There is a fierce debate going on at across a number of economic and financial blogs about the most recent price spikei in oil. After years of seemingly orderly increase, the price of oil took off dramatically in February 2007 and even moreso in early 2008, rising from $55 a barrel only 16 months ago to $140 a barrel now -- a percentage equivalent to the move from $20+ a barrel to $55 a barrel in the entire decade from 1997 to 2007.
Clearly, something happened in the last year and a half to cause the price of oil to go "parabolic" -- the straight to the heavens chart that we have seen before in the 1920s stock market and the Nasdaq tech bubble.