Oil prices plunge below $80 a barrel — a four-year low

Oil prices plunge below $80 a barrel &amp;mdash; a four-year low — (Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Crude oil prices dropped below $80 per barrel on Thursday for the first time in four years. The price of brent crude had already fallen by 30 percent since June before decreasing by another $2.46 on Thursday, to $77.92 per barrel. The decline came as China, the world's second biggest economy, released data on factory output and investment growth that supported recent indications it was headed for its weakest growth in two decades this year. Read more at Reuters.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.