John Burbank: Oil Will Go Higher Until It Breaks the World Economy

Via Bloomberg Television:

“[Oil] is up 16%, more than any of the indices. It’s a big problem for the rest of the world – central bank easing and liquidity providing presents a lot of problems for the average consumer here but also for emerging markets around the world.”

“The one market it really helps is the Saudi market. We have 15% of our capital in the Saudi market – only about 1% is held by foreigners. It should be opening up this year. So we think unfortunately QE3, which is now being pursued in Europe and Japan, essentially in the U.S. with other programs, has negative feedback loops. And oil we think is the one. Gold goes up 10%, 20%, 50%, it doesn’t cause any problems with people the way banking is done these days, but oil does… I don’t think oil is going to stop until the economy breaks which is a real risk.”

“The average consumer isn’t doing well. Their income has been flat for almost ten years, but their costs keep rising. They had a benefit with natural gas being cheaper this year, but the oil price is now breaking out and it’s breaking out because of all the liquidity in the world. The oil price is making new highs in euros and pounds and it may soon in dollars. That’s a big problem.”