Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Oil states need stimulus

In a truly bizarre editorial, the Wall Street Journal has found the real culprit in the USA's oil belt recession due to low oil prices -- Barack Obama!

With oil and gas drilling now hurting, tech is the main growth area left and even that is in question as the global economy slows. In a normal expansion, growth elsewhere would offset a downturn in commodity markets like oil, but not this time. All of which made it strange last week to hear President Obama use January’s lackluster jobs report as an opportunity to claim economic triumph. “The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world,” he said, mocking Republicans for “their doom-and-despair tour” in New Hampshire. He’s right if his comparison is Europe or Brazil, but that’s little consolation in Oklahoma.

In a vast country where the Journal would be quick to claim that regional outcomes must be due to conservative policies, it's somehow the job of the federal government to immediately provide an alternative source of boom for states in a commodity bust. The Journal's preferred response in other situations, such as Flint -- "on yer bike, losers" -- is apparently not acceptable.

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