Oil Prices Slip

Oil prices slipped to about US$71 a barrel Friday ahead of news expected to show a slight rise in U.S. unemployment.
Prices have remained above US$71 all week even though Energy Department data showed a continued rise in supplies, which usually means demand is soft , Newsroom America reports.

Meanwhile, such a blase attitude is, by conventional economic theory, normal and even healthy. In a free market, consumers respond rationally to prices. When oil gets costly enough to cause pain, we can depend on market forces to kick in. Demand will fall. We'll buy more efficient cars, or develop alternative fuels, or start riding bikes or buses. In time, a whole new energy economy will be born - more efficient, perhaps cleaner, and certainly less reliant on worrisome places such as Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. Best of all, it will have happened not because Congress bullied Detroit into building wee little cars but because it made sense economically ,SunJournal.com reports.

"On the one hand it was good for fundamentals for people to be working and able to buy things; but it could mean Europe will be seen as the lagging market and get people to short the euro and a stronger dollar longer term," said senior analyst Chris Jarvis at Caprock Risk Management in New Hampshire , CNN reports.