Like Cures Like

Back in 2002, the gibbering husks at Forbes Magazine were breathlessly excited about a Post-Saddam Premium: The invasion would send oil prices plummeting, which would deal a staggering blow to the anti-American fiends at OPEC, while heralding a bright new day for you and me and the man in the next street. And, of course, oil revenue would pay for the invasion and reconstruction (which Forbes cheerfully estimated would cost about $50 billion).

By 2004, Forbes had changed its tune, somewhat. The cover story on its October 18 issue was "Why $45 Oil is Good for You."

By that measure, things are getting better all the time. The price of oil has tripled since 2002.

Steve Forbes himself spent late 2005 touting $35 oil by early 2006. However, that prediction was at odds with Forbes' private advice to investors in September of 2005:

Oil and natural gas are on their way to significantly higher levels. I expect to see crude move to $65.00 this summer and to $76.00 by early next year.

Now, Steve Forbes is arguing that attacking Iran will bring oil prices down.

[W]hen we have the confrontation, which we will have, we can really deal with that crisis. Then the price of oil will come down.

Forbes' brand of Paracelsian economics has that magnetic allure common to all the hermetic arts. But speaking as a guy who bought shares of Adventus and Metacomments when prices were ridiculously low, I'd say bet the farm on oil prices going up before, during, and after an attack on Iran.