Oil prices fell by almost 3.5 percent towards $69 a barrel on Monday as further signs of weak fuel demand raised expectations that prices may have raced ahead of the nascent economic recovery.

America is witnessing a mammoth increase in the money supply.  According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, seasonally adjusted M2 has gone from $7.25 trillion in July of 2007 – to over $8.37 trillion today.  That’s 15.44% more money circulating around the economy in just two years, a colossal $1.12 trillion increase.

Oil prices fell more than 1 percent to $63 a barrel today, Tuesday, as growing uncertainty over an economic recovery spurred investor risk aversion.  A member of U.S. President Barack Obama’s economic advisory panel said the world’s top oil consumer should plan to possibly provide a second round of stimulus funds to prop up the economy, implying that recovery is still far off.

Before last fall’s crash, our economic views here at Casey Research were regarded by many in the mainstream as being extreme and alarmist. Unfortunately, they were also another thing: correct. Predictably, having been proven right hasn’t changed anything; Wall Street still pooh-poohs us as being part of the lunatic fringe.

Markets were in the dumps yesterday with more broken bones than a wrestling match at the retirement village.  On Wall Street, the thirty blue chip names comprising the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.35%, or 200 points.

This week’s Outside the box looks at some very interesting research done by two economic historians, Barry Eichengreen of the University of California at Berkeley and Kevin O’Rourke of Trinity College, Dublin They give us comparisons between the Great Depression and today’s downturn.

Why invest in commodities? Two and a half billion people are going to live like Americans in the next 20 years and prices go up over time, that’s the nature of inflation.

One of the most accurate forecasters of the global economic crisis, Nouriel Roubini, said last week that last September’s spree of bank takeovers deepened the crisis because it made the already-too-big banks even bigger.

The mobs are forming… Give the sans-culottes a chance…and they’ll turn violent. So far, two bosses have been held hostage in France. Employees wanted something the bosses either couldn’t or wouldn’t give.

Oil rose to the highest level in about four months above $54 a barrel on Thursday as expectations that economic stimulus packages might be working to offset the impact of high oil inventories.