[Cashmere]

I don't know.
Let's take bad case scenario. Note I did not say <i>worst</i> case scenario.
By 2010 gas is at 10$ a gallon. I can see it.
For the average person driving 250 miles a week . . .
If you're dumb enough to be driving a car/truck/suv that gets less than 10 mpg, then it's 250 in the tank or more.
At 20 mpg, it's 125 in the tank.
At 30 mpg, it's 83 bucks a week.
At 40 mgp, it's 62 bucks a week.
Does 62 bucks a week for gasoline sound like a lot? Not to me.
But if you take your average, fat ass, tv-watching, lazy, donkey-shit eating American driving an SUV that gets 15 MGP because . . . well, just because they're dumb enough to want to drive such a piece of shit so that their even dumber neighbors can admire them, then it's closer to 175 and that's a bit of an ouch.

What is it with poor people?
All around me I see "poor" people.
I'm in the gas station in my 34mpg vehicle that cost 10 grand 5 years ago.
They're driving Ford 250 somethings, and Tahoes, and they live in trailers and shit boxes.
What is the deal with that?
And every time I see them inside buying cigarettes for 5 bucks a pack and losery tickets to to the tune of 30 bucks and some pure sugar confection in a pre wrapped container and a 1 liter bottle of tooth rot for 2.10 and then I hear them grumble, "I can't believe the price of gas", I want to say, "I can't believe that someone as poor as you is as stupid as you."
And eventually all of these idiots who have been dumping 25% of their paychecks into car payments and gas will eventually figure it out or be walking.
And, personally, 10$ gas can't get here soon enough for me.
Why?
Because unlike many of the other socialists above me in this thread, I'd much prefer to have 5 hillbillies crammed into an AMC Gremlin, each killing themselves with a Marlboro red in a fog of smoke, then have each of them driving a 4,000 pound truck that's getting 8mpg for no other reason than they equate the size of their vehicle with the desired size of their phalus.
350 Gas? Good riddance.
The sooner we get to 10 the better.
And so as not to be unfairly harsh with the stupid rednecks who choose to be poor in this country, I also look forward to the day when Suzie Homemaker and Joe Sixpack have to drive Geo Metros rather than Chevy Gargantuans and Ford Jupiters.

[Heineken]

Americans are up to their noses in debt. Can America afford to replace its entire vehicle fleet with gas sippers?

Can gas sipper trucks keep the shelves in the big-box stores stocked? Can they even get up the hill?

[roccman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'I') don't know.
Let's take bad case scenario. Note I did not say <i>worst</i> case scenario.
By 2010 gas is at 10$ a gallon. I can see it.
For the average person driving 250 miles a week . . .
If you're dumb enough to be driving a car/truck/suv that gets less than 10 mpg, then it's 250 in the tank or more.
At 20 mpg, it's 125 in the tank.
At 30 mpg, it's 83 bucks a week.
At 40 mgp, it's 62 bucks a week.
Does 62 bucks a week for gasoline sound like a lot? Not to me.
But if you take your average, fat ass, tv-watching, lazy, donkey-shit eating American driving an SUV that gets 15 MGP because . . . well, just because they're dumb enough to want to drive such a piece of shit so that their even dumber neighbors can admire them, then it's closer to 175 and that's a bit of an ouch.
What is it with poor people?
All around me I see "poor" people.
I'm in the gas station in my 34mpg vehicle that cost 10 grand 5 years ago.
They're driving Ford 250 somethings, and Tahoes, and they live in trailers and shit boxes.
What is the deal with that?
And every time I see them inside buying cigarettes for 5 bucks a pack and losery tickets to to the tune of 30 bucks and some pure sugar confection in a pre wrapped container and a 1 liter bottle of tooth rot for 2.10 and then I hear them grumble, "I can't believe the price of gas", I want to say, "I can't believe that someone as poor as you is as stupid as you."
And eventually all of these idiots who have been dumping 25% of their paychecks into car payments and gas will eventually figure it out or be walking.
And, personally, 10$ gas can't get here soon enough for me.
Why?
Because unlike many of the other socialists above me in this thread, I'd much prefer to have 5 hillbillies crammed into an AMC Gremlin, each killing themselves with a Marlboro red in a fog of smoke, then have each of them driving a 4,000 pound truck that's getting 8mpg for no other reason than they equate the size of their vehicle with the desired size of their phalus.
350 Gas? Good riddance.
The sooner we get to 10 the better.
And so as not to be unfairly harsh with the stupid rednecks who choose to be poor in this country, I also look forward to the day when Suzie Homemaker and Joe Sixpack have to drive Geo Metros rather than Chevy Gargantuans and Ford Jupiters.

[vision-master]

$10 gal gas will affect almost everyone.

What do you think energy costs for businesses will be?

[Denny]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cashmere', 'I') don't know.
What is it with poor people?
All around me I see "poor" people.
I'm in the gas station in my 34mpg vehicle that cost 10 grand 5 years ago.
They're driving Ford 250 somethings, and Tahoes, and they live in trailers and shit boxes.
What is the deal with that?
And every time I see them inside buying cigarettes for 5 bucks a pack and losery tickets to to the tune of 30 bucks and some pure sugar confection in a pre wrapped container and a 1 liter bottle of tooth rot for 2.10 and then I hear them grumble, "I can't believe the price of gas", I want to say, "I can't believe that someone as poor as you is as stupid as you."
And eventually all of these idiots who have been dumping 25% of their paychecks into car payments and gas will eventually figure it out or be walking.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') gotta wonder if some people ever take out a piece of paper and think of budgeting their income and the expenditures.

[Kingcoal]

History has shown that nothing works like high prices. The problem is that back in WW2, before suburbia, people generally lived relatively close to work. I used to ride the R7 train from Bensalem, PA to Philadelphia. That route went through Kensington, an old manufacturing corridor, now all abandoned. You have groups of old factories about a 5 to 10 minute walk from each train station. Also, most of the people who worked in those factories lived in the row houses nearby. Before WW2, it seems like most working class people simply walked to work. In Philly, they used to call those neighborhoods, "lunch pail communities" because of all the men walking with lunch boxes. From an energy standpoint, places of employment in the cites, with public transit nearby is very efficient.

I have no idea what people are going to do these days. Hell, I know a lot of people who can barely afford to drive to work as it is now. I guess huge numbers of people are going to just park the car and stay home and collect government benefits. The problem is that high fuel prices are fantastically regressive, affecting the working poor exponentially more than higher classes.

[vision-master]

And what good does do to live close to work these days? I mean, don't most jobs last about 5 years or less anyways?

[Byron100]

I have some ideas...why not pass a law that people can't commute more than a certain distance to work...say about 20 miles each way? Also, mandate a 4 day, 36-hour work week, nationwide...that'd cut commuting costs by 20% right there. Also, they really should make all urban interstates carpool only (all lanes HOV) during rush hours in order to force the masses to carpool to work...or take mass transit. And dagdamit, they've gotta ban SUV sales, like yesterday. No car should be allowed to roll off an assembly line or imported that gets less than 40 mpg...period.

There is just SO MUCH that can be done to dramatically curtail gasoline use...and we're not doing any of them. We deserve what's coming to us, we really do. $10 gas? Pfft. Bring on the shortages, I wanna see America come to a screeching halt...LOL.

[Dreamtwister]

If there were rationing, you can be assured that the legion of big, black suburbans will get the first spot in line.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', 'I')f there were rationing, you can be assured that the legion of big, black suburbans will get the first spot in line.

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')oes anyone have any data on what the average U.S. daily gas consumption per household was before rationing, say, 1941

[Armageddon]

I agree with a previous poster and think higher gas prices will replace rationing. Another buck or two and you will see a pretty large drop in demand. We are about at the end of the rope now. In 12 months from today, things should be noticably different than today. The word depression will be heard on a regular basis.

[Fishman]

Vision Master brings up a very good point earlier. People who live in poverty have a very different mindset than those in middle class or those wealthy. A class I'm in is going through the book " a framework for understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne. Different folks just see things differently. Each group will meet the challenges of peak oil differently. A budget may be as foreign to some as where the best weed is for others. Unfortunately about the only things that move you out of poverty are education and relationships/ mentors. Government handouts only puts one at moral jeapardy, it makes it easier for you to do the same stupid things over and over.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', ' ')They're driving Ford 250 somethings, and Tahoes, and they live in trailers and shit boxes.

[Ludi]

I agree with those who say price will replace rationing. Because of our current political climate (not anyone thinking of anything other than getting elected), no politician will call for rationing, or any other deliberate strategy for cutting consumption.

They won't even call for a lower speed limit.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FireJack', 'I')'m pretty sure once rationing starts there will be nothing but bitter complaints and riots etc. Lots of people do things to adapt as the rationing continues to get worse, and worse, and worse, then things like rebuilding roads or plowing them in the winter becomes harder and power becomes intermittent and it just keeps getting worse.
I bet once we hit the bottom after the die off things will be better for a lot of people than they were with all that gas. Until some thing like as ice age comes along and we join the extinction list but that will be a while.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FireJack', ' ')once rationing starts...

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'T')hey're driving Ford 250 somethings, and Tahoes, and they live in trailers and shit boxes

[jlw61]

While I believe that the market can sort it out best, I also believe some form of rationing will be the end result. I also just realized that with rationing, there is usually a whole new level of bureaucracy. You will need inspectors to watch for a black market, questionable purchases, and forged ration cards/coupons. You'll need a whole lot more people running around trying to stop the black market. Government will grow, demand more in taxes (probably at the pump) and the price will spiral even higher. The sanest, most reasonable method to all this is letting the market run its course.

However, I'm one who believes that government will not be able to "do nothing" and some form of rationing will occur. After all, why should the "poor" have to use mass transit? Why should the poor live near their work? Why should the poor have to get rid of their one-ton pickups, SUVs, and 15-year old V8 engines? Just because many of the middle class are paying more, switching to more efficient vehicles, car pooling, taking the bus, moving closer to work, cutting traveling and doing with less doesn't mean the poor should suffer. After all, as most socialist seem to believe, if there are hardships then the middle class need to do with less (or just work harder to have an iota of their former life). I love how socialist tend to think that everyone else (not them of course) need to lower their standard of living and "share the pain".

Some possible scenarios for rationing:

Worst: The government does what it usually does and starts a rationing system. Lots of new inspectors, rationing cards, and laws. These new inspectors could then double, in the future, as anti-hording inspectors who would be able to enter your house without warrant and look for food caches. Government gets bigger, taxes go up, inflation soars, a new class of criminal is created, prisons expand and it's all being done for "the children." Within two years the system becomes bloated and completely corrupt. We all have fun as we circle the drain even faster.

Better: A card that you can refill at ATMs or the gas station that allows the holder to put X number of gallons/week at a much lower price. The card would probably a maximum of 4 weeks worth of gas and the banks would get to charge a buck every time you filled it. Once you use your weeks ration, you pay the much higher market price (with much higher gas taxes). This is actually, IMHO, the smartest way to ration as it provides a profit motive for banks and industry to support it and creates a rationing system that minimizes government growth and could help minimize the black market.

Best: You designate one of your credit/ATM cards as the "gas card" that allows you to do as above, thus giving you a little better security, no new card to carry, and it performs the same task and banks don't get anything extra for the trouble. Those without ATM or credit cards use a prepaid debit card.

In the better and best category it would be possible to handle all of this if a gas station accepts credit cards at the pump (believe it or not, I found one that did not last fall). Yes, it would require some extra work on the part of the industry to reprogram their machines, but as a programmer I can not see it as a hardship if given enough notice.