I'm nominated for best financial blog by a newspaper in "Canada". Vote early and vote often.

Not to be hawkish on oil prices, but how much worse can it get for oil in the short run? While there are lots of things that can take prices into the stratosphere over time, let's count the new-ish short-run things currently pushing prices higher:

1. The U.S. economy is stronger than expected, pushing up demand expectations
2. Goldman Sachs is out with a major report predicting a possible oil super-spike to $200
3. The U.S. and Iran are fighting about nuclear energy
4. Rebel attacks last weekend further curbed supplies from Nigeria
5. Mexico has newly seen supplies from a major fall faster than expected
6. Venezuelan production is off on strikes and Hugo Chavez has fired 20,000 oil workers
7. The U.S. summer driving season is set to begin
8. There is goofy election-year posturing in the U.S. about a gas windfall tax, and about a tax amnesty for gasoline

Of course, we still have the weak U.S. dollar, speculative fondness oil, worries about Iraq production, etc.

So, I'm not saying oil prices can't go higher from here, because they clearly can -- and there are plenty of reasons to believe they will over time --  but doesn't it seems as if the probabilities currently favor lower crude prices, at least in the short run?

Where do folks come down on the balance of probabilities?

In thinking about higher oil prices today, and in scanning an interesting related story at Institutional Investor about proxies demanding more information on public company carbon usage, I got to wondering about something:

In the same way that hedge funds are being urged toward more transparency on how much of their alpha is tied to leverage, how long will it be until companies are pushed to do the same thing with oil?

Wouldn't you like to know how carbon- (or oil-) levered your favorite stock's profits are?

If TechCrunch has this story right, it's big news. The gist: Mike is saying that a source tells them that Yahoo held a board meeting today and put Yahoo chair Bostock in charge in re-opening negotiations with Microsoft.

If true, then it's the end of Jerry Yang's time at Yahoo, not to mention one of the biggest business debacles in recent memory. If it's not true ... well, at least it's entertaining reading from those crazy kids at TechCrunch.

Either way, read the whole thing.

[Update] Kara has some good background reading on one of the Yahoo investors most likely to cause anything like this to happen: Capital Research's (currently pissed) Gordon Crawford.

Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway

- (Nothing But) Flowers, Talking Heads

Here is a fascinating moving (no pun intended) 12-month chart of monthly vehicle-miles on U.S. highways from 1983 to today. It's interesting what has happened in the last three years:

Maybe the cure for higher prices is higher prices after all.

[via FHWA]