I've been thinking about this very point for the past few months now. Here we sit with an ever weakening dollar while foreign investors are coming in with stronger currency and bidding up oil futures thereby hurting us further. What really gets me though is that there should be some sort of economic backlash, right? Aren't we supposedly living in a "global economy" these days? I get the whole cyclical behavior of an economy (self correcting), but now that we're so connected, won't the results be a bit different this time around? Won't other countries start failing economically as a direct result of our situation because our economy shows little signs of correcting itself?

I know we're not in a textbook recession (2 quarters of negative growth) but I just don't see how people can continue to afford oil/energy the way things are going. Also what about this good ol' 10% ethanol additive we're filling up on these days? Ethanol seems highly irrational as an alternative fuel source because it not only drives up the price of food, but heaven forbid we suffer a dust bowl style drought we're really up the creek. I don't know anymore... greed comes in many forms, that's all I know.