Lets face it. there were a lot of factors involved. All nations have had to pay increased fuel prices, and it was not the root cause here in the UK.

We have now gone past the point of using over half of all known oil reserves, and demand just increases. You need to get used to higher prices because they are just going to go up and up as supply dwindles.

You can't blame OPEC, you need to blame the wests current dependence on oil for oil prices.

What people still seem unable to grasp is that very shortly (probably in my lifetime) there will be NO OIL left!

Probably a little off-topic but needed saying.

EDIT: I still think the current financial crisis has a lot more to do with financial institutions lending to people they shouldn't (I am personally a classic example of this), and this has to be based on greed. The most worrying aspect is how so many of these multi billion pound / dollar corporations had such low cash reserves that the minute the downturn hit they could only survive for a couple of months without going begging. What ever happened to saving for a rainy day?

Yes oil prices have had an impact globally, increased transportation costs forcing up food & goods prices have been a factor here in the UK, but the root cause is still greed of corporations, and if oil has played a part it has been minor.

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The problem with this is that free market was never in play. HUD and FHA were backing loans that lenders would never have made if it was a free market system. But the lenders could make loans to people that shouldn't get loans, make a bunch of money, then sell them to Freddie and Fanny May. The lenders had nothing to loose. People that had no business buying homes were able to because the government was helping them. So the demand on homes was higher then the supply so the prices went up, once people started falling behind and couldn't make the payments lots of foreclosures came on the market, also credit got tighter. Then the supply was higher then the demand so prices came down.

This wasn't a free market caused problem, this was a government caused problem, but you'll never hear that on the nightly news.

At one time up to 40% of the loans that Fannie and Freddy were buying were sub-prime loans.

There was a lot more to it, but this was the biggest part.

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I don't know of any website offering an exhaustive list of niche markets to explore. Niche markets are something you have to find for yourself; many when they discover a niche immediately put a stake on it as theirs. Why share a profitable niche to others? Niche by definition is a specialized market, and your goal is to have as few competitors as possible.

Given your business experience, what do you think are areas in your industry that have not been tapped? Are there any needs that are currently not being addressed? If not in your current industry, is there anything that you need but no one is currently giving it to you in a way that you want to? Ask yourself these questions — and then that's your niche.

You may want to read the article "5 Steps to Creating a Profitable Niche for Your Small Business" to help you in the process of identifying your niche.