By 2020, depending upon which econ-forecaster you trust, we should be producing at least 120 million per day … to use the much abused autoextremist phrase: aintgonnahappen.

And this is driving oil prices.

We’re inside the largest shift in energy allocation ever experienced, due to the sheer complexity of modern civilization. We have, literally, hundreds of millions of units that need to run every day for things to work, worldwide, and that are dependent upon cheap and easily available petroleum products. And that definitely aintgonnahappen – which means we’ll be seeing some serious changes.

Don’t you wish your politicians had spent more time preparing for that, and less time trying to micromanage your personal lifestyle?

BTW – no reason to believe his policies will end up any different, but at least he does tell people the truth. I liked this message, because it shows up the Clinton/McCain holiday gas tax reduction for the stupidity it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHtFSi99shk

Agreed. It’s the same thing in the Denver area. And I’m amazed at all of the rusty old beat-up Geo Metros that have suddenly reappeared on the streets again.

Well said, but I think markets and economists over the long term will prove to be correct.

There IS a ton of uncertainty out there…

You’ve got (potentially) very high demand from India/China…
Poor to crackhead-insane degrees of transparency in reserve/production numbers from the Saudis to the Venezuelans.
The fed’s preference to Earnhardt the dollar in order to prop up sheeple who couldn’t understand the phrase ‘variable-rate’.
Potential large political gains in the US for the more protectionist and economically illiterate party.
Weather. We’re due for a production disrupting storm in the gulf again – and while I don’t wear a global warming foil hat – a bad ‘cane this year could make gas hit $6/gallon.

US demand may be falling, but global demand keeps rising, due to some countries subsidizing gasoline prices. Who would do such a thing? Well, oil producers can obviously afford it (for now) and China (where the Politburo controls everything).

I’ll post 50 quotes from analysts, producers, and economists saying that exact thing if you’d like. Supply & Demand have NOTHING to do with $120 oil.
You are able to find 50 fools among the world’s analysts and economists, and some liars among the producers. This is NEWS to you? Man, we gotta talk. I have a garage full of stuff you need to buy…

Careful with the billions there, you begin sounding like a politician licking his chops over a potential earmark!

Without the one-child population there would be another 300 million Chinese.

Of course, if we’d stabilized our population back in the early ’70s, when Nixon was advocating that, we’d be 200 billion instead of 300 billion, and we wouldn’t be wasting so much gasoline in traffic.

I suspect in the next two years my wife’s Jeep Grand Cherokee will be relegated to vacation/Home Depot/bad weather use.

-ted

You have to type faster – the price of oil is now well over 123.

And at Katie – I hope your deadpan keyboard was panning away when you wrote this:

The main reason for prices rising is not lack of supply (Huge oilfields have been found off Mexico, Sudan and Brazil, plus the UK North Sea is still pumping out plenty of oil) or unstable supply chains (Striking in Nigeria and warfare in the Middle East).

Energy prices are racing away.

Matt, I have to agree that the dollar value collapse is hurting Americans (re: oil price increases) more than any other groups, except those countries locking their money at the same value as the US dollar.

Here’s an article from the Financial Times from just yesterday. $200 a barrel will hurt – a lot.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/70b4ef0a-1b91-11dd-9e58-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a38a39ae-4729-11dc-9096-0000779fd2ac.html

Now if a certain lady (and I use the term advisedly) gets into the White House and keeps her “promise” to sue OPEC in the WTO to keep them from raising prices, you will likely see a 65% reduction in supply as OPEC simply shuts off the tap of oil to the United States.

Thankfully, we can at least be assured that no politician ever keeps any promises made on the trail to the White House.

As for oil supplies, in a 2 minute search on ask.com, I found this 8 year old article which is just a bit presceint (to use understatement a bit)

http://www.petroleumequities.com/OilSupplyReport.htm

Found this advertisement/infomomercial while searching, and it may be of interest to everyone.

http://www.energyandcapital.com/subscribe/2137?gclid=CLOBhJLTlJMCFQmaPAoduEomAQ

Back in 2002, the dollar was actually worth more than the Euro. I’d say a lot of the increase of the price of Oil is due to the plummeting value of the dollar.

I see nothing before the inauguration of the next president that could push the value of the dollar up.

Those new fields aren’t coming online quickly enough to make up for depletion.

We are at 5 year highs in terms of supply, demand is falling like a stone, yet the price has gone up 200% in the last 2 years?

There is no possible way to explain the price of oil using supply and demand. I’ll post 50 quotes from analysts, producers, and economists saying that exact thing if you’d like. Supply & Demand have NOTHING to do with $120 oil.

My comment was sarcastic twofold:

1. I know it won’t make much difference.
and
2. Does anyone REALLY believe GM will pull the Volt off in any meaningful timescale?

Sorry about that, my keyboard is very deadpan…

Even if other manufacturers (Toyota, Honda…) begin mass production of cars fuelled largely by electricity, it will easily be a decade before any significant portion of the US fleet – or the world’s – is electric. Sales of gas vehicles will probably increase just as fast – and perhaps faster in the near term.

Those new fields aren’t coming online quickly enough to make up for depletion.