Reader comments
Stocks end mixed; Oil slide hits energy shares

The dependency Wall Street on the level of oil prices seems to be like America's dependency on oil itself. Unfortunately, oil isn't the reliable commodity it once was as a reflection of the actual health of the economy. Like tobacco and nicotine, oil is actually becoming a moribund measure of the state of the economy. Nuclear energy or even green energy indicators seems to be a more reliable indicator, especially in Europe. Oil seems more likely to reflect political warfare conditions rather than what an economy's internal strength is.

Tab makes a good point about how dependency on oil reverberates beyond just our military costs and household expences. It also impacts Wall Street's recovery.

His assertion that nuclear and green energy indicators will bring stability is only partly correct, however. Nuclear energy's "price stability" is really a fantasy because the federal government subsidizes its existence, from insurance against disasters to the security and maintenance of waste disposal. We're still paying for the nuclear waste generated from electricity that our grandparents used! Our tax dollars flowing to a growing mountain of nuclear waste is not economic security.

Clean energy from wind, in particular, creates no waste, no water usage, and stable prices (no fuel costs, no military costs to secure oil fields in the Mideast, no clean up nuclear waste costs and security costs, no transportation costs of oil and coal, no health risks, no lost coal miners, etc.) really has established a new standard for "true costs" of energy for society.