Long post, but an important one...
Here is what I think will happen: The price of oil/gas will wobble around for a bit. It will go up with Middle East tension and war and will go down when things settle down there. It will go up a little if there is a small Dow jump and the price will go down when that jump reverses. Then sometime next year - possibly late spring or during the summer sometime - the dollar will tank. This will be caused by one or more factors:
The $trillions pumped into the banks will need to be printed. It won't be created by commerce. So that will put downward pressure on the dollar.
The USA very well my default on its debt in 2009. That would be devastating to our economy and the value of the dollar. If that happens, China, the Middle East and Japan will quickly try to dump their USA debt. This will cause further pressue on the dollar and will basically finish what is left of our economy.
The world's oil producers will probably change the currency that oil is traded in to the Euro or even a new regional currency (Middle East). Right now oil is traded in dollars. So when the dollar goes down, oil goes up. When the dollar goes up, the price of oil goes down, generally speaking. If oil is traded in Euros for example because the dollar crashed, that will cause oil to skyrocket for us because the dollar will be losing value relative to the Euro.
I think 2009 is going to be a very grim year for the country. It may take decades for us to recover, if we ever do. Our government has sold our future and our future is now.
Dollar threats:
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article8031.html
Stages of Collapse
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost. The future is no longer assumed resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and access to capital is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost. As local social institutions, be they charities, community leaders, or other groups that rush in to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for "kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity" (Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes "May you die today so that I die tomorrow" (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). There may even be some cannibalism.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/40919
We are in stage 2 and quickly heading to stage 3.
Orlov 2 days before Christmas, from his website cluborlov:
I haven't been posting of late, mostly because I feel that my job is more or less done. I called it as I saw it, and, unfortunately, I seem to have called it correctly. The US is collapsing before our eyes. Stage 1 collapse is very advanced now; stages 2 and 3 are picking up momentum. I might have more to say later.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article8082.html
