Don’t ask when peak oil is; it has come and gone.
There’s a lot of reasons oil is as high as it is. These reasons include high demand from nations with large, newly industrialized populations, a weak dollar, and 7 countries (including a few oil producing countries) that are no longer supporting the dollar.
It doesn’t matter any more. If you don’t want to take my word for it, listen to the International Energy Agency.
We Americans live in a society where we depend on cars to get everywhere. Many of us live in neighborhoods that don’t even have sidewalks — we couldn’t safely walk to our destinations if we wanted to. Many of us live miles from our jobs. Many of us live miles from grocery stores and other essential businesses. Many of us live in places where there is not a safe, effective, or cost/time efficient public transportation system.
Believe it or not, Daimler wants to help us out — oh, and make money on the deal too. They will be selling “Smart Cars” that get 40 MPG (if you have trouble reading that, just click the “Print” button and the text will appear in a pop-up window, you don’t really have to print it). They are also hedging their bets in a partnership with Ford to make automotive fuel cells.
But the thing that should make you mad about “going green” and fuel-efficient vehicles and alternative fuels is this: the auto industry could already get to a fleet average of 35 MPG within 5 years, using existing technology. And they could make more of money doing it. You know who says so? Click and Clack, those guys who do the funny little show about cars on your local NPR station every weekend. Of course they’ve got a big study by Citigroup and the Investor Network on Climate Risk behind them. Yeah, they carry a little more weight than some funny mechanics from the East Coast.
In closing health care round-up: Expert Ezra with Ten Reasons American Health Care is So Bad; those are nice eyes you’ve got there, sure would be a shame if something happened to them, of course it will cost you $22,000 to keep that from happening, heck no your insurance company won’t cover that; L.A. Times reports that a big insurer actually paid employees bonuses running as high as $20,000 (hm, that’s an interesting number…) to get rid of policy holders who actually needed health care; The Archcrone on true universal healthcare, which like Expert Ezra, I prefer to call Medicare For All; and a very long but very sobering article with references and charts and everything on The Erosion of Hoping Your Boss Will Pay for Health Insurance.
In closing economy round-up: oh, so that’s how they figure we have “no inflation”; Brad DeLong goes into more detail about How China Can Destroy Us Economically; the economy is great except for consumer confidence; and if we have “full employment” how come tax receipts don’t reflect that?
And finally just a few little things: I love this picture; I also love this word substitution exercise; Green Gifts; and please be aware that I have a new professional site at BridgetMagnus.com. Most of my housing and local interest items will go over there now, with cross-posting and pointer posts as appropriate. It’s been too long since I’ve said this, but thanks for reading what I have to say.