Global stocks slid anew on Tuesday as an uptick in German manufacturing orders failed to offset persistent concerns about economic prospects, worries that pushed crude oil down prices to below $63 a barrel.

U.S. stocks fell today, Monday, as investors worried about the potential strength and timing of an economic recovery, sending oil prices and energy shares lower.

When oil prices moved to over $30 a barrel in the mid 1980s, it was considered a significant event. It also signaled the birth of small ethanol companies in the Midwest. Many of them managed to hang around long enough to get a second wind when Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Gulf War pushed oil prices past $40.

In the energy market Thursday, oil managed to gain a little ground, with crude for December delivery closing at $58.24/barrel, up $2.08 on its last day as the front-month contract.

Take our quiz: Is the market even close to normal anymore?… Credit freeze continues to thaw… Mayer and Denning on what companies need to rebound… Home prices fall again, consumer confidence crashes, but market rallies? … Eric Fry on when this global financial trauma will come to an end… Plus, want a DVD copy of I.O.U.S.A.? Get the details below…

We haven’t given you much of a view of how the economy here looks in Colorado. Sorry. We’ve been too busy eating massive portions of food while fending off rubber-band toting nieces and nephews. But since we’re on our way back to Melbourne tomorrow, how about a few parting observations from Colorado?

T. Boone Pickens is a major oil guy. He became successful buying up oil and gas companies and trading energy for his fund, BP Capital. And now he’s forecasting $150 oil.

Gazprom is the world’s largest natural gas company. It holds 17% of the world’s total, and 60% of Russia’s. It also controls the trunk lines throughout Russia as well as most production, transmission, processing and marketing.

What if I told you Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, BHP Billiton, Chevron and ConocoPhillips have committed more than $100 billion into a new source of energy? You’d definitely want to get involved in the early stages, right?

Mexico is the seventh-largest oil producer in the world. Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, is the country’s state-owned oil company.

Pemex pumps out more oil each year than Exxon Mobil. It pays for 40% of Mexico’s federal spending. And thanks to lack of investment, high taxes, corruption, anti-competition laws, Pemex is headed for collapse.

The bottom line, says Justice Litle in Taipan Daily, is that Mexico’s oil fields are running dry.