Soft Patch -- April 28, 2016

Thursday's weekly energy tweets and energy news (not much):

• Brent price for calendar 2017 settled above $50/bbl for first time since early December, 2015. 
• Oil jumps to 2016 highs as dollar drops on "Fed" decision to hold rates.

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Idle Chatter

Nothing About The Bakken

Updates

Later, 11:44 a.m. Central Time: how bad is it? I knew it was bad; I did not know it was this bad.

Original Post

 

With regard to the past six years, there seem(s) to be two constants:

• the use of "soft patch" used to describe US economy
• an ever-worsening Mideast situation

I was reminded of that when I came across this post from 2011 -- from 2011 -- pretty amazing:
"Don't Blow It" -- The Lost Decade -- No Clue -- "Soft Patch"

With the recent announcement that the most risk-averse administration in years will send more troops to Syria to fight the JV team there is no need to re-plow plowed ground.

But I was surprised to see that phrase "soft patch" back in 2011. I had forgotten all about it. And, then, earlier this week, the Fed says the same thing, the US is, again, to coin a phrase, "in a soft patch."

From the linked post:

August 3, 2011: Signs of a double-dip recession have emerged -- Meredith Whitney, anaylst. CNBC considers her highly credible.

August 2, 2011: the "double dip" recession has begun, as reported by the president's cable news station, MSNBC.

July 29, 2011: This update is being written just as the government reported a most anemic GDP number: 1.3.   But even scarier, if that's possible: 1Q11 GDP was revised to 0.4 -- almost a contraction in growth.

This is another update to the June 19, 2011, posting.

I think the June 22, 2011, update was particularly prescient: When government officials start using the phrase "a soft patch" on a more regular basis, one can assume that experts acknowledge there is a better than 50/50 chance that we will fall into a double-dip recession. My hunch is that if we fall back into a recession we will not know it until about six months after the fact.