A bad day for the economy but worse to come?

It hasn't been a briliant day for the economy.Marks and Spencer's seeing falling food sales as customers switch to Lidl,Taylor Wimpey realising that nobody wants to buy new homes at the moment,and road hauliers descending on London asking for 24p a litre to be removed from their bills.

More bad news over at Open House where Colin Campbell explians why high oil prices are here for the foreseeable future

At first, people tended to assume that the current crisis likewise sprang for political circumstances in the Middle East, but now there is a growing awareness that much deeper issues are at stake

however he concludes

the world is about half way through the oil age. The first half was marked by the rapid expansion of just about everything, including agriculture which allowed the population to increase six-fold in parallel with oil. Its production today is equivalent in energy terms to 22 billion slaves working round the clock.
The second half, which now dawns, will be marked by the decline of this critical energy supply and all that depends on it. Petroleum Man will be extinct this century, but homo sapiens, if he is as wise as his name implies, can gradually find ways to adapt to the changed circumstances