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How Rising Oil Prices Will Force U.S. Into A Post-Industrial Wasteland
The Business Insider ^ | 1-4-2010 | James Kunstler

Posted on 01/04/2010 8:04:47 PM PST by blam

How Rising Oil Prices Will Force U.S. Into A Post-Industrial Wasteland

James Kunstler
Jan. 4, 2010, 5:12 PM

It's the first business day of the new year and oil is trading above $80 a barrel, which means the price has re-entered the danger zone where it can crush industrial economies.

This is a central element of the predicament we find ourselves in. The US economy is essentially a Happy Motoring economy.

During the whole nervous period since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, American gasoline consumption hardly went down at all, though so many other activities collapsed, from house-building to trucking. Yesterday, The Seattle Times published a story with the idiotic headline: Oil Touches $80 on US Economy, Demand Optimism. Apparently, they think high oil prices are "a good sign."

How much can a nation not get it? Would $100 oil ignite a new orgy of "consumer" spending and another round of investment in commercial real estate? Welcome to the Futility Economy.

This is the economy where Nature and its material companion, Reality, punish us for our stupidity and fecklessness. This is the economy that will tear the United States apart, after it bankrupts us at every level, and mercilessly drives the population down by one-third through starvation, homelessness, violence, disease, and sheer political cruelty.

[snip]

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: commodities; economy; energy; oil
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Buy more ammo?
1 posted on 01/04/2010 8:04:48 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
Buy more ammo?

Ammo is great. Food would be even better.

2 posted on 01/04/2010 8:06:54 PM PST by Lurker (The avalanche has begun. The pebbles no longer have a vote.)
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To: blam

As though “oil prices” were some independent variable....

IT IS THIS ADMINISTRATION’S ENERGY POLICIES THAT WILL TURN AMERICA INTO A “Post-Industrial Wasteland”!!!!!


3 posted on 01/04/2010 8:08:22 PM PST by G Larry (DNC is comprised of REGRESSIVES!)
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To: blam
Unless we tell the eco-nazis to go to hell and drill our abundant reserves ourselves.
4 posted on 01/04/2010 8:12:14 PM PST by Hugin (Sarah Palin: accept no substitutes!)
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To: blam

Death by a thousand cuts.


5 posted on 01/04/2010 8:16:34 PM PST by ladyvet (WOLVERINES!!!!!)
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To: blam

Nice dog.


6 posted on 01/04/2010 8:17:42 PM PST by RoadKingSE (How do you know that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a muzzle flash ?)
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To: blam
This is the economy that will tear the United States apart, after it bankrupts us at every level, and mercilessly drives the population down by one-third through starvation, homelessness, violence, disease, and sheer political cruelty.

Apocalyptic fantasies have always held a special allure, but let's be real. Ain't gonna happen. Worst case, we stand a good chance of pulling up lame-- but we will always be able to walk.

If the collapse of the USSR didn't result in this scenario(and it didn't), then the collapse of the dollar won't either.

7 posted on 01/04/2010 8:19:07 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Lurker

things will never improve as long as the communists are in power


8 posted on 01/04/2010 8:21:33 PM PST by television is just wrong
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To: blam

This is a government caused crisis. We are not taking advantage of our own energy resources. We haven’t built a new nuclear power plant since 1996. We could be producing 80 percent or more of our electricity from nuclear power, which we don’t have to buy from the Arabs. But we are not because of a Jane Fonda movie made in 1979. We are depriving ourselves of the oil that is in Alaska. We are not tapping our offshore oil potential, nor our oil shale, nor are we taking advantage of our natural gas resources. Rising oil prices won’t force us into a post-industrial wasteland, OUR OWN GOVERNMENT IS DOING IT.


9 posted on 01/04/2010 8:21:46 PM PST by La Lydia
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To: blam

And magazines...


10 posted on 01/04/2010 8:22:18 PM PST by MileHi ( "It's coming down to patriots vs the politicians." - ovrtaxt)
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To: blam

OTOH, oil is the anti-dollar.

Pure dollar crash speculation can drive oil prices up. Heaven knows I do that.


11 posted on 01/04/2010 8:23:37 PM PST by Uncle Miltie ("Free" Healthcare + Citizenship for Lawbreakers = Democrats Forever! Buenos Dias!)
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To: blam

Actually, it’s not rising oil prices, but it will be a crashing of the dollar’s value (similar to Argentina), where EVERYTHING we import will soon cost 3 or 4 times what it costs now. Same effect, except that the cause is home-grown.


12 posted on 01/04/2010 8:24:02 PM PST by BobL (When Democrats start to love this country more than they hate Republicans, good things might happen.)
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To: blam

We have 4 times the Saudis energy reserves but the Dems keep aking Federal parks to help the Sauids/Islam.

Democrats = The Party of Allah

I think America will be like a uglier version of post USSR failing. But the idiots will cheerfully watch NFL and college ball games and reality TV like Islamic slaves.

Even Rush continues to fawn over the NFL after they punked him and have become drolling cheerleaders for Obama. The public is stupid.


13 posted on 01/04/2010 8:26:07 PM PST by Frantzie (TV - sending Americans towards islamic serfdom - Cancel TV service NOW)
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To: blam

We have 4 times the Saudis energy reserves but the Dems keep aking Federal parks to help the Sauids/Islam.

Democrats = The Party of Allah

I think America will be like a uglier version of post USSR failing. But the idiots will cheerfully watch NFL and college ball games and reality TV like Islamic slaves.

Even Rush continues to fawn over the NFL after they punked him and have become drolling cheerleaders for Obama. The public is stupid.


14 posted on 01/04/2010 8:26:14 PM PST by Frantzie (TV - sending Americans towards islamic serfdom - Cancel TV service NOW)
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To: television is just wrong

the communists will remain in power as long as people keep funding their power with their cable and sat TV bills. I cancelled Tv and will never go back.

A $50 cable/sat TV monthly bill is divided up where $1 a month goes to CNN, $1 to MSMBC and so forth. This is what elected Obama but the public is stupid and wants their meaningless ball games which they will trade for Islamic sefdom.


15 posted on 01/04/2010 8:29:27 PM PST by Frantzie (TV - sending Americans towards islamic serfdom - Cancel TV service NOW)
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To: blam

Buy stuff that’s tradeable and durable. WEapons, tools, can goods, dry stuffs, precious metal, clothing. And some consumeables that will be in high demand...lightbulbs, toilet paper, spark plugs, lamp oil, lighter fluid, soap, booze, ammo.


16 posted on 01/04/2010 8:35:19 PM PST by mamelukesabre (Veni, Vidi, Vicki: "I came, I saw, and I'm like, Omigod!")
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To: blam
When it goes to $120-150 this summer, the Democrats are going to face an electoral Hiroshima. And deservedly so. Wait until the CRU scandal duplicates itself at Penn State or Goddard, which is likely to happen by the spring or summer, and we face an oil shortage while Obama is standing in the way of offshore drilling in Virginia and Alaska and Florida. You'll see pitchforks and torches on the Washington Mall. Hell, you might even see tar and feathers. What's a worse scenario is that we are increasingly importing gasoline rather than crude oil. Some 20 percent of our gasoline is now coming in from offshore. That's an incredibly bad sign, and it's a completely self-inflicted wound.
17 posted on 01/04/2010 8:38:02 PM PST by Hayrider
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To: blam

Imagine what high oil prices will do to China and India.


18 posted on 01/04/2010 8:38:43 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Copenhagen Climate Summit; Shovel Ready)
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To: Frantzie

We have 4 times the Saudis energy reserves but the Dems keep aking Federal parks to help the Sauids/Islam.

At least. This is insidious and insane.

 The globalist cabal — headed by the Bilderberg Group and their stealth controllers — has been working for decades to steal the wealth, resources and sovereignty of U.S. citizenry by causing economic collapse. This agenda runs silent and deep to the highest levels of our own government.

 Please read below.

 About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest. The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer; how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?" Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the Middle East put together."

 The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists  and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a  revised  report (hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in  this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana ..... check THIS  out: The Bakken is the largest  domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we’re looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion..
"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea" says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst. "This sizable find is now the highest producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the Bakken.' It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves..... and we  now have access of up to 500 billion barrels.
And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!
That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from 2006! U.S. Oil Discovery - Largest Reserve in the World
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In
three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?
They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders than all the other proven reserves on earth.. Here are the official estimates:
 —  8  -times as much oil as Saudi  Arabia
 — 18 -times as much oil  as Iraq
 — 21 -times as much oil  as Kuwait
 — 22 -times as much oil as  Iran
— 500 -times as much oil as Yemen
— and it's all right here in the Western United States.
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the New World Order Cabal-backed environmentalist/AGW snakes and others have blocked all efforts to create an America independent of foreign oil!  Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives, our economy and future… WHY?
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
To validate: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

 

 

19 posted on 01/04/2010 8:39:14 PM PST by emissarium (Passivity is not an option ... it's surrender.)
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To: blam

the only hope is the electric car


20 posted on 01/04/2010 8:41:34 PM PST by element92
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