The Next Big Thing

Fashion, so I've been told, loves novelty, and good marketers are always looking how to make their wares the next hot item that lights up the sky and tells us we're all alive.

I wonder who's going to be the Marketers for the coming Oil Crisis? Who's going to make their millions sharing thrills and chills of energy prices that we can't afford?

I know it's pretty quiet now, but seriously, the game is ready to be played.

I, as an environmentalist, want expensive energy because it is the only market force that will encourage us to at least slow our extravagant ways.

Capitalists want expensive energy because we're all dependent upon it and by anticipating the market, they can bid up prices and send costs soaring, and then jump out into a cool profit until the next round of chicken.

Survival is always a novel idea, and we imagine we're pretty stretched already - in debt and time. Who has time for survival?

It is a curious question.

I myself can afford pretty much any energy cost. $10/gallon for gas you suggest? Well, given I can drive under 3000 miles/year at 30mpg or better, that's a cool $1000 for my gasoline bill. Not too bad.

Unfortunately my dependency extends wider than simply my personal driving. Everything I purchase is made far away, and needs to be transported. Maybe that transportation is pretty efficient, but jumping prices times five must have an effect.

I've been told there's a general link between gasoline and natural gas prices - they move up and down together - which is not necessarily implied, but makes some sense if they can be partially substituted for the other.

Heating my home is another story. I just purchased a 94.1% efficient furnace, and perhaps it'll help reduce my heating bill, but say my new bill will still be around $600/year minimum. Multiply that times 5, and you get a hefty $3000 heating bill! Again budgetable, although I think it would be time to do a little more investing in window coverings and insulation, right? Plus maybe 55F is not so bad of a temperature with a nice sweater or two, hmmm?

Of course if natural gas jumps in price, heating by electricity will be more economical - leading to a quick jump in electricity usage - AND of course our spare electrical capacity comes from the fancy new natural gas plants. Of course burning natural gas directly for heat is guaranteed more efficient than using electricity as a middle step.

So our electric bill jumps - from maybe $300/year now to $1500/year. Maybe still budgetable if I've got a job, and I can buy a few more flouresence bulbs.

And leaving those direct energy bills, buying products of any sort are going accumulate a new "energy premium" and perhaps double in price.

Thus a spike in oil prices (60% of u.s. energy consumption is from oil) could perhaps cause 100% inflation in everything we use. That means we all need to earn about twice as much to live as we did before. What was your "disposable" income last month?

Of course some businesses simply will be no longer profitable and go bankrupt - leading to higher unemployment - less people having money to buy from the remaining employed. Factory inventory starts piling up without buyers. Factory workers are laid off. Interest rates skyrocket, bankrupsty levels skyrocket, unemployment skyrockets.

Where does it all end? Is it an exaggeration? Certainly I'm no economist - I can't tell you about probabilities or real relations of prices and the economy. I can only say that we're all pretty much in the same boat. We'll all pay whatever I must to get the resources we need, and when our cash runs short, we'll be leaning on friends and family, and the system may or may not support us.

Is investing in a new car a good deal these days? I would say no - that money could better have gone elsewhere - reducing debt, or investing in resources that will reduce your dependence upon high income each month.

It seems to me that the only "fair" investment is a mortgage because when your mortgage is paid you've got a place to live with only utilities left - which can be reduced to degrees, AND shared.

Losing a job is a great blow to anyone anytime, but worst in a depression where there's still debt to be repaid, bills to pay, and few opportunities. If you don't have debt, then you are more free to take jobs that are available - jobs that perform functions that are really needed - rather than mass producing things that no longer have a local market to sell them.

Unemployment still isn't so bad, if you've got a little savings, or shared living where bills can be divided. Then you have more time available to network with neighbors and figure out something you can all do to help each other survive.

If things get bad enough, the cities themselves lose their attraction, and those without employable skills may be best exported to the country side, become manual labors on the farms in exchange for a few pennies, a warm meal, and a place to sleep.

It's much easier to picture the worst and imagine trying to survive, but I suspect the problem will be things will fall in stages, and each stage seems to add new burdens upon the last, making life just a bit more unbearable, but with no alternatives in easy reach.

We're all like frogs, sitting in an approaching boiling pot of water, never quite uncomfortable at any given moment to jump out and seriously face the fact things may never be the same again without our lifetimes.

Tough thoughts, and I don't believe a one-of-them, but well, I can imagine. So I'll keep watching.