A flood of mixed economic news

tries. There have been riots in Turkey and in Brazil by protesters pushing back from austerity measures, either financial in Brazil’s case or religious in Turkey’s. They are also the result of youth unemployment which afflicts the global economy.

Commodities, and therefore the Toronto and Australian exchanges, were punished this week over prospects prices will continue to soften and shale oil and gas will drive down fossil fuel prices. Commodities have been dependent on roaring output from China and others, now slowing as the cost of money will eventually rise as promised by Bernanke.

The squabbling by OPEC is also a dampener when it comes to oil prices as its members — which include countries on both sides of the Syrian civil/religious war — cheat on quotas designed to prop up prices.

Finally, the G8 agreement to globalize tax collection, and stop arbitraging tax rates by the world’s gigantic multinationals, could prove to be a dampener on global trading patterns. This is far from final and the agreement is only the beginning of a long overdue correction, but some market experts may be building in higher tax rates for these giants in years to come in their models. This too, has contributed to lower stock prices.

But Americans have nothing but good news. Stock players may be over-reacting but The Fed is confident and they should be too. The shale revolution and re-industrialization of the U.S. economy is real and will provide an engine of growth for jobs, trade and for their neighbours such as Canada and Mexico.

Meanwhile, here in Calgary, the only good news will be when the rivers recede and Washington permits the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. Just in case, however, thousands of trainloads are carrying bitumen to U.S. refineries and the White House knows that cheap, plentiful energy self sufficiency has to include the oil sands and is a guarantee of its economic pre-eminence for decades.