The International Monetary Fund next month will likely revise downward its forecast for economic growth, the managing director said.

Christine Lagarde told the Reuters news agency that "weak demand, flagging trade and investment and growing inequality" were slowing the world's economy.

That's bad news for Houston because the price of energy is directly tied to the pace of economic growth. While a flood of U.S. crude swamped the oil markets in 2014 and 2015, China's slowing economy and the collapse of commodity prices in poor countries exacerbated the collapse in oil price.

More economic sluggishness is bad news for any recovery in energy prices.

"When you look deep down at the economic growth prospects, at the growth potential, at the productivity, we are not getting very good signals, and we will probably be revising down our forecast for growth in 2016," Lagarde said. That will make sixth straight markdown in 18 consecutive months.

Growing economic inequality and expanding poverty are at the root of the globe's economic problems. Look at the average citizen in almost any country, and their purchasing power stalled in 2010 and started dropping in 2014, according to the World Bank.

Since most of the developed world depends on consumers to drive the largest part of the global economy, lower personal income means less money to buy things. That means weaker demand for goods, less trade to supply those goods and less investment in producing those goods.

Income income inequality brought about by slashing wages and benefits, replacing people with machines and allowing wealth to concentrate in a global elite is taking its toll, just like the world's top economists told us it would.

Lagarde said people who lose their jobs due to automation and trade must be retrained and employed to maintain the economy.

"This is something that all countries and all governments should be concerned and mobilized about," Lagarde said.

To see greater economic prosperity, we need to float all boats.