Why Keeping Energy Costs Low Benefits the Poor the Greatest...

The chart above shows the share of after-tax income spent on energy by income quintiles in 2013. 

For example, households in the lowest income quintile in the US spent an average of $971 in 2013 on electricity ($81 per month), $1,231 on gas and motor oil ($102.50 per month) and $217 on natural gas, for total energy spending of $2,419. 

Based on average disposable income of $10,092 in 2013, the poorest 20% of American households spend 24% of their after-tax income on energy. 

As the chart shows, the middle income quintile spent 10% of their disposable income on energy, while the richest 20% spent only 5% of their income on energy.

Gasoline Prices Have Declined for A Record 16 Consecutive Weeks...

Surprise!: The U.S. Leading In Non-OPEC Oil Growth?

America's Energy Exports Are Soaring...

Oil Trades Below $90 For The First Time Since October...

The Oil Scarcity Myth: The U.S. Has Enough Recoverable Crude Oil for 200 Years (Without ANY Imports)!!!

The Oil Scarcity Myth @ Investors Business Daily

VIDEO: High Gasoline Prices Explained...

"Gas Prices Explained," from the same group that produced "Quantitative Easing Explained" (which now has more than 5 million views on YouTube).

Coal, Not Oil Dominates China's Energy Consumption...

Coal powers the Chinese economy.

The country is the world’s largest coal consumer, gobbling up nearly 50% of the world’s coal consumption in 2009.

Coal accounted for 71% of China’s energy in 2008—more than 3 times the United States’ share. By contrast, oil accounts for only 19% of China's total energy consumption

The Electricity Council estimates that the country’s coal demand will reach 1.92 billion tons in 2011, up nearly +10% from 2010.

China hasn’t always been such a glutton for coal. In fact, coal consumption actually declined from 1996 to 2000. However, consumption has shot up +180% since then and China accounted for 80% of demand growth between 1990 and 2010.

This is because demand for electricity exploded over that time.

China’s rapid urbanization and rising middle class has led to an exponential number of new refrigerators, air conditioners and other appliances in homes. China sits atop the third-largest store of recoverable coal reserves, behind the U.S. and Russia.

Foreign Oil Dependency by U.S. President

The Energy Department was established during the Carter Administration to reduce foreign oil dependency.
The Energy Department's annual budget is over $28 billion!
Are the taxpayers getting their money's worth?
Gee, despite this abysmal track record, I'm confident that the government will do a better job reducing health care costs, aren't you?

From Paul Kedrosky.

S&P 500 Historical Sector Weightings: 1990 - 2010

Above are the historical sector weightings for the S&P 500. Technology currently has the biggest weighting in the S&P 500 at 19.2%. This is the highest weighting the Tech sector has had since the Internet bubble burst in 2000.

After falling all the way down to just 8.9% at the March 2009 lows, the Financial sector's weighting in the S&P 500 now ranks 2nd at 14.4%.

Health Care, Consumer Staples, Energy, and Industrials are the other 4 sectors with a weighting of more than 10%. The Consumer Discretionary sector is close to 10% at 9.8%. From 1998 to 2007, the Consumer Discretionary sector was bigger than the Consumer Staples sector.

When the bear market hit in 2007, Consumer Staples overtook Consumer Discretionary, but the spread has tightened to about two percentage points recently. If the bull market continues, we'll likely see Discretionary overtake Staples once again.

While the Materials sector gets a lot of attention in the media, especially because it has the gold stocks, it's important to remember that it only makes up 3.5% of the S&P 500. The Utilities sector is even bigger than Materials.

Chart and analysis courtesy of Bespoke Investment Group