Jeff Rubin's Blog

Author

After twenty years as Chief Economist for a North American investment bank, it was time for me to seek a larger audience for the story I needed to tell.

My predictions of steadily rising oil prices over the last decade, including my call for $100-per-barrel oil by 2007, had flown in the face of conventional wisdom.

Among other things, my track record on predicting rising oil prices demonstrated that the traditional laws of supply and demand were no longer working for one of the economy’s most basic and essential commodities. And when they stopped working, the consequences for the economy would be severe.

It wasn’t subprime mortgages but triple-digit oil prices that brought down the world economy.

And unless that economy started to wean itself off an ever-depleting supply of affordable oil, there would be other recessions to follow as economic recoveries would simply push oil prices right back into triple-digit range. But weaning our economy off oil meant, at the same time, making fundamental changes in the way we live.

This is not the kind of message investment banks want their chief economists delivering these days, to either governments or investors. But the urgency of this message grows with every passing day.

On March 31, 2009, I resigned my position as Chief Economist and Managing Director of CIBC World Markets to deliver this message in my book, Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization.

Will a Smaller Global Commodities Appetite Benefit Canada?

Popular opinion suggests any slowdown in resource demand from China, which is becoming more desperate in its attempts to revive its flagging economy, will be especially bad for a commodity-dependent economy...

Falling Crude Prices Put Producers Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Oil’s slide below $50 (U.S.) a barrel is the latest turn for a bear market that looks to be settling in for an extended stay. In the oil patch, hope springs eternal that prices will rebound and the cyclical industry can begin...

What $40 Oil Means for Canada’s Economy

What does Canada’s economy look like with oil prices at $40 a barrel? Certainly it won’t be the energy superpower envisioned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. If $40 a barrel still seems a ways off...

Why I’ve Finally Thrown in the Towel on the TSX

Adherents of index investing in Canada have had a rough month as falling oil prices have inflicted considerable pain on not just the energy sector but the entire Canadian market. After surveying the landscape I’ve finally thrown in the towel on the TSX...

Why China’s Slowdown Is Taking a Heavy Toll on Canada

If beaten up Canadian investors are looking to assign blame for the bruising suffered by their portfolios of late, they could do worse than point an accusatory finger at China. The resource super-cycle that drove valuations...

Plunging Oil Prices a Game-Changer for Major Pipeline Projects

Part of the impetus behind constructing new pipelines to carry bitumen from northern Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast, Kitimat on the Pacific, or even all the way across the country to Saint John, New Brunswick was to help close the substantial discount between Canadian oil and world prices.

Why Oil Prices Are Dropping Despite Mideast Unrest

The real reason global oil prices are falling doesn’t have much to do with a bump in the amount of refined products that are being exported from the U.S. In actuality, it’s the same reason that coal prices have been cut in half over the last two years.

The Ironies of Shipping U.S. Coal From B.C.

The latest battleground for U.S. President Barack Obama’s so-called war on coal isn’t even in the lower forty-eight states. It’s across the border in British Columbia’s densely populated lower mainland where a recent proposal to...

A Win for Environment Doesn’t Need to be a Loss for Energy Investors

In the world of energy investing right now, two visions of the future are on a collision course. In one corner, global energy demand will keep ticking along status quo for decades to come.

China’s War on Smog Will Put the Reins on Global Coal Demand

China’s pollution epidemic has finally spurred the country’s leadership to declare a war on smog. It’s about time. Chinese citizens are angry about what’s going into their lungs, while a recent government report says pollution has left 16 percent of the country’s land unfit for use.

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