Aukštos degalų kainos signalizuoja apie bėdą vyresnio amžiaus amerikiečiams

„Amerikiečiai nepamiršo 1973 m. Kiekvieną kartą, kai naftos kainos šokteliuoja, žmonės beveik iš karto pasijunta blogiau dėl ekonomikos, gerokai prieš tai, kai sumažėja atlyginimai ar gaunamas pranešimas apie atleidimą iš darbo. Nuo 2025 m. pradžios vienerių metų „West Texas Intermediate“ ateities sandoriams pakilus nuo maždaug 55 iki 75 USD už barelį, šis nuotaikų blogėjimas jau vyksta – ir kadangi nuotaikos ne tik atspindi, bet ir formuoja išlaidas, pasekmės yra apčiuopiamos.

 

Palyginti su dabartiniu naftos kainų svyravimu ir amerikiečių, kuriems 1970-ieji išlieka ekonominiu atskaitos tašku, dalimi, numanomas vartotojų išlaidų sumažėjimas ateinančiais mėnesiais sieks apie 8–12 % toje grupėje, bet arčiau 3–5 % jaunesniems vartotojams, kurių nuotaikos mažiau susijusios su benzino kainomis ir kurių išlaidos atitinkamai reaguoja.

 

Šių skaičių įrodymai atskleidžia kai ką svarbaus apie ekonominę psichologiją. Remiantis 2008–2017 m. „Gallup Daily Poll“ duomenimis, kuriuose dalyvavo daugiau nei 1,7 milijono amerikiečių, vienas iš mūsų (p. Makridis (kartu su Carola Binder) paskelbė tyrimą, rodantį, kad vartotojų nuotaikos aptemsta per kelias dienas po benzino kainų padidėjimo – ir šis poveikis yra maždaug 50 % stipresnis tarp amerikiečių, kurie yra pakankamai seni, kad išgyventų aštuntojo dešimtmečio naftos krizę. Žmonės, kurie stebėjo, kaip nedarbas per 18 mėnesių išaugo nuo 4,6 % iki 9 %, kurie sėdėjo degalinėse, kurie suvokė žinią, kad kylančios energijos kainos reiškia recesiją, niekada iki galo to neišmoko. Kai jie mato 4,50 USD degalinėje, jie nujaučia bėdą.

 

Nuotaikos taip pat formuoja ekonominę realybę. Kai žmonės tikisi sunkių laikų, jie išleidžia mažiau – ir tai padeda juos išgyventi. Pono Makridžio tyrimas, siejantis vartotojų įsitikinimus su netvariomis išlaidomis, rodo, kad vieno standartinio nuokrypio ekonominio pasitikėjimo pablogėjimas yra susijęs su 17–25 % vartojimo išlaidų sumažėjimu. Dabartinis naftos kainos pokytis – maždaug 40 % nuo 2025 m. pradžios – yra susijęs su maždaug 0,15–0,20 standartinio nuokrypio nuotaikų sumažėjimu, remiantis apskaičiuotu elastingumu, o tai reiškia, kad 3–5 % vartojimo sumažėjimas paveiktuose namų ūkiuose prieš bet kokius jų faktinės finansinės padėties pokyčius.

 

Benzino kainos puikiai tinka šiam efektui sukelti. Jos yra iškabintos ant ženklų kiekvienoje sankryžoje, atnaujinamos kasdien, matomos net tada, kai bakas pilnas.

 

Tas pats kainų pokytis būsto rinkas keičia lėčiau ir daug nevienodai – banguodamas visoje šalyje, kai kurias vietas pakeldamas ir kitas slopindamas. Miestuose, kurių ekonomikos pagrindas yra energetika – Hiustone, Oklahoma Sityje, Midland-Odesoje, Teksase – dominuoja pajamų kanalas. Kyla atlyginimai, plečiasi vietos užimtumas, o būsto rinkos seka paskui. Vieno iš mūsų (p. Larsono ir Weihua Zhao) atliktas tyrimas, stebintis keturis dešimtmečius pašto indekso lygio būstų kainų pokyčius, rodo, kad mieste, kuriame maždaug pusė eksporto užimtumo yra susiję su nafta, 50 % naftos kainų padidėjimas per penkerius metus lemia maždaug 15 % didesnį būstų kainų kilimą visame mieste, palyginti su miestais, kuriuose nėra naftos.

 

Visur kitur kylančios naftos kainos veikia kaip transporto mokestis, o šis mokestis didėja didėjant atstumui. Priemiesčiai, esantys toliau nei 15 mylių nuo miesto centro patiria didžiausius santykinius nuostolius, nes didesnės kelionės į darbą išlaidos kapitalizuojamos į būsto vertę. Tyrimas rodo, kad naftos kainų padvigubėjimas lemia maždaug 1,5–3 % santykinį būstų kainų atsilikimą priemiesčiuose, palyginti su miesto centre esančiais objektais. 40 % naftos kainos pokytis – artimas tam, ką matėme nuo 2025 m. pradžios – reiškia, kad per ateinančius kelerius metus santykinis priemiesčių kainų kritimas gali sumažėti 1–2 procentiniais punktais.

 

Kai naftos kainos kyla, energiją gaminančių miestų pelnas yra koncentruotas ir gana greitas. Kai jos krenta, tie patys miestai linkę smarkiai sumažinti savo vertės padidėjimą – Hiustonas prarado maždaug 30 % savo realios būsto vertės, kai devintajame dešimtmetyje smuko naftos kainos. Kad ir koks vertės padidėjimas kauptųsi Midlande ir Vilistone, Šiaurės Dakotoje, šiandien turi tą pačią riziką.

 

Visa tai nereiškia vietinio pakilimo ar nacionalinės recesijos prognozės. Jei bus išspręsti pasiūlos apribojimai dėl Hormūzo sąsiaurio, iki vasaros galime sulaukti atitinkamo naftos kainų kritimo ir vartotojų nuotaikų kilimo. Be to, kanalai, per kuriuos nafta veikia ekonomiką nuo aštuntojo dešimtmečio gerokai pasikeitė, ir JAV šiandien yra gerokai kitokia energijos gamintoja nei tada. Tačiau elgsenos kanalas – tas, kuris tęsiasi nuo benzino kainų per nuotaikas iki išlaidų – nereikalauja struktūrinės žalos ekonomikai, kad veiktų. Tereikia, kad pakankamai žmonių, pamatę skaičių ant ženklo, padarytų išvadą, jog vėl prasideda kažkas pažįstamo ir blogo.

 

 

Šis ryšys, užsimezgęs prieš 50 metų patirtyje, pasirodė esąs nepaprastai patvarus. Jis vėl išbandomas.

 

 

---

 

 

Ponas Makridis yra Arizonos valstijos universiteto docentas, Vienos Sudėtingumo mokslo centro docentas ir Stanfordo skaitmeninės ekonomikos laboratorijos narys. Ponas Larsonas yra nerezidentas Džordžo Vašingtono universiteto Ekonominių tyrimų centro narys.“ [1]

 

1. High Gasoline Prices Signal Trouble to Older Americans. Larson, William D; Makridis, Christos A.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Apr 2026: A15.  

High Gasoline Prices Signal Trouble to Older Americans

“Americans haven't forgotten 1973. Every time oil prices spike, people feel worse about the economy almost immediately, long before any paycheck shrinks or layoff notice arrives. With one-year West Texas Intermediate futures having climbed from about $55 to $75 a barrel since early 2025, that sentiment deterioration is already under way -- and because sentiment not only reflects but shapes spending, the consequences are tangible.

 

Scaled to the current oil-price move and the share of Americans for whom the 1970s remain the economic reference point, the implied drag on consumer spending over the coming months runs to something in the range of 8% to 12% for that cohort -- but closer to 3% to 5% for younger consumers, whose sentiment is less tightly coupled to gasoline prices and whose spending responds accordingly.

 

The evidence behind those numbers reveals something important about economic psychology. Using 2008-17 data from the Gallup Daily Poll of more than 1.7 million Americans, one of us (Mr. Makridis, with Carola Binder) published research showing that consumer sentiment darkens within days of a gasoline price increase -- and the effect is roughly 50% stronger among Americans old enough to have lived through the oil crises of the 1970s. People who watched unemployment climb from 4.6% to 9% in 18 months, who sat in gas lines, who absorbed the message that rising energy prices mean recession never quite unlearned it. When they see $4.50 at the pump, they sense trouble.

 

Sentiment also shapes economic reality. When people expect hard times, they spend less -- and that helps bring about the hard times. Research from Mr. Makridis linking consumer beliefs to nondurable spending finds that a one-standard-deviation deterioration in economic confidence is associated with a 17% to 25% decline in consumption expenditures. The current oil price move -- roughly 40% since early 2025 -- is associated with approximately a 0.15- to 0.20-standard-deviation decline in sentiment based on estimated elasticities, implying a consumption drag of 3% to 5% among affected households before any change in their actual financial circumstances.

 

Gasoline prices are well-suited to produce this effect. They are posted on signs at every intersection, updated daily, visible even when your tank is full.

 

The same price move reshapes housing markets more slowly and far less uniformly -- rippling through the country, lifting some places and pressing down on others. In cities whose economic base is energy -- Houston, Oklahoma City, Midland-Odessa, Texas -- the income channel dominates. Wages rise, local employment expands, and housing markets follow. Research by one of us (Mr. Larson, with Weihua Zhao) tracking four decades of ZIP Code-level house prices estimates that for a city with roughly half its export employment in oil-related sectors, a 50% rise in oil prices produces roughly 15% higher citywide house-price appreciation over five years compared with non-oil cities.

 

Everywhere else, rising oil prices function as a tax on transportation, and that tax compounds with distance. Suburbs beyond 15 miles from a city center face the steepest relative losses as higher commuting costs get capitalized into home values. The research finds a doubling of oil prices produces roughly 1.5% to 3% of relative house price underperformance for suburban properties vs. center-city ones. A 40% oil-price move -- close to what we've seen since early 2025 -- implies perhaps 1 to 2 percentage points of relative suburban drag over the next several years.

 

When oil prices rise, the gains in energy-producing cities are concentrated and relatively swift. When they fall, those same cities tend to give back appreciation sharply -- Houston lost roughly 30% of its real house value when oil crashed in the 1980s. Whatever appreciation is accumulating in Midland and in Williston, N.D., today carries that tail risk embedded within it.

 

None of this constitutes a forecast of local booms or national recession. If the supply-side constraints with the Strait of Hormuz are resolved, we may very well see a corresponding fall in oil prices and an upward swing in consumer sentiment by summer. Additionally, the channels through which oil affects the economy have shifted considerably since the 1970s, and the U.S. is a meaningfully different energy producer today than it was then. But the behavioral channel -- the one running from gasoline prices through sentiment to spending -- doesn't require structural damage to the economy to operate. It requires only that enough people, seeing a number on a sign, conclude that something familiar and bad is beginning again.

 

That connection, forged in experience 50 years ago, has proved remarkably durable. It is being tested again.

 

---

 

Mr. Makridis is an associate research professor at Arizona State University, an associate faculty member at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, and a digital fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. Mr. Larson is a nonresident fellow at the George Washington University's Center for Economic Research.” [1]

 

1. High Gasoline Prices Signal Trouble to Older Americans. Larson, William D; Makridis, Christos A.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Apr 2026: A15.  

Gynyba – netinkamas prioritetas

 

„Su tam tikru nerimu perskaičiau entuziastingą komentarą jūsų redakcijos straipsnyje dėl siūlomo 1,5 trilijono dolerių gynybos biudžeto („Trumpo proveržio gynybos biudžetas“, balandžio 3 d.).

 

Be siūlomos sumos milžiniškumo, gynybos biudžetai yra tokie pat jautrūs nutekėjimui, kaip ir bet kuri vyriausybės finansuojama programa. Išlaidų nukreipimas kariniams ginklams ir socialinių poreikių – būsto, maisto ir medicininės priežiūros – mažinimui nėra nei protingas, nei įmanomas, atsižvelgiant į dabartinius vidaus poreikius. JAV turės persvarstyti savo kardo dydį ir atidžiai nuspręsti, kur efektyviausiai dislokuoti savo pajėgas.

 

Channing Wagg

 

Boxborough, Masačusetsas.“ [1]

 

1. Defense Is the Wrong Priority. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Apr 2026: A14. 

Defense Is the Wrong Priority

“I read with some alarm the enthusiastic commentary in your editorial regarding the proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget ("Trump's Breakthrough Defense Budget" April 3).

 

Aside from the enormity of the amount proposed, defense budgets are as susceptible to leakage as any government-funded program. Diverting expenditures to military weapons and away from social needs -- housing, food and medical care -- isn't sensible nor is it possible, given current domestic needs. The U.S. will have to rethink the size of its saber and carefully determine where to most effectively deploy its forces.

 

Channing Wagg

 

Boxborough, Mass.” [1]

 

1. Defense Is the Wrong Priority. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Apr 2026: A14. 

Žaibiškai sutriuškinkite Irano vandens infrastruktūrą, pralaimėkite karą

„Jūsų redakcinis straipsnis „Trumpo Irano taikinių sąrašas, geras ir blogas“ (kovo 31 d.) visiškai teisingai išskiria gėlinimo įmones kaip taikinius, kurių negalima įtraukti į sąrašą, ir šio perspėjimo negalima pervertinti.

 

Persijos įlankoje dabar yra didžiausia gėlinimo pajėgumų koncentracija pasaulyje, iš kurios pagaminama maždaug 40 % viso pasaulio gėlinto vandens. Skaičiai byloja apie egzistencinę priklausomybę: Saudo Arabija 60 % geriamojo vandens gauna gėlindami vandenį; Kuveitas – beveik 90 %; Bahreinas – 88 %; Jungtiniai Arabų Emyratai – 42 %; o Kataras, kuriame yra didžiausia JAV karinė bazė Artimuosiuose Rytuose, daugiau nei 99 % geriamojo vandens gauna iš gėlinimo. Nė viena iš šių šalių neturi daugiau nei kelių dienų atsargų. Tai nėra atsitiktiniai civiliniai objektai. Tai gelbėjimosi ratas.

 

Čia slypi strateginė ironija, kurią turi suprasti pono Trumpo patarėjai: Irano arabų įlankos kaimynai, nepakeičiami Amerikos regioniniai sąjungininkai bet kokioje konfrontacijoje su Teheranu, gyvena stikliniuose gėlinimo namuose. Bet kokie kariniai mainai, nukreipti prieš gėlinimo infrastruktūrą, Irano ar kitos šalies, rizikuoja sukelti katastrofišką eskalacijos ciklą, kuriame tie sąjungininkai patirtų didžiausią pasekmių naštą.

 

Kaip pastebėjo Winstonas Churchillis, „valstybės veikėjas, pasidavęs karo karštinei, nebėra politikos šeimininkas, o nenumatytų ir nekontroliuojamų įvykių – piktybiškos likimo, bjaurių staigmenų, siaubingų klaidingų skaičiavimų – vergas“.

 

Irano energetikos ir gėlinimo įrenginių sunaikinimas nei atkurtų kontrolę, nei pagerintų likimą ir nepajungtų režimo. Tai suteiktų jam propagandos pergalę, sukeltų epinio masto humanitarinę katastrofą ir destabilizuotų regioninius partnerius, nuo kurių priklauso bet kokia tvarka po konflikto.

 

Prof. Najmedin Meshkati

 

USC Viterbi inžinerijos mokykla

 

Los Andželas“ [1]

 

Blitz Iran's Water Infrastructure, Lose the War

 

“Your editorial "Trump's Iran Target List, Good and Bad" (March 31) is exactly right to single out desalination plants as targets that must be kept off the list, and the warning can't be overstated.

 

The Persian Gulf is now home to the largest concentration of desalination capacity on earth, producing roughly 40% of the world's desalinated water. The numbers tell a stark story of existential dependence: Saudi Arabia derives 60% of its potable water from desalination; Kuwait, almost 90%; Bahrain, 88%; the United Arab Emirates, 42%; and Qatar, host to the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, relies on desalination for more than 99% of its drinking water. None of these countries maintains more than a few days' reserve storage. These are not incidental civilian facilities. They are lifelines.

 

Here lies the strategic irony that Mr. Trump's advisers must grasp: Iran's Arab Gulf neighbors -- America's indispensable regional allies in any confrontation with Tehran -- live in desalination glass houses. Any military exchange that targets desalination infrastructure, Iranian or otherwise, risks triggering a catastrophic escalatory cycle in which those allies would bear the brunt of the repercussions.

 

As Winston Churchill observed, "the statesman who yields to war fever is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events malignant fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations."

 

Destroying Iran's power and desalination plants would neither restore control nor improve fortune and subjugate the regime. It would hand it a propaganda victory, create a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions and destabilize the regional partners upon whom any post-conflict order depends.

 

Prof. Najmedin Meshkati

 

USC Viterbi School of Engineering

 

Los Angeles” [1]

 

1. Blitz Iran's Water Infrastructure, Lose the War. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Apr 2026: A14.

The New Jobs Being Created by AI --- AI is raising big fears about employment losses, but it is also giving rise to new engineering and training jobs

 

“Artificial intelligence has sparked fears it will become a job killer. It's also fueling a crop of new careers.

 

AI created 640,000 jobs between 2023 and 2025 in the U.S., according to an analysis by LinkedIn of job posting data, including new white-collar positions such as head of AI and AI engineer. That tally doesn't include the huge number of temporary construction jobs tied to building the mammoth data centers AI relies on.

 

"We're not talking about enough jobs to change the direction of the labor market," said Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn's head of economics. "But for AI roles, growth has pretty much been straight up."

 

The fast-emerging new jobs help train AI to improve its performance and take on more tasks, and help train humans to use AI in their work.

 

The jobs run the gamut from high-level careers in AI strategy to hourly work. Many of these new employees work directly for AI companies, but other industries including finance, healthcare and manufacturing are also snapping up such workers as they seek to capitalize on the technology.

 

Zach Kinzler, 25, who got his master's degree in business analytics less than two years ago, assumed in February the title of head of human AI solutions at BoodleBox, an AI education startup based in Colorado Springs, Colo. His job involves client training and using AI to speed up tasks for co-workers.

 

Kinzler, who works remotely from San Diego, wanted to work with AI and said he feels lucky to land in a growing field.

 

"The conversation about whether artificial intelligence is good or bad needs to go away, because it's not going to go away," he said.

 

One of the biggest questions facing a shaky U.S. labor market that has been especially hard on white-collar workers is whether AI's ability to mimic human skills like research, writing and coding will cause significant layoffs. Big cuts at Oracle last week, while the company invests heavily in AI data centers, underscored some of these worries.

 

Corporate leaders, including some in the tech world, have issued grim forecasts about AI's potential to replace white-collar workers at a massive scale. According to a recent Goldman Sachs Research report, AI could automate tasks that account for a quarter of all working hours in the U.S., especially in fields such as administrative support, legal work and architecture and engineering.

 

Still, analysts say it's hard to judge how many job cuts thus far are genuinely attributable to AI, and which are being made for financial or operations reasons. A new survey of 750 chief financial officers found that AI had essentially no negative employment effect in 2025.

 

But data show employers are increasingly hiring for AI talent. In 2023, AI-related roles made up only 1.6% of all job postings, according to an AI job tracker co-led by Anil Gupta, professor at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, and job market data company LinkUp. Two years later that figure had more than doubled to 3.4%, the tracker found.

 

One rising job is head of AI. In the three years from 2023 through 2025, companies sought to fill 225,000 such jobs, up 49% from the prior four years, according to LinkedIn job-posting data.

 

Another fast-growing job -- though often part-time -- is data annotator. People in this role help train AI models by reviewing and labeling data, including audio, text and images, so that the models can learn to recognize patterns and improve their output. From 2023 to 2025, companies added 312,000 such roles, according to LinkedIn.

 

Hiring for such jobs remains highly concentrated. As of late 2025, only 6% of companies had job ads mentioning AI, according to an analysis by jobs site Indeed, up from 2% in 2018. A fraction of all companies -- just 1% -- accounted for 90% of all such posts, including many large tech companies.

 

"We're really early in the ballgame," said Cory Stahle, an Indeed economist, who noted that it's still unclear how many dedicated employees companies will need to manage AI.

 

The technology has created some lower-end gig work: hiring workers to help improve AI models through tasks like labeling images and tagging text.

 

As AI models advance, more companies are offering generous paydays for experienced workers with specialized skills and knowledge that can't be readily scraped from the internet.

 

"If you're training a model to be better at scientific discovery, you need a chain of people who are doing scientific discovery," said Steve Nemzer, senior director of AI growth and innovation at Telus Digital, an AI training and data services provider. The company works with 12,000 data annotators in the U.S., many of them researchers who hold Ph.D.s

 

In Galveston, Texas, Daniel Millian, 42, works a 9-5 job as a pathologist at a local hospital reading biopsy slides. Afterward, he comes home and works four to five more hours as an AI trainer, typing out hypothetical medical scenarios and grading different models' responses. His side hustle pays between $90 and $200 an hour, padding his overall pay by $75,000 since last year.

 

Millian said he wants to improve technology to better address patient and clinician needs. The money is good, and he likes being able to pick his hours and work from home.

 

"At least in my profession, there aren't a lot of jobs that give you this type of flexibility," said Millian.

 

Demand for such workers has exploded, said Ali Ansari, chief executive of micro1, an AI staffing company that recruits experts to train AI models, including Millian. The company, which was founded in 2022, now employs tens of thousands of mostly part-time data annotators, around 40% of whom are based in the U.S.

 

Its annotators work in industries ranging from journalism to finance and make an average of $70 an hour, he said.

 

"These jobs aren't temporary," said Ansari, adding that in the future, he expects AI to do increasingly complex and specialized tasks, requiring a constant stream of human training.

 

Some AI workers say the jobs are a mixed bag. Since getting laid off from her intellectual property specialist job from Meta last year, Victoria Chapa, 32, has been taking on short-term AI-training gigs. Recently she has worked on assignments that involve looking at AI-generated images and describing their emotional impact, as well as efforts to train a chatbot to better mirror its users' tone.

 

"Are they good jobs? Not really. It pays the bills, but depending on what you're doing, if you're looking at images all day long, it makes you feel crazy," said Chapa, who lives in Austin, Texas. She said she worries about AI-generated images manipulating people, and is currently seeking jobs in AI governance and ethics.

 

In San Diego, Kinzler said that while he has basic coding and database skills, he's learning much of his new job in real time. His most important on-the-job skill, he said, is the ability to explain the technology in an accessible way to peers and clients.

 

"'It's kinda fake it till you make it," he said.” [1]

 

1. The New Jobs Being Created by AI --- AI is raising big fears about employment losses, but it is also giving rise to new engineering and training jobs. Te-Ping, Chen.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 08 Apr 2026: A10.