multiplicitiesoffreedom:

interruptions:

oh

SOUNDS LEGIT

This sounds ridiculous at first glance, I know, but Jeff Rubin has actually made a very cogent argument for why this is the case, in his book Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller (which is an absolutely breathtaking yet extremely accessible primer on oil and the energy sector in general). Though his argument is fairly intricate, it can roughly be summarized in the following quotation:

“Low interest rates come from low inflation, and low inflation comes from globalization. But globalization requires cheap transport costs, and hence cheap oil. As globalization expunged the world of inflation, central banks were free to bring down interest rates, which they quickly did. In that way, not only did falling inflation boost your purchasing power, it also fundamentally boosted your borrowing power. And in the end, the borrowing power that households got from easy credit may have been even more important than the purchasing power they got from low inflation when it came to fueling the economic boom that followed.” (pp. 220-1)

I think you can fill in the blanks from there.

(via asymmetric-effects)