…living standards increased between 1900 and 2000 because we tapped much of the oil beneath us…

That is what everybody seems to ignore, and what so many people are unwilling to adapt to.

It’s a mathematical fact. Earth has less oil than it did in the 1950s. It has less oil today than it did yesterday, or even at 6 am this morning, for that matter.

I see “some” fewer trucks and SUVs in the parking lots at my job. But still a lot; maybe 40%. I should take a walk at lunch and make a count; that might be interesting.

These are white collar people, and as you might expect, most of the vehicles don’t look like they are performing hard service. I can assure you, my co workers are not using their vehicles to do drywalling or house framing, unless it’s an occasional weekend “Home Depot project”.

If we aren’t already doing so, I think that the US is going to have to deal with Canada and Mexico, because both of those countries combined have more oil than Saudi Arabia. In fact, maybe we already “deal” with Mexico. Have you folks in the border states seen that wall on the border yet? I doubt you ever will. I suspect that the price of oil from Mexico may not be strictly monetary.

We probably should also be drilling in ANWR and in the gulf. We need to bring down the price, and our own supplies, even if they’re small, would go a long way toward that.

But even if the price doesn’t go down by way of new supply, demand may already be decreasing. A bunch of us telecommute two or three days each week.

Three people I know are considering buying a Prius (one of them pulled the trigger earlier this week). No, not a GM hybrid. A Toyota hybrid. My next door neighbor can’t sell his huge jacked-up Bronco. Nobody wants to pay the $2500 asking price and gasoline on top of that!

One problem; the true dumbing down of our education system. Was at an antique store with mrs, bored. Looked at a book, it was an 1890’s book which contained a test to graduate from public school (8th grade – age 13). High School was not public education in most US states until the 1920’s (i.e. you had to pay for it, just as you did college). Long story short, the test was SO frapping difficult, that I honestly don’t think 90% of 4 year college graduates could have completed it successfully, and I’m not exaggerating.

Second problem; expectations that living standard will continue to go up, as if it were some predestined magical formula. Wrong answer; living standards increased between 1900 and 2000 because we tapped much of the oil beneath us (and when that started to run out, imported more). I read something interesting once; one gallon of gasoline and the equivalent work it can do (usually via electricity) is equivalent to two slaves working all day long. Plus, with slaves, you had to house and feed them, chase after them when they ran away, etc.

In case anyone hadn’t noticed, the oil is slowly starting to run out. Hence, the exponential increases in cost.

Our standards of living world-wide are going to go down, and this process has begun in the United States.

That’s a long roundabout way of saying the Union guys are screwed, glued and tatooed.

I find that there is a consistent message, even through the varying opinions, to the big 2.8 on how to improve. The most commonly espoused advice is along the lines of: Get rid of overlapping brands and products. Focus the remaining brands into something that has meaning and is consistent and build vehicles that align with those brands. Stop badge engineering. Do one thing better than everyone else. Don’t have Bob Lutz as your spokesperson.

As a victim (contributor perhaps) of the current downturn I’m certainly critical of Detroit automakers, but I don’t gain any pleasure from seeing them fail. The downfall of the US auto industry is and will be extremely bad for the whole economy and is nothing anyone who lives in this country should hope for.

But not to put too fine a point on it, let me quickly share a little barometer of what the dreaded “D” word means, by delving into the past and looking at combined Chevrolet and Ford sales levels just before and through, the great (as in “huge” not “good”) Depression. I won’t even make any comments, the numbers are horrifying enough and tell a tale by themselves, most importantly, they give us a very small glimpse into what a Depression really means to employment and the economy overall.

1929: 1,507,132 (F) and 1,328,605 (C) for
2,835,737

1930: 1,140,710 (F) and 640,980 (C) for
1,781,690

1931: 619,554 (C) and 615,455 (F) for
1,235,009

1932: 313,404 (C) and 210,824 (F) for
524,228

1933: 486,261 (C) and 334,969 (F) for
820,957

1934: 563,921 (F) and 551,191 (C) for
1,115,112

1935: 820,253(F) and 548,215 (C) for
1,368,468

1936: 930,778 (F) and 918,278 (C) for
1,849,056

1937: 942,005 (F) and 815,375 (C) for
1,757,380

1938 (recession): 465,158 (C), 410,263 (F) for 875,421

1939: 557,278 (C) and 487,031 (F) for
1,064,309

1940: 764,616 (C) and 541,896 (F) for
1,306,512

1941: 1,008,976 (C) and 691,455 (F) for
1,700,431

So it can be seen that even 11 years into the depression, combined Ford and Chevrolet car sales only managed to get to 60% of the pre-depression levels. The nadir was 1932, with an 81.5% reduction in sales compared to model year 1929.

The equivalent today would be a sales of 17 million new vehicles per year going down to just over 3 million within 3 years.