Before you try to profit from high oil prices, you need to know if high prices are here to stay.

Alex Green at InvestmentU.com is not so sure. “A lot of smart people are beginning to believe this bull market will die hard,” says Alex, in his article “Is Oil Becoming the ‘Mother of All Bubbles?’“

Alex quotes Michael Lynch, the president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, who says oil has now become “the mother of all bubbles,” and says that Lynch “has a few pertinent facts on his side.”

Keith-Fitzgerald at Money Morning says the secret to oil prices is understanding the oil prices primary drivers: supply, demand, and interruption. And Keith sees huge demand in China and India.

“Here in China, they’re using fuel at an accelerating rate. Part of that is the increasing reliance on fuel oil, but an even bigger catalyst is simply because companies like Chery Automobile, Geely Automobile (0175: Hong Kong), and Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. Ltd., are producing inexpensive, gas-powered cars for the masses.

“The same is true in India where Tata Motors (TTM: NYSE) $2,500 car is opening up driving and vehicle ownership to millions of consumers who otherwise would never have also become motorists.” Read on to learn how to profit from China and India’s gas guzzling.

Profit Hunter editor Manraaj Singh has another spin on how to profit from high oil prices in his article Arab Oil Wealth to Dwarf US Economy.

Manraaj says the best way to profit from what he calls the “petrodollar bandwagon” is to look at where the world’s sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are investing. SWFs already control $3.5 trillion in assets — more than the UK, French or German economies are worth — and the fastest growing funds are based in oil producing countries that don’t figure on most investor’s maps.

“Now you can’t invest directly in a SWF,” says Manraaj, “but they’re an excellent way of keeping track of where the money is going today and where the biggest economic booms are happening right now.”

Manraaj doesn’t advise directly investing in oil, as there are too many unknowns that go into its price. Instead, he focused on uncovering the investment opportunities being opened up by this dramatic shift in economic power.” Read on to learn more about following the oil money.

Peak Oil guru Byron King and editor of Outstanding Investments puts high oil prices in a different light. “High crude oil prices have a lot do with the decline in value of the dollar,” says Byron in his article Scarcity Is Expensive.

What should you do as an investor to protect yourself from a declining dollar?

Here is Byron’s abbreviated list of recommendations:

1. Buy gold and silver
2. Own mining shares
3. Own energy plays. What forms of energy? All of them — oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels
4. Own energy service plays
5. Own infrastructure plays
6. Buy soft commodities, but only if you really understand how to do this

Read on at Outstanding Investments about how to protect your wealth from the dollar’s demise.

“We’re going to go right at OPEC,” she said. “They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at,” she told a crowd at a firehouse in Merrillville, IN.

“That’s not a market. That’s a monopoly,” she said, saying she’d use anti-trust law and the World Trade Organization to take on OPEC.

The attack on OPEC and evil oil speculators is a powerful piece of posturing. But according to Doug Casey at CaseyResearch.com, Hill may not have such a high profile target for long, as analysts remain confused over the direction of oil.

This from Doug:

On the one hand, “It just doesn’t look like this market is getting ready to turn around and go down for a long term,” said Darin Newsom, of commodities information provider DTN. “The news in Iraq helps confirm there are still problems on the supply side.”

But on the other, “If the rally in the U.S. dollar index gains momentum and money begins to come out of crude oil, the bearish technical signal established this week could lead to a larger selloff ,” Newsom said.