Oil prices: Up, up, and away

Crude oil prices have reach a record high $62 per barrel. Combined with Time Warner’s worse-than-expected recent earnings stocks dropped today as investors waited uneasily for the government’s latest petroleum inventory report. A barrel of light crude was quoted at $62.40, up 51 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gasoline rose more than a cent to $1.7945 a gallon while heating oil gained a cent to $1.7350 a gallon. As American refineries operate at nearly 100% capacity, prices at the pump may continue to rise due to increased summer demand, pending tropical storms and hurricanes, and increased tensions this week because of Iran’s nuclear threat. Are we learning anything here about the complex, multi-facted dimension of the economy?