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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

When gas prices spike, owing to Middle East turmoil or hurricanes, conspiracy theories abound about profiteering speculators. The truth is Americans are suffering from bad energy polices–politicians eager to sell pet projects and hoist blame onto others.

In such a fit, President Obama offers fanciful alternative energy technologies as a solution to rising pump prices and a task force to ferret out fraud in energy markets.

Even before disturbances in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, economists expected oil prices to increase from their September lows of $75 per barrel to more than $100 a barrel by this summer.

Economic recovery is pushing up gasoline demand and jet travel; President Obama’s restrictions on off-shore drilling are curtailing U.S. oil supplies; electric vehicles and hybrids won’t appreciably dent U.S. gasoline consumption before the end of this decade; and Chinese oil imports are growing 10% a year. All the Middle East strife did was accelerate the price surge.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

After missteps addressing Congressional concerns, President Obama has articulated clearly the goals, means and duration of the U.S. military action in Libya. Critics may say he did not address those issues, but he did and the answers are not acceptable.

The President’s speech at the War College articulated the Obama Doctrine on the use of U.S. military force when America’s humanitarian interests may be at stake but an imminent threat to U.S. security is not present.

The President made clear the United States reserves the right to unilaterally use military force to address direct threats to “our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests.” Something less direct, but equally important to the President is at stake in Libya; but the United States is constrained, under the Obama Doctrine, to act in concert with other nations, on a more limited basis, to achieve key objectives.

Prior to allied air strikes, troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi were quite close to crushing the popular uprising in Libya and massacring the opposition. By any reasonable reading of international human rights law, Gadhafi is culpable for human rights crimes on a grand scale, but why is it an American responsibility to respond?

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

The economy picked up in the first quarter. After adding 175,000 jobs in February, economists expect the Labor Department will report on Friday that the economy added 188,000 jobs in March. However, events in Japan, Libya and the wider Middle East, and the European sovereign debt crisis threaten to reverse these gains and thrust the economy into a second recession.

Longer term, job gains in the range of 200,000 a month are not enough to push unemployment down to acceptable levels. Dysfunctional energy, trade and tax policies are holding back U.S. growth, adding to unemployment and lowering wages.

Private Sector Jobs

Until February, the private sector was creating few permanent jobs. Most jobs were either in health care and social services, which enjoy heavy government subsidies, or temporary business services. Excluding those activities, the “core” private sector gained 170,000 jobs in February; whereas during the prior 13 months, the average gain was only 45,000.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

Crises in the Middle East and Japan threaten to thrust the U.S. and global economies into a second recession.

Since the economic recovery began in July 2009, GDP growth has averaged only 2.8%, a pace insufficient to bring unemployment down to acceptable levels. And that rate of growth leaves the economy too vulnerable to the slightest hiccup and a deceleration into recession.

Prior to the turmoil in the Middle East, economists were forecasting 3.5% growth for 2011, but the surge in oil prices and gasoline will likely shave half a point–perhaps more–from that rosy outlook.

Should oil surge to $140 a barrel, gasoline prices would pierce $4.00 a gallon and U.S. growth could slow to a mere 2.5%. That would be barely self-sustaining and not enough to create many jobs–likely many fewer than the 1.5 million needed each year just to keep up with population and labor-force growth.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

President Barack Obama has invested a great deal in a “liberal” foreign policy, through his positions on global warming, nuclear proliferation and trade, often putting international interests ahead of U.S. domestic economic concerns. Now, in Egypt, the time has arrived for his investment and promise to bear fruit, or for his foreign policy to fail to the great detriment of America’s standing in the world.

Revolutions happen because the masses are poor and their conditions worsen beyond toleration, or the educated are frustrated by a manifest lack of opportunity. Rising global food and energy prices imposed the former on Tunisia. The combination of President Hosni Mubarak’s corruption, Cairo’s place as intellectual center of the Arab world and rising commodity prices impose both sets of conditions in Egypt.

For revolutions to resolve favorably, the enforcer of sovereign power–in Egypt’s case, the army–must maintain order either by force or popular legitimacy. The Egyptian army, by refusing to use force to squash the challenge to Mubarak’s rule, appears to be gaining popular legitimacy, acting responsibly and maintaining order without bullets.

For revolutions to end without chaos and state entropy, the apparatus of civil administration cannot be dismembered. It is possible to chop off the dragon’s head–the dictator, cabinet and his inner circle–and replace it with more legitimate leaders. As corrupt as Egypt’s civil administration may be, new leaders cannot replace it wholesale, but must reform it piecemeal if Egypt is to finally enjoy robust economic development, pluralistic civic institutions and social progress consistent with Arab values.

This is so complex, because the Egyptian opposition has so many faces, and Egypt is the linchpin of U.S. Middle East policy. Egypt’s posture toward Israel is central to maintaining Middle East peace, or at least to limiting hostilities to low-grade conflicts between Israel and militant elements.

The Muslim Brotherhood and the secular opposition have hardly compatible visions of a legitimate Egyptian government and Arab values–the contrast is as vibrant as America before the electricity and the telegraph, and after satellites the Internet. Promises of tolerance by one or another faction, if one or the other establishes a government, cannot be taken at face value.

And whatever government succeeds Mubarak, it will have to at least optically, if not in substance, abandon some of Egypt’s support for U.S. Middle East policy and take a harder line toward Israel, without destabilizing the region. Short of that, Iraq and others will consider the new regime illegitimate, blame the U.S. and easily tighten the screws on western oil supplies to great effect–just reducing oil supplies by 5% could raise U.S. gasoline prices to $4 a gallon, wholly derailing U.S. and European economic recovery.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

Events in Egypt are not the only risk to the economic recovery–confidence about sovereign debt and slowing growth in Japan and Europe already pose real risks. And stagflation is peeping over the horizon.

Before the recent events in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, oil and commodities prices were exhibiting a lot of upward pressure and unemployment remained stubbornly high.

Rising commodity prices in 2011 already had the potential to push up other consumer price index components and slow growth simultaneously–consumer confidence, as witnessed by the housing market, remains tenuous.

China is subsidizing imports of oil and other commodities–using the dollars it gets from currency market intervention–to moderate the effects of commodity price increases on its domestic gasoline and food prices. This pushes the price adjustments on the rest of the world–including the U.S.–and rising prices for food are hitting the poorer countries in the Middle East (those without oil) and Africa much harder than in the developed world and Asia, and contributing to social unrest and political risk.

Friday’s stock market reaction to Egypt may not have been founded in strong fundamentals–Egypt is not a big economy and the Suez Canal and Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline may not yet be much affected by the protests–but the market reaction indicates broader risks (investor fears). Social unrest could easily spread throughout the Middle East and irrational perceptions of the U.S. role in Egypt and elsewhere could cause regimes in places like Iran and the Gulf to do dumb things–like tighten the screws on oil.

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These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

By appointing Bill Daley Chief of Staff, President Barack Obama hopes to present a centrist face to voters skeptical about his commitment to free enterprise.

Don’t be fooled. Deeper in the administration, the president’s electricians are busily rewiring U.S. capitalism for failure.

The recent crisis was caused by a huge international trade deficit, massive foreign borrowing and shoddy Wall Street practices.

From 2004 to 2008, Americans spent and consumed 5% more than they produced and earned, scarfing up electronic devices made in China, Middle East oil and houses whose mortgages they couldn’t afford. The Chinese and Middle East royals bought U.S. bonds and other securities with the dollars not spent on U.S. exports, and Wall Street banks recycled those to consumers through first and second mortgages.

These are the personal views of Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission:

Tuesday, the Commerce Department will report the February deficit on international trade in goods and services. Analysts expect it to increase to $39.0 billion from $37.3 billion in January. My forecast is in line with the consensus.

The trade deficit, along with the credit and housing bubbles, were the principal causes of the Great Recession. Now, a rising trade deficit and continued weakness among regional banks threatens to stifle the emerging recovery and keep unemployment near 10% through 2011.

At 3.1% of gross domestic product, the trade deficit subtracts more from the demand for U.S.-made goods and services than President Barack Obama’s stimulus package adds. Moreover, Obama’s stimulus is temporary, whereas the trade deficit is permanent and growing again.

Subsidized manufactures from China and petroleum account for nearly the entire deficit, and both will rise as consumer spending and oil prices rise through 2010.

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