[KevO]

As Matt Simmons has pointed out on his recent radio interview, oil is very cheap at $60.

I pay £3 a pint for Guinness ($5.30).
£1 for a litre (about a pint) of Mineral water ($1.79)
etc etc
At the current $64, oil costs exactly 19 cents a pint (12p) That is cheap and that is why oil will increase for sometime yet before it could be called not cheap.

To get to a comparable to Guinness which nobody has stopped paying for, oil would have to be $1,800 a barrel. That could then be called expensive

The full interview with Mr Simmons is at Financial Sense

[Cynus]

Luckily Guinness has been able to keep up with demand and people don't need several gallons of it to get to work every day (present company excluded ) and to move goods around the world.

[emersonbiggins]

Yeah, and ink for your printer runs $3,840/gallon, and, yet, we KEEP on printing stuff!

Trucks, trains and planes don't run on Guinness. The drivers might, but the machines themselves don't.

[Ludi]

How much Guinness does the world consume per day?

[brobak]

So...your solution to peak oil is..semantics?

You're betting your life on a relative interpretation of the word "cheap"?

Please don't move next to me. Thank you.

[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'H')ow much Guinness does the world consume per day?

[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'L')uckily Guinness has been able to keep up with demand and people don't need several gallons of it to get to work every day and to move goods around the world.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KevO', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'L')uckily Guinness has been able to keep up with demand and people don't need several gallons of it to get to work every day and to move goods around the world.

[KevO]

More seriously and joking apart, what I was doing was expanding on exactly what MS said which is as follows,

"JIM: You gave an analogy in terms of how cheap oil is at $60/barrel, I wonder if you might share that with our listeners?

MATT: Sure. Because every time I get into a discussion now about the future of oil I always get asked, “well, where will oil prices be?” And my response is, “I don’t have any idea where they’re going to be, other than the fact I think on a secular move, we are still at a very, very cheap level of oil prices.” And that immediately gets a response, “Cheap?! Oil’s at $60 a barrel!” And one of the things I’ve observed is that people don’t really understand what a barrel is. They can kind of conceive what a barrel might look like. But when you put it in terms people can understand, I say “what $60 per barrel is, is 18 cents a pint.”

And then I get a response, “How did you do that?!”

“Well, you divide 60 by 42, to get a gallon of oil, and you divide a gallon by 8 to get a pint of oil, and that just happens to be 18 cents a pint.”

And then they say, “ Oh, that’s really cheap, isn’t it?”

And obviously it’s cheap. I don’t know what’s the next cheapest liquid we actually sell in any bulk is, that has any value. I suspect there are places around the United States where municipal water costs more than 18 cents a pint."
read the interview, it's a good un at
http://www.financialsense.com/transcrip ... mmons.html
....................................................................................

So it's not semantics about the word 'cheap' it's one's conditined perception.
oil really is cheap - AND we will afford it.

Imagine a scenario where you are absconded in the street to do a test - a bit like guess the real butter thing.
There's a table laid out with a pint of Guinness, a pint of water, a pint of Milk, a pint of shampoo and a pint of crude oil.
By the Guinness there is a sign saying - consume 5 pints of this and you will likely feel sick after a happy phase and will feel shit for most of the next morning
by the water, it's drink 5 pints of this and you'll be healthier but a bit bloated and up all night pissing
by the milk it says consume 5 pints of this and you'll get man boobs but good teeth
by the oil it says 5 pints of this will do many, many things one of which is allow you (And 4 or 5 of your friends if you wish)to travel 20 to 25 miles (in Europe's 40mpg cars) in a vehicle that's air con, is very comfortable, has stereo sound system ....and you'll feel the same as when you left.

19 cents a pint for fuck's sake. Look what it does.
We're all thinking wrong. Oil will still be cheap (and cheap can only mean cheap when used as a comaprison to something else) when it's $300 a barrel.

Additionally why would people stop using thier cars when missing a night out on that $5 a pint alcohol would suffice.
if you only drink 6 beers a week at $4 each then that's $24 or 10 gallons or 200 to 400 miles of travel.
As Oil gets dearer people will simply stop drinking and smoking - not driving.
It may come over as daft but it's not that daft.
You'll see
NotthatdaftO

[FoxV]

its a good thing the average american doesn't consume 22 pints a guiness per day per person like they do oil. Otherwise they would be in real trouble (not to mention wasted).

btw, price of oil is a poor scale for cost comparison as nobody actually uses oil. They use refined products which at best are 4X more expensive than oil by volume (assumed US retail gas price for that 4X figure, almost everywhere else in the world its double that)

[whiteknight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cynus', 'L')uckily Guinness has been able to keep up with demand and people don't need several gallons of it to get to work every day (present company excluded ) and to move goods around the world.

[gnm]

mmmmmmm Guiness....

Well it doesn't require Guiness to produce and distribute oil, but it does require oil to produce and distribute Guiness....


-G

[SHiFTY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')
Not sure but Paddy Simmons reckons Ireland is lying about it's brewery reserves and there having to use a lot more yeast to get any decent Guinness now.
The IAEA (Irish Alcoholic Emblem Ass.) are on the case or the crate.

[Geology_Guy]

Good point gnm. Guiness is a s cheap as it is at the moment because of cheap oil. If oil goes to $200 per barrel will they still be shipping the barrels to Kansas at a price the average Joe can afford?

I guess I had better move across the Pond if I want my pint in the future.

[whiteknight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KevO', '
')Something that gets you mobile and has your goods brought to you, serves you in every way costs only 19 cents a pint yet something that only makes you immobile, throw up, beat the wife and talk bollocks costs $5.30!

Where's the logic in that?

Spock

[whiteknight]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geology_Guy', 'I') guess I had better move across the Pond if I want my pint in the future.

[skateari]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '1')9 cents a pint for fuck's sake. Look what it does.
We're all thinking wrong. Oil will still be cheap (and cheap can only mean cheap when used as a comaprison to something else) when it's $300 a barrel.

Additionally why would people stop using thier cars when missing a night out on that $5 a pint alcohol would suffice.
if you only drink 6 beers a week at $4 each then that's $24 or 10 gallons or 200 to 400 miles of travel.
As Oil gets dearer people will simply stop drinking and smoking - not driving.

[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('skateari', '
')That has to be some of the most retard, backwards thinking I have ever seen on this site.

[skateari]

LOL. Sorry, but you would be suprised how many smart people out there would actualy post ideas like that and mean it. Its funny what kind of backwards thinking people will do to make this look like less of a problem.

Dont mind me, I've been gone from the board a while so im not familar with everyone's sense of humor, but I know now that yours is quite sarcastic

However I do agree with the main statement that (I think) you were making. Oil will be cheap even when its $200/B. For the ammount of work, and energy you get out of a barrel it would be much very much worth it. But you kind of lost me in the rest of your (joke) thinking. Because it doesn't matter how "cheap" you can make it look, what does matter is the price our economy can handle before prices increase, until people can no longer afford it, and also as prices get higher the stakes of grabbing resources (war) will increase.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat has to be some of the most retarded, backwards thinking I have ever seen on this site.

Oil is not beer. And thats a totaly stupid compairison.