[Smogger]

Oh know whatever shall I do? I will be eating cat food in a few months :-(

[bybybill]

Why do most economic cystal ball gazers remind us of the local weatherman?

[Alberta's Child]

Aside from some curious assumptions he makes in this article, the author misses one very important point. High oil prices actually have a deflationary affect on many sectors of the U.S. economy, since demand for many products and services declines when consumers pay more for energy.

Anyone who doubts that should simply go back over the last few years and understand that the post-Katrina fuel price hikes represented the best time to buy a new car -- because producers were slashing their prices to levels that would have been unheard of just a few months earlier.

[KarlInOhio]

The increase in oil price is caused by insufficient supply and increased demand from other countries, especially China. That price increase is not inflation. Inflation is a devaluation of the currency.

There is nothing the Fed can to improve the price situation of oil and the Fed's confusion between a supply shock and currency devaluation is what caused most of the economic problems in the mid to late 70s and early 80s. Please, Chairman Bernanke, do not repeat the mistakes from 30 years ago.

[Alberta's Child]

As a result fewer products will be imported into the U.S. and more of America’s domestic production will be exported.

Baloney. It doesn't work both ways. If one of the primary factors in the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs over the last 30 years has been the strength of the U.S. dollar (and it has been), then a declining dollar would tend to attract production back to the U.S.

[Hawthorn]

This article comes close to being total gibberish. The author obviously has no understanding of monetary economics. What a waste of bandwidth!

[thinkthenpost]

About the only think I agree with in this article is if economic growth slows it might tumble, other than that he sounds like Chicken Little. Energy prices have doubled and the economy has been chugging along, I don't know when enough is enough, but I think the fed raising rates is what is going to slow things down and I think they have probably already raised too far. I also think until wage inflation begins the "inflationary cycle" of run away prices can't get rolling because no has more money than they had. The only really high wage report I can recall was May '06. I believe the Fed with Greenspan and now Brenacke (?sp) have been fighting a mostly nonexistent inflation monster and I think they are going to fight it right into another recession. I of course also believe the last 2 recessions Bush in '92 and Clinton in '00 were if not caused, were greatly helped along by Mr. Greenspan's inflation paranoia. That's my opinion and it's worth what it cost you.