SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Nations has called an emergency meeting for Oct. 24 aimed at halting a precipitous drop in oil prices.

Crude, despite an uptick Friday, has crumbled to $72 a barrel, half the price it fetched in July. See Futures Movers.

Funny how fast things can change.

Gone is the steady drone of peak-oil forecasts. Gone is the fear that we are in the pockets of "folks that don't like us very much." Prices are down at the pump, and talk radio has moved on, feasting now on banks, bailouts and rampant greed and corruption on Wall Street.

As the industrial world withdraws into a recessionary shell, it takes oil demand with it. China and India's insatiable thirst for oil looks meager now as factory output slows to a trickle.

But there's also been a rush of roving capital out of the market. According to the latest data from Hedge Fund Research, third-quarter hedge fund redemptions hit a record-high $210 billion, spearheading an exodus wealth that burst one of the biggest commodities bubbles of all time. See full story.

It's no coincidence that oil prices plunged in tandem with these record withdrawals, exposing for all to see just how much of the summer's oil-price spike was driven by speculators.

While oil's deep "correction" alarms Big Oil, it's even more alarming to producing nations whose economies are entirely grounded in petro-dollars.

The extreme pain caused by this sudden revenue loss can be gauged by OPEC's decision to move up their next meeting from November to October, less than two weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election. This raises the likelihood of another severe tongue-lashing by a politically supercharged Washington, but that's clearly better than enduring further losses.

This time, however, OPEC is on its own.

With speculators fleeing, the cartel is going to have to build a floor under oil prices through disciplined production cuts. This isn't a group known for discipline, however. And given the wheezing global economy, OPEC has only an outside chance of pushing prices back up to $100 a barrel even if they manage to significantly slash output.

Unless, of course, another war or natural disaster disrupts supply lines -- at which point all bets are off, and OPEC has us all once again over the proverbial barrel.

-- Jim Jelter