War clouds gather in the Persian Gulf; Israel and her muslim, if not islamist neighbors are closer to a major clash of arms, and a more decisive one than has been the case for 30 years. Closer to your hearth and heart, oil pours out of an artery in the Mexican Gulf and even with a tourniquet applied the doctors forbid any further, even measured blood letting. Off-shore rigs are being closed in all American waters. In the most mundane of news; school’s out for summer, lies a mystery. The notorious Summer Driving Season began with the Memorial Day weekend. Additionally there are seasonal requirements for fuels in many states that tend to slow down supplies at the pump, driving up prices. The pros will tell you this was the issue year before last, when we saw $5 and $6 dollars for go- juice. But not this time. Despite international chaos and man-caused disasters at sea and in the Executive gas prices are declining a skooch as are crude prices (dropped 4% yesterday), and this is after a slow decline over a year. Can this voodoo be explained? Yes, quite simply. The market prices always look forward to the future, whether to the annual rush of corpulent families towards modest shore rentals or to the new century needs of manufacturing and shipping. In their torpor the markets signal their grasp of one simple fact: The future has been cancelled.

The threat, if not the fact, of oil washing ashore and befouling the pelicans may be blamed in Loisianna or even Florida but tourist activity is way down across the board. Can a decline at Dollywood really be chalked up to the spill in the Gulf? Actually a hospitality expert would tell the motels and BBQ pits of Pigeon Forge that they should prepare for a bit of a boom. If thousands of people DON’T go to Galveston or Baton Rouge, well, they are going to go somewhere, is the chant. Only they are not. Likewise those gigantic amusement parks that have gone up to give kids a reason to go somewhere their parents must go would expect staycationers to rattle their turnstiles but again, no. The Six Flags and water-parks of suburban Atlanta discount aggressively and keep some facilities shuttered. The traffic is not there and the traffic is all.

The why of it is uncontroversial. In rum times, whether you are doing relatively well or are out on your ass it seems foolish to spend a few hundred or a few thousand for a transitory change of scenery. The recreation line item on the household budget, even if there isn’t one, suffers first. We’ll do it next year, Timmy.

But the next year is also in a future that has been scratched from the itinerary and scratched more thoroughly than we have ever known. This is a global 86ing. Just last year while domestic demand for RV fuels and suntan lotion was down the shore businesses could expect Germans and Belgians in Speedo-clad droves making up some of the slack with Euroes buying dollars nearly two for one but even those bad tippers are staying in this season. Greece and the Grecian Formula, which is just a concentrated version of the European Formula have dragged the Euro down to near parity. America doesn’t look like such a cheap date now, to the consternation of waitresses, produce stands, beach-ball hawkers, newsboys, chambermaids and of course those enterprises that employ them. And is there any prospect for serious improvement there? No. Quite the reverse.

Another market, equities seemed to look fairly eagerly towards the future, until recently. “Good” job creation numbers came out for May… not great…. not quite expectations but the number, 461k or so, was serviceable enough to be flogged by the President as strongly positive but an amazing and rare thing happened, someone actually looked at the constituent parts of that number. That biggish-looking figure, it turns out, was 95% composed not of gub or fed hiring merely, no, 431/461 of those jobbers were explicitly hired for the census. As your body is 95% tap water, so this jobs created number is 95% fill. Now, even if you fail to grasp the difference between gub jobs and real jobs and believe in the levitating power of money-from-nothing still you must know that the census is a job that lasts for a few weeks at best, pays modestly, confers no benefits and is taken generally only by those who are most desparate for any paying gig. Add in the first-hand reports from all corners that any single census worker is routinely hired and fired multiple times to pump up the quotas and it is obvious that this number, however weak, is also fraudulently optimistic. It may be pasted up and paraded on the evening news but those who are betting their money on growth are, to say the least, unimpressed.

Nope, the future is cancelled, sorry kids. I’ll tell you when we are going to Disneyland… When growth is back up to nearly 4% for about ten years, when unemployment gets below 6% for five years or more. When we see a public debt that is at least frozen, if not declining, then we can start looking at airfares and hotels. Or maybe this; when ONE new, enormous and ambiguous program that spends billions, encumbers trillions and breaks every arithmetical law of economy gets defeated, then maybe we can think about band camp or a fishing trip in the Smokies. Heck, as things stand we are not even devouring burgers like we were, and the burger biz was considered recession-proof for years!

Until now. Until this one.

So the moppets are going to be denied and dissappointed indefinitely. Maybe that is better for them in the long run, probably it is but we shall see. As for we adults, not a few of us are on more-or-less permanent vacations, I know I am. But with a bit of loot on hand and the occassional (cash) gig the declining prices of luxury amid the escalating prices of necessities makes for a pleasant enough little eddy to float our innertubes upon. While my driving needs have evaporated I can indulge my driving wants a bit more lavishly. While the brats miss the chance to whine, “Are we there yet?” the rest of us can mull the grim knowledge that yes, yes we are there, Buddy.

And we aren’t moving on any time soon.

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