The Census Bureau released its "business dynamics" data showing the changes that occurred in the economy from 2000 to 2001. For the broad definition of the printing industry (commercial, trade services and other related sectors), there was a decline of -1088 net establishments, and a decline in employment of -27,426. When they say dynamics, they mean it: there were 2,135 new establishments, outnumbered by the 3,223 closures. More than half of the decline in establishments was in shops with less than five employees. That is, at the time the shops closed they had less than five employees although they may have had more employees at another time.

It's important to remember that many of these closures and re-openings are more than just a declining industry. Many of them are companies restructuring, combining, or making ownership changes that require new business entities to be formed. It's often easier to just start a new business than to actually merge or acquire if you are small, especially if there are personal loans to businesses or family ownership issues. This is the market adapting to change, becoming more efficient at a new demand level, and that's a good thing. While business levels are obviously not enough to generate net new firms, this sometimes traumatic reconfiguration helps purge the industry of ineffective management and obsolete equipment. It's not pretty. But it's not disastrous, either.

I've become irritated about all of the grousing around oil prices being "the highest since 1990." Oil is a commodity subject to the interaction of supply and demand, and demand has been increasing, pushing prices up, as the global economic situation has improved. In fact, the same is true of nearly all commodities. While demand is subject to some cartel action, that cartel basically gets weaker in the broad picture from year to year. As far as those "highest prices since 1990," adjusted for inflation our rough $38 per barrel today would be $54 in 1990 dollars, so it's 30% cheaper now than it was then. We would need oil to go up 42% to equal those 1990 prices in today's dollars. This is yet another indication of how the compounding effect of inflation distorts perceptions over time, even if inflation is "low." Remember paying about $1.25 for a gallon of gas in 1982? Double that, and you get what the price would have to be today.