Interview With Ian Gordon

IAN: Well I do subscribe to the theory of peak oil. But again, I think the demand for oil is going to drop precipitously. Simply because no one’s gonna be working. Again if we use the idea that 45% of the U.S economy is going to be halted. That means essentially that the same kind of oil demand is the percentage dropping oil demand is also going to occur in the United States. And we are only picking on the United States because she has the largest economy in the world but we are all going be in be in the same boat.

So the whole world economy is going to drop by that kind of percentage.

TRACE: But not necessarily a precipitous enough drop that we could see 90% of the earth’s population washed away in this winter because of unsustainability?

IAN: Well, you are not going to see that because, as you know, there is a significant part of the world’s population who basically do not have anything anyway. If we go into Africa, or huge parts of China, India, etc. even though they are emerging nations they still have a large percentage of the population that are extremely poor.

World Need for Oil Expected to Ease: International Energy Agency Says Conservation Efforts Will Trump Any Global Economic Recovery

The International Energy Agency next week will make a "substantial" downward revision to its long-term forecast for global oil demand, a person familiar with the matter said, marking the second year running the group has slashed its view of the world's thirst for oil.

The forecast of slower growth in oil demand puts the IEA increasingly in a camp of contrarians bucking the popular view that crude demand will grow briskly in a postrecession world. That view holds that long-term demand will grow at a fast clip because of rising emerging-market wealth and consumption in places like China and India.

...A person familiar with the Paris-based IEA's plans said "demand-management policies" are having more impact than previously expected in the developed world, which accounts for about 55% of world oil consumption. The IEA outlook, a guidepost for industry trends, is scheduled to be released Nov. 10.

Aramco takes war on speculators to whole new index

With oil prices thoroughly decoupled from the fundamentals of supply and demand, Saudi Aramco has decided it is time to nudge the market towards reality.

Last week, the world’s biggest oil company said that as of next January, it would use the Argus Sour Crude Index instead of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude as the benchmark for pricing all grades of Saudi crude sold to US customers.

Why that would make a difference takes some explaining, but it boils down to a decision to link Saudi crude sales to a market that the state-owned Aramco can influence through the number of tankers it dispatches towards the US coast.

The holdout: Alone in an abandoned car plant

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- Most people assume the Packard Plant in Detroit is vacant. It's an industrial ruin where the last car was manufactured 53 years ago.

Almost all the windows are blown out. Collapsed walls litter the overgrown sidewalks with broken bricks, mixed with charred metal and shattered glass.

But one tenant remains headquartered among the vines, rust and graffiti. Where 11,000 employees once clocked in, now just 10 workers for Chemical Processing Inc. show up each morning.

Running a business in a facility widely assumed to be deserted has its challenges. The address surprises customers. The landlord doesn't make repairs. And sometimes, scrappers steal your power lines.