by MJ » Thu 01 Sep 2005, 07:39:03
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Free', 'M')ark my words: It will be business as usual very soon, and afterwards everybody will shrug it off and be happy to forget the shortage as soon as possible. And it will be seen as a confirmation of the view that "they will save us". So in my opinion it will be very counterproductive for PO preparation, because it was just another temporary crisis like in the 70ies which went away again, and surely every crisis in the future will be like that. An oil shock, a spike blah blah blah.
Exactly my thoughts! People want to and will forget any inconvenient event in their life.
The fact that nobody seems to be willing to recognise the main cause of a(near) shortage (or very limited reserves at least) being a supply/demand problem at the ageing and declining fields, and not being an artificial crisis due to hurricanes, terrorists or speculators, leads me to believe people will go on just as they were used to be. And I'm not talking Americans, we Europeans join the game with enthusiasm, and we're looking the other side with an even greater enthusiasm.
In my country, consumer and public organisations start to put pressure on the government to lower taxes on fuels. Allthough we do have one of the highest taxes on petrol, it sends the wrong signal. First quarter of the year, petrol consumption was down by 11% compared to last year, ofcourse this was caused by high prices. Lowering taxes makes petrol cheaper again, which in turn will boost demand (and consumption) instead of lowering it. This certainly will not mitigate transition to alternative fuels, at the contrary, it will lead to accelerated and steeper decline...
What people fail to realise, is that high energy prices are here to stay, in spite of campaigns like the Chevron ads, mainstream media attention or high petrol prices. This is NOT a temporary spike, this will NOT go away anytime soon and we probably will NOT be able to maintain our exuberant life-style as it is today.