Sophisse

Another Bullish Argument for Commodities: Demographics

It is a fine line the developed world walks. If we close off emerging markets, the stockings will be empty on Christmas. If we keep it open, then inflation and currency decline steals money from everyone.

I think they'll talk up protectionism, but won't actually do much.

Is Oil a Bubble? Part One

weightyworld: We can both be right! If your hydrogen technology comes along in a few years, then we have to start deploying it across the whole US (and everywhere else I guess). Think how many vehicles we have to build. Think how many fuel stations we have to convert. Think of the massive infrastructure required - power stations to produce electricity to create hydrogen, then we need to ship it around. None of this is impossible, it just takes a long time.

Is Oil a Bubble? Part One

CLH: I have no doubt that you are right about the very long term. If we were to build a transportation system based on electric cars powered by nuclear/wind/solar, once it was built it would be awesome! Or perhaps there's a better system than that. But that's a 20 year window. What do you call the time in between a bubble horizon of 6-24 months, and a wonderful future that takes 20 years to build?

I call it peak oil.

Is Oil a Bubble? Part One

I think both sides can be right, depending on what your timescale is. If oil drops from $130 to $80 and then starts rising again, the bubble proponents will be proud of their correctness, and meanwhile the peak-oil people will look back to $10 oil a decade ago and look forward to $200 or $300 oil in the future.

3 or 4 years ago, when the price of oil was up 4x to $40, you had to be a peak oil optimist to predict $80 oil. Now the peak oil pessimists are predicting a bubbleburst down to $80 oil.

To my mind, that's not a bubble. It's a long term trend with high volatility. I guess if you're a day trader, that's the same thing.