Gas is cheap, jobs are plentiful and the economy is rolling. This is why we love the free market. In the last six months, the price of oil has fallen 36 percent, shaking producers, energy investors and some governments. Such steep drops used to be bad news, usually a signal of global recession. This time, a global glut is driving down oil prices, thanks largely to the shale boom that started in Texas. “We’ve gone from scarcity to abundance,” said Bernard Weinstein, associate director of SMU’s Maguire Energy Institute. “The price of oil today is determined in North Dakota and Texas, not Saudi Arabia.” Through September, Texas companies produced an average of 3 million barrels a day, almost three times as much as five years ago. In North Dakota, daily production topped 1 million barrels, five times the 2009 level. If oil prices keep dropping, that will eventually slow […]