Comments on: Why You Won’t Want to Rely on OPEC Down the Road

By: Why the United States Needs All the Tar Sands Oil They Can Get | Jeff Rubin

Why the United States Needs All the Tar Sands Oil They Can Get | Jeff Rubin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:03:12 +0000

[...] fuel burned to generate electrical power, along with 40-cents-a-gallon pump prices, that they should worry about. OPEC member states already consume almost ten million barrels a day of their own production, and [...]

By: johnsavage

johnsavage — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:10:13 +0000

You may be interested in this item form the Times which explains that "Manufacturers increasingly are moving production back to Britain as shoddy quality and higher freight prices are undermining the cost advantage of producing goods overseas".

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/...

Best wishes

By: johnsavage

johnsavage — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:10:13 +0000

By: marcovth

marcovth — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:08:05 +0000

Why so negative? I have to young kids too.

- Jobs will be coming back. Meaning, the money we spend will stay in the local economy, and will not go to China.

- Your kids will be less stuck in traffic. And if they get stuck, it will be in electric cars, powered by ...

- There will be alternative, clean, and very abundant sources of energy coming. If companies like potterdrilling.com are successful, geothermal energy will cover the energy needs for thousands of years to come.

If we could have put a man on the moon 40 years ago, for sure we can figure out how to tap all the geothermal energy we need within 40 years from now ! It takes a couple of 10km+ holes in the ground, and a water pumping system to generate steam from heated earth layers deep in the ground. There is plenty of energy there, much more than what we would ever need to generate electricity.

Yes, it will take 10 or 20 year shock therapy to change things around, but the alternative is not much better: potential dramatic climate change + forking over all of our money to China and the Middle East.

Don't worry, your kids will be smart enough to figure out how live a good life.

By: Ken DeLuca

Ken DeLuca — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:15:59 +0000

I’m part way through reading Jeff Rubin’s book and I feel his title should have been extended to read “ Your world is about to a whole lot smaller… and poorer”. In 1966 I was in college protesting against the war in Viet Nam, for Civil Rights and generally advocating for greater equity for people in developing nations. My professor of political economics asked me what I thought my world would be like if the 'Third World' were to get flush toilets. That was a metaphor, of course, for the all the luxuries we enjoy and take for granted in the West, including abundant fresh water, natural resources and energy. Even back then a few economists understood that there’s only so much to go around.

That professor was poking fun at the disparity between by youthful ideals and my inherent interests. I find it ironic that the fair-minded left most recently protesting for environmental sanity and against globalization may well get what they're asking for and yet wake up to a world beyond what their ( our ) pampered and priviledged lives have ill prepared them ( us ) for the inevitable. Thus all empires, I suppose.

I am determined to finish the Rubin book. But it's like taking a dose of foul tasting medicine. And that's just the book! The reality thereof will be much harder for my children to swallow, I'm sure.