[ex-Texan]

By the time gas and diesel reaches $ 4 a gallon our economy will be stumbling to a halt. Fuel costs effect the cost of everything from the cost of products in stores (food, clothing, cosmetics, medicine, etc.) to the cost of local services. If fuel costs ever reach $ 5 a gallon, there will be thousands losing their jobs because of a severe recession. A few months later, there will be many bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Out dependency on oil for fuel is idiotic beyond belief. It also guarantees increasing tensions in the Middle East and other oil producing nations. Venezuela is just one more example. Who controls Chavez? Castro. Why is Venezuela reducing its oil production? Castro may have more to do with oil production than the we would like to think about. This dependency on foreign oil has too many hidden social, political and economic costs to list here.

Feel free to flame away. I wear asbestos underwear. Just an old geezer living in the Peoples Republic of Oregon.

[RightWhale]

Many times I have tried to get up an interest in economics, those marginal demand curves, the air of old-style magic. But, it's no good. I can picture a time chart of the price of oil and refined products superimposed on the price of bread. There is a limit to how far the prices will climb, of course, but we will think $2 bread and $2 gasoline was cheap and probably wonder how they did it. Those who are left to wonder. That is the dark side of the Hubbert scenario--the reduced population.