RON430

Fortunately, I get to keep reminding myself that in the US, we rarely have any trend play out to its conclusion. I think that everyone will do some serious soul searching about how they use energy and exactly what they are willing to pay for in energy use. A big difference between here and Europe, or a lot of the world for that fact, is that our public transportation is almost universally abysmal. People in the lower economic strata may be forced to become more dependent on public transportation and we are going to have to change the systems from what we have now IMO.

The research I have done is painting a strong picture of the existence of inflated pricing for oil but where it should be is open to a lot of discussion. I think people are saying that we may be more around $100 a barrel going forward rather than sliding back to $50 a barrel. I guess I can live with that. But the problem is there is nothing more susceptible to short term disruptions than oil. Everything from hurricanes to nut cases like Chavez or Ahmadinejad mean you can have things get out of control, albeit for short time frames, really big time. I thought we would get to $150 a barrel this year but I thought it would take until August to do it. I didn't think we would be over 130 at Memorial Day. I just can't help from running that line "It has made me rethink my energy consumption as a whole." As far as I am concerned if you aren't thinking about this, you are somewhat foolish.

I don't want to think about owning the last V8 I may ever own but in the grand scheme of things, it isn't all that much of a heartache. Some of the most really fun cars in the world are lighter and less powerful, think Lotus. I guess I can rationalize that the auto mfrs got caught like the rest of us a bit flatfooted with the price rise but come on guys, pull the finger out and get us some better choices. The fact that we actually had convinced ourselves that the average soccer mom had to have that Suburban to take three kids to school was just plain stupid. Whether we had cheap oil or not. Of course, some adult supervision in DC would have helped but we get the gov we want so we get to blame the man in the mirror. Man I hope the Autocar article, and I am wrong and we do get another reprieve. I will make some moves regardless but it would be nice to not have everyone forced to adjust at once.

Och

iTrader: (3)

I dont think cars affect global oil consumption by much. Even if every American switched to smaller car, it wouldnt matter much. You have tractor trailers, tankers, commerical trucks and vans, manufacturing, and producs such as plastics made out of oil. Theres no way for instance to make steel industry use less fuel, or make an economical tanker. The only way to really reduce consumption is to have the economy and industry crash. Then supply will greatly exceed demand, oil will be plentiful and cheap, but like someone said, we will all be to broke to afford it.

gengar

You forget one important qualifier: Demand for those houses wasn't there at the price that house builders and speculators wanted and that the current mortgages and financing were given for. There is always demand for houses even in the hardest-hit areas - just not at the prices that are desired and/or justified by bubble pricing and especially the associated financing.

This is particularly relevant, as you amusingly try to compare house supply with oil production. This is not a logical comparison. After all, one of the reasons that the housing bubble was so outrageous in certain areas (such as where I live) is that property development could not keep up with demand. This led to severe overpricing of existing properties and even of properties not yet built but being presold (this should sound familiar). In turn, these construction companies used cash flow (in many cases, theoretical cash flow) generated by presales to fund (or justify) additional construction projects.

That's what created oversupply, but since you neglect to understand the implicit conditions of oversupply, the important qualifier is that it was oversupply at those prices. (It winds up that the lucky companies, of course, are the ones that canceled those additional projects.)

You must not forget that, just as now there is plenty of house supply, there is plenty of oil supply. You talk about a difference of 1.5 mil barrels/day between demand and production, but you don't consider there is around 2.2 trillion barrels of discovered oil waiting to be taken out of the ground. OPEC can increase their pull, and so can our greedy oil companies - and do you really think Americans are going to continue to give envirowahckos the power to keep us from drilling in Alaska or offshore or wherever as prices continue to rise? Of course not; we only have time to worry about these silly things when life is too good and we get spoiled.

Oil production can be increased because there's the ability to do it, just like there is the ability to increase housing supply. Then what will the amateur speculators do when their oil futures that they purchased at $200/barrel can't be sold to anyone for half that? That's right - they'll be left holding the bag after paying off the big investment banks. Good thing you can't take out easy adjustable-rate mortgages on oil, right?

Yes, totally mindless. And when investment banks that are heavily invested in Company X tell everyone that the stock should double in 12 months, all they really want is just for everyone else to get rich! Anyone who points out that a conflict of interest exists must be mindless!

I don't see what this has anything to do with my objection, but whatever you want to keep babbling about in order to divert is fine, I guess. Although price volatility, especially on the microeconomic level, brings a directly proportional link between barrel price and gas pump price into question.

A little thing called inflation guarantees I'll also see ice cream cones selling for $1.40 before I see them for 35 cents like I did at Thrifty's when I was a kid. Oh wait, I already have. What was your point again?