$12-15-a-Gallon Gas

[DeathMagus]

As loathe as I am to agree with jameswright , I have to agree with him here. Markets work. Slowly but surely, increased costs for transportation fuel will drive the search for substitutes.

The transition will not be cheap and it will not be easy, but it will happen.

*pans to ride his bicycle for a couple of errands tomorrow*

Right - the biggest concern for the future, IMO, is that the government will try to make things "all better" for the American populace for too long (such as with the stupid plan to cut the gas tax). There will be a crunch time - the sooner we start it, the less trouble it will be. If we keep putting off change by the government subsidizing gas, etc, then the inevitable crunch will be bigger and worse.

Let the market take care of itself, and we should be fine.

 

[Trevorocity]

How do you plan to cope with $12 Gasoline?

How I plan to is: buy a bicycle that I can take to work and up to the grocery store. I could stand more exercise anyway. The car will be saved for bad weather days or the occasional trip that's going to be greater than 5 miles.

Higher grocery bills: eat less food (could stand to anyway), buy cheaper brands, eat out less often, grow my own vegetables (since store bought tomatoes are an abomination unto the Lord anyway).

 

[susanann]

1-reduce our population,

2-stop feeding china's demand for oil

3-get surpluses in our government spending and in our foreign trade.


Can you please explain what can we do to achieve the above 3?
What are your suggestions?

FF

1. Reduce US demand for oil. Suspend all immigration, deport all illegals, thus resulting in more than 20 million less people immediately, and less people every year after that.

2. Reduce China's demand for oil. Bring back the trade embargo on communist china, the embargo that we placed on communist china back 1950 (similar to the embargos we had on cuba, soviet union, etc) which will end all trade with china and put china into a severe economic depression, ending china's consumption of oil, resulting in a glut of world oil and a collapse of wiorld oil and gasoline prices. We dont need to trade with communist china, the United States did just fine from 1789 thru the 1980's with virtually no trade with those communists.


3. Increase the value of the US dollar. Reduce government spending to a level below the tax rate, resulting in budget surpluses each year, and use the surpluses to pay off the national debt.

 

[susanann]

I'm hearing what Susanann is saying~big changes are coming whether we are prepared for them or not...we will have to adapt and it will mean sacrifices...

You are correct.

 

[CaDan]

Somebody's been watching too much Lou Dobbs.

 

[mrpiddly]

2. Reduce China's demand for oil. Bring back the trade embargo on communist china, the embargo that we placed on communist china back 1950 (similar to the embargos we had on cuba, soviet union, etc) which will end all trade with china and put china into a severe economic depression, ending china's consumption of oil, resulting in a glut of world oil and a collapse of wiorld oil and gasoline prices. We dont need to trade with communist china, the United States did just fine from 1789 thru the 1980's with virtually no trade with those communists.
.

A trade embargo with China would just hurt everyone even more. The situation in China today is very different from that of the 1950s, and one should not only use the past to make decisions about the future.

 

[susanann]

A trade embargo with China would just hurt everyone even more. The situation in China today is very different from that of the 1950s, and one should not only use the past to make decisions about the future.

Stoping all trade with china, would not hurt the US, as the US did ok, long before we opened trade with china in the past few years.

However, you are right that it would some countries, the oil producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, venezuela, Iran, etc. since the huge drop in demand for oil would collapse world oil prices, to probably well below $20 a barrel, and gasoline back under a dollar.

I would be willing to accept bringing back our factories and jobs, and be willing to accept the Saudi's not getting as much money from us, in exchange for much cheaper gasoline.

 

[CaDan]

And when China dumps all the Treasuries it is holding, the value of the dollar would plummet.

*cue the classic Khalilzad card*

 

[billwald]

Problem is that most public transportation is 80% subsidized. This is relatively harmless because hardly anyone uses it. If 25% used public transportation and every $1 transit fare cost the taxpayers another $3. . . .

 

[Macano]

Gas prices of $15/gallon, over $200/barrel of oil, would be disastrous for this country (US). We already see the middle class disappearing, and this is one more burden that will drive the now middle class into lower class. Everything in our modern society is built upon oil being readily available. Suburbs thrive based upon cheap and readily available oil, but will be obliterated in high oil price economies. People will have to move toward more urban centers, but of course there are occupations where this will not be possible, ranchers, agriculture, etc. Their costs are going to be enormous, which is going to be passed on to consumers of course, and rightly so.

Personally, like another poster said, I too feel we are headed for a cliff at full speed. I think the life we have grown comfortable with and accustomed to is about to take a huge turn. Prices of those magnitudes would spell economic disaster, and descend this country into chaos. Entire industries would collapse, and with millions out of not just jobs but careers, the financial impact will be huge and have far reaching effects. This will knock us back a hundred years, at least. Most people, excluding the very wealthy, will have to cut out entertainment and all non-necessaries from the budget. Just surviving will take up so much money. Food will of course be hugely expensive. People will no longer be able to afford things out of season, as shipping costs will make them to expensive. Most electricity sources will have to jack prices up. Houses will have multiple families in them to pool money, and to reduce the need to travel. Recreational travel will be no more. Goods will no longer be so readily available. It's easy now to order something off the net and have it a few days later, but shipping that stuff by ground, and most especially by air will be exceedingly expensive. Flying will be for the rich only or for very special occasions. Public transit will the modus operandi, and high speed rail lines will need to be built to take the place of many domestic flying routes. Entire cities will have to rethink their infrastructure, transit systems, and zoning rules (cough cough - Houston!!! - get with the times already and have some foresight!!)

I work in the airline industry - and myself and many I know are taking a serious look at the long-term sustainability of our careers given the current energy price trends. My career may not exist in just a couple years at this rate. Thousands have lost their jobs already, mine will most likely be shed by the fall, and thousands more will lose theirs as airlines go under. This ripples out and brings the economy down that much further. This will eventually hit many industries.

As the common folk curb their spending and quit buying anything but necessities, even the rich will feel the pinch as their bottom line takes a nosedive.

Ugly times are ahead - unless something drastic changes. We can drill all we want, and we should, but in the end it only delays the inevitable. We've got to find alternative and sustainable resources asap, we've got to make huge changes most of this nations infrastructure (ie stop urban sprawl) and mass transit (ie - get those high speed rail lines built). I really hope all of the doom and gloom I wrote about doesn't happen, but on our current course it is our future reality. I hope something steers us down a new path as I don't like the on we're on!

 

[susanann]

And when China dumps all the Treasuries it is holding, the value of the dollar would plummet.

If we continue doing what we are doing, china WILL eventually dump its US treasuries.


On the other hand, if we bring back the trade embargo on china, it will NOT dump its US treasuries, because it knows it will need them if it ever has a chance to avoid complete destruction, and to stay in political power.


The ONLY way to protect the value of the dollar, is to embargo china, balance our budget, and eliminate our trade deficit.

 

[susanann]

Gas prices of $15/gallon, over $200/barrel of oil, would be disastrous for this country (US).


Personally, like another poster said, I too feel we are headed for a cliff at full speed.

Flying will be for the rich only or for very special occasions.


I work in the airline industry - and myself and many I know are taking a serious look at the long-term sustainability of our careers given the current energy price trends. My career may not exist in just a couple years at this rate.

Ugly times are ahead - unless something drastic changes.

I really hope all of the doom and gloom I wrote about doesn't happen, but on our current course it is our future reality. I hope something steers us down a new path as I don't like the on we're on!

Of course it is going to happen, why would it not happen?


Oil, and gasoline, and home heating oil, is going to be a lot more expensive because demand is going to explode!


The US wants to multiply its demand for oil by expanding its population to a billion or more.

China is going to multiply its demand for oil over the next 10 or 20 years and eventually use even more oil than the US.


The only real way to reduce oil use, and thus reduce the cost of gasoline is to lower demand by lowering your population, to use more coal and nuclear power, and to stop china from taking all the world's oil, and nobody wants to do that.



People today are intentionally trying to deplete the world's oil supply while at the same time overpopulating, "pretending" anything else is not reality.

 

[Lockguy3000]

2. Reduce China's demand for oil. Bring back the trade embargo on communist china, the embargo that we placed on communist china back 1950 (similar to the embargos we had on cuba, soviet union, etc) which will end all trade with china and put china into a severe economic depression, ending china's consumption of oil, resulting in a glut of world oil and a collapse of wiorld oil and gasoline prices. We dont need to trade with communist china, the United States did just fine from 1789 thru the 1980's with virtually no trade with those communists.

One child policy, closed borders, and no unnecessary travel.
Sounds like communist China.

Companies like Coca Cola, and AT&T losing a billion customers is going to be a hard pill to swallow.

 

[susanann]

One child policy, closed borders, and no unnecessary travel.
Sounds like communist China.

Companies like Coca Cola, and AT&T losing a billion customers is going to be a hard pill to swallow.

YOu have absolute no idea what you are talking about.


NO country in the history of the world was freeer, or more properous, as the United States was prior to opening up trade with communist china.


Coca Cola and ATT also became the world's greatest companies with our embargo of communist china.

 

[HollandScotts]

I guess my post was a little bit too much for anyone to address.

 

[CaDan]

I guess my post was a little bit too much for anyone to address.

I agree that some portion of the current price run up of crude oil is speculative. I don't know how much is, nor do I know where the new strike price will be once the bubble collapses. I suspect it will be higher than it was a year ago, though.

How would increased oversight by the CFTC deal with that? Especially when commodities and futures are traded in more places than New York and Chicago.

 

[Lockguy3000]

YOu have absolute no idea what you are talking about.

have you ever been to China?

NO country in the history of the world was freeer, or more properous, as the United States was prior to opening up trade with communist china.

and your views on lowering the population, closing boarders, and unnecessary travels are not restrictions for our freedom?

Coca Cola and ATT also became the world's greatest companies with our embargo of communist china.

and you don't think companies doing business in China, losing a market of a billion will not affect them?

 

[mrpiddly]

Stoping all trade with china, would not hurt the US, as the US did ok, long before we opened trade with china in the past few years.

The United States also did fine hundreds of years ago when there was little trade with the outside world. However, the situation todays is not the same as it was hundreds of years ago, and even 10 years can bring massive changes.

You are ignoring the fact that America is used to trade with China and we base large parts of our economy off the openness of this trade. Since we have opened the door to trade with China, both countries have stuck their foot onto the opposing side. To close the door now would be difficult and damaging for both sides.

The economic situation between the United States and China relates to two handcuffed men standing on the edge of a cliff. If one man were to push the other man off the cliff, it would only result in the deaths of both men.

 

[IisJustMe]

Back on point, $12-$15 gas is the most ignorant, uninformed prediction this fool could have come up with. He hasn't a clue as to how the economies of the world will react to the lesser prices that would have to be broached before reaching this ridiculously high level. Entire governments would collapse long before that, triggering global catastrophic depression. If he thinks the Mideastern countries whose sole commodity is oil would not react long before these levels are reached, in order to preserve their market, he's an even bigger fool than he first appears. The question would be whether the would react quickly enough to such economic signs to avoid global economic collapse. This bird-brain needs to find another line of work. He's clueless.

 

[Electric Skeptic]

Back on point, $12-$15 gas is the most ignorant, uninformed prediction this fool could have come up with. He hasn't a clue as to how the economies of the world will react to the lesser prices that would have to be broached before reaching this ridiculously high level. Entire governments would collapse long before that, triggering global catastrophic depression. If he thinks the Mideastern countries whose sole commodity is oil would not react long before these levels are reached, in order to preserve their market, he's an even bigger fool than he first appears. The question would be whether the would react quickly enough to such economic signs to avoid global economic collapse. This bird-brain needs to find another line of work. He's clueless.

The above seems a little harsh on the gentleman quoted in the OP, but it's pretty accurate. It, like a few posters in this thread, seems to think that if gas prices went through the roof (say, to over $10) the only thing affected would be our ability to afford enough gas to drive to work. Of course, that's so far from the truth it's ridiculous. As the post above intimates, rising gas prices have the inevitable consequence of rising prices of just about everything else, due to gas being crucial to transport it. Imaging not only gas prices doubling, but the price of everything else you buy doubling. Then imagine it happening not just in the US, but all over Europe and throughout Asia. I don't know what can be done - I don't know what the oil barons can do - but the situation is vastly more complex than the OP implies.

And as for the idea that we need petrol to rise over $20 a gallon so people would stop using it, well...yes, they'd stop using it. Because long before it hit $20 a gallon, the entire world would be in economic collapse far worse than anything ever seen. You wouldn't be worried about $20 a gallon gas; you'd be worried about where you could get shells for your rifle so you could protect your pathetic little patch of vegetables from the marauding mobs. Think science fiction, the world gone to absolute crap.

And no, isolating the US (by cutting trade with China, for example) won't help. It's similarly simplistic, as if doing so would magically revert the US into self-sufficient nation like it was a century ago.