1) Unemployment levels are not low, yet. U6 is about 11%. It was 8% in 2007, and 7% in 2001. The labor force participation rate is at a 40 year low. Full-time employment has seen zero net gain in over a decade, despite a population increase of 30 million people.
2) US GDP growth has seen zero improvement. The GDP growth rate the last five years is lower than it has been in all of US history outside of recessions (the average rate of growth from the 1940s to 2007 was about 3.5% +/-). There has been no acceleration.
Growth rates - 2010: 2.5%; 2011: 1.6%; 2012: 2.3%; 2013: 2.2%; 2014: 2.4%
These growth rates required 0% interest rates, $8 trillion in new public debt, and trillions in Fed stimulus.
This latest quarter required a -0.1% inflation adjuster (only the second time that has happened in 65 years...) to keep the economy from printing another negative GDP growth quarter.
The oil and fossil fuels collar has not been removed from the US economy. Electricity prices are at all-time record highs. And when it comes to oil and gasoline, an extraordinarily small % of vehicles run on electricity; Tesla hasn't boosted GDP growth what-so-ever yet, their scale simply is not big enough.
I see no evidence that an oil collar has been removed, nor that solar is meaningfully boosting GDP growth at this point.
I think we will see the labor participation rate increase now that we are just starting to see some nascent pressure on wages to increase.
Solar isn't meaningfully boosting gdp now, but I'm following the trend to its logical conclusion.
Lower energy prices do fuel growth, and solar is poised to to lower electricity prices globally. Our future is one of abundance and prosperity.
Genuine question, I'd really want to know.
(the government later reimbursed them $5k of that, though that's not really relevant)
The US was muddling its way out the 2008 crash repercussions, with incremental improvement in the economy. It wasn't until the oil-choke collar on the economy was removed that we saw a return to the low unemployment levels we are seeing today.
Energy costs are a tax on everything we do, and we are in for a global energy tax cut.
The American Southwest has tremendous solar resources, and could be the cheapest place to run data centers in the states if we could develop:
1. Lower cost electricity storage, compressed air, new batteries, or superconducting magnetic energy storage could do it.
2. Develop economical solar thermal air conditioning systems. If you can generate heat, you can generate cold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_air_conditioning