Missing or intentionally missing the point?
Mr. Nelder is obviously using the term "recession" in the colloquial rather than formal sense. The key statistics are therefore unemployment & disposable income per employed individual rather than GDP. Mr. Nelder lists his assumptions which are entirely reasonable to support his conclusion in a piece of this length. A lengthy paper would substitute variables for some of the givens.
Our recent history is that high fuel prices & the onset of the recession occurred closely together. The combination of current fuel prices & a fast growing economy hasn't existed long enough on a national level to provide a history of fuel consumption. There might be on a regional or state level, if anyone compiles data that way.
There's no argument that manufacturers built & the American public bought bigger, more powerful & less fuel efficient vehicles when fuel prices were low & the economy was better. There's also no argument that more US production will not offset increased global demand from other countries such as China & India.
