On Economic Data and Time Scales

I was looking at the excellent Bonddad blog today, and came across the post, "Uh oh: YoY gasoline usage down 5%, worst since October 2008."A small piece is quoted below.

US Gasoline demand

Something's happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear. The most obvious candidates are:

1. demand destruction. But if so, why is consumer spending, as measured by the Gallup daily survey, holding up so well?
2. energy efficiency. But have we really bought so many hybrid vehicles to make that big a difference?
3. the weather. OK, we did have a strange Nor'easter that pummeled the northern and western suburbs of the Megalopolis, but that was one day only.
4. random stuff just happens. Always a possibility, but this seems unlikely given at least three weeks in a row of awful YoY comparisons.

 Now, I don't want to pick on Hale Stewart, the author, or his commentators, but I need to point something out here because this is a narrative I have heard many times in the last 3 weeks. Reduction in gasoline demand is not due to increased fuel efficiency. I don't doubt the fleet is getting more efficient, but this narrative completely ignores appropriate time periods and this is something I see quite often in the blogosphere. A reduction in demand due to fuel efficiency will be measured in decades, not months. If there is changes in the monthly numbers, it is either a different factor or noise, but the effect of increased fuel efficiency will not be measurable in the weekly data. Why? Because, at current sales rates and assuming no net growth in fleet, it would take roughly 23 years to turn over the US automotive fleet.

Auto sales as % of fleet, estimated fleet growth and replacement rates

Instead, I suggest we look for a more common-sense narrative and look at hotel occupancy, since Americans love to drive and, since we're talking gasoline sales, we need not worry about trucking.

Hotel Occupancy rate, via Calculated Risk

Hmmmmm. Notice anything? Like hotel occupancy and gasoline demand both coinciding in their drops?

Let's use some more common sense here guys and realize that different things happen in different time scales and if you are not paying attention to that, you are lying to yourself and making worse decisions as a result.

xoxo,

GossipGirl

UPDATE-1: This is not a criticism of Hale! This is a a comment regarding the four commentators that attributed the drop to fuel efficiency. This is a narrative I have heard from many people in the last 3 weeks and it is WRONG.