So for those that are still in denial, there is no oil bubble. Prices are going to continue to rise as long as India and China (and Vietnam and Iran and South Korea and...) continue to develop. Paul Krugman, for one, sees a silver lining:

The consequences of that scarcity probably won’t be apocalyptic: France consumes only half as much oil per capita as America, yet the last time I looked, Paris wasn’t a howling wasteland. But the odds are that we’re looking at a future in which energy conservation becomes increasingly important, in which many people may even — gasp — take public transit to work.

I don’t find that vision particularly abhorrent, but a lot of people, especially on the right, do. And so they want to believe that if only Goldman Sachs would stop having such a negative attitude, we’d quickly return to the good old days of abundant oil.

Rampant speculation is not driving the price of oil; rampant consumption is. And if you need more proof...

When I'm canvassing (my depressing minimum-wage job this summer), I get a lot of people who believe that the next President might help lower the price of oil, and they always look at me as though I should feel sorry for them because they drive an Escalade and have to pay for escalating gas prices. Boo fucking hoo.