Why Lower Oil Prices is Bad News for the U.S. Economy?

Here is an excerpt of the Nouriel Roubini's view on why US is heading for recession:

"In conclusion, the soft-landing bulls are getting it wrong and are altogether confusing cause and effect when they argue that lower oil prices are good news and good signals for future economic activity in the US: oil and commodity prices are exactly falling because we are now experiencing a US and global economic slowdown; so such price action should be interpreted as bad news rather than good news. This is the typical fallacy of non-economist that take a partial equilibrium – rather than a general equilibrium - approach to analyzing data; an economist would ask himself or herself: why are oil and commodity prices falling at the same time? What is the cause of it? There is only one clear and consistent explanation of this generalized price fall: the US is sharply slowing down dragging with itself the global economy. So, paradoxically falling oil prices are bad news for the economy: they are the proverbial canary in the mine warning us of the recession risks ahead. Indeed, what both the oil and commodity markets and the bond markets and the housing market are telling us - or screaming us - is: slowdwon and recession risks ahead!"

"The fact that the stock market is allegedly now providing a signal that is different from the bond market and the oil and commodity markets can be then interpreted - as I have since August - as the typical suckers' rally that accompanies slowdowns where the Fed is expected to come to the rescue of the market and the economy. Remember that in 2001 95% of all economic forecasters predicted in March 2001 no recession that year; too bad that the economy had already entered into a recession by March 2001. The wishful hope of forecasters and markets was that the Fed easing would rescue the economy and that the economy would experience a second half rebound. Indeed, in typical suckers' rally mode the S&P index rallied a whopping 18% in April and May 2001. It was only in June 2001 when even more severe signs of a recession clearly emerged that the stock market started to rapidly tank into a free fall. So, such stock markets suckers' rallies are very common at the outset of the recession. The reality is that stock markets are often wrong: sometimes they predict recessions that do not occur but, at times like in 2001, they fail to predict recessions that are already ongoing."

Source:

Nouriel Roubini's Global Economics Blog