Remember 2008 and the price of fuel?
Time magazine had an article in its June 5th edition titled, “Will the Oil Bubble Burst?”
What a timely article!
Crude oil prices peaked the first week of July on the The New York Mercantile Exchange at $145 a barrel.
Oil is now selling at over $100 a barrel less.
I was confident that prices would drop. The way prices were rising just didn’t make sense to me. To me, the only thing that made sense was the idea that speculators bidding on the future price of oil was driving prices ever higher.
Several years ago, there was a piece on National Public Radio where a guy was talking about his new book on the coming bursting of the housing bubble. I knew that home prices were outrageous, but, until that point, I never thought about there being a pricing bubble in housing. It made complete sense. Though I never read that fellow’s book, it didn’t take me by surprise when home prices started to free fall.
The free fall in home prices and the rising cost of fuel, along with the prices everything else related ina any way to fuel usage, exacerbated the problems of the already anemic economy.
My forecasts for the future?
- The economy will begin recovering by the middle to the end of 2010.
- Global temperatures will continue to drop until at least 2020.
(some of the sources I’ve been reading on climate change)
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Let's hope we're all around to check out your predictions for global temperatures. 🙂
<abbr>Jean Browman–Cheerful Monk’s last blog post..The Joys of Procrastination</abbr>
"The economy will begin recovering by the middle to the end of 2010." I hope so. I sometimes worry that it's going to take as long as the Great Depression.
I'm glad someone has a handle on this stuff. So are you actually saying that much of this is deliberately manipulated? (except the weather, of course… right?)
Jean – Well, I certainly plan to be around that long.
Vered – I'm actually more confident on my climate forecast than I am on my economic forecast.
XUP – I don't think it was deliberately manipulated. I think it was a whole lot of investors who were all trying to make money on the same things that pushed prices for homes and oil ever higher – unsustainably high. The only handle I really have on this is that my retirement savings were NOT affected by the economic downturn. I was VERY conservative when I rolled my 401K over.
Mike, there is a Sanskrit saying "Thathaasthu" that means, "So be it".
It is actually an invocation to make it so. Another saw is "Aapkey moohn mein ghee shakkar" meaning, I wish you lots of clarified butter and sugar on your tongue! Clarified butter is offered as an oblation in our fire ceremonies and is used in cooking as well as just an add on in our meals just like you do with butter.
I wish you both.
<abbr>rummuser’s last blog post..Zardari’s Admission</abbr>
Ramana,
Thank you!
I know that there is something lost in translation and in the difference in cultures, but I think I know where you are coming from and I appreciate the thought.