Stocks, Retirement income + Peak Oil's effect on stocks

[oscar111]

I have an aunt, just retired, all income will be from stocks. No pension.

Will Peak Oil help her?

Half her stock is in Exon, the rest a basket of diversified domestic stock.

I guess Exon will go way up, but the rest will go way down as the economy generally goes down into a Great Depression #2. Right?

{she is 63, also in Rochester NY.} Pls discuss at length. Thank You!

[slor]

1. The value of her stocks will...

be the least of her worries. Food will become more difficult to obtain, among other things.

[oscar111]

2. COAL: cant all just switch to coal when oil is gone?

coal fired city utilities would give electricty to charge up electric cars, trucks, trains.

so why the fuss? 6OO years of coal, i read.

[slor]

3. We need to re-think how we do everything in the country...

and use multiple sources of energy, coal included, though there are much cleaner ways (and peak oil is only one of the disasters we face, do not forget Global Warming). If we had smart leadership, peak oil could be a minor bump in the road. We could all get wealthy investing in renewable enegy sources, and creating jobs to build the products and rebuild the infrastructure to use the new energy, and protecting the environment. But we lack that leadership. The truth is, nobody can really say what will happen, but I wish everyone well, despite what I see as a grim outlook.
There should be all kinds of huge tax credits to make homes "Green" and to promte hybrids, and getting us geared up for renewables. Our farmers could be growing Industrial Hemp for energy uses, and because it is a very effective carbon sink. And the $300 Billion+, being squandered in Iraq, and I might add, making us less safe, could have gone a long way towards getting us off of foreign oil.