As oil prices zoomed toward an unheard of $147 a barrel this summer, it seemed every analyst prediction that oil would approach $200 was a self-fulfilling prophecy, until suddenly it was not.

Instead of $200, oil is now $80. Instead of going up, the U.S. has seen the greatest destruction in demand since the oil-shocked 1970s. Drivers have dramatically cut down on driving since November.

Supply. Demand. Prices. Y’know how that works.

“It’s just amazing that the market gets suckered into this,” said analyst Stephen Schork of the Schork Report, who called the idea of $150 a barrel oil “an obscene number, a perverted, illogical number.”

David Fyfe, an analyst with the International Energy Agency in Paris, was a bit less critical, avoiding the word “suckered.”

“To be fair, there is always a tendency in parts of the analyst community to look at short-turn trends and assume it’s something that will continue in perpetuity,” he said.

Shucks, anyone can do that. Are you experts being paid the big bucks to be smarter than that?

Vladimir Putin must be mighty put out — after all, he was feeling his oats with all that oil wealth. Now what?