Paul Erdman

We need both cheap money and cheap energy, in particular oil and its derivatives. The problem is that we can print our own money in any quantity the Fed deems sufficient to keep the economy humming along. But we can only provide 40 percent of the oil we must have from domestic sources.

There is a growing consensus that the crucial turning point in oil output will probably occur in the second half of this decade, in or around 2007. It will be an energy crisis that will dwarf anything we have ever experienced.