People think we are paying high prices now. Both Oil and  Food prices will go up as shortages kick in. Hard times are ahead for world's population. Floods wiped out half the world's rice supplies in Asia. Droughts in lots of countries also resulting in food shortages and obviously limited water supplies.

Oil prices will continue to go up as Middle Eastern conflicts continue. Crops in third world countires are being used to produce Bio-Fuel instead of food to feed people.

The recession is really starting to bite in the US economy. This will impact upon the rest of the world. Time will tell and we are all in for hard times. 

It has been almost 80 years since the Great Depression between 1929 to 1933 when the Wall street stock Market crashed. Could there be another worldwide economic depression?

^Economic conditions are very bleak. Economists are forecasting very bad economic outlook for world economies.What do you people  think of these predictions?

I think that your predictions are spot on to be honest,

oh just thought lets party, and give the world a good sending off

Well I don't think so. Oil will most likley stay not as cheap as it was, but honestly, the current price are the next bubble building up. Again the cheap money pumped into the market by the FED is searching for a "sure" investment.

But this time around, it has heavy impact on the real markets, world wide. Thats why the bubble won't hold as long as the old ones, you see that by the fact that the actual exchange for goods between producers and consumers (for food) start to be under that what is payed for the same goods in the 95% virtual "stock" market for foods.

Don't worry, this bubble will not hold as long as those before ;)

I (personally) don't see oil prices going that high that quickly unless the Federal Reserve decides to continue cutting rates and rapidly devalues the dollar. I do think that it is possible that we will see 10% to 20% inflation in the price of energy commodities because of several governments actions of taxing oil companies' profits and (therefore) discouraging further exploration; on top of this the introduction of carbon taxes and the implementation of cap-n-trade markets will (dramatically) increase the cost of energy because they were designed to do that to reduce energy consumption.

Now, I'm going to be considered a dink for saying this but "Depressions" are almost a karmic-force which returns balance to the system; people who have not managed their finances well tend to have a very rough time of it, while people who have managed their finances well see the introduction of all sorts of opportunities.

i see oil at a minimum of $150 per barrel by end of year.

Current cars don't offer all manufacturers could do for fuel savings (for example especially in diesel engines and in direct injection gasoline ones, applying the Miller cycle would improve thermal and mechanical efficiency requiring only different camshafts, with no need to have different production plants), I'll keep my 11.5 to 18.5 km/l in real traffic (43.5 to 70 mpg) Ford Fiesta TDDI until they'll release a citycar capable of more than 30 km/l (113.5 mpg) in real suburban use, not only at constant speed, and more than 20 km/l (75.7 mpg) in real urban traffic... I prefer to use less my car and go more by bicycle or walk instead of giving a lot of money for a new car that comes very little closer to solving the problem than my current one.

The sooner we get gravity cars the better!

@alby, your metric fuel consumption confuses me. Fuel consumption in the metric system is measured in x L/100km. I'm assuming you mean you are getting somewhere between 4-6 l/100km (I don't feel like doing any math)?

@OT, I don't think 3rd world countries are even growing food to sell. I'm pretty sure the subsidies given to 1st world farmers allows us to sell food cheaper than 3rd world countries can grow it, hence why there is very little foor grown in Africa.

I have a Honda VTX 1300, model 2006.

It gives me a lot of mpg.

And my wife wants to buy a scooter. The Honda Metropolitan is a nice european style scooter. It gives you 90mpg (the tank is only 1.5 gallon), with a speed of 50 mph. And the best part: only $2,000.

Great to go to work. Plus is a good looking scooter.