Steep stock market corrections often create shrouds of pessimism that do bad things to people's brainpower. And one of the absolutely stupidest things I have heard in recent weeks is that the recent drop in oil prices is bad. You heard me right. Serious people on financial television are saying lower oil prices are a signal of worldwide economic collapse. Here at home that translates to recession, deflation, a profits collapse, and rising unemployment.
I've been around for a while, and I've seldom heard such gibberish.
The latest stock-market scare stems from a bunch of fears, like the possible spread of Ebola, economic slowdowns in Europe and Asia, and deflation worries. And when the stock market decides to correct, any reason will do. We must respect the wisdom of the market.
But the recent $20 drop in crude oil is an unambiguously good thing for the American and world economies. Unambiguous.
Read More This is the price that would kill U.S. oil-production growth
As I understand the lower-oil-prices-are-bad argument, the shift to around $80 a barrel from $100 a barrel will somehow close down the American energy revolution and destroy all the new jobs and related infrastructure services that have fueled our recovery.
Nonsense. I spoke with a CEO who is literally at the cutting edge of the horizontal-drilling and hydraulic-fracturing revolution about the so-called "profit break-even point," or the marginal cost of producing the next barrel of oil. He told me it averages between $50 and $60 a barrel. And a new report from Citigroup energy analyst Edwin Morse argues that oil has to fall to $50 or less to fully halt shale-production growth.
But $80 is not $50. The economy won't be destroyed. Plus, even $80 per barrel does great economic harm to our enemies Russia and Iran. A good thing.
Read More How Hillary could lose in 2016
Of course, the fracking revolution has created new jobs. But not nearly as many as some think. Delving into data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), during the jobs recovery of the last four years, employment growth in "oil and gas extraction" and "support activities for oil and gas operations" has increased by something around 200,000. That's a good number, but it's only a small fraction of the roughly 9 million new jobs created since the middle of 2010.
There are energy-related spillover jobs, though they're tough to calculate. A recent Marcellus shale study suggests the creation of over 45,000 construction jobs. And in places like North Dakota, Texas, and Pennsylvania, the fracking revolution has created high-pay jobs - say $80,000 for the roustabouts who previously were unemployed. A BLS study shows North Dakota waitresses averaging $37,000 a year.