When I’m old and gray, will I be telling my grandkids about how I used to be able to buy a gallon of gasoline for only $4? If people keep bidding up the price of this finite resource like they are today, I might be able to tell that story before my first gray hair even grows in.
Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil
By Martin Zimmerman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 28, 2008Three months ago, when oil was around $108 a barrel, a few Wall Street analysts began predicting that it could rise to $200. Many observers scoffed at the forecasts as sensational, or motivated by a desire among energy companies and investors to drive prices higher.
But with oil closing above $140 a barrel Friday, more experts are taking those predictions seriously — and shuddering at the inflation-fueled chaos that $200-a-barrel crude could bring. They foresee fundamental shifts in the way we work, where we live and how we spend our free time.
“You’d have massive changes going on throughout the economy,” said Robert Wescott, president of Keybridge Research, a Washington economic analysis firm. “Some activities are just plain going to be shut down.”
Besides the obvious effect $7-a-gallon gasoline would have on commuters, automakers, airlines, truckers and shipping firms, $200 oil would drive up the price of a broad spectrum of products: Insecticides and hand lotions, cosmetics and food preservatives, shaving cream and rubber cement, plastic bottles and crayons — all have ingredients derived from oil.
I wonder if Mayor Mike is feeling like a visionary right now. I remember sitting in City Hall back in April at the Streetcar Hearing and listening to him state that there is a possibility we could see European gas prices soon. Of course, it was greeted by chuckles and open mockery from the two crotchety old guys sitting behind me (Robert Weiler - Developer of Polaris, and Harrison Smith - Sprawling Land-Use Lawyer).
I think a little Darwinism is in order…
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
- Charles Darwin
I was there that night and heard the same snickers. Weiler and Smith are dinosaurs headed for the tar pits.
I heard Weiler testify at a 21st Century Transportation Task Force meeting here in Columbus. All he did was brag on how his great developments and those of other developers not only benefited from greater and greater highway spending, but he had the gall to say we needed to spend more $$$ on highways and enable more outward development. This man still sits on the COTA Board of Trustees and yet he never once mentioned rail or transit… and with COTA’s Bill Lhota chairing the meeting! Oddly enough, I think Mayor Coleman appointed Weiler in the first place.
Please Mayor, get rid of the bum. He’s not doing you any favors.