There were three reported news stories last week that taken together point to clear trend lines.  In a court ruling, the state of Vermont won the right to set auto emissions and MPG standards that are stricter than those of the Federal government.  The dollar reached an all time low against the Euro and oil crossed over the $80 a barrel price barrier.  

Vermont is one of twelve states where the state government is going to court to gain the right to institute lower emission standards.  Most of these initiatives are patterned after a policy already signed in California. This points to the continued lack of any leadership whatsoever regarding energy in Washington D.C.  The states are where the leadership is to do what is necessary regarding energy.  Neither the Federal government nor the auto makers are leading the way toward lower emissions in any meaningful way.  This case precedent will most likely affect the court battles in the other states.  [Note: since the Vermont decision, there was a court decision in California where a suit blaming automakers over emissions and requesting damages was thrown out.  In that case, the judge ruled that it was not a proper task for the courts to rule in this area, therefore sending it back to the other two branches of state government to institute laws regarding damages due to greenhouse gas emissions].

The long term trend in oil prices is up.  In early 2006 and again at the beginning of 2007 I predicted that …

Recent events and news stories have had a familiar feel to me.  It is because many of them had been part of my predictions for 2007 that I published here in January.  When something I can see happening in the future actually happens, in a way it has already occurred for me.  For example, I have been on the record, and telling anyone that asks since January that not only would gasoline climb over $3 a gallon this year, it would also set the all time record, set in 1981 of $3.11 in inflation adjusted dollars, and that is many cities the price would climb over $4 a gallon.  Well all that just happened.

This and other recent stories made me want to go back and publicly take a look at the 11 specific predictions I made the first week of January.   I will just quote the first part of the prediction, since the full language can be read here.

2007 Predictions

The ‘middle’ will reassert itself, politically and economically.  Clearly this is happening in Washington D.C. where a consensus move to the center is occurring, in large part due to the Democratically controlled Congress.  Also, last month while the discount chains such as Wal-Mart were announcing discouraging earning reports and predictions, department stores, the middle of the market reported revenue and earning upticks.
The U.S. residential real estate market will essentially go sideways for the entire year.   Well, year to date that is certainly true. There will not …

It was reported yesterday that Americans are driving less, in large part due to the high price of gasoline. For the first time since 1981 the average American motorist is driving less. After 25 years of steady increases, the growth in total miles driven has leveled off in the last 18 months. This is in spite of the fact that there have been an additional 1 million drivers on the highways since 2005. While the population and workforce of the country has expanded by more than 1 percent, the total amount of driving has increased only 0.3 percent.

The interesting correlation between today and 1981 is that it was in that year that the price of gasoline reached its highest price when adjusted for inflation. The price reached an inflation adjusted price of $3.22 in 2007 dollars. That compares to the $3.11 national average price of yesterday. As regular readers of this column know, in January, I predicted record gasoline prices this year, so today’s high prices are no surprise. There is no doubt in my mind that between now and Labor Day, we will see prices continue to go up, mostly likely exceeding a $3.50 per gallon national average.

There are other reasons that Americans are driving less. The Federal Highway Administration says that 7 in 10 Americans now say they are combining trips and taking other steps to cut down on driving. In 2006 more people took public transportation than …

In my post on predictions for 2007, I made a specific prediction that the current Internet 2.0 boom would continue and that eyeballs, dollars and influence would migrate from old media to the Internet.  Now this isn’t crystal ball stuff.  Media and advertising professionals live this reality every day.  Just look at your own life.  How much more time do you spend on-line that you did 10, 5 or even 2 years ago?  The debate is around how fast and how much, not if or when.

I read a news item the other day that was, for me, a historically and hugely symbolic underscoring of this flow of power to the Internet.  The world’s oldest newspaper announced that it was ceasing publication on paper and would be only available on-line.

The Swedish newspaper PoIT – which stands for Post och Inrikes Tidningar – is the world’s oldest newspaper still in publication.  It has been continuously published since 1645.  1645!  That is just 90 years after Gutenberg printed his first bible.  The paper was founded by the Swedish Queen Christina and her chancellor during the Thirty Years War.

The Editor, and only employee of PoIT,  Roland Haegglund,   was quoted as saying “The change in format is, of course a major departure for some, possibly a little sad, but is also a natural step”.  Evidently PoIT, had long ago ceased to be a real newspaper, and had become an announcement vehicle for financial. legal and corporate institutions.  When it published its final print version …