Question: When you see on the stock ticker that the price of a barrel of oil has gone up (or down), is that a good thing or a bad thing? Answer: I think this question is a whole lot more complicated than it first appears. I bring this up because I'm watching one of the cable news channels and the talking head just said that the price of oil dropped $2 on the bad jobs report released this morning. Now normally, when the framing is gas prices, oil going down is a good thing. But in this case, the framing is "demand in the American economy," which means that oil going down is bad because it's an indicator that economic demand is stagnating.
Pop quiz
Pop quiz
Pop quiz
Question: When you see on the stock ticker that the price of a barrel of oil has gone up (or down), is that a good thing or a bad thing? Answer: I think this question is a whole lot more complicated than it first appears. I bring this up because I'm watching one of the cable news channels and the talking head just said that the price of oil dropped $2 on the bad jobs report released this morning. Now normally, when the framing is gas prices, oil going down is a good thing. But in this case, the framing is "demand in the American economy," which means that oil going down is bad because it's an indicator that economic demand is stagnating.