It’s that the USD, which is what oil used to be priced in, is losing more and more of its value. The sellers of oil just adjust the dollar price to give themselves a fairly constant return in real money : Euros, Yen, and so forth.

And the only way to get out of falling dollars is to buy something that has intrinsic value, unlike the currency itself. Since the world is awash in dollars, you have too many dollars chasing too few barrels.

Pretty soon you’ll have to spend your paycheck on the way home from work on payday to avoid the total loss of its value.

It’s happened before… just elsewhere.