Thursday, May 22, 2008

Living Arrangements

The recent spike in oil past $135/barrel and the subsequent rise in gas price past $4.00 has brought a veritable storm of folks out there screaming the world is coming to an end.

In 1991 I moved to a small town in Eastern Washington up by the Canadian border. Since the closest movie theatre was across the border, we had regular visits across to watch films and indulge in poutain (take a mess of real french fries--cover with cheddar cheese, either melted or grated and then melt it. And now the crowning glory-thick home made Brown gravy--and some folks even use a dollop of ketchup as topping).


So, getting back to the idea at hand. We would pass the gas stations in Canada and see that they we selling gas for about a sixty cents a liter and wonder how they managed with that cost.
We never did find out, but the point here is that they did. Canada has alway has gas prices about 70-100% higher than ours and they get along just dandy. Four dollars a gallon isn't going to kill us. Hell, eight dollar a gallon gas ain't gonna kill us. It will just make us do all the things that we probably ought to have done a long time ago.

I am not supporting Barak. I think that he is a slick Chicago machine politician with the morals of Bill Clinton and the mindless ambition of John Kennedy. But he told the truth of it when he said this;

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,"

Now what other counties think about us is worth about as much as a bucket of warm spit. That part of the statement is absurd on its face and should elicit all of the ridicule and contempt that it so richly deserves. The first three points are salient.

Look it up folks, the US produces 3% of the world oil supply. Even if we drilled like madmen, sticking a "rockin' donkey" in every back yard, we might be able to double our output, bringing us to 6% of the world's oil supply. The trouble is, we use around 24% of the oil.

We can't afford to live like this folks. The end of the world isn't coming, but the bill collector is.

3 comments:

Mayberry said...

Well, what you say might be somewhat true, but $4 gas sure is killing me. $8 gas would make me a pedestrian. $4 gas is also Killing Bob's River Outfitters, Ned's Fishing Guide Service, Bill's Bait 'N' Tackle, Fred's Delivery Service..... $8 will wipe them off the map. It's not just the gas, it's the cost of everything else going up in synch.... Except paychecks.

Selous Scout said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Selous Scout said...

If the U.S had the transportation infrastructure of Europe, higher fuel prices would be much more managable.

But instead of building a transit system that would help get our sprawling commuters to work, our government has been enriching it cronies in crime.

The billions spent on the Iraq war would go a long way to helping solve the transit problems.