Chart of the day: The heartbeat of the global economy

Instability in the Middle East tracks very tightly to global oil price shocks (displayed here as percentage changes over the years), and the "past five global recessions have all followed sharp jumps in the oil price," according to the FT, from whence this chart comes.

It almost looks like a heartbeat, does it not (?), the odd thing being how it always seems to settle back into a stable pattern of relatively small price changes.

But I think that ends with the sustained demand growth in the East.  I think the upward pressure only grows and we thus get a new normal of consistently rising prices once this current instability settles out.

Truth of the situation:  The world pays one way or the other.  It either pays by intervening or it sits back and pays because the instability plays out longer.  But the world pays.

[Apologies for the sloppy wording in the first draft (pointed out by a commenter who needs to offer up a better fake name if he wants to be posted).  I am working monster hours right now and so I tend to shortchange the blog a bit, dashing through posts. But, with 8 mouths to feed, I am happy to be working so much.]