By Mark Minnella for AMERICAN THINKER
Oil has crossed the $100 line again, and right on cue, the warnings are back. Inflation will surge. Consumers will buckle. The economy will stall. Markets will crack. Depending on which headline you read, a three-digit oil price can sound almost like a countdown clock to economic disaster.
There is only one problem with that story: history.
Start with the number itself. Over the last 16 years, West Texas Intermediate crude traded at or above a nominal $100 a barrel on roughly 482 trading sessions. That is about 12% of all trading days, roughly one out of every eight. So yes, $100 oil is significant, and it’s not something we see every week.
But it is hardly unheard of. Historical data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) confirm prolonged periods of very high crude prices, including annual average West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices above $93 from 2011 through 2014.
But wait. There’s more.
