Peak of Erudition

Crude oil prices have at last come down to two digits after staying in three digits for several months together. This is indeed a welcome relief for developing countries and developed countries alike because fuel inflation has hit the economic growth across the globe. Even at the current level, the crude oil prices are over 40% above what they were a year ago. Compared to over 100% inflated levels, 40% higher prices indeed look better.

We need to be aware that we are destroying many forests and natural systems like rivers and lakes for our own convenience but are not realizing that this is indeed expected to cause a major havoc for our future generations in terms of their basic needs. If there are not enough forests, they are not going to get enough food and water because there will not be enough rains. If we are going to reduce the water resources for them, we are going to make their ability to store the reduced quantity of rain water they get, which will be much more disastrous. Let us just think for a moment, and consciously work towards reducing our damage to our ecological system. At a later stage, we can work towards increasing the forest base by growing more trees and making more rain water storage systems.

American Insurance Group, AIG, the largest insurance company of the world has collapsed and is being rescued by the US government with nearly 80 billion dollars worth of funding. The US government has decided to bail out AIG because the collapse can cause major panic among all investors towards US and US securities for decades to come.  Still there could be more major bank failures in coming weeks which cannot be avoided due to the collapse of Lehmans, which has created billions of dollars of losses to all linked parties.

Hillary Clinton has finally conceded the democratic candidate ticket to Barak Obama after a nail biting fight at every stage over the last few months. In a common platform she shared with Obama recently, she has accepted her defeat and requested her supporters to support Barak Obama in becoming the next US President in the November elections. On his part, Barak Obama has pledged support to Hillary Clinton for clearing her election spends worth millions of dollars.

Crude oil prices have started their downward march in the last few weeks with the price dropping to nearly 120 dollars in the last few days. Though this is over 25 dollars below the all time high touched few weeks back, it is still over 70% above the rates that prevailed a year ago. The prices need to come down further to below 80 dollars level, to make a positive impact on the spiraling fuel costs across the globe. God only knows whether the crude prices will tend lower or whether they will start reversing and moving upwards again.