{"id":12792,"date":"2015-09-30T05:53:24","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T10:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12792"},"modified":"2015-09-30T05:53:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T10:53:24","slug":"low-oil-prices-why-worry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12792","title":{"rendered":"Low Oil Prices \u2013 Why Worry?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/ourfiniteworld.com\/2015\/09\/29\/low-oil-prices-why-worry\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Low Oil Prices \u2013 Why\u00a0Worry?<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"entry-meta\">Most people believe that low oil prices are good for the United States, since the discretionary income of consumers will rise. There is the added benefit that Peak Oil must be far off in the distance, since \u201cPeak Oilers\u201d talked about high oil prices. Thus, low oil prices are viewed as an all around benefit.<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.<em><strong>\u00a0The Peak Oil story we have been told is wrong<\/strong><\/em>.<em><strong>\u00a0The collapse in oil production comes from oil prices that are\u00a0too low, not too high.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>If oil prices or prices of other commodities are too low, production will slow and eventually stop. Growth in the world economy will slow, lowering inflation rates as well as economic growth rates. We encountered this kind of the problem in the 1930s. We seem to be headed in the same direction today. Figure 1, used by Janet Yellen<a href=\"http:\/\/www.federalreserve.gov\/newsevents\/speech\/yellen20150924a.htm\">\u00a0in her September 24 speech<\/a>, shows a slowing inflation rate for Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), thanks to lower energy prices, lower relative import prices, and general \u201cslack\u201d in the economy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/09\/yellen-why-has-pce-inflation-fallen-below-2-percent.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-40210\" src=\"https:\/\/gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/09\/yellen-why-has-pce-inflation-fallen-below-2-percent.jpg?w=640&amp;h=473\" alt=\"Figure 1. Why has PCE Inflation fallen below 2%? from Janet Yellen speech, September 24, 2015.\" width=\"640\" height=\"473\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What Janet Yellen is seeing in Figure 1, even though she does not recognize it, is evidence of a slowing world economy. The economy can no longer support energy prices as high as they have been, and they have gradually retreated. Currency relativities have also readjusted, leading to lower prices of imported goods for the United States. Both lower energy prices and lower prices of imported goods contribute to lower inflation rates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Low Oil Prices \u2013 Why\u00a0Worry? Most people believe that low oil prices are good for the United States, since the discretionary income of consumers will rise. There is the added benefit that Peak Oil must be far off in the distance, since \u201cPeak Oilers\u201d talked about high oil prices. Thus, low oil prices are viewed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[1851,1752,9407,426,1775,1232,617,9406],"class_list":["post-12792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","tag-commodity-price-collapse","tag-economic-contraction","tag-gail-tvewrberg","tag-inflation","tag-oil-price-collapse","tag-our-finite-world","tag-peak-oil","tag-peak-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12793,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12792\/revisions\/12793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}