Quote Originally Posted by Brett
So today oil is down $11 a barrell over the last 24 hours, Part of the reason is investors are "Suprised the economy is slowing down and consumption of gas is decreasing due to higher price"

Now how the f*ck can they be suprised?

I personally think the bubble on the oil market is about to pop (Like the tech stocks in the 90's) and due to they were inflated so much and so quick, That whole market is about to tumble. LETS HOPE SO ATLEAST
The problem with a "bubble pop" is that there's already been a high-water mark set by the bubble. Similarly with stocks, the prices always go UP. This is the key idea behind 'speculative' long term investments like market shares or commodity futures. The price of these kinds of goods over an extended period of time will go up, yielding a return on investment. If nothing else they go up because of inflation. Oil is certainly over it's inflation adjusted previous levels, but not by as much as you'd think. You have to remember that oil is priced in USD versus foreign currencies, and when the USD drops in value against foreign currencies, our price of oil adjusts despite a lack of change on the supplier side's actual income.

(For those of you that have a hard time picturing what that really means, if $1 equals 5 units of foreign currency, and a foreign country sells oil at 50 units of their currency, we see that as oil priced at $10 a barrel. If the exchange rate adjusts to $2 equals 5 units of foreign currency, the foreign country sees no adjustment in income while our costs double from $10 to $20.)

Here's to hoping that the past few years (All the way back to 2001-2002) of rapid surges in oil prices has come to an end, and if nothing else that the price of oil could become stabilized and allow the economy to recover and adjust.