Economic Headache or Collapse?

Here is a nice graphic that I picked up from the Big Picture website. It shows in stark graphic detail why the US economy has had its legs knocked out from under it:


This shows that, with the jump in oil price, the amount of money siphoned off to pay OPEC is now greater than the amount of money that US taxpayers pay to the federal government as income tax. (OK, this is obviously a "projection" thatt is based on a doubling of oil price and with prices now down from $147/barrel to $113/barrel, this graph is overstating the case. But still, the graphic is riveting because it makes the cost of oil for US consumers so very, very obvious.)

The Big Picture site also points to this nice video slide show reviewing the past year's financial crisis.