Category Archives: oil

How Far the NYT Had to Go to Find an Economist to Support the Gas Tax Holiday

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Economists frequently complain that even when 98% of the profession agrees on something (say a free-trade proposition), the media will go to lengths to dig up an economist from the 2% minority in order to balance one from the 98% majority, in their feverish and misguided attempt to appear unbiased and balanced on every issue, even issues that don’t really have two sides. The New York Times op-ed page has outdone itself today by publishing “The 18-cent Solution” by Bryan Caplan. The “callout” heading is “Found: an economist who backs the summer gas-tax holiday.” The impetus, of course, was the question posed to Hillary Clinton by a reporter: can you name a single economist who supports the idea of a summer suspension of the federal gasoline tax?     Newshour gave up on trying to find one. read more

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Falling Interest Rates Explain Rising Commodity Prices

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If strong economic growth is not the explanation for the large increases since 2001 in prices of virtually all mineral and agricultural commodities, then what is? One wouldn’t want to try to reduce commodity markets to a single factor, nor to claim proof of any theory by a single data point. Nevertheless, the developments of the last six months provided added support for a theory I have long favored: real interest rates are an important determinant of real commodity prices. High interest rates reduce the demand for storable commodities, or increase the supply, through a variety of channels: read more

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World Growth Can No Longer Explain Soaring Commodity Prices.

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It is hard to remember now, but mineral and agricultural commodities were considered passé less than ten years ago. Anyone who talked about sectors where the product was as clunky and mundane as copper, corn, and crude petroleum, was considered behind the times. In Alan Greenspan’s phrase, GDP had gotten “lighter;” the economy was becoming weightless, “dematerializing.” Agriculture and mining no longer constituted a large share of the New Economy, and did not matter much in an age dominated by ethereal digital communication, evanescent dotcoms, and externally outsourced services. The Economist magazine in a 1999 cover story forecast that oil might be headed for a price of $5 a barrel. read more

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