Differences across grades of crude oil can tell us a lot about why oil prices have become so high.
Measuring inflation
It’s easy enough to define inflation as a decline in the purchasing power of a dollar. But the power of a dollar to purchase– exactly what? The devil is in the details.
Talk of recession
Nine out of the ten recessions in the United States since World War II were preceded by a spike in oil prices. Nevertheless, for the past year, I’ve been telling people that this time it’s going to be different– the economy could weather the rising price of oil without a downturn. Developments of the last couple of weeks make me a little more concerned.
More to the story on Chinese oil demand
As more facts come out about Chinese oil demand, the more fascinating the picture becomes.
Some comments on the Cambridge Energy analysis of future oil supplies
Most pundits had one of two reactions to the recent analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates about the prospects for global oil supplies over the next five to fifteen years. Some analysts took the CERA report as confirmation that concerns about peaking world oil production have been misplaced. Others dismissed the CERA findings as completely without merit. I would urge anyone who had either of these two reactions to take a second look at some of the issues.
Investigating charges of Medi-Cal fraud
There are some obvious steps we could take to make sure that state and federal contributions for medical assistance are spent as effectively as possible.
The under-reported good news about productivity
If you focus too much on the latest statistics and speculation about what could go wrong, it’s easy to lose sight of some very important long-term trends. The solid growth of U.S. productivity is one piece of very good news that’s not getting sufficient attention.
Record auto sales for July
U.S. light-vehicle sales for July were the highest of any month in history.
Limitations of the Hirsch report on peak oil
Here’s a prime example of what I complain about in some of the discussions about how to deal with peak oil.
Is there a danger that the Fed will fall behind the inflation curve?
Both Macroblog and Capital
Spectator raise the prospect today that rising long-term yields might mean that the Fed
waited too long before trying to stamp out the cinders of an incipient inflation fire. I would
suggest instead that the increase in long-term yields over the last few months is the natural
development that we expect to see in a situation of Fed tightening and has little to do with
inflationary expectations.