Oil in Real Time

It's interesting that the price of oil took a big dip in the last hour. It was trading up on the session then rolled over and is nos down almost 1% for the Euro day as 6:55 EST.

Here's my take: U.S. East Coast traders are getting out of bed, holiday or not, and deciding that Gustav is not going to be as bad as feared. Gustav is less that 100 miles from the Louisiana coast and doesn't look yet like it's going to be Category 4 or worse.

It still looks bad but let's avoid the worst.

Rebublican Convention

As the worst storm of the year bears down on the most-often battered part of the country, the Republicans have taken the half step of cancelling day one of the convention.

"This is a time when we have to do away with our party politics and we have to act as Americans,'' John McCain, soon to be the official presidential candidate, said Sunday from St. Louis. ``We are going to suspend most of our activities tomorrow, except for those absolutely necessary.''

This is all very annoying. None of the convention activities are absolutely necessary. The whole convention process is absolutely unnecessary in this day and age, and a waste of money. Now we have one that is scheduled to run in the middle of the most telegraphed naturals disasters maybe ever and the Repubs can't quite decide whether they should cancel it.

American politics stinks