Economist Jeff Rubin, author of Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller: Oil and the end of globalization was interviewed on CNN's "Your Money" this past weekend... and guess what? Our lives are about to change. "Our cars, our homes, our whole world has been getting bigger in the cheap-oil era. Now it is about to get smaller, And, greener. Much greener," he said.


Rubin is the former CIBC World Markets' chief strategist and chief economist until he suddenly resigned in late March after 20 years at the bank's investment arm. According to the Toronto Star, "His conclusions were frequently controversial and certainly unconventional, particularly in a country [Canada] so dependent on the global trade of its oil and other natural resources."
Rubin predicts that within 12 months of an economic recovery, we'll encounter triple-digit oil prices. The fallout? The transportation costs of importing products from distant countries will erase other advantages, such as low-cost labor. This means denser communities, less driving, and dependency on what we produce locally. Economic growth will come to a crawl and inflation will rise.
So, where will that leave the marketers? What will we be marketing and how? How will this affect the way we do our jobs? How will this affect all our lives?