[Serial_Worrier]

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/03/28/ ... e-soaring/

the middle class is about to be eviscerated, just like the wealthy want it. They prefer a society of themselves and everyone else in barrios. America about to become Brazil.

[evilgenius]

What do you want instead of high gas prices? You know that if the stuff is running low in comparison to world demand we either pay more than the other guy or we don't get any.

[AgentR11]

What do you want instead of high gas prices? You know that if the stuff is running low in comparison to world demand we either pay more than the other guy or we don't get any.

Infrastructure could have been built to insulate the middle class from its effects; but instead, infrastructure was built to ensure the dependence on the middle class on its use.

If you can't make a reduction in wages a reality, perhaps one could cap wages, and drive up the costs of core products used by the middle class. Does the cost of fuel matter much to someone making $500k / yr with $6 mil in personal assets, and control of trusts worth a $100 mil? Nope. Does the cost of fuel matter to someone making $100k with only their home as significant real assets... when its $2/gal not at all; when its $20/gal; they suddenly start to understand that they are in the same boat as day laborers. Just keep cranking the costs up, and keep wages for most steady; and *poof*, you got your peasant class right back where you want them.

[Plantagenet]

Obama has been clear in the past that he wants HIGHER gas prices. Obama's energy and interior secretaries have in the past also stated they want higher energy prices.----So it comes as no surprise that the Obama administration isn't doing anything to reduce gas prices.

What is surprising and disappointing and downright stupid is that the Obama administration doesn't have an energy policy or a peak oil policy or some kind of forward-looking policy to help the US economy deal with these higher energy prices.

[Sixstrings]

What do you want instead of high gas prices? You know that if the stuff is running low in comparison to world demand we either pay more than the other guy or we don't get any.

Much of the world SUBSIDIZES their gas prices. India, China, Venezuela, Mexico, on and on. How can the American worker compete with that, foreigners work for artificially low wages (currency manipulation) PLUS their government state capitalism keeps their gas tanks full.

President Hu wants his people to have affordable gas. He subsidizes it, he gets out there and locks up oil leases right under our nose in Iraq, all so his people will have gas in their tanks. What does our president say? "Get used to it."

[Sixstrings]

Ya' can't just invade Wall Street or a Corporate Headquarters, but we sure as shitt'n can always run down those damn Indians and Chinks. F3ck 'em. I want my oil.

"You're not gonna raise that F*CKIN' price! Do you understand me!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkVH4z5Aazw



Pstarr I get your point. It's warm, it's fuzzy, it's humanitarian, it's all world peace and love and rainbows and skittles. But dude, you're wrong.

I'm reminded of Morgan Sporlock's old show, he did one on outsourcing. He took this out of work IT guy over to India to show him where his job went to when it got outsourced. The outsourced American got to meet the Indian who took his job. He met the whole extended family. Nice folks. After coming back to the US, the American guy is showing pics of his trip to his family and talking about it all. He actually says something like "I don't know what I'm going to do, there aren't any jobs, but I feel good that my old job is now supporting ten people."

wtf? Here's a guy who has his own family to feed, if not for help from his parents he, his wife and newborn could end up on the streets. And yet he feels good about his job going to a more worthy cause?

Pstarr, this kind of attitude is just screwed up. Trust me you don't want the United States to really average out with the rest of the world -- we're talking Bangladesh, Mozambique, Ecuador, Nigeria. Our founding fathers didn't cross the Atlantic and settle this continent to bring prosperity to Chinese peasants. Let China worry about jobs for Chinese (which they're doing great at), we NEED TO LOOK OUT FOR OUR OWN because NOBODY else will.

I know it's warm and fuzzy to sit back and say all the world's people deserve to share what we have. But ultimately that's stupid, for the SAME reason you don't get your checkbook out and donate every penny you have to kids who are starving this very moment.

[diemos]

Trust me you don't want the United States to really average out with the rest of the world -- we're talking Bangladesh, Mozambique, Ecuador, Nigeria.

Even if we somehow managed to grab every drop of oil on earth for ourselves and left everyone else shivering in the dark --- it's still going to run out!

Any strategy that involves fighting over the available fossil fuel resources is just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. It's guaranteed to fail.

Carpet the desert with solar thermal.
Carpet the rooftops with pv.
Put up windmills.
Build nukes.
Change zoning and urban planning to create walkable communities.

Our current automobile centric fossil fuel based lifestyle is going to end. Period. No matter how generous or rapacious we are with the rest of the inhabitants of the planet. No matter how many predator drones we launch.

The only open question is what comes after. Mozambique is still avoidable.

[Plantagenet]

Carpet the desert with solar thermal.
Carpet the rooftops with pv.
Put up windmills.
Build nukes.
Change zoning and urban planning to create walkable communities.

Our current automobile centric fossil fuel based lifestyle is going to end. Period. No matter how generous or rapacious we are with the rest of the inhabitants of the planet. No matter how many predator drones we launch.

The only open question is what comes after. Mozambique is still avoidable.

Exactly right. We need to get started on restructuring and building the post-peak oil US economy NOW.

There isn't any more time to waste.

[Outcast_Searcher]

This article is silly fear mongering. They're speculating that the speculating will get much worse. If you ignore the day to day noise where gasoline can jump around by a dime to a quarter, the price of gasoline, over time, correlates VERY WELL with the world price of crude oil (Brent these days seems to be the best benchmark).

Now, if you believe that the Middle East will explode, and crude oil will get to a price that averages $200ish OVER TIME - then expecting $6.00(+) gasoline prices on average in the U.S. is rational.

There are a lot of pundits that believe when (i.e. if) the Middle East calms down, oil goes back to $90ish, and gasoline prices head back toward $3.00 in the U.S.

I have no idea who is right. I believe that the collective wisdom of the world oil market (speculators included) is a better predictor, on average over time, than any of us.

[diemos]

This article is silly fear mongering.

We've reached the point where consumption in the developing world can only increase by having consumption in the western world go down.

That reduction can either be achieved by having everyone be employed and the price of gas skyrocket, or enough people can be thrown out of work to reduce demand to match supply with lower prices.

But which ever way it happens, from here on until the end of time the average western consumer will be able to consume less and less gas as time goes on.

[Lore]

I have no idea who is right. I believe that the collective wisdom of the world oil market (speculators included) is a better predictor, on average over time, than any of us.

Not really, because for the most part the speculation in the market is made up of zombie traders, lurching forward by the scent of money and fear. There is really no intelligence or wisdom there guiding them. By example, if markets had a real brain they would never have bought into the dot-com bubble or housing bubble. It's only the pundits and investor managers that believe and promote the myth that the markets are somehow all omniscient.

[TheDude]

We could always carpool more.

[Sixstrings]

I don't trust you because your understanding of human nature (your own needs) do not square with obvious political and wartime realities.

I think I understand these "obvious political and wartime realities" quite well. It's all about serving the ends of the globalist elite, has nothing to do with the poor slobs actually doing the fighting, the suckers who get out of the army only to find all the jobs back home were shipped to China and they lost a leg fighting for Chinese oil in Iraq or Libya. And on top of that gas is headed for $6 a gallon.

Am I wrong? Tell me the "political" and "wartime" realities. Let's hear it, make your best case for another decade of humanitarian wars.

Not only is that guy not screwed up, but he has the only reasonable attitude really possible. I admire that guy. We should be more like him. USA CAN NOT COMPETE. We are pampered poodles living in luxurious kennels.

Well fair enough. That's your opinion.. essentially it's peace through globalism, lowering our standard of living to raise up the rest of the world a wee bit in the hope that shared prosperity will ensure global peace.

Problem though is peak oil. And peak water. Rare earth minerals too. Also.. despite all this globalism, population keeps growing and too many people are still dirt poor, hungry, jobless and mad as hell (i.e. Egypt).

So your views only make sense in a world of infinite resources. I'm not in favor of resource wars, but they are inevitable -- that's peak everything reality. So in the end globalism and being martyrs by shipping out all our jobs isn't going to help us -- when TS really HTF China is going to be a powerful behemoth while America will have long since offshored itself to ruin. We'll be weak, and vulnerable, and in a world that ain't so nice that's a dangerous position to be in.

All of us from the most greedy to the greenest/grooviest environmentalists alike are damn too costly to support.

I agree with that. The Prius-driving Whole Foods crowd is a riot.. they think they're so green, it probably takes thousands of third worlders to support one Whole Foods shopper.

You don't really believe what I say is from weakness? Because I will kick your ass if you say yes.

I didn't call you weak. But by definition your philosophy is calling for a weaker America. That's what you're saying here, you "admire the guy" who feels good about losing his job to somehow more deserving folks in India.

Pstarr, do you really understand what it means if we become like China or India? You can kiss Medicare and Medicaid goodbye. That means if you have parents in a nursing home your wife would have to do as the Chinese do and be a homemaker. Many women will have to give up work in this country.. somebody has to be in the home to care for the elders and the kids in a poverty economy that can no longer afford daycare and nursing homes.

Have you ever been to Mexico? That's what you're asking that we become. You sure that's what you want?

Google image search on Mexico and poverty:





You know what man, the United States is *already* looking far too ratty lately for my comfort. Why don't we just hold the line for a while and let the Europeans sacrifice some standard of living.

[diemos]

Well fair enough. That's your opinion.. essentially it's peace through globalism, lowering our standard of living to raise up the rest of the world a wee bit in the hope that shared prosperity will ensure global peace.

You've correctly identified the problem.

You've indicated you don't want it to happen.

but I'm hazy on what, exactly, you're advocating to prevent it from happening. All I hear is, "Whaaaaaaaa! I don't want to be poor! Somebody make the coming poverty not happen!".

Specifics please. Assume you are now god emperor of america. 300M people stand ready to do your bidding. What's the plan? How are you going to provide a North American standard of living for them in perpetuity.

[Pops]

We've reached the point where consumption in the developing world can only increase by having consumption in the western world go down.

I think this is a good point.

We in the US use a LOT of FFs, we can get by on a lot less because the Dude is also right, we CAN carpool and do many other things.

But mostly, we are just going to be less rich. Just like "our Founding Fathers" moved textile mills here to take advantage of cheap labor and raw materials and exported the finished goods, the textile mills in the NW then moved for a little while to the south and they've now moved somewhere else altogether and so has lots of other jobs. They aren't coming back till transportation costs more than labor and we'd better hope that's a long way off.

We'll carpool, but we'll also have fewer jobs, we'll go from a household size of 2.4 people and almost 1,000sf per person, back to 3-4 people and 400-500 sf/person. We'll spend less on silly crap and that's OK too.

The hardest part will be surviving the tantrums.

[Pretorian]

What does our president say? "Get used to it."

And you voted him in and plan on doing it again. Why bitchin then?
Personally I'd love to see $6 or even $10 gas, the more the merrier. It takes me 5 minutes on the average to make a left turn on one of the roads I drive.

[Sixstrings]

but I'm hazy on what, exactly, you're advocating to prevent it from happening. All I hear is, "Whaaaaaaaa! I don't want to be poor! Somebody make the coming poverty not happen!".

Specifics please. Assume you are now god emperor of america. 300M people stand ready to do your bidding. What's the plan? How are you going to provide a North American standard of living for them in perpetuity.

1. For every dollar the rich invest overseas, tax the hell out of them. Then opening a business here and hiring Americans would make sense. We have to do a tax scheme like this or else in the next offshoring wave we're going to lose all the white collar jobs -- like radiologists and backoffice legal, accounting, etc. -- to Indians working over the internet.

If this is too radical for you then how about Trump / Paul Krugman's 25% tariff on China.

2. The rich will get tax breaks if they invest domestically, but even after these tax breaks their total taxes should still be higher -- in line with Canada and Europe so we can have a similar social safety net. French benefits all around.. that means part time work for full time pay, loads of vacation time, livable wages. This is like job sharing.. we'll be able to get two jobs out of one. Don't say it can't be done, the French do it.

We also need single payer Canadian-style healthcare. That alone would solve our deficit crisis.

3. Clean up Wall Street. No more high frequency algorithmic trading graft. No more of these speculation ETF's that are driving the price of oil and commodities up.

4. Lawsuit reform, screw the lawyers. Nobody should get rich off a fender bender or a supposed slip and fall in Walmart.

5. End all immigration until there is a jobs recovery and a labor shortage that justifies immigration. Troops on the border.

6. Decriminalize marijuana. Tax it. And regulate it for safety.. the strains these days have too much THC, we'd be better off with milder legal pot. (personally I don't smoke it btw)

7. I would actually stay in Afghanistan and Iraq on the condition they work out an arrangement with us to become a de facto US territory. If we're going to stay there forever anyway and spend our treasury there, they need to contribute. If they won't play ball then we get out. Whatever we do it has to start being profitable. Long run, this would be great for both countries.. we could share oil and mineral wealth 50/50, they would get the benefit of US protection and over time their society would benefit overall just as India did from the British Empire.

8. Revoke NAFTA and all free trade agreements. Only make trade agreements that are FAIR TRADE, and evaluate the trade in terms of jobs. We lose on both counts currently, jobs and dollars.

9. Peak Oil is real. The government needs a new Manhattan Project.. a new massive department with the best researchers, we need to fund every wacky green idea out there and see what works. Ensure these ideas lead to jobs here at home, let's actually export green tech rather than import it from China.

That's it for starters.

EDIT: regarding gas prices, if we can just ban these specualtion ETF's that would get the price of gas down for a while. Then long term we need to work on incentives to get homes energy efficient, also nationwide high speed rail. More electric vehicles, maybe experiment with nat gas, overall we have to start throwing massive money into research.

[misterno]

I don't really get everyone's problem with gas prices. Gas has never been cheaper. Before 1964 a dime was actually worth a dime. it had 10 cents worth of precious metal in it. At the time gas was over 20 cents a gallon. You can take a pre-1964 dime to a coin store and trade it for over 5 dollars meaning that gas is priced less now than any other time when measured by sound money. The problem is that the Federal Reserve destroyed and continues to destroy the currency. Inflation is so evil because the banks and corporations get all the new money before higher prices are realized and poor people pay higher prices for years before wages increase. Elderly folks can no longer retire on a life time of savings because the value of that savings has been destroyed. No wonder averyone needs assistance