Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein...

Our earlier post here discussed oil going down to $40/bbl:

Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein...: I've been bumping up this thread from time to time: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel? : A couple of we...

 At the time I started this series of threads out, $40/bbl sounded absurd, and there were plenty of naysayers.  Since that time, it's dropped down that low, but then rebounded to $60/bbl. Now, however, some industry analysts are noting that the supply is so over stocked that there's a real chance of it going down to $20/bbl.

That's simply amazing.

And it would truly be devastating to American oil exploration. At that level, it would be at an all time low, lower than its ever been, by a significant margin.

Layoffs in the industry are still going on, and they'd have to accelerate at that point.  There's be no way around it. What the overall impact on the economy would be I can't say, other than that's so low it would probably have a temporary deflationary impact.  But for the oil industry, it'd be devastating.