The Staton Jones Report

Look, there's nothing magic about $50/bbl. oil. Nothing. Still the same stuff -- black gold, Texas tea. It's just that, at $50 a barrel, oil will lower the U.S. GNP from an estimated 4.5% this year to 3.5% or lower.

And we're eight-five cents away from $50 oil. Oil closed at $49.15 on NY Mercantile pre-market trading today.

Market watchers said some investors had started to whisper about the possibility of a $60 barrel, even as the head of producers' cartel OPEC made soothing-but-vague comments about ``a significant outcome'' from its next members' meeting in September.

``Fifty dollars is, I would say, a foregone conclusion,'' said Esa Ramasamy, editorial manager for oil in Asia at Platts, the energy market analysts. ``Now the market is thinking $60, possibly.''

The Saudis keep saying, in effect, "we can replace the reduced production ... at a moment's notice ... just give us the word" and then do nothing to change their output. That's because even though it's going to hurt the world economy something fierce, $50 oil is, well, a frickin' bonanza for these guys. And maybe, just maybe, the price is that high because the Saudis really cannot make up the difference.