@Mervin_Bitikofer, I think you are right. Things are always supposed to get better, but no one is supposed to pay the price.
For instance the way for Conservatives to move forward supposedly is to cut taxes and the economy will magically grow. The way for Liberals to move forward is to spend and borrow money and the economy will magically grow. The way for Trumpism to move forward is for to cut taxes, and to borrow and spend money, and the economy has grown.
My point is that we need to decide upon our vital goals. We must be willing to make some common sacrifices for the common good That is the real problem that Trumpism has left us. A large portion of the people in the US do not trust the government Maybe they have some reason for this, but Trump and his people including Christians have made it worse, not better,
Technology is not going to save us, only cooperation, trust, love, faith, that is God’s Kingdom can save us.
It does nothing of the sort - or at least a lot less than untethered crony capitalism already has with all our subsidized oil and bigger-than-we need vehicles and more-of-everything-than-we-need living habits. All I need to do is a little (or even a lot) less of all the costly stuff I already do, and my margin is thick enough that such “sacrifice” doesn’t even begin to threaten anything truly vital yet (healthcare aside, of course, - that’s an entirely 'nother matter.)
Glad to hear that I misunderstood you. Globalization has increased the emissions of CO2, it has cost jobs, and now we are finding that we can’t get medical supplies because something bad happened in our supplier country and we can’t make what we need right now.
About health care, I got my cancer while living in the UK with socialized medicine. I got prostate cancer and in 3 years, I had 3 physicals from a NHS, they never checked the prostate. They didn’t do PSA tests, nor that dang finger stick we men hated. I learned that the UK has a very high cancer rate because, if they know you have cancer, they have to spend money. If they don’t know and find it very late, well, they send you to the much cheaper hospice.
I moved back to the US and went to get allergy meds and the doc did a PSA on me and eventually I found I had Gleason 8 cancer that was aggressive and spreading into my gut–it was out of the organ and I was already stage IV. Lovely. In 2003, statistics for my situation were very grim. Thanks to N.I.C.E in the UK and their guidelines for not testing at the time (don’t know what they are now), I will leave this earth a bit early.
The arrow of causation does not necessarily point from oil price to economic vitality. An overheated economy could both be correlated with high energy prices and predict a later recession.
You didn’t look at the picture. In every recession except 1 the oil price dropped at the start of the recession. Furthermore, I will accept what the Fed says, because that is from a Federal Reserve paper.
I have studied economics at the graduate level, so I am aware of what is going on. I did not say your explanation was definitely wrong; it does, however, remind me of papers from the real estate industry that describe housing construction as the chief contributor to economic growth.
My major point is that a simple time series does not necessarily reveal causality:
Market prices are based on both supply and demand, not just supply.
Economic causality is often time-lagged.
Economic activity is related to multiple factors, not just energy prices.
Economic activity generally increases demand for energy, which leads to higher energy prices.
The Fed published the data, but you are citing an interpretation by Martin Pelletier, a Canadian CFA.
Since I do not have the time to quantitatively explore the question in greater depth at any time in the near future, I will bow out now.
I quoted him, and just because he is a CFA does not make his interpretation wrong. I spent 46 or 47 years in this business watching that every time the price was good for us, a recession would come and a bunch of us would be layed off as the economics went south for oil prospects. I lived it, breathed, and got laid off a time or two because of high oil prices inevitably being followed by a recession. I know that Martin is right.
My favorite example of correlation and cause is organic food and autism. Of course there is probably a relationship there as most of the increase in autism may well be just more awareness and diagnosis increase made by the organic food demographic.
As an interesting aside, If the west jumped Insect meat band wagon that parts of Africa and Asia have been riding for centuries this would be much easier. Insect meat is gram for gram higher in protein and lower in fat than traditional meats. Insects like locusts, mealworms, and crickets, can be mass farmed, or even home farmed, in small space and at a fraction of a the price of a single cow or sheep.
But no one wants to do that because that would be ‘icky’. Even though it would provide an cheap environmentally conscious meat based diet alternative to veganism.
I’ve considered meal worms, though not very seriously. But one of my siblings once dated someone who worked for a nonprofit involved in promoting meal flour in South America, so that got me thinking of it. It sounds very practical, especially since the worms eat compost. I bet rising meat prices may overpower the “ick” factor for a lot of people.
