monetized by the Fed?

The Fed is not monetizing US deficits any more. That ended when QE2 ended last summer. Since then the Fed's balance sheet has gone nowhere, and thus, all the additional US debt accrued since then has not been monetized by the Fed, and instead has been bought by the usual collection of banks, investors, foreign central banks, etc.

Then why is foodstamp use breaking records?

Ah yes, food stamps, the doomer stat de jour. I could counter by asking, if there is no recovery, then why has the number of jobs been going up since early 2010? Are not the number of jobs a more important metric of the state of recovery than food stamps?

Then why has GM started accepting sub-prime financing?

GM has been doing sub-prime financing for decades.

Then why is US GDP being continually downgraded such that it is now below 1.6%?

You could have asked a similar question in Q1 of last year, and you would have later been proven to look like a complete idiot, as GDP in Q4 rose by 4.1%.

Then why are so many politicians worried about sovereign debt, even amid unprecedented ZIRP?

Yet another non-sequitur, as sovereign debt has absolutely nothing to do with ZIRP.

Then why are so many cities and municipalities facing bankruptcy?

I can show you states and cities with budget surpluses. So your point is ...???

Then why is the percentage of Americans working worse than when the last recession purportedly ended?

And why is the percentage of Americans working better than in 1980?

Then why has the number of long-term unemployed persons doubled from 2.7 million to 5.4 million in just 3.5 years?

If the economy is not getting better, why has that same metric fallen by 1.4% since the beginning of 2010?

Then why is the average duration of unemployment triple what it was a dozen years ago?

If the economy is not getting better, why is the average duration of unemployment fallen over the past year?

Then why are 40% of all US jobs "low income" (vs 30% in 1980)?

See reply above. Probably because a larger percentage of the population is working than in 1980.

Then why is the unemployment rate for Americans in their 20's over 13% (vs 6.5% just 5 years ago)?

If there is no recovery, then why has the teenage unemployment rate fallen by 1% over the past year?

Then why have 42% of the unemployed Americans been jobless for at least a half-year?

Your number is wrong. And that same metric has fallen from 45.5% in March of last year to 40.7% as of last month. Thus, the situation is improving, which means the economy is improving.

Then why have more than 220,000 small businesses folded during the recent recession, whilst the US has lost more than 56,000 factories since 2001?

DUH! Lots of businesses ALWAYS fail during recessions. As for the number of factories, it is irrelevant. Manufacturing production of US factories is well above where it was in 2001.

Then why has the number of Americans "not in the labor force" escalated by 18m between 2000 and 2011 (vs. 1.7m during the 1980's)?

1. More teens and 20's going to college.
2. More stay-at-home moms.
3. A bigger population than in 2000.

Then why have 8m Americans vacated the workforce in just 3 years?

This is a repeat of the same question above.

Give me reality, and I shall be happy.

You have been given reality for three years now, and you continue to refuse to believe it, because you don't want to believe it. The economy has been improving since the end of the recession, you just don't like that fact, so you do everything in your power to convince yourself it isn't true. Pathetic.

[ralfy]

Also, I think it's the opposite, i.e., job reports are by default understated. That is because it is not in the best interest of governments to give news that will make people think that they are failing. Unfortunately, the same governments have to release more details about these reports, and that's where some can see the reason why what is released is understated.

[ralfy]

FWIW, similar phenomena can be seen in other countries. For example,

"Unemployment: bad since 2005"

http://opinion.inquirer.net/5504/unempl ... since-2005

"Is 1 hour a week a ‘job’?"

http://opinion.inquirer.net/29441/is-1- ... week-a-job

[Daniel_Plainview]

Debt crisis threatens to break up Europe

Tensions within the eurozone over how to resolve the debt crisis are turning countries against each other and threatening to rip Europe apart, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has warned.

Resentment in Italy is growing against Germany, the European Union and even German chancellor Angela Merkel herself, he said, adding that “the pressures already bear the traits of a psychological break-up of Europe”.

Mr Monti told German news magazine Der Spiegel that he was “concerned” about the deepening divisions and said governments “must work hard to contain it”. His words were released as Greece pledged further economic reforms to avert bankruptcy at a meeting with the bail-out “troika” of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

After Sunday’s meeting, the troika said: “There was an overall agreement on the need to strengthen policy efforts.” Last week, Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras secured cross-party support for a further €11.5bn (£9.11bn) of cuts in 2013 and 2014 to keep the €130bn of international rescue funds flowing. The details must be agreed by early September if Greece is to receive its next bail-out tranche.

The divisions within Europe were laid out in the weekend’s German press, where German regional finance minister, Markus Soeder, said that aid to Greece should be stopped. “When a country like Greece on a continuing basis cannot pay back debts, it must leave the eurozone,” he said. “Greece should quit by the end of the year.”

Some of the comments after the article are priceless ...

COMMENT: This is the first of many repositionings these cowardly, incompetent, selfish and manipulative politicians will make. Each will try to lob blame at the other to avoid what should be the just conclusion.

Nearly all the EU politicians were bought by the reflux of national wealth through the EU which then used these massive funds to manipulate and control national politicians to sell their electorates down the river. This will be the first in a nasty series of squirming attempts to avoid responsibility from politicians who have prostituted themeselves for selfish gain.

This is a very nasty scene. Then, again, what else can it be coming from people who have all but wrecked decent democratic systems for the purposes of career advancement and personal enrichment?

COMMENT:

"Tensions within the eurozone over how to resolve the debt crisis are turning countries against each other and threatening to rip Europe apart"

----- ----- ----- -----
There was never any doubt that this would be an inevitable outcome. It had to happen. There are two completely opposite and incompatible mindsets within the Eurozone: (1) the prudent, frugal, and hard-working Northerners; versus (2) the imprudent, improvident, and lax Latin Club Med nations.

Moreover, with the results from the most recent summit, we now know that there are two completely opposite types of psychologies amongst the EUROCRATS: (1) the honest, loyal, and honorable variety; versus (2) the dishonest, ambushing, and blackmailing variety.

Anyone who's been in a dysfunctional marriage where you have one loyal, honest, hardworking, and prudent spouse, versus the other spouse who is cheating, scamming, imprudent, lazy, disloyal, blackmailing, and backstabbing ... you know what the ultimate result will be: DIVORCE.

There is no question that the Eurozone will end in a bitter, ugly DIVORCE, where the PIIGS end up never paying back the hundreds of billions they've borrowed from the Northerners.

This will get very ugly ... and it will conclude in a vicious DIVORCE. There's no question about it. The Germans should cut their losses and file for DIVORCE now.

COMMENT: The answer is simple Mr Monti, break up the Euro Zone before it breaks up Europe, of course you don't want to hear that so you will continue down the road of destruction. Spain is already pressuring Eastern Europeans to leave the country and no doubt this will accelerate and be taken up by other countries whose finances have reached breaking point.

COMMENT: For some reason, the DT completely missed the second main part of Montis statements, which was that he urged the European governments not to act feeling bound to much to their respective parliaments!

He was actually suggesting the government should sort of overrule the parliament and in Germanys case he seems to have the Constitutional Court in mind as well.

So according to Monti, the Euro can only be saved, if governments stick to undemocratic behaviour, which for the North means to FORCE its own electorate to (forever) fund Club Med hence effectively ending democracy itself.

Quite naturally this provoked opposition amongst German politicians, with one of them stating "Germany will not abandon its democracy just in order to fund Italian debt".

COMMENT: Very surprised that Mr Aldrick does not mention an other statement by Mario Monti during that interview which has caused real anger in Germany. During the interview Monti stated: "If Governments let themselves be fully bound by the decisions of their parliaments, without preserving any room for negotiation, the break-up of Europe would be more likely than closer integration."

So a technocrat PM, hoisted to power by an EU putsch in his own country is asking for the suspension of democracy and the rule of law in all other euro countries also. The final choice according to Monti: demcocracy or the euro.

COMMENT: A Union which works only in good times is superficial, false, badly constructed and dangerous.

This characterises the EU and the Eurozone because both were set up with no democratic mandate to satisfy the obscene political vanity of a few politicians who were immeresed in the past and misinterpreted the consequences of history.
Both will fail as these artificial constructions always do.

COMMENT: The Euro was a foolish, ill-conceived experiment that failed. Break up this nonsense now, or the markets will break it up for you. Even the "Father of Euro" Jacques Delors conceded here in the "Telegraph" a few months ago that the Euro is now doomed because the politicians have violated the rules that his EU Commission had laid down.

I`m sure they`ll come up with a plan to "SAVE THE EURO" this week, like they did last week, the week before that and the week before that and so on and so forth...

"Debt crisis threatens to break up Europe"

The sooner the better...

Seeing the end of the eu would make me incredibly happy.

[Ferretlover]

... Wow, just keep printing money central banker dudes at near zero interest rates, to paper over the growing holes in the world economy. Who'd have guessed that economics was so easy, why didn't anyone ever think of this before! I mean what could possibly go wrong?

EDIT:
This article confirms suspicions that the market is absolutely bananas again at the thought of imminent money printing;

Sentiment swung so violently between Thursday and Friday’s that my head is spinning.

What changed was not so much a stronger than expected non-Farm Payrolls in the US which rose 163,000 but rather a raft of press reports reconfiguring thoughts on what ECB President Draghi actually achieved with his brinkmanship over the past week or so. The consensus seems to be that he laid out a framework through which European governments in general and Spain in particular can access a rescue.

Here we go again, it seems...let's do more of what hasn't worked before!

[dsula]

Also, I think it's the opposite, i.e., job reports are by default understated. That is because it is not in the best interest of governments to give news that will make people think that they are failing.

That could be true if you had a dictatorship. But we don't. I'm sure Repubs try everything they can to make sure employment numbers look as bad as possible. Dems do the opposite.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Debt crisis threatens to break up Europe

Tensions within the eurozone over how to resolve the debt crisis are turning countries against each other and threatening to rip Europe apart, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has warned.

More on the utter dysfunction in the Eurozone ... and to think that there are some people who want this basketcase system to continue?

Escalation of the Extortion Racket: Now It’s ‘The Dissolution Of Europe’ Not Just the Eurozone

It has been an onslaught. Eurozone heads of state, top politicians, unelected kingpins, and bureaucratic honchos threatened everyone in sight with the demise of the euro, or promised to do “everything” or “whatever it takes” to save it even if it violated treaties or the very foundation of European democracy. In between the lines, bit by bit, the mammoth costs of continuing the endless bailouts or of breaking everything to pieces finally oozed to the surface.

Sunday it was Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, whose country, after years of living beyond its means, is suffocating under a mountain of debt. He needs the European Central Bank to print a trainload of euros and massively buy up Italian sovereign bonds to force their yields down and keep Italy financially viable—which is precisely what the treaties that govern the ECB don’t allow it to do, though the ECB had done it before, despite all-out opposition from Germany, including the resignation of ECB Council Member and Bundesbank President Axel Weber and ECB Chief Economist Jürgen Stark. After buying €211 billion in sovereign bonds, the ECB stopped in March. And since then, all heck has re-broken loose.

So Monti went on attack. The Eurozone bailout chaos and Germany’s resistance to ECB printing operations have created tensions that show “the traits of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” he told the Spiegel, a threat designed for German consumption—the latest in a series of escalating threats issued by politicians of debt sinner countries. And like his predecessors, he took it a step further than anyone before him.

Further even than Alexis Tsipras, the firebrand leader of Greece’s left-wing SYRIZA party, who’d threatened during the chaotic election, “If Greece doesn’t get its next loan installment, the Eurozone will collapse the following day.” But now comes Monti—and it’s no longer just the demise of the 17-member Eurozone but the dissolution of Europe. Europe as a whole. If the ECB doesn’t print whatever it takes to bail out Italy, “the foundations of the project Europe are destroyed,” he said.

Then, indefatigable, the unelected technocrat went after democracy itself: “If governments let themselves be tied down completely by the decisions of their parliaments,” he said, and he was directly addressing Germany, “then the breakup of the Eurozone is more likely than a tighter integration”—the latter being Chancellor Angela Merkel’s brainchild and the focus of much of her efforts. Thus he’d lashed out at Germany’s democratic processes, including parliament’s involvement in some of the bailout decisions, limited as it is. Instead of allowing elected representatives of the people who will pay for the bailouts to have a say in the bailouts, Monti wants Merkel and her government to go around parliament and impose their decision on the citizenry.

“Attack on democracy,” is what Alexander Dobrindt, Secretary General of Merkel’s coalition partner CSU, called Monti’s words on Sunday. He lamented that “greed for German tax money is sprouting undemocratic flowers.” He didn’t mince words. “Mr. Monti apparently needs to be told that we Germans will not be ready to abolish our democracy just so that Italy’s debt can be financed.”

On Saturday already, Dobrindt had taken on ECB President Mario Draghi by accusing him of abusing the ECB for the benefit of his native Italy. “It’s striking that Draghi always becomes active and wants to buy sovereign bonds when Italy is once again in a tight spot,” he said. Even Draghi would have to adhere to the treaties governing the ECB. “He must decide where he stands: on the side of the stability union or on the side of the crisis countries that try to sneak their way to German money.”

Higher yields were a sign countries needed to reform, he said, and forcing yields down through bond purchases would only treat the symptoms, not the causes. Draghi’s plans, he said, reveal the life-long lie of European “centralists” in Brussels who want to guarantee “the same standard of living from Athens to Munich.” But this cannot be done, least of all through printing money for debt sinner countries. “That’s euro socialism,” he said.

Six of the 17 Eurozone countries are on life support, including Spain, whose banks got €100 billion, and whose central government will need much more. A bailout far larger than any prior bailout. And then there’s Italy....

And some food for thought: “Like Europe,” writes David Galland, “the economy of the US has been increasingly under the control of central planners at the expense of the free market.” With devastating consequences. Read.... Have You Overlooked Comprehending This Piece of the US Economic Puzzle?

It seems that Germany is finally realizing that everyone else is after their money ... and they don't like that. This game will end soon, and the final terminus will be when Germany says: "Enough! We're going to keep our taxpayers' money from now on. Dankeschön for the fun ride, though! Auf Wiedersehen!"

[ralfy]

That could be true if you had a dictatorship. But we don't. I'm sure Repubs try everything they can to make sure employment numbers look as bad as possible. Dems do the opposite.

Obviously, political opponents will challenge what is reported, but what citizens usually know is what the media state regarding the reports, and in this case, it's non-broad unemployment that's given and any adjusted criteria not explained. That takes place easily in non-dictatorships.

Thus, it's not a matter of trying "to make sure employment numbers look as bad as possible" but simply looking at broad employment indicators. Such indicators are available but they are usually mentioned only by those who study the numbers further. Failure to do so can happen in non-dictatorships, too.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Italy sinks deeper into recession as GDP plunges 0.7%

(AP) MILAN - Italy's recession deepened in the April-June period, when the economy shrank for the fourth quarter in a row, official government statistics showed Tuesday. The economy contracted by 0.7 percent in the second quarter compared with the previous three months, more than the 0.6 percent drop expected by economists surveyed by FactSet, a financial data provider.

...Compared with the same period of 2011, the economy shrank by 2.5 percent - the worst year-on-year contraction since the fourth quarter of 2009, when the economy shrank by 3.5 percent. Car production alone was down 22.5 percent in June compared with a year earlier....

[Ferretlover]

... It seems that Germany is finally realizing that everyone else is after their money ... and they don't like that. This game will end soon, and the final terminus will be when Germany says: "Enough! We're going to keep our taxpayers' money from now on. Dankeschön for the fun ride, though! Auf Wiedersehen!"

What a collection of loons. Their recipe for getting out of the hole they dug themselves is to have others help them dig it deeper. This sort of decoupling from reality is a portent of demise.

[peripato]

What a collection of loons. Their recipe for getting out of the hole they dug themselves is to have others help them dig it deeper. This sort of decoupling from reality is a portent of demise.

They've decided to go down together, although the Finns may have the foresight to bail out beforehand...what a mess it will be, one for the ages.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Bank of England slashing UK's growth forecasts to zero

The Bank of England will slash its growth forecasts close to zero tomorrow as the double-dip recession deepens and the eurozone storm closes in on UK shores.

Governor Sir Mervyn King is expected to indicate no growth for 2012 in the Bank's quarterly inflation report, compared with 0.8 per cent predicted three months ago and 2 per cent a year ago. ... The UK economy contracted by a greater-than-expected 0.7 per cent between April and June, meaning the double-dip recession is the longest since the 1950s, after the additional bank holiday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee hit output.

Sir Mervyn is already braced for a choppy year, with events such as the Olympics expected to provide a slight bounceback, but nevertheless economists predict a bleak outlook from the central bank.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said the Bank will "likely acknowledge that the economy has taken a significant turn for the worse and currently faces a worrying and uncertain outlook".

The Bank last month injected a further £50 billion into the economy through its quantitative easing programme, bringing the total stock to £375 billion.

But the outlook has darkened since the Bank's move as dire construction and manufacturing output drove the biggest drop in GDP since the height of the financial crisis three years ago.

Meanwhile, in the eurozone, borrowing costs in Spain and Italy remain at high levels, close to the so-called bailout territory that drove the likes of Greece and Ireland into taking a bailout from the EU....

[Daniel_Plainview]

Oil at 12-wk high on North Sea output drop, stimulus hope

(Reuters) - Oil prices jumped to a 12-week peak on Tuesday as falling North Sea output, support for more bond buying by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Middle East tensions lifted crude futures to a third straight higher settlement. Posting their highest settlements since May 15, Brent, U.S. crude and refined products futures moved above key moving averages to add technical support to the day's bullish sentiment.

The second hurricane of the Atlantic storm season threatened Mexico and a fire damaged California's second-largest refinery, lending more support to oil futures. "The news about the record low North Sea loadings got Brent going early and it has lifted everything else," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York. "Also the Boston Federal Reserve president saying he is in favor of more bond buying revived hopes about more stimulus from the Fed," Kilduff added.

Brent September crude rose $2.45 to settle at $112 a barrel, after surging past the front-month 200-day moving average of $111.28. The $112.56 intraday peak is the highest since prices hit $112.67 on May 15. U.S. September crude rose $1.47 to settle at $93.67 a barrel, after eclipsing the 100-day moving average of $93.47 and having reached $94.42. The closing price and intraday peaks were the highest since May 15.

Brent's premium to U.S. crude pushed back above $18 a barrel. ... U.S. gasoline and heating oil settled at near $3 a gallon .... North Sea crude oil output is set to fall to a record low in September, adding to supply tightness with the European Union's embargo on Iranian oil now in its second month. ...The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) lowered its 2012 and 2013 forecasts for crude oil production from non-OPEC countries in the EIA's monthly report and raised its demand outlook for those years. ...