I hope you'll forgive me this opportunity to flex my Cassandra syndrome and chortle gleefully at the possibility of impending catastrophe. The price of oil reached $40 for the first time since 1991 and forced government faplaps to finally admit that yes, high oil prices could ultimately slow the economy. Even OPEC is distressed by high oil prices, since sustained high oil prices means conservation, i.e. fleeing from oil to other energy sources, which means loss of profits (though since they announced production cuts a month ago, maybe they have no one to blame but themselves).

I chortle gleefully because I'm an afficianado of the Peak Oil theory, which says that global oil production is going to peak sometime in this decade (and maybe already has), following which it will inevitably decline while demand continues to grow and oil price thus skyrockets and economies grind to a halt, followed eventually by agriculture and civilization (depending on how cranky you allow your theory to get). This theory gets short shrift from just about everyone for reasons I am unable to fathom, and it's somewhat gratifying to see evidence that it might come crashing down on the heads of all these doubting Thomases.

I'm going to milk this "I told you so" stuff for all its worth, since I'm clearly not going to get any other gratification out of life.

Update: Looks like Paul Krugman has joined the Cassandras. Although he's pretty wimpy about it. But I'll take any heavy-hitters I can get... gratification, here I come!