Closing In On $45

Emails today showed me oil was at $44.66! It’s getting closer to $50, which may be the magic number. The price at which the oil companies will stop laying off people. The price at which they might start thinking about how they’ll manage to continue working without  having the people to do the job.

I’m sure most people are happy to see the price of oil so low. It certainly helps at the gas station (tho prices are no where near as low as they should be if just depending on the price of oil)! I’m happy to pay less at the pump too, but for all the people like me who’ve been laid off over the last year, it hurts. It hurts bad.

I’ve read that somewhere around a half million people have been laid off since the price of oil started dropping. That’s a lot of people forced to cut back, sell assets, into bankruptcy. That’s a lot of people shut out of good paying jobs and into minimum wages (if any).

I keep wondering when things will stop hurting and start getting better? I don’t think anyone really knows. Some pundits say oil will go to $14, others think it will go back to $100+.

I don’t want it to go to either of those extremes. I’d be happy with $70-80. That should be enough to put everyone back to work and keep it affordable at the pumps too. 🙂