There is so much happening across the world right now — politically, economically, environmentally and especially in the field of oil (energy) — that it is very hard to stay focused on what really matters.
Compounding the difficulties is the fact that the media, either through sheer ignorance or gross mendacity, is perpetuating obvious political talking points and/or overt propaganda in favor of fact-based reporting.
Our view at Peak Prosperity is that there is a massive wealth transfer coming at some point. It has to happen, because there are only two possible resolutions to the economic predicament of too much debt.
The first would be that incomes rise smartly and the debt gets paid back. We don't think this is going to happen because the trend is on our side (economic growth rates have been sub-par for a decade now) and because the literal and metaphoric fuel for economic expansion — abundant and cheap oil — is gone forever.
How can I say that with oil's price declines fresh in our daily experience? How can I say that cheap oil is gone when the price hasn't been this low in years?
Because price is no longer a useful measure any more. Thanks to years of financial repression we know the price of everything but the value of nothing. Worse, we don't even know the costs.
Sure, prices get whacky during bubbles. And we are in the late stages of the largest set of inter-locking bubbles the world has ever seen. But even with that, I've never seen price discovery more out of alignment with reality than it is now.
Oil As A Catalyst for Instability
Junk bonds are still over-priced, as is every other category of debt all the way on up to US Treasury bonds. Stocks are priced for a perfection that doesn't now exist, nor has rarely ever existed but for the briefest and most ideal of economic conditions.
All that is required for these vast over-pricings to get slammed back to reality is for some catalyst to come along and remind people that the world still operates according to rules that make sense. Now, bubbles have the specially ability to make people take leave of their senses; but our view is that eventually reality always wins.
by singlespeak 
