"Oil lingered above the $50 per barrel threshold in Asian trade Wednesday, breaching the mark for the second straight day ahead of key U.S crude stockpile data."
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Doubleplusungood. As Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute notes, "every time oil topped $35 in the past -- in1980-82, 1990 and late 2000 -- industrial production soon began to fall in the largest industrial economies, including the United States." Crude has been at $35+ since April.
Granted, there's an inflation factor -- oil is cheaper right now than it was at the 1981 high point -- but it's still 70% more expensive than it was a year ago. It's been a problem for awhile, and it's getting worse. To the extent that there's an economic recovery occurring, oil prices are retarding that recovery.
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