crude is dropping but this is just the deflation of the speculative bubble. ie we are now close to delivery dates and the clever investors have taken their profits and now end uses are getting the black stuff.
World economy is in recession demand is dropping. I think alot of individuals and companies have made big changes to lifestyle, ie car usage or shipping stuff halfway across the globe for cheap processing in Asia then shipping it back for sale(did I see a piece about shellfish from Scarborough)
Its called demand destruction and leads to deflation and it is much worse than inflation, because we end up having cheap petrol to drive our X5s but we wont have work (therefore pay taxes and fund publuc spending)
Normally this ends in a violent way (then we can create jobs and therefore inflate money supply again) Think of Falklands conflict.1982 or Gulf War 1. Oh and after 9/11 Gulf War 2. The economic benifits of a short war are well known in increasing money supply and economic activity to kick start US and UK.PLC..