Cheap oil has not driven an economic recovery in the US as it was supposed to do. Consumers have benefitted in the short-term from lower prices, but there are still record numbers of Americans out of the work force and the economy looks as shaky as ever. Much of the shale boom was driven by the Federal Reserve Bank's money-printing policies, which created boatloads of money looking for places to mal-invest. But the soft underbelly of the current cheap oil "crisis" is geopolitical uncertainty primarily in the Middle East. The world is one Turkish missile, or Russian bomb, or US airstrike, or Saudi invasion away from what could a global earthquake in the oil markets. Today's Liberty Report takes a look at the economics and politics of cheap oil:
