by Corpsicle » Wed 10 May 2006, 12:29:41
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Peak_Plus', '.').. do you want to offer an objective "index" on how to measure the PAIN of PO?
A pertinent question.
I can only offer my uneducated take on it, as the management of this "pain" may become pro-active, in the form of subsidies, or coercive, in the form of threathening boycotts (in some form or another) of nations wanting to decrease their oil-production.
In any case, I offer the comparative perspective of demand-destruction, or as economists would coin it, "long-term flexibility", as a starting-point for consideration.
For example, comparing Norway's gas-prices with that of the US, with the perspective that oil is a globally fungible good, hints that with 80% taxes for gas delivered to the consumer in Norway, and a flexibility of 0.01, a 5% reduction in gas-supplies increases the price in Norway much less than that in America, relatively speaking.
So with calculations basing themselves on that (and on the European continent plus China), I suggest that when the annual increase in fuel-consumption for America - being in my view the most vulnerable of the industrialized countries - that is the point of inflection, or if you will, the POINT OF PAYNE.
Thank you and have a nice day.