In a message dated 4/30/01 9:26:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
trev9@earthlink.net writes:
> RB, you and the other listers who today covered the taxes, supply &
> demand aspect of gas pricing are, of course, correct.
> Also, I might add, as oil prices go up so I fear the stock market may go
> down.
>
>
There's another factor here that has been overlooked: oil is a finite
resource. If we continue to grow more and more dependent on it, we are
headed for problems much worse than gas that's kinda expensive compared to
what we've been paying. I don't happen to believe the environmentalists who
say we'll be out of oil in my lifetime (another 50 years if I'm lucky -- I'm
33), but it does seem rather foolish to be buying bigger and bigger SUVs and
burning more and more oil for no damned reason when we are without question
inching toward the end of the oil and we have no plan B.
Now for the prediction: Necessity remains the mother of invention. Plan B
will fall into place as soon as there is a genuine necessity for it, and if
five or ten years of artificially high gas prices results in technological
advances that reduce our dependence, then so be it. Maybe we can kill off a
few Excursions as a little extra bonus. The more we don't use now, the more
our ancestors will have to demonstrate how cool our British motor cars were.
I'm no environmentalist -- in fact, I got into a funny discussion with
another lister the other day about whether it was more environmentally sound
for our cars to burn oil or to leak oil, and my TR3A is a virtual rolling
superfund site. So go ahead and drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge (it's
frozen and I'm not going there, and most likely neither are you), drill in
the Gulf, etc. Hell, strip mine the Grand Canyon and drill a well on the
head of each president on Mt. Rushmore if you want to. But remember: there's
only so much of the stuff.
Chris Eck
59 Bugeye
59 TR3A
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/// (If they are dupes, this trailer may also catch them.)
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