For those who think that oil prices can only go up, up and away from here on out, I am still waiting to hear how plummeting demand for crude oil from refineries, which are now dropping off like flies, will contribute in the short-term. Some may argue that the developing economies of the East will single-handedly keep prices elevated, but they are ignoring a) the speculative premium built in to oil prices and b) the fact that these emerging economies do not exist in a bubble that is isolated from the effects of demand destruction in the West, i.e. a decoupled global economy.
Demand for oil is certainly still rising in the emerging economies at a rate faster than demand is falling in the West, but the question is how long before the latter burns out the former. In our hopelessly inter-connected global economy, there is little doubt in my mind that it will happen, just like higher oil prices will burn themselves out by feeding back into downstream demand destruction in the refinery industry and businesses/households. Anyway, here is the latest on the Iceberg that has had its way with Western refineries, courtesy of the Financial Times:
From the blog The Automatic Earth, the whole thing can be found Here.
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. 
