Oil will be $100 by Christmas and $50 within a decade

While demand and speculation have combined to drive Oil to an all time high, its price could be below $100 by Christmas, and below $50 in under a decade.

The price of crude oil has more than doubled in price since the $70 price we had in August 2007. However the price increase is not down to supply and demand forces! The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) reported that about 70% of buyer activity was by speculative investors, and that there is double the number of speculative traders today than at the turn of this century.

Now, speculators are good and help support markets so peaks and troughs are avoided. Hedge Funds and Investment Managers are turning away from the traditional stock and money markets, and are holding out here, which has led to a disrupted market. The market will correct itself, and other markets will come back to offer higher returns, so the money will move, just as it did in the Dot Com boom rupture of only a few years ago. This is going to be driven by a curb in consumption which is being created by governments of developing nations who are removing subsidies, leaving a situation of over supply, which will drive the speculators to quickly sell their positions to preserve their funds to invest in other markets – so $100 by Christmas is a distinct reality.

It will happen, but it will happen at the markets behest. Recent attempts to influence the market by a rumour of an American/Israel invasion of OPEC’s second largest producer, Iran, would normally be ignored by politicians, however both 5th Fleet Commander and Israeli Minister of Defence issued quick denials of any truth.

The reality is that the net increase of demand for oil in the past year is only 1.7% - the typical norm in terms of expectations, even with the economic burst rate of Asia and China. Couple that with statements by Libya that production should now be reduced to maintain the price – ratifying that we are still in an over supply situation, even though the commodity in question is actually a finite resource. However, there is still the fact that there are up to 500 Billion barrels of Oil under Dakota/Montana which would give the USA the ability to enjoy sub $50 Oil, but we are told its still not viable to go and get it any time soon even though today the USA only produces 40% of its own needs.

So for now, we need to keep efficient and keep productive – the underlying economy is still in good shape, and most sectors continue to grow, even at only a modest level. We have the benefit of insight into what helped get us out of the bad recession of the 80’s, so we must battle this one immediately, rather than repeating the mistake of waiting a decade to do so.

Cool technology - worth a look

Establish an exception management process

Any process documentation needs to deal with process management system procedures. These vary according to the organization involved but should always include how variations and changes to a process will be handled.

Called an exception process, this sort of documentation is critical to ensuring that processes don't morph into unrecognizable procedures from country to country as changes are made to processes. At the same time, it's important to recognize that different countries or regions will have different requirements -- some legal, some consumer oriented, some language related.

To address those differences, your process management system procedures need to include concise instructions showing who can initiate a request for process change, who can approve a request, and who will implement a request if it's approved.

You could use an Exception Change Request form, which would be a form included in your guide (usually in the appendix) that asks for details about the requester, the reason for the exception, where the exception applies, the funding implications, and implementation requirements.

Process Master deals with this in both the documentation output and as part of its library functionality – making it easy to get on with the job and cutting out the red tape.

Document process management system procedures

Process management systems are simply the reporting methods that show who is reporting to who -- and when -- about the process. You can see more about this concept in www.ProcessMaster .com

In your document, you'll want to document the actual management system that has been created for your process. For some, this may be a simple paragraph, for others it may mean the inclusion of a diagram to show how the management system works. Including this in your guide helps readers recognize all the people who have a stake in the process. You can do it manually, but ProcessPad will time compress your efforts so you can just get it done, without the need to add complexity to the operation of creating process documentation.

This Recession will last 8 more months

NO CHANCE..........it will be here for a while yet, and here is why.

Recessions and Depressions are actually very predictable, but are unstoppable.

We have had a few………2001, 1991, 1981, 1970, 1958, 1952, 1942 1929 and 1919.
A recession happens roughly every 10 years and lasts almost exactly a year and a half, but its occurrence can be delayed or induced by either an act of warfare (1957 Korean War)(1919 influx of troops onto the employment market)or an Oil crisis (1972 OPEC increased prices by 400% because of low production). A economic decline happens about every 50 years and is related to government budget/GDP positions of - and a swelling of unemployment numbers to beyond 16%, and can last for up to 4 years.

This recession is being emphasised by an increase in oil prices, not by a shortage generated out of increased use of oil. It is also down to the financial mismanagement of investment management in financial products. So we have all the same positions in place to show this recession to be very much like the recession of 1958, where it’s effects could have been minimized in relation to the stagflation of the time, but the tax increases on oil and a USA budget deficit made it a very tight time.

So the issues of today are real, predictable, but not permanent - some will suffer, most will not but everyone will be touched.