Peak Oil vs. Peak Debt

Chevron CTO Says Peak Oil Won't Be a Disaster
So-called "peak oil" is coming, but it doesn't have to be a disaster, Chevron Chief Technology Officer Don Paul said Wednesday.

Global Oil Output Has Already Peaked, Pickens Says (Update1)
Pickens said the major oil companies should be doubling dividends and cutting buybacks.

``I think the repurchase of stock in the market is telling something,'' he said. ``It's telling the market that we can't grow.''

The companies will be manufacturing operations eventually, he said. ``The reserves will be gone and they're going to be refiners and processors,'' Pickens said.

I can't help but think of Capital One Financial's buybacks.

Capital One's Cunning Contingencies
I also appreciate that Capital One has been buying shares back hand over fist, completing a whopping $2.2 billion of buybacks year to date. It's nice, as a potential shareholder, to see management rewarding investors when it thinks its shares are undervalued.

That's all fine and dandy, but the buyback was actually announced on January 25, 2007. The price of the stock then was about $80 a share. It is now $64, which is actually lower than when I turned bearish on our economy back in the fall of 2004. Most of the buybacks are seemingly done and what do they have to show for it? Just imagine what the Canadian investors are thinking (if it was priced in Canadian dollars).

Now they are going to try the Pickens plan.

Capital One to boost dividends
Analysts say the move by McLean-based Capital One puts the financial services company closer to others in the banking industry. Currently, Capital One's dividend payments are in the range of 2 to 3 percent of earnings.

Slower growth here we come apparently.

A Record Year for Layoffs in Finance
It's official. This is the worst year ever for layoffs in the U.S. financial-services industry—and there's still more than two months to go.

Maybe when finance companies start buying back their people in addition to their stocks I'll turn a bit more optimistic. I'm not holding my breath though. Then again, it has been quite a few years of subprime performance (pun intended). It isn't like I'm going to be shorting the stock (and therefore risk shorting inflation).

These are just my opinions of course. I might be commenting on the casino but I'm trying not to play in it.

See Also:
Predictions of Doom (The Chart)