Ask Jeff Rubin

Jeff Rubin, former chief economist at CIBC World Markets Inc., took your questions at Wednesday at 12:15 p.m.

Mr. Rubin built his reputation on a number of successful predictions, including one in 2000 that oil prices would hit $50 (U.S.) a barrel within five years and correctly calling the residential real estate market bust in the early 1990s. He was named Canada’s top economist a number of times.

Mr. Rubin recently forecast that the price of oil will reach $225 a barrel by 2012, and his book, called Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, is about how oil scarcity will lead to the end of globalization.

“It’s a book about the way the world is about to change. We’ve all got our eyes right now on the global financial meltdown, but I believe that oil scarcity will change the global economy even more profoundly and, in the process, change all of our lives – from where we work to where we live to what we eat,” Mr. Rubin says.

Globe and Mail