Radicals trying to parse bourgeois discourse around oil now should remember that a lot of it is infected by market sentiment, and with oil up 250% over the last five years, market sentiment is very frothy. (Sentiment follows prices, it doesn't lead them.) A lot of the recent gains were driven by speculators, not actual producers or users, and they're attracted by price movements, not fundamentals. For a lot of them, the fundamentals are just after-the-fact rationalizations of market dynamics. Since many, maybe most, "experts" quoted in the papers are Wall Street analysts, they're going to reflect the bullish consensus.
I suspect we're closer to a price peak than further sustained increases.
Doug
