Rising Petroleum Prices portend the new era of diminishing expectations.

[KlatooBNikto]

In the post war period,50s to today, the world has accepted the idea that technology,education and investments will result in rising productivity raising all boats in an ever increasing tide of prosperity.Growth was the magic word for all nations.It was this elixir of growth that Reagan tapped into when he subscribed to Laffer's idea of Supply Side Economics.

Those days,alas, are coming to an end.To sustain the kind of growth we have had for the pat fifty years,we needed an abundant supply of energy at remarkably low prices to fuel the engines of industry and consumers needs.If that abundant supply is restricted all our assumptions about growth will have to be adjusted too.Housing,express highways to carry automobiles back and forth from suburban areas to downtown centers,large shopping complexes,all of these may have to be redesigned to make the adjustment.

This may not be all bad, because American life owes much of its sterility and vapidity to this growth mentality which makes any questions about the wisdom of pursuing unrestricted growth as akin to blasphemy.

The adjustment will be painful, especially for those of us at the bottom of the ladder and everywhere one turns there is no one who can lead us in the new era.The current crop of imbeciles are the least equipped intellectually to deal with it.

[patrice]

1. The days of decent, relative permanent, jobs for most of the middle

class are gone or going also, especially once foreign deficit financiers decide to cut their losses on the declining dollar, and stop financing what it takes to make this country run.

[enid602]

2. LA

Look to Los Angeles for the answer. In the past 20 years, they have built 700+ miles of heavy rail transport. A few years ago, their notoriously pro-automobile zoning was changed so that developers can build housing/commercial centers WITHOUT parking spaces, as long as they are built within a 1/2 mile radius of the 100+ existing rail stations. These so-called transit-oriented developments (TOD's) are/will be mini downtowns with housing mixed with commercial/recreation venues. Each is linked by rail to other TOD's on the grid, and of course to downtown LA, which has seen a boon in loft and commercial-to-residential conversions. A city that is not known for being anti-growth, LA has proved ripe for this new type of sustainable growth. Maybe the time has come for Americans to look for a less energy-dependent lifestyle.

[GettysbergII]

4. Very cool! Thanks for sharing that nuggat.

[GettysbergII]

3. There are a few silver linings to world oil production peaking

1) Maybe without a limitless supply of cheap energy the international megacorporations will be unable to finish raping the planet and triggering a global warming "tipping point".

2)The lack of cheap energy will eventually put an end to international capitalisms grand plan of globalization. Cooperative but automoneous local economies will be the rule of the land even within national borders. Everything will have to be downsized.

3)For mankind to survive nations will have to learn to efficiently share rather than ruthlessly and inefficiently compete for new technologierws and diminishing resources. Otherwise it'll be the cockroaches turn in another million years.

However, what will be remembered most in the short term is the great die off of humans as diminishing oil supplies no longer allow the planet to support a population of 6 billion particularly with an inefficient economic system whose main purpose is to produce money for the few rather than meet the needs of the many.

[bryant69]

5. There will be a transition that will have to be made

Like maybe we could get serious about public transportation.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[applegrove]

6. Someone tell the elites they cannot just hide from reality by cutting

a bigger piece of the pie for themselves. They will be deposed if they do that.