Creative Destruction . . .

IT IS IMPORTANT not to become so absorbed in studying the blips in interest rates, exchange rates, inflation rates and other economic indicators that we forget these are merely thermometers. They can tell us something about the temperature of an economy, but, taken alone, not much about the major changes that underlie these familiar figures.

Start with the energy sector. We know that demand for crude oil has outstripped supply, driving the price of crude to and past $60 per barrel. Whether that price will persist in the face of slowing growth in China, and the increase in supplies that will result from the 13 percent increase in oil companies’ exploration outlays, compared with about 4 percent last year, we do not know.