Energy & Commodities
If you only paid attention to the mainstream media, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the U.S. is going to get away from the collapse in oil prices scot free. According to popular belief, America is even going to be a net winner from cheaper oil prices, because they will act like a tax cut for U.S. consumers. Or so we are told.
In reality, though, many of the jobs the U.S. energy boom has created in the last few years are now at risk, and their loss could drag the economy into a recession.
The view that cheaper oil automatically boosts U.S. GDP is overly simplistic. It assumes that U.S. consumers will spend the money they save at the pump on U.S.-made goods rather than imports. And it assumes consumers won’t save some of this windfall rather than spending it.
Those are shaky enough. But the story that cheap fuel for our cars is good for us is also based on an even more dangerous assumption: that the price of oil won’t fall far enough to wipe out…..
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro agreed to an exchange of prisoners being held on espionage charges. In addition, Washington and Havana agreed to hold discussions with the goal of establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. No agreement was reached on ending the U.S. embargo on Cuba, a step that requires congressional approval.
It was a modest agreement, striking only because there was any agreement at all. U.S.-Cuba relations had been frozen for decades, with neither side prepared to make significant concessions or even first moves. The cause was partly the domestic politics of each country that made it easier to leave the relationship frozen. On the American side, a coalition of Cuban-Americans, conservatives and human rights advocates decrying Cuba’s record of human rights violations blocked the effort. On the Cuban side, enmity with the United States plays a pivotal role in legitimizing the communist regime. Not only was the government born out of opposition to American imperialism, but Havana also uses the ongoing U.S. embargo to explain Cuban economic failures. There was no external pressure compelling either side to accommodate the other, and there were substantial internal reasons to let the situation stay as it is……
“The Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. We must either learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools.”—Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Christmas Eve sermon, 1967
As a child, my Christmas wish list came right out of the Sears and Roebuck catalogue—toys, board games, bikes, action figures, etc. My parents, like so many in their day, belonged to the working-class poor, so while I never lacked for the necessities of life, many of the items on my wish list never came to be. Even so, I was no worse off for it.
I wish the same could be said of those still unfulfilled items on my adult Christmas wish list. Each year, I wish for the same things—an end to war, poverty, hunger, violence and disease—and each year, I find the world relatively unchanged. Millions continue to die every year, casualties of a world that places greater value on war machines and profit margins than human life.
I’ve seen enough of the world in my 68 years to know that wishing is not enough. We need to be doing….
U.S. stocks rose a fifth day, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average past 18,000 for the first time, while Treasuries fell as data showed the economy grew at the fastest pace in a decade. European equities extended a rally, the ruble advanced and oil climbed.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 climbed 0.4 per cent to a record at 9:30 a.m in New York, while the Dow average added 46.72 points to 18,006.16. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index increased 0.5 per cent, heading for its sixth gain in longest winning streak since April. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes added four basis points to 2.19 per cent. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index held near a five-year high, while the ruble strengthened 2.3 per cent as oil advanced. Greek bonds fell as the nation failed to elect a president… CLICK HERE to read the complete article
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