Oil: Not Worth What We're Paying For It
This column was written by CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.
It may have changed by the time you hear this but, the price of oil as of this writing is a $122 a barrel.
Cheap, right? That's down $1 from yesterday. Makes you want to run right out and get some…doesn't it? Which is part of the problem.
Earlier this week, a soothsayer from Goldman Sachs suggested the price of oil might hit $150 a barrel…maybe even $200. Yes, we burn too much of it, and yes there is really only a finite amount of it.
But today at this moment…is it worth what we are paying for it? No.
World-wide demand is up, but a lousy dollar and a wobbly economy have made folks want to put their money in something that looks like a winner. So we keep watching the price of oil go up and up. High oil prices fueled boom times in the Southwest in the early 1980s.
Need I remind you, those prices collapsed…20 years ago…and they could again.
By Harry Smith