One of the Plenary speakers at the conference I am at this week, was Alan AtKisson who spoke on Sustainability.  One of the innovations in his talk was to have the audience join in song - for one of which the chorus was "Exponential Growth" - shades of the Bartlett Pair.  But sad to say, unlike their excellent presentations,  his talk, while emphasizing the point that we can't go on like this, did not indicate the immediacy of some of the boundaries to such growth.  

Not, of course that he is alone.  There is an NYT story today about the upbeat US economy, and the future thereof.  However in speaking of gasoline

Gasoline prices - the national average is now $2.15, according to the Energy Information Administration - have fallen because higher prices held down demand and Gulf Coast supplies have been slowly restored.

Hmm! And I suppose that those import loans had nothing to do with it?

But is the story even factually correct? Checking in with the EIA we see that, in fact, demand is up from 8.988 mbd a year ago to 9.124 mbd and it has now been higher than last year for over a month.