Popularity of motorcycles, public transportation and seldom use of cars by those that own cars is what Soviet Union was about. Now it is coming to America:
Hating every minute of it, Americans are slowly learning to live with high gasoline prices. For a nation accustomed to cheap fuel, big vehicles and sprawling suburbs, the adjustments are wrenching.
Cory Asmus of Temecula, Calif., just bought a $4,800 motorcycle for his 20-mile drive to work so he could cut his gas bill to $8 a week, from $110.
Florian Bialas, a retiree who lives near Chicago, sold his Pontiac Sunfire for $3,000 and plans to give up his license when it expires in September. “I can walk to most places where I need to go,” he said.
And Debbie Gloyd of Cleveland has parked her Chrysler Concorde and started taking the bus to work. “I can’t afford these gas prices,” she said. “They’re insane.”
Big -- we're getting hosed. Everybody is...everywhere in the world. Crude oil has increased 1,220% since 1999. This compares unfavorably to the world economy being only 30% larger; something is wrong here. Either oil was horrifically under-priced in 1999, or we're over-paying now. Hopefully it will correct soon, as it is in nobody's interest for the the entire world to suffer a recession or depression because of high energy prices.
Originally Posted by Big
Popularity of motorcycles, public transportation and seldom use of cars by those that own cars is what Soviet Union was about. Now it is coming to America:
Hating every minute of it, Americans are slowly learning to live with high gasoline prices. For a nation accustomed to cheap fuel, big vehicles and sprawling suburbs, the adjustments are wrenching.
Cory Asmus of Temecula, Calif., just bought a $4,800 motorcycle for his 20-mile drive to work so he could cut his gas bill to $8 a week, from $110.
Florian Bialas, a retiree who lives near Chicago, sold his Pontiac Sunfire for $3,000 and plans to give up his license when it expires in September. “I can walk to most places where I need to go,” he said.
And Debbie Gloyd of Cleveland has parked her Chrysler Concorde and started taking the bus to work. “I can’t afford these gas prices,” she said. “They’re insane.”
Ah yes, you see when the economy increases by 30% over only 9 years with a limited oil supply, the price increase of oil becomes exponential. If you want something really bad (oil) and there is not that much of it, the prices can rise very quickly.
In other words, say you have 100 barrels of oil to sell every month and you have 3 customers that buy 100 barrels of oil every month. Your top capacity is 150 barrels of oil but in 1999 those 3 customers wanted only 100 barrels every month.
All of a sudden you get 2 more customers that want another 15 barrels each every month and promising to want even more in the future. You see that that is more than you have to sell and you begin to charge them as much as you want until they tell you they will not buy it at that price.
Yeah Cyclone, I got it but the dynamics of the World economy have changed. In the 1990s you didn't have American and European firms creating jobs in China and India like today. The POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH is daunting for oil producing Nations. If they don't have much more capacity than they do today they will increase prices.
As of right now, the market is failing; it's not really a function of supply and demand anymore. Demand is not soaring as the pundits would have us believe. Demand in the U.S. is down 2.4%.
We're well supplied. U.S. stockpiles are roughly at the 5-year average level.
So, there is enough of it. There are trillions of known reserves. Canada alone has the largest known reserves in the world; more than OPEC. Alberta's oil sands (depending on which source you believe) could represent 2-trillion in recoverable oil. Brazil found an incredible field beneath the ocean 3-years ago that represents more than 100-billion barrels. The Saudis have 260-billion.
Do the math....we have enough oil for hundreds of generations. Finally -- there is a growing theory that oil is a renewable resource. Scientists are not even exactly sure how oil is formed to begin with, and they were miffed at the Brazilian find. I can't remember the exact distances for the Brazilian find, but it was something like 9,000 feet under the ocean floor through *ROCK* and then another 6,500 feet of salt underneath the rock. I wonder how all of those dinosaurs and decayed plant material ended up at the bottom of the ocean, traveled through 9,000 feet of solid rock, then passed through 6,500 feet of salt and then ended up as a sweet light crude at the bottom!??!!
Originally Posted by Big
Ah yes, you see when the economy increases by 30% over only 9 years with a limited oil supply, the price increase of oil becomes exponential. If you want something really bad (oil) and there is not that much of it, the prices can rise very quickly.
Getting oil from sand might be very expensive. If oil demand doubles in the next 10 years, say its 200 million barrels per day. That's almost 80 billion per year. 10 years of 80 billion per year will mean 800 billion barrels. Saudi Arabia will be sucked dry in 15-20 years with this pace.
Soviet Union is coming to America 
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