Jobs Report

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The US Jobs Report for July smashed all expectations, adding 528,000 jobs in one month.

The US has now recovered the entirety of jobs lost from the start of the traveling in 2020. A much faster recovery than past downturns such as The Great Recession.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, matching the lowest level in 50 years.

Of course Presidents don’t single handedly create jobs. It also means the Fed will be further challenged to manage inflation.

But jobs are good. Though we can expect the politicians to squabble over it still.

Gas Prices

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Yep, gas prices are crazy high. Lots of factors go into that- Russian oil bans due to their invasion of Ukraine has driven up oil prices. Decades without new US refinery construction has limited capacity. Further limited by shifting processing units to sustainable fuels and refineries closing as they became more expensive and troublesome to run.

Yes, oil companies are making huge profits but if it was driven just by their greed they would have raised prices a long time ago, so there’s more going on.

And Summer demand is high. Limited supply and high demand, price goes up.

But it’s not as simple as drilling for more oil. Without refining capacity (running near peak already), we can’t turn that crude oil into gasoline anyway. And that also works against the climate change goals we must prioritize.

Reduce demand and prices should go down.

It sucks, but maybe expensive gas is going to be around a while. And maybe the world needs that.