How Wall Street Will Kill the Recovery

This article discusses how some feel that the US is continuing to make the same mistakes that threw us into recession last year. One of the main issues is that the media is getting the facts of oil prices and demand wrong. Last week, the Energy Information Administration showed that refinery utilization rates fell by over 4%, to 80.9%, yet oil jumped to $2 a barrel on the news that our gasoline inventories fell by 5.2 million barrels.The problem is that oil should have fallen just because, according to the American Petroleum Institute, refinery crude runs fell by 511,000 barrels per day (validating that 4% drop in utilization). In short, refineries determine oil demand, and in that week demand for more oil was off substantially—yet the market bid crude up.