What Happens When Oil Hits $120??

Every body is wondering how they will keep up with rising oil prices and still go to where they need to go.

First they will learn that at some point they cannot afford the transportation they have been driving. They will still get to where they need to go to survive like work, store etc. but it will be by a lest costly method.

Europe during WW2 found massive shortages of Gasoline and turned to wood gas as a fuel for the internal combustion engine. Some went back to horse and buggy or wagon, some turned to bicycles, mo-peds, motor scooters, homemade vehicles using very small gasoline engines.

When Oil prices get high enough, the laws governing our highways and streets will need to be changed to accommodate these vehicles that WILL be used. People will not stop using roads and Highways, they will change to a vehicle that they can afford. Want to get a vision of our future transportation system look to 3rd world cities with motor scooter with 2 and 3 people on it. Tuk Tuks, horse drawn carts.. Freeway traffic will change....

What happens?

We'll be screwed man!

better oil up your bike.

How about this...

It keeps raising.... dollars keeps lowering to the pound and yen. Then america start pushing forwards for the "Amero" currancy. saying yet again its in americas best interests.

I don’t think many people get it. The Arab block hates us and they control most of the oil. After Afghanistan and Iraq, we are at best tolerated because we have so much money to spend. The Saudi’s and Dubai just keep appeasing American interests while they rake in the cash. Now that Chavez has weighed in, the conspiracy starts.

Everyone knows America is weakened. Iran and Chavez are pushing the boundaries to have their way. Russia is also getting bolder. This happens when the mighty starts to crumble. The Arab world will continue to raise the prices to keep America contained so we won’t bother with Iran or Chavez in Colombia.

The Chinese might use this chance to mess with Taiwan. However, China is in their own mess that they hide very well. But from inside information where I work, China will crash if the US goes into a deep recession. China is barely hanging on, but strong arm the media to hide that news. They really over extended themselves for the Olympics and Western style business centers.

We need to buy things to raise tax revenues, but the rising fuel prices prevent this. Everybody is cutting back to fill up there SUVs (A stupid buy!). Then the government cuts back on services, people loses their jobs and inflation goes crazy. We are an oil based economy and it controls all things, like it or not. It will take a long time to convert to a greener technology environment. One thing we have to watch out for is a big movement for a NAU. While in a weakened state, the unemployed and foreign (read illegals) elements coupled with corrupted officials will try to cram this down our throats (for our own good – not!). Mark my words, this will happen. Beware of socialist candidates!

Just wondering if this high-priced gas is a part of 'thinning out the herd."
There's a brand new hospital here, but they don't do chemotherapy treatments. Insurances companies once paid the taxi service for transporting these patients to Las Vegas for chemo. Recently the patients have been told that their insurance companies will not cover the cost of the taxi transportation. Some of the people require several trips to Las Vegas which is 65 miles one way. They are told they will have to find other transportation or drive themselves. What's worse is most cannot afford it. The ones who can will have to drive that long dangerous highway, after chemo treatments. As most of you know chemo itself makes you feel sick and tired. My main fear is some cancer patients will just give up.
I don't know how many of the people here were exposed to The Las Vegas Endoscopy Clinic's filthy medical practices. Probably quite a few, since the brand new hospital wasn't doing those either. I don't mean to go off topic here. I'm just trying to point out that the high price of gas could mean a death sentence for some. Especially if you have no transportation to get to the treatments.

Originally posted by eagledriver

"It will take a long time to convert to a greener technology environment."

Well if the government allowed public use of the free-energy that already EXISTS in which they only use for themselves , we wouldn't have the negatives that rule this world, such as cancer and pollution. govt




[edit on 13-3-2008 by xnibirux]

I cAn't see it stopping . I'd say in a few years it will be 200.00. As the people start getting piss there's going to be social discourse in turn more police more surveillance , more restrictions on freedom. and so and so on. Gotta marvel at the cold calculating system. This is not a compliment.

The other day I bought a '92 Geo Metro that gets 40-50 mpg. I drive 45 miles each way to work. It was either buy this car or quit my job or move to Lexington, KY. I don't want to live in the crowded noisy city. Where I live there are very few jobs. I still see so many people driving huge SUV's and full-sized pickup's. I actually like my little car. God forbid I ever get into a collision. I think there are some strange reactions from the large vehicle drivers.
I think in the near future that the large vehicles are going to be lined up with dealers almost trying to give them away. I understand that a lot of people are kinda stuck with their large vehicles in the short run. however, I am still amazed that so many people are driving the large gas guzzlers. I would drive a large safer comfortable car if gas wasn't so crazy. It's as if people are stubbornly hanging onto their gas hogs. I think this is just ignorant. Anyway I have done all I can do for myself to cut the gas usage. I even stay home more and more and it's not like I went many places to begin with. The gas prices breaks this tightwads heart each time I fill up.
What amazes me is that something so important is unregulated. So, the big oil companies are free to charge just whatever they want to charge for the lifeblood of our country. It's not about scarcity. I understand at a time when gas prices are at an all time high that supplies are also way up. They are certainly out to cash in and this will snowball unless something happens to bring it under control.

reply to post by Illahee

Big oil, the fed and the people who think they have it down to a simple string of events are not as smart as they think.

if gas goes any higher people will panic! the average suv with a 25 gallon tank costs about $75.Oo to fill up. This is three times the average before 9/11. 75 x an average of 4 tanks a month is $300.00 bucks. This is average driving in todays world. That is just below what the average car payment is in the middle class today.

we have to have gas and diesel. There are over 300 million registered cars, suvs and big trucks in the united states. 300 million!!!! how are you going to phase them out and just switch to hybrids or hydrogen fuel cells. Convert them? not feasable! there are so many people with bad credit or they owe way more on the car they have than what it\'s worth that they will never be able to get these people out of the gas burners. The diesels can be converted to run on bio or veggie. But you still have to convert the newer models.

ethanol? this is a freakin joke! take the 7% of the total capable production limit of ethanol and just make diesel or bio diesel. This would supply all of the small diesel engines in the country. Not the big trucks, but the pov\'s. Technology exists right now in a few automakers models to make a diesel hybrid that get\'s 69.9 mpg\'s. Why not all automakers?

if they don\'t wake up the people will! if gas goes any higher it will spark protests and possibly the ultimate nightmare that the big oil hopes will never happen.

the truckers are the backbone and lifeline of this country. They deliver all goods to all places. They are the ones that need to be taken care of, instead they are being abused more than all of us. When the truckers have had enough, all they have to do is pick up there cb, call the convoy and just say s.T.O.P.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when this happens and it will if things do not change, the entire united states of america will stop in it\'s tracks. Truckers can shut down the entire transportation system in this country. Everything!
the airports will stop, the trains will stop, the buses will stop and if you are behind a trucker in traffic when they stop, you will stop as well. No traffic no customers, passengers,etc.!!!!!!!! they don\'t know how easy it would be just to coordinate a day and time and just stop. Take a big lunch and just stop in there tracks!!!!!!!!!

the oil companies have made so many billions of dollars in profit since 9/11 that i have lost count at about a trillion. 7 years of profits in the billions and billions of dollars and not once have they, \" the big oil companies\" offered to suspend profits or take a break on the 2+ dollars a gallon profitt they make per gallon. The gas tax! you pay that. That is passed along to the people. Not once have they offered a break to the people.

if you want to stop this maddness and get the big oil back in check this is how i would do it. This is the first thing i would do. This even stops the big oil because they can\'t get the gas to the stations to sell it. So people get ready, stock up on your groceries and water and beer, make sure you have a full tank in your mower because that\'s about all you will be able to do is mow you grass or sit on you rear end and blog on ats.

to all of you who think this can not happen, well it can! very easily!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


this is my opinion of what will happen if gas keeps going up!

maybe it needs to happen, just maybe......

with out hope, what do we have?

p.S. The united states army has a working protype of a diesel-hybrid hummv that weighs 7000 lbs and gets 100 miles per gallon. Top speed, 100+ mph!!!!!!!!! but they don\'t want you to know that. So don\'t tell them i told you.


Moderator Note: Please don't post in all caps

[edit on 13-3-2008 by dbates]

Originally posted by jerico65

I heard that the British pretty much get raped over gas and taxes. That must really suck.

Ummm...no taxation without representation?

reply to post by Attari


Owner Operators of big rig trucks will slowly park their trucks, and possibly sell them. It will become too expensive for them to operate. Actually that has already started to happen.

Trucking companies could possibly do both. One start reducing drivers pay by hiring alot of new drivers with less pay, and saying good bye to older company drivers in one way or another. Two, pass the new costs to their customers, who then pass along the costs to the consumers. Therefore the prices of everything from groceries to items goes up.

If the companies reduce the pay of company drivers too much, they will start quiting since they will not be able to afford to be out on the road and take care of their families like they were once able to.

Then government will try to expand the cross border program between US an Mexico to allow more Mexican trucking companies to operate in the US, and therefore take away US truck driving jobs because the Mexicans will be willing to drive for much less, and more willing to operate illegally.

Information on the Cross Border program www.ooida.com...

This also ties in with the trans Union huge highway the government has started to build in Texas.

Now since prices are going up every where, the cost to run a business will also go up from rent to over head. When the cost becomes too high, small businesses will close, and possibly start to hit medium businesses, and if it gets bad enough hit large businesses.

Basically all this means is more and more people will become unemployed. There will be more workers than there will be jobs let alone jobs that will be able to pay the bills and rent/mortgage. Some people will try their best to hold multiple jobs, which means even less jobs for others. Some will try to find more creative ways to make money, and others will loose everything they have and possibly become homeless if they don't have friends or family that will take them in.

People will be living on tighter and tighter budgets as things get worse and worse. They will stop driving and going to different places as much. The first places to be affects will be those providing entertainment such as movies. People will to be able to afford to go let alone be able to drive there. Memberships to various places will lapse. These places will be fairly hard hit, and I'm sure are starting to feel it already.

As prices continue to increase, people will stop buying anything that isn't a necessity. To conserve on gas, they will try to just make weekly trips or even bi-weekly trips to the store and grocery store. The stores that will do better are those selling the necessities and other items cheap.

Could it lead to a depression such as in 1929? If nothing is done to stop the rising gas prices, inflation, bankruptcies, job losses, and etc. Then yes, it very well could.

I actually think the government has made the situation worse by trying to infuse the economy with billions of more dollars which causes inflation. The bankruptcy changes where it makes it that much more difficult to almost impossible for people to discharge their debts. Making it more appealing to companies to move their factories over seas. Allowing a lot of people from Mexico and over seas to work in the US, just so employers can pay their employees less. That is just the tip of ice berg.

Can it be changed around for the better? Yes, I believe so. Will it be changed around for the better? That I seriously doubt.

Some of the new talked about policies will even make things worse such as Hillary wanting to make health care mandatory for everyone to have. If that happens, I do see more bankruptcies in the future. Especially if gas prices do not go down, the job situation doesn't turn around (I don't mean the minimum wage service paid jobs), inflation doesn't decrease, along with all the other factors that made this a terrible economy.

Inflation is hard to beat. Even if gas prices go back down to around $2.50 or even near $1.00, that still doesn't mean the cost of goods will also go down. The companies already know the consumers are willing to pay the higher prices. The people are already trained to accept those higher prices.

What will happen if things continue to get worse and worse? There is one phrase from the Bible book of Revelations I remember. A loaf of bread for a days wages.

Oil will not hit $120 per barrel, it will stroll right past it. World oil production peaked in 2006, as was predicted long ago, and everything is about to change big time in this world. Yeah, the world is not going to run out of crude, but the stuff remaining is much more difficult to get at, and not nearly as high quality, which means it will be more expensive.

What this means is that the U.S. will be forced to completely change its infrastructure. This is something we will be able to do, even with our huge debt situation. What this means is a vast expansion in the job market, not only in construction, but in manufacturing, and R&D as well. The auto industry is going to have to re-tool, and hybrids are the way of the future.

The Middle East is running out of oil, and their crude output will begin a serious decline in the next four years, and it will be midnight in the Saudi desert.

The darkest story involves the third world which has over populated hugely over the last several decades, mainly supported by cheap oil.

This site has some seriously sad but all too real points.

dieoff.com...

reply to post by poet1b


Overpopulation's a myth. The real problem is instability and poverty.

I find it hard to believe that the worlds current population is sustainable if we see a large drop in crude production. The information below is hard to ignore.

dieoff.com...

"Fertilisers have played a key role in offsetting nutrient-poor soils for our agriculture this century... A dramatic twenty-fold increase in nitrogen fertiliser use has occurred since 1965. Fossil fuels are needed for fertiliser manufacture -- 1500-2500 MJ per tonne for superphosphate... However, nitrogen fertilisers use natural gas or petroleum as a feedstock and had an energy intensity of 37,000 MJ per tonne in 1980 (p. 15)."

Fleay makes the summary statement:

"A very large proportion of the world's population depends for food from high agricultural yields achieved by the use of fossil fuels. The world may only be able to support a population of 3 billion without this input· Petroleum is a key fuel ... The principal grain exporters are the U.S.A., Canada, Europe, Australia and Argentina -- all highly dependent on petroleum-based industrial agriculture."

Grant (1996) notes the critical importance of petrochemicals to farmers, stating:

"... the dependence on pesticides and herbicides has risen dramatically because they would lose part or all of their crops if they stopped spraying... (p. 27)."

Grant adds:

"The 50-year rise of yields is slowing or ending, and the world is paying a high and rising price for the effort to keep raising yields. Countries that have become dependent on high yields should be seeking to escape the squirrel cage of rising demand. Countries that are not yet hooked on commercial fertilizers should recognize their potential limits and costs, and look to controlling demand -- population growth -- rather than hopefully relying on higher food yields to solve their problems (p. 28)."

"World population will have to adjust to lesser food supplies by a reduction in population. Pimentel and Pimentel (1996) state: ... the nations of the world must develop a plan to reduce the global population from near 6 billion to about 2 billion. If humans do not control their numbers, nature will." Because stopping and then turning around the freight train of population growth can only be done gradually, this is a project which should be started now (Cohen, 1995). If it is not done, famine on a large scale is likely to ensue."

Sorry for the large amount of information I have posted, but these are excerpts from a large data source that take time to find.

so, hypothetically, if everyone in the US begins to carpool. we're talking about half the fuel consumption or little more depending on how many people per car, what would happen? Why would they let it get so high that oil companies/refineries/OPEC would just be sitting on oil, not profits. How long could we wait it out? The State of Oregon is has already switched to Hybrids, some if not all.

So then, if the US only shuts off half of the consumption, then what?

Well I agree that it won't stop at 120. And I know that many many things are affected by the price of oil, but I think many are overreacting here.

yes food will go up, but we will also see more food grown locally. Yes plastic prices will rise, but we did just fine before that. People may not be able to drive, but they will find ways to get around. I see a lot of bad things happening like less time for fun, people having less children, moving to small houses etc.

But the truth is, how much plastic was used in the early 1900s? What about 1800s? How many cars were there?

My point is people will adjust. Humans survived before the auto, they will survive after it.

i am afraid, it won't stop at $120.00

and going higher, will possibly create a globab economic CRASH. But i
really, hope it won't.

reply to post by dariousg
I too remember the oil execs getting called before congress, their excuse was, Our profit margines are less than most other companies, such as banks. While that statement may be true, there are many many other banks from which to choose, there are only a handful of oil companies from which to choose.

Gotta love exxons one hundred million dollars in profits per day.

reply to post by chromatico


From what I've read, heard, and thought about the subject...as oil tops $200 a barrel and continues to go up and up, several things begin to happen. One is that it becomes more economical to produce and use alternative fuels. Another is that the more expensive options for oil extraction become suddenly feasable.

In terms of societal structure, I think we will begin to see fundamental changes in how and where people live. For instance, more and more people will plant gardens and grow their food. We may see wide spread comunity gardens spring up all over metro areas. People will of course use bicycles, walk, and public transport more often. They will also begin to live closer to work and shopping areas so this may perhaps be the end to "urban sprawl" as people begin to relocate to cut down on commute distance.

Finally, people may once again begin to know who their neighbors are. With energy prices beyond affordability, neighbors will begin to use the barter and traid system and start helping one another in the interest of their mutual needs. A lot of good may actually come from this.

If we think ahead, and begin to plan now, we as a society can adjust but if we ignore it until it's too late, there may indeed be some civil unrest. The first step, I think, is try and vote for candidates who are not in the oil business, for starters. I know most of them take huge amounts of money from the big corporations for their campaigns, but we need to start looking at voteing for the candidates who are the least corporate and more for the people, because in the years to come we are going to need people in power who are on "our" side, and not the bottom line for shareholders or their own slick pockets IMHO.

reply to post by skyshow


Oh, and I forgot to include that the days of super cheep airfares may be coming to a grinding hault, and again this may not be a bad thing either unless you work in the airline business. Folks, we are burning fuel like there is no tomorrow, and letting the future generations subsidise our current cheep oil (or what has been). If you took the system route maps from Delta, United, Southwest, USAir, Northwest, American, and the other big ones, and laid them all out on a large map of the USA, you would see it nearly completely covered in lines...It would boggle your mind to see the thousands upon thousands of flights cris-crossing the country every day...many of these people taking trips for the sake of just getting away...meanwhile burning up prescious fuel, polluting the atmosphere, ripping holes in the ozone layer etc...and all the while ripping off the future generations. Does this make sense? We need to cut out the frivolous nonsense and start conserving and planning. But first off, when gas per gallon hits $10.00 and oil per barrel is beyond $200.00 then maybe people will think about saving some.

I just think ahead to like four or five generations down the line or beyond and what it will be like to them...will they look back to this era and say "what the hell was wrong with those people, and why were they so damned wastefull". Our great great grand kids are in for a tough ride, and it's our fault!!!