I thought you might find this article interesting http://www…92,00.html
Here is a breakdown of the benefits of expensive fuel:
1. Globalized jobs will return to the US.
2. Urban sprawl is slowing down and may stop.
3. Many employers are letting people work four days a week.
4. Less driving means cleaner air and therefore, better respiratory health.
5. People are wasting less fuel. They are now taking better care of their cars.
6. Fewer drivers means fewer collisions and therefore, fewer deaths.
7. Driving your car fewer miles could lead to lower insurance rates, especially if you stop using it to commute.
8. Fewer drivers means less traffic congestion.
9. You will see more police on foot and on bicycles in your neighborhood, improving both their health and community relations.
10. People get more exercise and eat out less when gas is expensive.
Yeah…right.
Let’s raise the price to $25 a gallon. Think of all the benefits we’ll reap.
Urban sprawl will stop completely.
People won’t have to work at all…they’ll all be laid off.
The need to commute will disappear…we’ll all be laid off.
There’ll be almost no collisions.
You’ll see more police on foot and bicycles. Of course, when you call and say “I’m being robbed and beaten” you’ll have to wait for them to bicycle or walk there.
You’ll get more excercise. You’ll walk everywhere. No matter how far.
You’ll eat out less. As a matter of fact, you’ll only eat at all when someone puts change in your bucket.
Oh, and you’ll be able to buy a house for almost nothing. Which is good, 'cause that’s all you’ll have left!
Sorry. I’m not “buying” it.
Dear Ron-man,
An obvious eleventh would be, more people driving the posted limit, which, for most, saves fuel.
You bring up what is a Biblical lesson from Romans 5.3, where Paul writes “… but we also rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverence, perseverence, character, and character, hope.”
Adversity strengthens us as individuals and as a nation. It is my belief that Bush and Chenney
were sent by God to humiliate our country, which leads to a reality check, which leads to
the building of our character, and a better nation. Bring it on W!
Interesting stuff, Ron-man and thechums.
MB, get used to it. It’s probably going to get worse. Maybe a lot worse.
HA HA HA!!! LUVIT!!! AND OH SO FREAKIN’ TRUE!!!
Don’t forget all those pediatric respiratory therapists who will be out of work! Did you miss #1 or did you ignore it on purpose?
I doubt $4 gas will have much effect, when it gets to $6-8 we may start to see some impact.
BTW, “Globalized jobs will return to the US” isn’t happening under any conditions.
When the minimum wage is dropped to $1.75 per hour those jobs will be back.
Thank ya, Jeezuz!
It’s interesting to me how history repeats itself. Although we didn’t have high gasoline prices, we did have a recession in 1957-8 and some interesting things happened:
1) Sales of VW Beetles really took off and one waited at least 3 months for delivery
2) Some imported cars of dubious quality (e.g. Renault Dauphine) were sold
3) GM offered "captive" imports: Pontiac had the Vauxhall, Buick had the Opel, Ford had the Anglia and
Prefect, Chrysler offered Simca and I believe Hillman
4) American Motors Rambler really set sales record and the company revived an old design and called it
the "Rambler American"
5) Studebaker stripped the Champion model to bare necessities, called it the Scotsman and it sold
twice as many as Studebaker had predicted
6) GM, Ford and Chrysler went to work on care that were fuel efficient for the time and brought out
the Corvair, Falcon and Valiant in the 1960 line-up
Ultimately, the compacts all grew to be big cars so they could rival the large cars they replaced in gasoline comsumption
Jump forward to the early 1970’s. We had a contrived fuel shortage. Suddenly, the gas guzzlers weren’t popular. Toyota, Honda and Datsun shipped us small imports that sold like hotcakes. American manufacturers tried to compete by introducing cars like the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto. Ultimately, the Ford Pinto and Chevrolet Vega disappeared and Honda and Toyota began making larger cars.
Fast forward to the present: the pick-up and SUV are no longer the “in” thing to drive for personal transportation. There is a waiting list for small cars–I guess the waiting list is as long for the Toyota Prius as it was in the late 1950’s for the VW Beetle or the early 1970’s for the Honda Civics.
What is the benefit? Well, we do get a wider selection of cars and some fuel efficient cars for a while. The domestic manufacturers work to improve the quality of their product. One may buy a truly luxury car, particularly a used model, at a very low price. I remember in the early 1960’s where a 4 year old Cadillac and a 4 year old VW Beetle in equivalent condition sold for roughly the same price.
Will we learn something from all this? Probably not. We’ll probably be back to our gas guzzlers in about 4 years.
BTW, “Globalized jobs will return to the US” isn’t happening under any conditions.
Then who will be buy cheap goods from when shipping costs skyrocket? Won’t that put imports and domestic goods on a level playing field here in the US?
Then who will be buy goods from when shipping costs skyrocket? Won’t that put imports and domestic goods on a level playing field here in the US?
I doubt it, the only jobs that involve “shipping costs” are the manufacturing jobs that are long gone (and never coming back). The current U.S. economy is only about 15% manufacturing, and dropping. The more recent outsourced jobs are things like software that can easily be done long distance anyway. Regardless of energy costs, U.S. labor costs are much to high to support manufacturing.
Jeremy; the cost of shipping a high value item from China in a containership is peanuts compared to the saving in labor cost of about 90% in its manufacture. On another post the same question was asked, and I referred to a recent discussion on TV about the impact of $200 oil.
By personal example, last week I bought a $52 lounge chair made from extruded plastic, with very little labor content, but bulky to ship. This was one of the few items not made in China I bought recently. There was no significany advantage to making it there.
On the other hand I also bought a pedestal fan, also for $52. It was made in China, since the labor content was relatively high, and the shipping VOLUME about 1/3 of that of the chair.
Ocean freight goes by volume, where as highway truck transport goes by weight.
The design talent for stereos, TVs, small appliances and other spohiscated elctronics has long ago left the US, so don’t expect a repatriation anytime soon. Only a destructive Smoot-Hawley protection type of act (that exacerbated the 30s depression) could repatriate some manufacturing to the US.
Cars are expensive to ship, and the choice between manufacturing (assembly) in the US or elsewhere often hinges on the total calculated cost. With the big 3 on the ropes I can see a Democrtic government putting in high tariffs on non-NAFTA car imports; i.e. those from Korea, Japan, China and Europe. The result might be more Korean, European, and Japanese manufacture in the US. In any case, the US manufacturers and UAW would still lose out. A major investment house today openly suggested bankruptcy for GM a distinct possibility. Their sales are down 24% in June.
On the whole, as stated, expensive transportation will only affect low value, low tech, bulky items. That includes foods from Mexico and refrigerated meats from Australia and New Zealand. Shipping a barrel of oil from the Midle East to the US costs only $0.75 or so.
I was unable to open the link without adding some unknown software to me computer and chose not to, so I skipped #1.
I’d be interested in hearing a synopsis of how $4 per gallon gas is supposed to return globalized jobs to the U.S., if you’re willing.
Appreciate the the historic review of why we don’t learn from our own history. This time around, we are going to be stuck at a much higher price level for gas. I expect it’s entirely possible for gas to go to $6 before easing back to $5, as we go into a severe recession.
With the economy stagnating and inflation still there we will have the same “stagflation” we had in 1974. No government will be able to do something about that, since the drivers are outside the country.
The whole world is now after the same oil, and the US balance of payments deficit might force import duties or restrictions on top of the already high prices. Some months ago I mentioned that the US was on a collision course with international economic reality. Well it’s very close now.
Because of the tight supply sitation, a slowdown in the US and Europe will still not free up enough capacity to drive the price down to $60, as some have ventured could happen soon.
Yet another ignorant article by a journalism major. I can provide 20 reasons why it’s bad, so what?
Why don’t we just make it a 100 bucks a gallon by government edict and experience true Nirvana by this convoluted logic.
Getting the police here in an emergency is going to be a bit of a problem since the sheriff is 25 miles away. Figure .5 an hour to shuffle their way through a 911 call BEFORE dispatching an armed gendarme on a 10-speed…
Better yet, what about this hot rod so that you can have TWO officers arrive at the same time, quickly, and in style!
The cops would be too pooped to chase the bad guy!
#4 Are cars contributing that much to air quality problems these days? Anyone have numbers for stuff that is bad for lungs, VOC, NOx, SOx, particulates, ozone…?
I’d like to see a study. I’d like to see someone take a mixed fleet of, say, thirty commercial diesel trucks owned by a variety of firms and a mixed fleet of thirty privately owned sedans and coupes, outfit all with equipment that records the data to (1) trace continuously, every operating hour, the emissions output in each category, and (2) continuously accumulate gross outputs. Then run and maintain each on its normal schedule, oblivious to the fact that it’s being tracked.
I’d like to see the data downloaded and retained continuously for one year. Tne I’d like to see the graphs and the gross numbers.
Do you think perhaps there’s fed grant money available to run such a study? Anybody interested?