Texas, once a star, becomes a drag on the U.S. economy

The article, written by written by Erin Ailworth and Ben Leubsdorf (on the wall street journal website) says that after two years of slumping oil prices, the state is becoming a sore spot for the national economy. When Texas had an economic boom, the boom itself added one out of every seven American jobs between 2010 and 2014. By the end of 2014 the state lost more than 91,000 jobs in oil and gas extraction as well as mining-support activities.
Even though the economy in Texas grew 3.9% a year from 2010 to 2015, oil prices have gone lower. They used to be over $100, but now they are around $50. There are reports of a lot of the unemployed workers going to cities like Atlanta for other opportunities in working industries. I believe that this is unfortunate but at the same time with prices getting lower on oil, there might not be enough money to pay all of the employees, and I think that's just because of how low oil's supply is going to be in the future.

AT&T’s Merger Could Be A Bad Sign For The Economy

The article's author Ben Casselman (on the website fivethirtyeight.com) says that as soon people found out about AT&T's plan to buy Time Warner Cable, people started freaking out and both major parties agreed to oppose it. The reason is because bigger companies are buying small companies left and right, which means that the economy is becoming less dynamic and competitive.
This also makes it harder for people who are trying to have business startups, considering that they are the key sources of innovation. So due to the big businesses taking over like never before, startups are starting to fail dramatically. Unfortunately, the reason why the economy is becoming a little bit slower is because of these big companies doing these merger deals.

Why is the US Economy Sort of Sluggish?

The article, written by Kevin Drum on the date of October 10, 2016 on the website motherjones.com, says that our recent sluggish growth is mostly a result of technological slowdown and demographic changes. The retired population has increased while the working population has decreased. Due to that population decreasing, the GDP growth will also slow down. If less people will be working, does that mean that taxes will be raised so the government can pay for stuff they've always been paying for? The only thing that's hard to say in this situation is whether or not prices will be raised on products because people that are retired still have money for products, but how long will that last with more and more people retiring before their money runs out? Questions like this are hard to answer, but one thing is clear. With a low number of people working, the economy will not go up as fast as some people would like it to.