Some quick links that I had around:

• New Jersey principal gets out of auto lease by torching car (NJ.com)
• VCs Doerr and Moritz together on stage: Does anyone really care what these two think any more? (VentureBeat)
• Big growth in the in-car infotainment market -- and I want these people kept away from me on road (iSuppli)
• The NY Times finds a publicity-hungry economist willing to contorting support for gas tax rebate (NY Times)
• The U.S. is in recession, and the California budget deficit is spiraling from $9-billion to $20-billion (Milken)
• Brazilian coffee crops are booming, even if Starbucks is stumbling (Barron's)
• Jim Rogers hearts  Taiwan, China, and (temporarily) the U.S. dollar (CNBC/YouTube)
• Anyone messing with any of these CurrencyShares trusts? (Swiss Franc Trust)
• Helpful tips for Warren Buffett on improving his option-trading strategies (Andrew Clavell)
• My NPR Marketplace commentary on Microsoft/Yahoo from earlier this week (Marketplace)

Some useful gas/housing GDP sensitivity analysis from a new Milken report:

- Each 10 percent decline in housing sales correlates in an 0.8 percent decline in real GDP.
- Each $10 increase in oil price reduces real GDP by 0.2 percent.

In the tragic and destructive situation around Chile's Chaiten volcano, which is currently erupting and has caused large-scale evacuations, some of the recent satellite photos have been eye-popping. Here is one from Tuesday just as the volcano shot a new plume high in the Andean sky.

It is striking that three recent articles this week have struck the same note: The U.S., with its crumbling infrastructure and fearful politicians, looks increasingly like the third world. Airports are an embarrassment, bridges are collapsing, education is a mess, and don't even get started about healthcare, the environment, auto over-reliance, etc.

Read 'em all in their anti-American (ahem) glory:

• Who will tell the people? (Friedman/NYT)
• On the pot-holed highway to hell (Gapper/FT)
• The "creaking" U.S. airline industry (Price/BBC)

My friend Howard gives one highly personal take on the other side of this gloominess. Other thoughts?

My earlier post about the possible oil bubble seems to have touched a nerve, so here is more. The good people at Factset have out a fascinating new report on the same subject -- how energy markets are becoming awfully bubblish -- and it's worth a read in its entirety.

Here is one quick figure from the report showing how profits are growing so quickly that oil companies can't keep up by raising prices. It creates an interesting box for energy companies and is one sign of a crack in the market.

To be clear,  I see no reason why oil prices tumble materially tomorrow. Matter of fact, I'm usually two years too early on these calls -- at least I was in 1998 on dot-coms, and again in 2004 on housing markets -- but it feels, as they say, directionally correct (couldn't resist), and the vehemence of perma-petro-bulls helps (and you can be petro-skeptical and an energy bull at same time).

More seriously, I don't buy the argument that oil is a special case. Yes, oil supply is finite and yes, demand is growing, and yes, energy is the core of our modern life, but oil is also a classic complex system: Small demand perturbations, given the market's current criticality (c.f., Per Bak), could have massive implications for price. Oil is special, but it's not that special.

So, what would it to take oil prices down from here?

• A huge oil find might help, but it wouldn't likely make much difference. Too long to market, too much capital, too much uncertainty about productive size, etc.
• A brilliant technology innovation would do the deed, but you have to be truly a wild-eyed optimistic sort to buy that argument, at least in the short run.

About the only thing I can realistically imagine is a material decrease in demand, or potentially in demand growth. Oil supply and demand are currently delicately balanced at the 85-million barrels-a-day mark, and supply is growing, at least a little. A decrease in demand growth, likely caused by a regional recession in China/India/Europe, or an outright demand decrease, which could only be caused by a global recession, would do the deed.

And how likely are either of the above? At current prices, a lot more likely than they were $30-a-barrel ago.