Fuel for a Tired Economy

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The economy is still running—but it is running on fumes. Eighteen months after the last round of fiscal stimulus began to fade, the machinery of growth continues to hum, buoyed by liquidity that refuses to fully recede. Yet beneath the surface confidence of equities and the steady pulse of consumer spending lies a system under strain.

Productivity has stalled at near-zero growth, debt accumulation marches onward without discipline, and the gap between financial optimism and fundamental vitality widens by the quarter. Energy—literal and metaphorical—has become the last dependable engine keeping the American economy in motion. But reliance on fuel alone, without efficiency or renewal, is unsustainable.

In this context, energy markets provide more than a commodity signal. They offer a window into the real economy's exhaustion and the quiet rotation of capital away from leverage and toward physical productivity. While Federal Reserve policymakers talk down inflation and equity indexes reach new highs, oil remains anchored near historic production peaks and energy infrastructure is absorbing more institutional capital than at any point since the pre-pandemic era. The world has learned to live on borrowed energy. What comes next is about earning it.

The tools that policymakers once wielded with confidence are now worn and ineffective. The federal government's debt load stands at thirty-six trillion dollars, with interest payments alone consuming more than thirteen percent of the federal budget—double the share seen a decade ago.

Institutional investors have begun to notice. Capital is rotating out of speculative growth assets and into sectors that generate tangible cash flows: energy infrastructure, liquefied natural gas terminals, refinery upgrades, grid modernization, and nuclear power. The United States sanctioned over fifty million tonnes per annum of new LNG export capacity in final investment decisions this year, the largest single-year commitment on record. Meanwhile, investments in nuclear energy are surging, with global spending expected to top seventy billion dollars in new plants and lifetime extensions.

These investments reflect a shift in thinking. Where financial engineering once dominated boardrooms and portfolio allocation, there is now a growing recognition that the next economic cycle will reward firms and countries that control physical assets and generate real returns. Energy projects offer precisely that: stable cash flows, inflation-protected revenues, and strategic value in an era of geopolitical uncertainty. The move back into hard assets is not nostalgia. It is discipline reasserting itself after a decade of financial abstraction.

The economy may be tired, but fuel still flows. That is the paradox of the moment. Despite warnings of slowdown and surplus, energy demand holds firm, infrastructure spending accelerates, and capital markets continue to allocate billions toward the physical backbone of modern life. What this reveals is not strength, but dependency. The economy has grown reliant on sectors that produce tangible output, even as policy and finance have favored leverage and speculation. True momentum, however, comes from production and efficiency, not stimulus and sentiment.

Policymakers, for their part, must come to terms with the limits of monetary and fiscal tools. Printing money cannot generate productivity. Borrowing cannot substitute for discipline. And liquidity, without underlying economic vitality, is little more than fuel poured into an engine that no longer runs efficiently. The world has learned to live on borrowed energy. What comes next is about earning it.

Deniss Slinkins,
Global Financial Journal