syruppy

Thursday Outlook: 'As Advertised'

I understand the argument you make: that we really are in a recession, despite the numbers. However, the effect of increasing the cost of a key factor of production—e.g., higher oil prices, leading to, among other things, increased costs of energy, production, transportation, etc.—does not real inflation make.

In a business atmosphere that was less politically charged, we’d either have the price of oil coming down by now, or U.S. growth would be through the roof instead of just above zero, as investment flowed to new and alternative sources of energy and carbon, such as nuclear energy, more oil and gas drilling, coal mining—not to mention, research and development of mitigation strategies and methods.

What you see in the numbers is an understating of the economy. It is a failure to more objectively quantify—and add to the GDP—an amount equal to the apparent value of having anti-business, anti-capitalists stymie energy planning and policy as they hamstring U.S. energy production and demonize energy users.