"Even to many economists who recently thought the gloom was overblown, the situation looks grim. The economy is in the midst of a very rough patch. The worst is probably still ahead." —New York Times economics writer Peter Goodman.

"The open question is whether we're in for a bad couple of years, or a bad decade," said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, now a professor at Harvard.

Most analysts are not yet ready to compare this with the Great Depression.  Rather, they wonder of this will get as bad as the 1970s.

But I wonder how the effect of rising oil prices will impact the already-beleaguered economy.  This is predictable: as oil demand exceeds supply, truckers and support staff will lose their jobs.  Highway funds will shrink, affecting construction companies and civil engineering firms.  Cheap goods from China won't remain cheap when it costs more to transport them.  And the price of food, linked largely to the price of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, tractor fuel and transportation, will continue to rise.  Add all that to the past eight years of economic mismanagement and the result could be worse than we now anticipate. 

On the other hand, as a nation we are both resilient and innovative.  Perhaps we will find ways to overcome the incompetence of our leaders.