Oil

Archive for Oil

Murphy Twin Spin (Kinda Sorta)

==> Here’s my recent IER post on the Fed and oil prices. And here’s a comparable one from David Beckworth. ==> I’m a scholar contributing to the marketplace of ideas. First Phil Magness and I get published, and now we get cited in another economist’s article! Quick somebody get me a pipe and a smoking jacket.

Krugman’s Climate Alarmism Is Juuuuust Right

My latest at IER. An excerpt: Again I point to the tightrope Krugman is walking here: He wants his readers to get on board, cheerleading these “green” power sources because they keep getting so efficient. Yet on the other hand, if the government doesn’t support them, everybody dies. How does that make any sense? If […]

Two Posts on Energy Issues

A little awkward talking about the UN Climate Change meetings in Paris in light of today’s tragic events, but anyway here are my two latest Institute for Energy Research posts: ==> This one shows that oil prices (adjusted with CPI) are higher now than the 1950-2015 average. ==> Check out the frankness of the UN’s […]

More on the Crude Oil Export Ban

I’ve written on this topic before, but at FEE today I made a new observation: There’s another way of seeing the foolishness of the hostility to [U.S.] oil exports. Normally, when it comes to international trade, the layperson is wary of “cheap imports.” Those wily foreigners are always scheming to send us their products to […]

Cheap or Expensive, Pundits Hate Gas

My latest at IER. Incidentally, I have a neat chart showing the Fed’s balance sheet and falling gas prices. It’s funny how the fact that commodities went down when the Fed stopped inflating, somehow proves (according to Krugman et al.) that the inflationistas were wrong…

U.S. Oil Output Approaching Record Levels

In an article at IER, I discuss the once-fashionable “peak oil” theory, which treated a country or the world’s oil production as if it were just a giant well. The economics went out the window, and instead the analysis relied merely on the natural sciences. Peak oil theory was popular for decades because it seemed […]

More on Bad Arguments

My manager, agent, family, and closest friends have all told me to walk away, but I’m going to the barricades on this one… If Charles Krauthammer had argued, “The government should cut taxes because 2+2=4,” that would be a terrible argument. This is the case even though the premise is true, and even though I […]

Murphy vs. Krauthammer on Gas Tax

My latest at IER. For you folks, here’s the part I want to highlight: First, let’s use a trick from the minimum wage debate, which I’m sure Krauthammer and other Fox contributors will appreciate. When a progressive says how great boosting the minimum wage to (say) $10/hour would be, the easiest way to show the […]