Import prices fell in April due to a drop in oil costs, a positive sign for household finances that also pointed to benign inflation pressures … The tame inflation environment should allow the Federal Reserve to stay on its ultra-easy monetary policy course as it tries to nurse the economy back to health. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: Good thing this technology arrived when it did.

Free-Market Analysis: In today's lead article we discuss the idea of whether fracking is undermining the petrodollar and aiding the birth of long-awaited global money. But there are other possibilities, as well.

Those running central banks around the world are evidently and obviously petrified that the world's downturn is spinning out of control and will result in an uncontrollable depression that will destabilize the current system.

The advent of fracking and cheaper oil – a technology available for over 50 years – could be an antidote to the global Great Recession.

While we are on the subject, let us remind readers that the global economic system is entirely artificial at this point, fueled by super-money printed by dozens of large, Western central banks.

It is simply a fact that there were perhaps five central banks at the beginning of the 20th century … but now there are something like 150, many controlled by the Bank for International Settlements out of Switzerland.

Do you know who Psy is, the singer-entertainer from South Korea?

How about Jaime Caruana?

Caruana is General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements, whose five-year term began on April 1, 2009. Caruana was also the Governor of the Bank of Spain from July 2000 to July 2006.

Caruana is one of the most powerful men in the world and guides monetary-policy decisions for perhaps half of the globe. Note as well that Caruana guided Spain's central bank right up to the beginning of the financial crisis. Today, as has been noted recently, Spain's banking system is basically insolvent.

Fine job Caruana did with Spain, eh?

A classic case of failing upward. But you'll never read that analysis in the mainstream press any more than you will read the first thing NATO did in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya was to set up or reset central banking.

Why would Caruana be rewarded for basically overseeing the sinking of Spain's banking system? Because central banking is likely not about "helping" economies but about collapsing them to induce further globalism.

The G7 met recently and you can bet the global recovery was on its collective mind. Here's part of a report on that meeting, posted at The Sydney Morning Herald:

G7 pledges its support for global recovery … The Group of Seven top economies is committed to 'nurturing' world economic recovery, British finance minister George Osborne said on Saturday after a meeting of the international body that also pledged to slash countries' public deficits.

'Overall, our discussions over the past two days have reaffirmed that there are still many challenges to securing sustainable global recovery, and we can't take it for granted,' he said.

'But we are committed as the advanced economies in playing our part in nurturing that recovery and ensuring a lasting recovery so that we have prosperity in all our countries.' The Chancellor of the Exchequer was speaking after a two-day informal meeting in Aylesbury, north-west of London, of G7 finance ministers and central bankers aimed at striking a balance between supporting fragile economic recovery and slashing government debt.

Fracking may end up destabilizing the petrodollar, as we have suggested in today's lead article, but it has other uses, as well. In the Internet era, world leaders are increasingly wary of the scrutiny they've come under.

While the system seems to have been constructed for purposeful destabilization, too much can poison the facilities that are supposed to do the job. Perhaps fracking is the antidote.