"Secular declining consumption of a key commodity - refined gasoline - observed as a proxy for the underlying health of an economy, confirms the foundational rot that has set in. Unfortunately other historically reliable key measures including the long forgotten "as goes housing so goes the economy" similarly reflect the same advanced state of decomposition."
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=A103600001&f=M