Also I frequently hear from my public assistance patients that they are trying to plan all of their medical tests and doctor visits on the same day so they only have to come to town once a month.  These are the poorest of the poor.  But if the lowest 5% reduce their driving by 20%, the overall effect is a 1% reduction in the rate of growth.  

Among middle to upper income people, there hasn't been any demand destruction around here. Everyone in Ohio who can afford it is still taking their annual beach vacation to the Carolinas.

It's the circle of growth.

Rampant comsumerism -> Obscenely Massive Piles of Debt -> Irrational Monetary Growth (FED/M3) -> and back to rampant consumerism.

And the circle keeps on rolling.  Build more, eat more, spend more, burn more...wait...what do you mean there is no more!?

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It's all about population!

ummm, there's the rub isn't it?  People still have to live and plan their lives.  They need houses, food, jobs, and as long as they still have cars and trucks, highways and roads.  If building what the American people need to live their lives is "not it" as far as useful goes, then we have to replace it with something that is "it"?

What would that be?  Getting people to plan for a different future relies on an answer to that question.  Right now, if you put 5 very "energy depletion" aware people in a room, and tried to get them to agree on even a short set of forward otions, my bet is that you would leave the room with at least 5 wildly differing sets of recommendations.

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout

Where I am in Central Kentucky is baffling beyond words.  In a state well known for decades of lack of development, all of a sudden, everybody is building.

In Hardin County, we used to be surprised to see a neighborhood being built that was ten or twelve houses at a time.  Now, the builders descend in with huge crews and equipment, and build FAST.  I have seen 3 or so sixty or seventy home developments in the last couple of years shoot up.  I figured, well, that about fills this market, more building that we have seen since the early Reagan years!  WRONG.  On my route to work, they are new tearing up three huge areas all within 3/4 of a mile of each other and about that distance from two of the current developments, preparing for three more (!!)

There has been a new Super Walmart built, followed immediately by restuarants, strip mall up the street, office parks, two new call center facilities.

It seems as though after decades of sloth, even slow old Kentucky has finally decided to join the building race, and can't get enough.  The size of trucks and cars only seems to get bigger, with driveways in some cases now having mulitple SUV's (!!!)  In a state with one of the lowest per capita incomes in the nation, I cannot even guess where all the money is coming from.

And frankly, what few people have heard of Peak Oil, oil depletion, or Gore's global warming simply dismiss it out of hand as another Y2K type hoax, and show zero interest.

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout