What Goes Up Must Come Down

All of this oil price increase is part of the Bush plan to keep the Arab producing countries quiet while he does what he wants in Iraq. This was a plan that was hatched between Bush's administration and the Saudi's.

I am afraid you are sadly mistaken. To say that there is no evidence that world oil production is peaking today is plain wrong. Production has been essentially flat for 5 years and light crude is declining. The delines in good quality crudes are being offset by liquids stripped from natural gas production. We have reached peak exports, that is the oil exporting countries are keeping the oil for themselves (they have subsidised gas so are not so effected by price). The most scary evidence is the recent reports by CERA and the IEA showing that the rate at which production from fields currently in production is delining is about 5%. This means that every year we need to bring on stream 4 million barrels a day of new production to stay at 86/7 million barrels a day. In other words we have to bring on stream the equivalent of 4 new Saudi Arabias in the next ten years to stay flat. Supply and demand will match for a long time, the question is are we prepared to outbid the rest of the world?

Furthermore, the american people who are struggling with those mortgages should not have gotten into them in the first place. How is it fair to expect me, who pays my bills and my REASONABLE mortgage on time, to bail out all the morons who overextended themselves on a house they could not afford. Do you think government money comes from nowhere? it comes from the taxes on the people. And for people who say tax the corporations, who do you think pays the higher resulting prices on goods that are the result? Let the people lose their homes and find something they can afford. If the lenders allowed themselves to lend to people who could not afford the mortgage, let them take the losses. That is how capitalism is supposed to work. Anything else rewards stupidity, and actually encourages it.

Um, maybe because the price of oil isn't controlled by the President, or his advisors. The fact is that the price of oil is controlled mostly by external forces in foreign lands, and if you want this situation fixed, you're going to have to back things like domestic exploration of ANWR and the coastal areas of the US, nuclear energy, wind power, biodiesel, and lots of other technologies which, individually may not solve the problem, but in conjunction, may certainly help put a sizable dent in it. If we spent some money farming algae on our coasts, we could produce enough biodiesel to supply the entire country, and that is a renewable clean resource.

I would have to say that "awareone" is nothing more than a moron. I work in the auto industry and there are people on the line with masters degrees that can make more money building auto's than they could at their chosen field. Sure there are exceptions but come on get real. How many people have five houses and ten cars. I myself have some college but I was still making a pretty fair living before this gas got so frakin crazy. the real problem is we have no leadership in this country and no I am not your typical Democrat. I am laid off more than I work now and it's alll because some rich peole want to get richer. Stupid people like you just make me sick to my stomach. Rich peole need a working class to help them keep getting richer and we are on a brink of losing the working class and then who will buy all this over priced bullshit the rich guys need to sell. get off your damn high horse and get real jerk........

Well, at least here is one of very few who can talk sense -- attributing the meteoric rise of ???Chindia??? as the main contributing factor to the present oil price upheaval is after all a myth.

What goes up must come down is yet another myth as far as economy is concerned. Economics is not physics. The oil price may still go up, faster than expected. It may continue to move north, albeit at a slower or much slower pace. It can remain stagnant, with minor fluctuation. It may even ???fall??? a bit for a while and soar out of control again.

There are many maybes, what will happen remains to be seen. The immediate scenario is for the world leaders to act collectively and to tame the ???nasty monster??? as much and as fast as possible.

Comment: Lets look at the gross income of one of the giant petroleum companies ...... At $3.00 a gallon Exxon-Mobil grosses an exhorbitant $70,000 per minute. Do the math. Look at their income for the first quarter of '08 and break it down into days, hours and then minutes. They have to make a huge profit to cover some of the $10 to $50 million salaries the top CEO's bring down. Please explain.

So many individuals are complaining about the high gas prices, foreclosure, expensive food, high taxes, etc. But why are you complaining. If you get a college degree and set a goal that is reasonable there will be great results for your future. People always want to make more money if they have a goal to. Most people save money and they spend rationally. I don't think the people who own 10 cars and 5 homes are really bothered, so think about who is affected. You, the persoon without any educatioh orthe one with the Master's degree?

There are so many other things that are causing the United States residents to suffer. The economy actually is not bad, it is all of the illegal aliens , drug dealers, gangs, and other illegal activities such as welfare fraud and other fraud that is going undetected. The US citizens are suffering because these people do not pay taxes yet they use all of our roads, parks, sidewalks, trash receptacles, etc. If we could rid ourselves of all of these illegal activities going on I bet our ecomomy would improve.

The author seems to forget that a lot of automobile usage is non-discretionary. Suburbs and cities are designed so that you have to have a car to live there. Nothing is within walking distance; shopping areas can be up to five or ten miles away from residential areas, even in well-designed cities. There is little reliable public transit, and it's dangerous to ride a bicycle in traffic On top of this is the fact that many people in the US livefar enough away from their jobs so that a 100-mile-a-day commute is necessary. If gasoline goes to $10 per gallon, what happnes to those people? What happens to the value of the houses they live in?? In Lawrence, Kansas, a majority of the population commute to work in Topeka nad Kansas City. Lawrence is about to get rid of its public transportation system, while continuing to sprawl further out into good farmland. How long can this continue, and what happens to the homeowners who can no longer afford to live 50 miles away from where they work?

It might be wise to keep in mind that most driving is non-discretionary: most cities, and suburbs, are designed so that you have to use a car to do much of anything. Grocery stores are not within walking distance, and neither are jobs. Many people commute long distances to work every day; some communities have a significant part of their population commuting to work every day, often making 100-mile round trips. People can't decide to not drive to work, they have mortgages to pay, families to house, clothe and feed, insurance to pay, and so forth. Suburbia is designed around cheap oil and automobuile transport; if either gets to be expensive, at some point it may bne become too expensive to liuve in suburbuia - but when does the exodus back to the city start - and who gets left holding the bag whne they can't sell their houses?