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The implications are clear and sobering. Our global resource binds are much tighter now than in the 1970s, because the world economy is that much larger, the resource constraints are tighter, and quick fixes are harder to find. In 1974 the world population was four billion, and total world income was around $23 trillion (in today's dollars adjusted for purchasing power). Now the world population is 6.7 billion, and the economy is around $65 trillion. The same annual growth rate of the world economy, say 4% per annum, requires vastly more natural resources - energy, water, and arable land - than in the 1970s and poses much larger risks for the world's climate and ecosystems.

We are therefore facing a prolonged period in which global economic growth will be constrained not by broad macroeconomic policies or market institutions, nor by limits of global trade, nor by the general ability of today's emerging markets to invest in new industries. The more pressing limits will be in resources and a safe climate. It took 15 tumultuous years to overcome the limits on energy and food after 1973. Unless we act more cleverly today, we could face an even more harrowing and prolonged adjustment ahead.

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Of course there's higher unemployment, and of course last month was a huge jump. The minimum wage was raised.

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Although single month jumps in unemployment data should be judged cautiously, various factors suggest the spike in unemployment is not likely to be a statistical aberration and instead accurately reflects the weakening job market. First, it is consistent with the steady loss of jobs in the more accurate payroll survey. Second, as noted by the commissioner of the BLS, "The over-the-month jump in unemployment reflected additional workers who had lost their jobs as well as an upsurge in new and returning jobseekers."

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An increase in the youth labor force played a role in May's unemployment spike. However, even if we take teenagers out of the data, unemployment still rises from 4.5% to 4.8%, a considerable 0.3% increase, and well above the 4.0% adult rate of one-year ago.

The BLS reports that the number of unemployed grew by over 800,000 last month, but such monthly data can be too "noisy" to give a clear signal of the growth in the number of jobless. Averaging over the past three months, and comparing this to an average over the same three-month period a year ago, shows that number of unemployed is up by 1.2 million.

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Went down every year? We're going to need to see a credible source for that.

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Department of Labor. Unemployment seems to have held steady during 1995.  Satisfied? Just so you know.. this is called a "fact."

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Thanks to Congress's stubborn refusal to allow oil companies to drill... well, anywhere, actually. Or to allow any new refineries to be built. More than thirty years since the last one was built. Or to reduce the insane number of special mixtures of gasoline required by region and time of year, causing refinery downtime for recalibration.

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With respect to the world oil price impact, projected ANWR oil production constitutes between 0.4 and 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030, based on the low and high resource cases, respectively. Consequently, ANWR oil production is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices.

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Assuming that world oil markets continue to work as they do today, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could neutralize any potential price impact of ANWR oil production by reducing its oil exports by an equal amount.

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