Oil Bubble to Burst?

Noticing that there is a bubble is no big deal. I noticed that there was a stock market bubble in the late 1990's. I noticed that there was a real-estate bubble in the mid 2000's.

And I've noticed that there is an oil bubble that started a couple of years ago.

But calling an end to a bubble is difficult. How do you know when investors are going to collectively realize that all their stocks can't be the next Microsoft?

And given how irrational the Federal Reserve has acted in the past 20 years, even though you could predict that the housing bubble would burst when the Fed raised rates high enough, there was no way to predict when the Fed would get around to acting.

We are in an oil bubble. But that does not mean that the price of oil can't go higher, or that it might not take years instead of months for it to burst.

Consider the counter-argument: the globe has reached peak oil production, but demand is still rising rapidly, so prices will continue to be pushed up.

I believe it is likely that we have reached the vicinity of peak oil production, but Saudi Arabia could flood the global market with oil tomorrow if it desired to, and keep the flood running for at least a couple of decades.

Demand is already being pinched, but converting from oil to other energy sources, or to conservation, is a slow process. Yet it is happening. Talk to any car dealer in the U.S. about what has been selling in 2008, and they will tell you: fuel efficiency. People are sizing down. They are going to size down through all of 2008, and in 2009 Americans will be using a lot less gas.

True, demand in India, China, and other developing countries will increase. But these nations are also rapidly adopting non-oil based energy technologies.

Consider Applied Materials (AMAT) [disclosure:I own this stock]. It sells a line of solar panel factories. That is, it makes all the tools you need to make massive, low cost solar panels. You build a big building and move in one of the factories. You spit out solar panels. Another company paves large sections of the earth with them. Soon all-electric cars will run on the energy from these massive solar installations.

Multiply that example by a thousand other innovative companies and the practical decisions of billions of individual consumers, and you have demand for oil that is drying up. In addition, there is plenty of oil and gas. Do you see people lined up waiting for gas? No. There are no shortages. At least half of the current price of oil is pure speculative fever.

Maybe it is a good thing. Maybe these speculators are doing more to ease global warming than the federal government ever did or ever will do. But if federal taxes had been used to raise gasoline prices to today's level, we would not have a huge federal budget deficit in addition to our other troubles.

I can't say when the bubble will burst. And artificial shortages, like the one caused by the Iraq war, or Enron's gaming, could be created.

Meanwhile real estate is reasonable and stocks are dirt cheap. Food is another matter. We are in that part of the Malthusian cycle when there is not enough food for all the people who have procreated. If you bought sacks of flour last year your return today would be better than most managed stock funds performed.

It is a strange, new world. The pace of change in the 20th century will prove to be nothing compared to changes this century. And one change is coming fast: the end of the Oil Era.