Great opinion piece on Gas prices from the Austin Chronicle...

Letters at 3AM
$4 a gallon
BY MICHAEL VENTURA

America is over. America is like Wile E. Coyote after he's run out a few paces past the edge of the cliff – he'll take a few more steps in midair before he looks down. Then, when he sees that there's nothing under him, he'll fall. Many Americans suspect that they're running on thin air, but they haven't looked down yet. When they do ...

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, a pillar of the Establishment with access to economic information beyond our reach, wrote recently: "Circumstances seem to me as dangerous and intractable as any I can remember. ... What really concerns me is that there seems to be so little willingness or capacity to do anything about it" (quoted in The Economist, April 16, p.12). Volcker chooses words carefully: "dangerous and intractable," "willingness or capacity." He's saying: The situation is probably beyond our powers to remedy.

More...



http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-04-29/cols_ventura.html

:thumbsup:

From this article:

"The "exburbs" and the rural poor will feel it first and hardest. Exburbians moved to the farthest reaches of suburbia for cheap real estate, willing to drive at least an hour each way to work. Many live marginally now. What happens when their commute becomes prohibitively expensive, just as interest rates and inflation rise, while their property values plummet? Urban real estate will go up, so they won't be able to live near their jobs – and there's nowhere else to go."


I have friends who commute up to 40 miles roundtrip daily on rural roads because they built on cheap or inherited land instead of closer to the city, and they are now freaking out already over the gas cost.

I just saved the article and printed it. At least here on DU there are many of us who are not looking for a false sense of security, and can actually be grateful for hard truths. Michael Ventura is SOOOO right: At $4 a gallon, the America we knew is OVER. Even the people who are still trying so desperately to play ostrich will realize this in the next couple of years. We will have to deal with it some way, because we simply won't have a choice.

"Places with decent rail service will be prime. Places without rail service will be in deep trouble.

"One key to America's future will be: How quickly can we build or rebuild heavy and light rail? And where will we get the money to do it? Railroads are the cheapest transport, the easiest to sustain, and the only solution to a post-automobile America."

Just read it, pretty good. You know, I wouldn't mind not being a military super-power. It mentions England, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, and basically most of Europe. They're doing alright over there. I still say hydrogen power COULD prevent this, but probaby not going to be developed enough (I mean, these past few bugets have cut science funding) and in time to stop it.