P.S. A couple of closing remarks... this entry may represent what to many is an insanely bearish or pessimistic outlook.  I have no axe to grind one way or the other, but I look at a 30-year chart of the S&P500 for example and I see two clear speculative peaks, the first due to dot-com and the second due to real estate.  The first long-term support trendline is at 800, roughly same as the lows touched in 2002-03, and, unless someone invents cheap fusion power or levitation or nanotech soon, I think we will hit 800 again at some point in the next 5 years or so, if not lower.  Do I expect the S&P500 to really go below 1000 this year?  Not necessarily, but I expect events to unfold such that S&P puts appreciate substantially.  Stock prices in general are pretty close to all-time highs, that in itself is a good reason to short.

I suppose it is also possible that due to (again) cheap fusion power, or a giant asteroid made of pure oil hitting the earth, or friendly aliens stopping by and teaching us how to run our cars on dilithium, oil might go down, but the likelyhood of any of those is, well... let's say a lot less than the likelyhood that both Cantarell and Ghawar oilfields will decline substantially in the very near future. 

Also P.S. as I've found out, nobody likes a bear ... GRRR ;)