Well if you think your business was bad during the first half of 2008, welcome to the club. Was watching CNN and they said that stock markets set all time record lows during the first half of 2008. The US Dow went down by 14%, which is 4% more than what was experienced during the great depression of the 30’s. Shanghai stock market went far worse as its value sank by 48%. So yes Virginia, we are in a global depression.

Oil didn’t even wait for the half to end as it shot to an all record $140/barrel last week. Oil is in the spot light right now. Despite announcement by Saudi Arabia that they would be increasing output by 500,000 barrels, the oil price still continued to skyrocket.

Oil Oil Oil, that’s all that’s in the news these days. Even overshadowing the Real Estate crisis in the US, which started all this mess in the markets in the first place.

What’s causing the high price of oil. According to Chevron its because the demand is increasing in the developing countries of China and India. Demand is just too great with their standard of living going up. There’s also the recent tension between Iran and Israel. Other’s say that it is because of the Oil speculators.

I just tanked up on gas the other week in the gasoline station that I patronized. I asked what all the digging was for and they said that they were installing new tanks in their station. Expansion? Bahhh, they just want to store more oil so that when the price of gas goes up they earn a few more cents with the fuel they bought in with the old price. So I think there is also some panic buying going on between the gas stations that ads a certain chaos to the oil price demand mix.

Yep, we’re all practically working for oil now.