Ha, your argument is straight from the economists'
Tragedy of the Commons. Still, I'm not sure why you thought the car posters (if they are to whom you're referring) are tongue-in-cheek. I am keeping my ultra-safe Saab for three reasons: 1.) dumping a functioning car and buying any new car is a waste of $ far outweighing any actual fuel savings; 2.) I know the fuel that went into making either the old or the new car is not reflected in its price; 3.) I drive very little. If I drove a lot in the city I would buy a Smart in a heartbeat. Easier parking for me!
As for the obsession with big cars, I came across this, which is more sad than funny:
Crooks and Liars » Batsh*t Crazy “HUMMER” commercial
No indication of how you're s'posed to fuel the damn 9mpg thing after the first tankful (assuming you keep a full tank),
during a disaster, possibly partially exacerbated by.. this very product!
You're right, though, in that I keep the thermostat at 68. I'm not a personal martyr to the conservation cause and spend freely to maintain my middle-class lifestyle. No hair shirts in my closet, but I do see the "inconvenient" writing on the wall.
The only way to wean ourselves off an ever-dwindling (but still currently widely available) resource is to make it such that we personally have something to gain by restricting our individual consumption. That could happen (sooner) via taxes or (later) via real shortages and huge price hikes to the point where many will decide to, or be forced to, commute on bikes and/or on foot and/or demand the expansion of public transportation and the opening of the highways to horse-drawn traffic.
Our having 'found' the utility of non-renewable fuels
created the Industrial Revolution and all the subsequent luxuries we now enjoy in large numbers. One used to have to have dozens of human slaves or serfs to produce the work of a few gallons of oil, so there our luxuries got democratized as well.
It's like a farmer who finds a huge boulder of gold on his land and quits farming and spends the gold to outfit himself and his family in grand style and enriches the town via his purchases. What happens to the farmer and the town when the gold runs out? We will, I imagine, be back to farming with a horse and plow.. having to learn all over again how to survive. Maybe not you and me, and maybe not even your grandkids or their kids.. but still.. either that or we will go nuclear and just live with the toxic waste and radiation, kind of like an alcoholic drinking mouthwash and cleaning fluid when there's no Dom Perignon. ;-)
That said, the recent Bush ME "meeting" was an embarrassing hit&run affair with contempt written all over it. No surprise there, unfortunately.
Re: the Arabs.. I used to think it was even more improbable for them to be constructing financial centers in the middle of the desert as it was for "us" to sustain Las Vegas. I am seeing this in a whole new light now.. I think the Arabs are, for all their 'backwardness', incredibly far-sighted in this. When oil becomes really tight, the center of the universe will no longer be NYC or London. I think Bush is keen to ingratiate himself and his buds with the "less-roguish" elements in which he may envision a stake for him and his, while demonizing elements further from his control or interests.
To the extent that the Israelis are a helpful hedge against "rogue" elements like Iran, Bush will promote their cause. But the Saudis are a horse of a different color. They make the Bible illegal to possess and remain unchastised in the eyes of our Christian Leader; ya gotta ask yourselves why. (They are the top oil producer; we are the top oil consumer. Simple, really).
I don't want to foment any religious backlash either way, nor am I a super-Xtian, but here even a UK flight attendant is prohibited from taking her Bible with her on flights to the Saudi kingdom:
UK Foreign Office supports Saudi Bible ban
Belongs in the thread about parental financial aphorisms, but I remember my mom talking about "knowing which side your bread is buttered on." In food as in life, grease is king.
Redbugdave, the Arabs may be diversifying, but I wonder about the extent to which that is effectively happening. Why risk investing in what people do with the raw materials you supply, when you are sitting on a large part of their supply/fix, which is a given? That they may be investing in shipping (also remember the Dubai/ports brouhaha last year?) is unsurprising and hardly diversification since the ships don't sail w/o oil to fuel them, nor does the oil arrive w/o ships. Seems more of a vertical play, there.
more chuckles:
Crooks and Liars » Rudy Giuliani Does Business With Sheik Who Helped 9/11 Mastermind Elude FBI
