Five good reasons to be cheerful!

Aided and abetted by this endless monsoon season the media, politicians and other doomsayers are determined to keep us down in the dumps, so here are 5 pieces of largely unreported good news.

Oil prices are falling rapidly (although both Brent Crude and West Texas have spiked in the last month largely because of international security problems, not supply) and will continue to drop in the longer term. Our petrol has gone down 9p. per litre in the past 3 weeks. Exploitable reserves have increased enormously in recent years, especially in the US, the Caribbean, and Brazil. The US is now within sight of eliminating its dependency on Gulf oil. The political implications are vast. The US now has so much gas that it is about to become a net exporter, although some idiot politician is pressing for an export ban.

The effect on our stagnant economies of cheaper energy is significant.

We are constantly being told about the dire state of British education. And yet recent studies – again, largely unreported – have shown that out of 30 top countries we rank as #9. Not so bad after all, then. And, of course, we are home to 2 of the top 3 universities in the world.

The left-wing noise-makes are constantly harping on that social mobility in Britain has been lost; if you are born poor, that’s where you will stay. But the true figure is that 84% of people will move up the socio-economic ladder during their lifetimes. This is just about the best in the world.

The Greens and other assorted  tree-huggers keep telling us that we are concreting-over Britain. An yet a recent aerial probe has shown that over 90% of the land-mass is open countryside, lakes and rivers.

And finally, Uncle Sam is donning his work-boots once again.

The US is growing rapidly in its export markets of goods and, particularly, services. As a percentage of GDP, the export sector has pretty-well doubled in the last 10 years and growing. Sales to the ‘rich’ world have grown 20% in 4 years, but 51% to Latin America and 53% to China. China is now America’s third largest market. Please note, you Tea Party morons who would like to start a trade war against Mr Chin.

Car sales are rising quickly, and GM, from being the sick man of industry, is now tops, ahead of Toyota. Even house sales are creeping up. Rising rents should boost this trend.

The relatively weaker dollar and pay-restraint has made industry more competitive against rapidly rising wages in China. Manufacturing employment has been rising steadily for the past 2 years.

As a major commodity-producer, America is benefitting hugely from the ‘emerging markets’ effect. Grain farmers are seeing record prices, and there are huge exports of pig-meat and chickens to China as rising standards of living demand a better diet.

And back to energy.

America is the world’s third largest oil producer. Its imports are the lowest for nearly 20 years. At this time they amount to 9 million barrels/day but domestic production alone is likely to reduce this to a mere 2m/b/d, and probably all of this could be met from non-Gulf producers. America is now a net exporter of refined oil products.

As the engine of the world economy America could pull us all out of the mire; provided, of course, that the EU shambles doesn’t get much worse.

So smile please!