$139 a barrel!

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Sure, but instead of increasing supply, demand will just go down even more. There wasnt really a big fundemental change in lifestyle in the 80's..that is what is different now...lifestyles are changing to try and rely less on oil. Personally i spend less than 60 dollars on gas for my car a month. I live in an area where i can walk to most places i need to go or be. I also ditched my office and now work at home. Not everyone will be able to do that, but people who can will...and others i know now take transit instead of driving. When the cost of living is high people will cut costs, just like corporations will - all of this will help bring prices down.

By far and away, on the supply side, what is different now is China and India. what we do here in Canada to conserve a bit here and a bit there, basically means nothing to the equation, it is lost in the rounding to the appitite coming from Asia.

In the 70's it was the habits and lifestyles in N America that mattered, this time it's China.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

How many kids do you have? everyone has the right to have as many kids as they want, but at some point the planet needs to realize that at this point there is too many people. People worry about if their car burns an extra few gallons of gasoline in a year, but decisions around kids is by far the most important impact on any individuals energy footprint. Again, not a comment on values ... just a simple cause and effect relationship.

Exactly. The decision to have more and more children in the developing world is putting a strain on global resources as these nations continue to develop.

Mother Nature will sort this mess out, she always has and always will. I would wager to say that we're almost at the breaking point now for global population capacity. Something somewhere will give; when that happens is anyone's guess.

And as a side note, maybe it's time people start realizing the benefits of moving closer and closer inner-city. This way, more efficient modes of transportation economically, such as walking / biking / public transit, will be utilized.

In a twist of irony, it's almost believable now that with the rising cost of oil, the environment just might become greener due to force change in lifestyle habits. Everyone give the oil companies a round of applause.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Muta

Exactly. The decision to have more and more children in the developing world is putting a strain on global resources as these nations continue to develop.

Mother Nature will sort this mess out, she always has and always will. I would wager to say that we're almost at the breaking point now for global population capacity. Something somewhere will give; when that happens is anyone's guess.

And as a side note, maybe it's time people start realizing the benefits of moving closer and closer inner-city. This way, more efficient modes of transportation economically, such as walking / biking / public transit, will be utilized.

In a twist of irony, it's almost believable now that with the rising cost of oil, the environment just might become greener due to force change in lifestyle habits. Everyone give the oil companies a round of applause.

Well we are seeing food shortages in the third world...

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Well we are seeing food shortages in the third world...

Oh, well, that's because the naive public and greedy farmers pushed corn as a source of fuel. Take it off the plate of hungry people and put it in cars that commute from Lk McKenzie to downtown. As the guiness guys say: Brilliant!

Note to those easily offended not all farmers are greedy, just the ones that pushed for biofuel subsidies ... and anyone else who is pro corn based biofuel.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

Note to those easily offended not all farmers are greedy, just the ones that pushed for biofuel subsidies ... and anyone else who is pro corn based biofuel.

What you mean taking food of people tables to fill their car isn't a good idea? surely you jest.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

Oh, well, that's because the naive public and greedy farmers pushed corn as a source of fuel. Take it off the plate of hungry people and put it in cars that commute from Lk McKenzie to downtown. As the guiness guys say: Brilliant!

Note to those easily offended not all farmers are greedy, just the ones that pushed for biofuel subsidies ... and anyone else who is pro corn based biofuel.

Surely you mean the naive enviromental movement.

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Surely you mean the naive enviromental movement.

no I don't. Thinking we need to be more 'green' and that we need alternatives is not naive. That's just true.

Thinking that taking food and putting it into fuel because people need their lifestyle subsidized is what I was referring to.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Surely you mean the naive enviromental movement.

I was just about to say the same thing. There's an internet video floating around about climate change that says "what's wrong with doing something? Even if that wasn't the right thing in the end, it's better than doing nothing."

Yes, because dealing with some extra rain and the odd storm is way worse than millions of people starving.

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I was just about to say the same thing. There's an internet video floating around about climate change that says "what's wrong with doing something? Even if that wasn't the right thing in the end, it's better than doing nothing."

Yes, because dealing with some extra rain and the odd storm is way worse than millions of people starving.

But it's not even about the odd storm. Biofule is here just to keep gas prices down so we are not force to what the economics and true supply and demand of energy are pushing us to, and that is alternatives and conservation.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

no I don't. Thinking we need to be more 'green' and that we need alternatives is not naive. That's just true.

Thinking that taking food and putting it into fuel because people need their lifestyle subsidized is what I was referring to.

Where did that message come from?

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Where did that message come from?

it reads to me like you are suggesting I think environmentalists are naive. I'm just pointing out that I think environmentalists and people who like biofuel aren't the same (or at least necessarily the same)

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

it reads to me like you are suggesting I think environmentalists are naive.

I do, well atleast a some of them, not all of them. See some of the wackos on TV and really have to ask yourself if people really can be that stupid or it's just an act.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

it reads to me like you are suggesting I think environmentalists are naive. I'm just pointing out that I think environmentalists and people who like biofuel aren't the same (or at least necessarily the same)

No,but i do. Aren't we all?

[chris lindberg]

I was watching on the news tonight and they were saying that a barrel of oil "should be" around $35 to $75 per barrel according to supply & demand figures.

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by chris lindberg

I was watching on the news tonight and they were saying that a barrel of oil "should be" around $35 to $75 per barrel according to supply & demand figures.

well, pretty big range. I think the flames will win between 25 and 70 games next year.

Most of what I read from credible forecasters (who basically never make it inot the news) is that fundamentals suggest about 75 to 85 per bbl.

[Dion]

On the national news they were saying gas went up another 6 cents a litre. From what they showed it looked like people had reached thier breaking point in regards to the price of gasoline. They some station signs with prices over a $1.40.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Jan - May 2008 vs Jan - Dec 2006 prices available here:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/I...s/Pnk_0608.pdf)

I can only count a few commodities that are "down" globally in the last three years -> fishmeal, domestic US sugar, global sugar, and zinc are the only commodities with prices are down in the last three years... out of 72 commodities listed only 4 have downward trends in the past three years.

It would be interesting to see some longer term trends on those same commodities.

On all of the indicators, Agriculture, food, fats and oils, grains, and fertilizers have had greater gains in price, and most others have had similar gains to oil's, all of them in double digits.

I can't believe that people are not also talking about natural gas being over $10/MMBtu again around these parts especially.

It is crazy, but there seems to be a lot of different sources being discovered or announced these days - Offshore Brazil, Bakken Oil, Shaunavon Oil, Horn River type shale gas plays, Russia as a whole, the arctic land grab, not to mention manufactured sources of petroleum type fuels and the seeming slow boil of alternative energy usage...

When are we going to have a true revolution in other things such as lifestyle, power transmission, transportation/engines, etc?

It is perhaps something to speculate that maybe gloablization has gotten the best of us. Information spreads so quickly that it is hard not to believe that everything is overly scarce. By the time you digest information (and interpret it), there is literally something as big or bigger to comprehend and process in line to your mind - behind four other news items just like it ... the housing market down in the US, terrorist attacks in West Africa, multiple murder in your neighbourhood, cancer rates on the rise, your cholesterol is too high, and so on... We are spooked by our own economic shadows!

Surely it is not natural for us to be able to communicate trans-oceanically, clear as a bell, in mere split seconds and multiple languages (near simultaneously at times!). Is it truly more 'cost effective' to hire a person in India to consult on a job that will bring raw materials from China to North America, partially assembled, when we are all capable of these sorts of things domestically? These are all realities of today that were not so (or as commonly experienced) less than 50 years ago. That is still within the knowledge of three generations of our relatively puny life spans.

Financial knowledge especially is only slowly beginning to trickle out into the hands of the general population... it is making currency that much more influential and immediate on top of it all.

I'd have to say: welcome to a short term supply run up in a (global) market that is beginning to experience some serious pressure to move more closely to perfectly elastic (theoretically speaking). I also have to support the theory that prices will be required to drop as both supply and demand respond appropriately, and we will marvel in how well the global free market was able to correct (perhaps even "over-correct" in the shortest of short terms) itself back to "sanity".

I just sincerely hope that great panic does not grip us and that we will be able to maintain levelheadedness in a time that would suggest that nothing is as it was once before.

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by Dion

On the national news they were saying gas went up another 6 cents a litre. From what they showed it looked like people had reached thier breaking point in regards to the price of gasoline. They some station signs with prices over a $1.40.

I know back home in northern BC they are paying anywhere from 1.37 to 1.42 ....also, AAA from the US reported early this morning that the average gas prices in the United States have topped $4 a gallon...the first time in history.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Flames in 07

By far and away, on the supply side, what is different now is China and India. what we do here in Canada to conserve a bit here and a bit there, basically means nothing to the equation, it is lost in the rounding to the appitite coming from Asia.

In the 70's it was the habits and lifestyles in N America that mattered, this time it's China.

Difference being, the government in China heavily subsidizes oil products. If those subsidies ever end...

[McMack]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Jan - May 2008 vs Jan - Dec 2006 prices available here:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/I...s/Pnk_0608.pdf)

I can only count a few commodities that are "down" globally in the last three years -> fishmeal, domestic US sugar, global sugar, and zinc are the only commodities with prices are down in the last three years... out of 72 commodities listed only 4 have downward trends in the past three years.

It would be interesting to see some longer term trends on those same commodities.

On all of the indicators, Agriculture, food, fats and oils, grains, and fertilizers have had greater gains in price, and most others have had similar gains to oil's, all of them in double digits.

I can't believe that people are not also talking about natural gas being over $10/MMBtu again around these parts especially.

...
.

I wish I had saved a link to the web site, but I found a graph recently that showed that the overall commodity index was almost triple its 2001 low. At the same time, there has been a massive increase in the money supply. Under these conditions we should really be seeing hyperinflation, but inflation remains relatively tame.

What I have begun to wonder lately is whether it's not so much that the value of commodities has gone up, it's that the value of everything else (and principally, labour and anything with a labour component) has gone down. This would be the natural consequence of globalization, in a global market where there is an excess supply of labour.