My latest crude oil tout is lengthy and detailed because it is important that we get it right. For if the long, powerful rally from January’s lows in the mid-$30s is near an end, then so is the spike in long-term Treasury yields; the sell-off in gold and silver; the ageless, stock-market bull; talk of a resurgent inflation; and, most importantly, good times. The banksters and portfolio managers went ‘all in’ on the energy patch as the economy recovered from the 2007-2008 housing bust, and oil prices must therefore remain buoyant in order to keep a potentially catastrophic deflation at bay. Higher oil prices are unsupported by demand, however, and the supply-side story concerning cartel efforts to curtail output is unpersuasive, to put it mildly. Under the circumstances, even though crude prices have come a long way since bottoming early in 2016, the rally at these heights should be viewed with caution.