Professor Elam

Please remind me to show a graphy of the oil prices in class Tuesday. There is nothing difficult to predict here, the weekly chart of oil prices has turned down.  Oil prices have turned down simply because demand has turned down.  A student mentioned a few months back that now she was using net flicks instead of driving to the video store. This same idea of millions of individuals making the same collective decision is having an effect, on prices and on employment. One student employed in retail notes that sales are down for the dept store that employs her.  And so the store looks at laying folks off, and as she notes, then those employees have less to spend and do not buy as much gasoline and, here we go.

I look forward t more input from all of you along those lines on the blog and discussion sites, what are you seeing in your jobs that relates to the belief that we are going for recession or expanison?

Here is the latest on prices.