Good Morning Middle America, Your King of Simple News is on the air.
U.S. News: Oil climbed above $135 this morning and seems to have legs to go further. Is the cause for the spike the high oil company profits that the presidential candidates are screaming about? No, the presidential candidates are world champion fabricators searching for a distraction form the truth.
So if not high profits, is it the shrinking dollar that is driving the oil price skyward? Nah, the devaluation of the dollar has some influence, but not much. So it must be the speculators that Wall Street talks about huh? No, not that either, speculators couldn’t speculate long if no one paid the asking price for oil.
The legendary oil man T. Boone Pickens put it nicely yesterday when he explained that daily demand for crude is more than 2,000,000 barrels higher than production. He also explained that world production has peaked. Uh-oh, it’s that darn economics 101 in play again.
Just a tid-bit of information that you may find useful; King George went to Saudi Arabia and asked them to turn up the juice a little. The Prince for all practical purposes told the King that, “She won’t take no more captain, we’re doing all she’ll stand.” Besides, the U.S. uses more oil per day, than the entire nation of Saudi Arabia produces!
My opinion is that nothing short of a world recession could significantly lower the price of crude. And, should there actually be a deep world recession; the price of crude may be well down on your list of concerns.
What I’m saying is that the world is running out of oil and we have no plan “B” for that coming event. As the imbalance in supply and demand increases…well lets say affordability will become an issue of great concern to motor home drivers.
Not being able to afford oil, is the same as not having oil. And, that will be the fate of many Americans, which fate will follow the standard practice of rising from the bottom up. When our poorest people can’t afford fuel for a motor scooter, our more affluent will be taking shorter trips to Europe on their private jets.
Running out of oil is a terrible thought that I’m thinkin’ few have ever thought. Am I correct? One of those TV lawyers that offer to fight for your rights may influence manmade law, but they don’t have much influence on the “big guy” when it comes to universal law.
I know what some of you are thinking… “Technology will come up with a new fuel, so why worry?” We don’t pave roads and make plastic with technology, we pave roads and make plastic with oil. Technology is simply a tool to make things work better, not a substitute for natural resources. “Well Bill, we’re out of concrete, what say we pour this floor with technology?”
The American geophysicist, Marion King Hubbert had this to say, “We are not in the position we were in 1929-30 with regard to the future. Then the physical system was ready to roll. This time it’s not. We are in a crisis in the evolution of human society. It’s unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can’t possibly happen again. You can only use oil once.”
On June 4th, 1974 Hubbert testified before Representative Morris K. Udall’s Subcommittee on the Environment. He stated “during the last two centuries of unbroken industrial growth we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture. Our institutions, our legal system, our financial system, and our most cherished folkways and beliefs are all based upon the premise of continuing growth, Since physical and biological constraints make it impossible to continue such rates of growth indefinitely, it is inevitable that with the slowing down in the rates of physical growth cultural adjustments must be made.”
So what did Morris K. Udall have to say? ,–”this inflation that we are all so concerned about now may not necessarily be mismanagement of the economy or some temporary problems necessarily, but may be built into this whole problem of exponential growth in terms of the population and use of resources, and so on. Is that what you are saying?”
And the good Dr. Hubbert answered, “It has been going on, the record is unequivocal, since 1910, disregarding the disturbance of World War I.”
So….Congress admittedly knew we had a problem in 1974? Coining the phrase from the good Dr. Hubbert, “the record is unequivocal.”
