$200 Oil and $6 Gas Just Months Away

We can argue about whether high oil is a bubble or not and who the villians are, but $200 oil is now a real possibility.

WSJ: Oil's historic ascent from $100 to nearly $150 a barrel in just six months is lending weight to a far grimmer prediction: Crude could reach $200 a barrel by the end of the year.

Oil at that price would wreak deeper havoc on the world's airlines and automobile industries.

In the U.S., $200 crude would push the price of gasoline to well over $6 a gallon, causing commuters to alter their driving habits more sharply than they have already, while putting extreme strains on large sectors of the U.S. economy.

The good news, such as it is, is that such theories no longer seem crazy. And the more that talk of an "oil bubble" is replaced by a sullen consensus that prices are headed straight to the moon, the more likely it is we'll get a major correction. Unfortunately, the main catalyst for this drop will likely be global economic collapse.