(Photo opposite: Campus where Jurgen teaches in Changchun, China) My first semester in Changchun’s wrapped up. Since this week I’m on holiday until the end of August. You may guess three times what I’m up to on holiday. Yep, you’re right. I’ll spend the entire holiday in Changchun. Changchun’s situated off the beaten path. The thundering herd won’t even appear on Changchun’s horizon. The thundering herd’s likely to materialise in Beijing and in a few other spots across China, for the Olympics. Among other spots, the Olympics also take place in Qingdao. Don’t look for me in Qingdao.

I’m almost forty six years old. I’ve seen and experienced a little more than the ordinary Joe Blow can imagine. Doing the tourist thingy bores me stiff. A choice holiday until the end of August means for me pursuing my private interests in peace and quiet off the beaten path (read in Changchun). On top of it, I’ll extensively eat out in restaurants that come across as up to scratch.

To do so, I’d given a couple of students quite a specific homework. I typically don’t give students homework. They’ve got more than enough homework to do for their other classes. I don’t wanna ramp up pressure on them. And correcting homework produces unnecessary work for me. However, a couple of students got quite a specific homework to do. I’d asked them to put a list together. The list consists of restaurants in Changchun’s top end hotels and bookshops selling books in English. These students passed the test with flying colours. I’m well equipped for my summer holiday.

By the way, there’s another reason why doing some travelling in China at present doesn’t strike me as a uniquely brilliant idea. At this point in time, almost all Chinese universities are wrapping the semester up. When the semester’s wrapped up, a pile of students will return to their home towns. A few students will spend the entire summer on their campuses. But loads of them will return across the country to their home towns. I know plenty of students in Changchun whose families reside in Southern China. Put two and two together. You can easily imagine that buses and trains as well as planes are gonna be packed out. All in all, China’s slightly bigger than El Salvador in terms of both geographical size and population. Another reason to stay in Changchun…..

Oil and Speculators

You can always bump into folks who can’t stay put. They always need scapegoats. Their favourite scapegoats at present evidently are speculators dabbling in oil. But does it make sense to blame speculators for soaring oil prices? Look at it closely and things don’t add up.

For one thing, speculating in oil only makes sense when oil’s stored, somewhere. As far as I can get a handle on that sort of thing, there’s a shortage of oil due to surging demand this time around. That’s exactly the crucial difference to the 1970s, which were plagued by a supply shortage in oil. Moreover, speculative investing in nickel, not just in oil, has gone to the stars. Yet the price for nickel’s been slashed about by half. Even though speculators have been fingered for soaring oil prices, it doesn’t hold water for me.

Instead, do listen to Matthew Simmons and Eric Sprott. I read religiously what they’ve got to say about peak oil. Less expert sorts may have lost their grip on reality. Bin the notion of speculators and soaring oil prices going hand in hand. If you wanna profit from them, the Casey Energy Speculator makes marvellous reading.

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