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Saudi Arabia, like many oil exporting countries, subsidizes domestic energy, which is creating the positive feedback loop that we have discussed. The article on Venezuela discusses how difficult it is to curtail domestic subsidies. IMO, this is especially true when the cash flow from oil exports is rising (because of higher oil prices), even as export volumes fall.
Then we have "richer" countries like the US, where the prevailing opinion is that you can have their keys to their pickups and SUV's when you pry them out of their cold dead fingers (actually a woman interviewed a year or so ago in the Dallas paper said precisely that).
I think that consumption is going to be a difficult beast to kill, but my view for some time has been that we have to kill consumption before consumption kills us. However, our glorious leaders in Washington are getting a plan together to try to boost short term consumption. It is our patriotic duty, as Americans, to continue to borrow and spend.
In any case, for those of us who believe in evolution and finite energy resources, this is at least an opportunity to continue to unload highly energy dependent assets on true believers in the Yerginite community.
It is times like this that demonstrate that there isn't much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to the addiction to growth. My God!!! We might actually experience a few quarters of lower growth or, gasp!, a reduction in GDP? Let's roll out the consumption machine. Regardless, I wonder how effective this stimulus package is going to be if it is all about consuming more crap from China. Have these people ever heard of "leakage"? The part of that dollar going to China will do nothing to boost our GDP.
If we're going to have stimulus, do it in a way that directs spending towards investments in our energy future. Even if people buy a few CFLs and put in some installation, at least they will get a return on their dollars and not just more crap that they will end up throwing in the trash in a couple of years.
So, give something directly to consumers in the form of energy vouchers. Put the rest in incentives for more fuel efficient autos and transporation systems. Put some money into planning for more compact cities. Invest in mass rail based transit. Provide free transit fares. Invest in renewable energy.
So, if this is a crisis, let us be like the neocons and take advantage of the crisis to invest in our future, not just consume more crap.
The best way to kill consumption, is to kill the consumers. ;)
I got their short term consumption. Whatever $ they decide to 'give me to consume with' will promptly be invested in commodities...But, not those despensed at the gas pumps. :) BTW, anyone with 4 SUVs needs some professional help, imo.
Then there is Governator Schwarzenneger who in a fit of Californian eco-consciousness cut his hummer fleet from 7 down to 4.
I don't see how 4 SUVs is much worse than 1 - they can't possibly drive all 4 at the same time, so the total miles driven should be about the same. Driving an SUV to begin with is likely an indicator of needing some professional help, though.
Sure, they can. It's a family of six.
IME, most families with multiple vehicles have a variety, rather than all trucks/SUVs. My parents have a Ford Explorer, and a little Subaru. If gasoline gets insanely expensive, they can drive the Subaru and park the Explorer.
You missed the part of my point about total miles traveled. Are the VMT for the family larger because they have more SUVs, or would they still drive the same distance, just not simultaneously, if they had just one SUV? I'd guess the VMT would be about the same, unless they convoy to go to Applebee's for some fine dining or something.
I think VMT would be higher. If you have only one car, you learn to share rides, combine trips, etc.
Which is what we did in my family. We had two cars and four drivers when I was a teen, so my sister and I often went places together, or we hitched a ride with one of our parents, even if it meant hanging around at their office or at the mall waiting for them to get done. We also caught rides with friends. I know if I had my own car, I would have driven it, rather than hitchhike with friends and family.
There's also the fact that not all VMT are equal. If they had a Prius instead of one of the SUVs, they could save gas and save money. Do they really all need trucks or SUVs every day? One of each is probably enough. Whoever needs the people mover or the cargo hauler could use it, while the others drive smaller cars.
I suspect very few SUV owners really *need* them. I really wish government regulations didn't favor SUVs - better tax treatment for business owners, along with more lenient crash and emission standards. I absolutely loathe SUVs.
I'm perpetually amazed at the number of people who run off to buy an SUV or a minivan when they have their first or second kid. That and the fact that people think 25 highway MPG is 'good mileage'.
Lastly, let me express my gratitude for the content on this site. I'm learning a lot from the community here and appreciate the effort being made to educate the masses (myself included).
Cheers,
-Fab
Oddly, I think the new safety rules encourage families to buy minivans or SUVs. Kids need to be carseats now; you can't just pack them all in the backseat like grandma used to.
When I was a kid, we had a station wagon, and if necessary, we kids sat in the cargo area in back. That would be child abuse now.
My boss has three kids and a minivan. He's also got a smaller car, but three carseats really don't fit in it very well. And his mother-in-law lives with them, so they just don't fit in a normal car. In the old days, baby could sit in mommy's or grandma's lap, but not now. Before they got the minivan, they used to take two cars everywhere.
And my parents need an SUV because they live an area where many roads are still 4-wheel drive only. (Especially the farms my dad works on.) Everyone used to have Scouts or Range Rovers before Explorers became so popular. An SUV or pickup is also handy for taking trash to the dump, because there's no curbside pickup.
Yep...this is why I have a Pruis and a RAV4. We use the Pruis as much as possible, but there are frequent times I need to transport the kids, the dog, luggage and or presents all at once. I can't do that in the Pruis so the RAV4 is the most fuel economic, reliable, small SUV out there. I could have gotten Ford's hybrid SUV (Escape?), but it was slightly bigger, more expensive, and the gas mileage was only a little better than the SUV. Plus, Ford is going in the tank and Toyota is not. Service has always been exceptional at my local Toyota dealer, while Ford service is horrible.
There are decent wagons out there (used to have a Subaru Legacy wagon), but the gas mileage is lacking.
Until there are better options out there for vehicles that can haul some things AND have decent mileage, some smaller SUVs are my only options. I DON'T think the humongous SUVs are necessary to around things and they are overkill, but not SUVs are created equal. I hate it when people lump SUVs together as EVIL.
The reason I think SUVs are evil is the fact that the bumper height is high enough that anyone in a car is put at risk in a collision, even for the smaller SUVs. The highway mileage also suffers from the extra ride height and frontal area. A lot of the smaller SUVs could just be station wagons, with beneficial results. I have yet to see a small SUV that offers any advantage over a station wagon. Unfortunately, SUVs are often the only option if you want a practical wagon-like vehicle, as wagons are fairly hard to come by in the US market (though there are some good roomy ones - we love our 2000 passat wagon).
Do they? ... or are their costs of production so low they don't need to charge much for it to make a profit in their domestic market?
The price we pay in importing countries balances the supply and demand of the 'net exports' marginal barrels on the world market.
The essence of the Export Land Model is that for political reasons the home market always takes precedence for any commodity, not just oil - and that most definitely includes the USA judging by the way corn is converted to ethanol rather than export it for food.
Don't expect the KSA to act in anybody's best interests other than their own - and don't expect them to take a short term view.
Right, xeroid. I've also seen those who insist that they have to sell "some" oil even if it means turmoil at home. I point everyone who makes that assertion to Great Britain and Indonesia as ELM examples. They have foregone all the revenue from potential oil exports in order to satisfy consumers at home. Why? Because if the elected powers did not do this, they would no longer be the elected powers.
KSA is a monarchy, so in a slightly different situation, but the House of Saud knows that their grasp on power in KSA relies upon either keeping the populace happy or resorting once again to tribal warfare which King Ibn Saud used to reunify Saudi Arabia in the early part of the 20th century. I strongly suspect that the House of Saud will attempt to buy off competitors as long as possible before choosing to deal with them directly via warfare which was the traditional means of choosing succession in that part of the world for a long time.
While it is possible that KSA may choose to sell some oil at the expense of domestic consumers, I would argue that it is extremely unwise for us to base our national policies on that hope, and that instead we should argue for drastic reductions in petroleum usage. Lacking such reductions in petroleum usage, all else is just smoke and mirrors before we go over the ultimate cliff. So we have a choice - the technology already exists and is sitting right in front of us. Do we grasp it or go like lemmings over that cliff instead? So far I still see the lemming march in full force.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7237456
Well, I guess it turns on the definition of subsidy. In any case, the Saudis are selling gasoline for about 50ยข per gallon, that would sell for about $2.25 (wholesale) in New York.
The idea that people generally act in their own self interest is a principle of society. Without it we could not have traffic racing in opposite directions at the speed limit. I find it odd when some posters think that it is somehow immoral when people, or countries for that matter, act in their own self interest. When someone says they are just in it for the scientific intellectual inquiry and not for the money, I hang on to my wallet. Those who sacrifice their own enlightened self interest are a menace to society and dangerous. They could just be nut jobs or religious fanatics, but they are still outside of the norm required for a functioning society and should be suspected of ulterior motives.
Self interest has implications for the mitigation of peak oil. Proposed actions that ignore it will fail IMO.
Self-interest is not an inherent principle of society. It may be an inherent principle of this society but not necessarily of all societies. Self-interest is always present in the individual and that's a natural outgrowth of natural selection itself. But societies (collections of individuals) do not have to organize along that particular line and have not in the past.
The problem with a society organized along self-interest is that when the tide is rising, most of the self-interest action tends to (at least in the short term) benefit other people. But what happens in a society where resource availability is declining, where arable land is declining, where water tables are declining, where concentrated energy sources are becoming scarcer and harder to reach? Will self-interest guarantee that individual actions will also benefit society as a whole? Clearly, in small scale cases we have seen both situations where self-interest still assisted others but also where self-interest caused active harm to others and on a much larger scale than in societies where energy, food, water, and other resource availability was still growing.
Thus your assertion is refuted by both recent and longer term history. In fact, that is one of the dangers of self-interest in times of trouble and exactly why societies make laws against such actions based on self-interest. Take for example the anti-gouging laws used in Georgia after Rita-Katrina. Clearly it was in the station owner's self-interest to get the most that they could for their fuel. But laws were used as a means to discourage that self-interested behavior. And even in times when resource availability was climbing, society still enacted and enforced laws against pure self-interest. Look at labor unions as a response to the pure greed (aka self-interest) of the wealthiest families in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Your assumption, sir, is balderdash which makes your conclusion equally absurd.
In times when the pie is static or declining, it is in the self-interest of everyone to restrain any excessive self-interested behavior. If you try to grab more than your fair share, you'll be very likely to see everyone else gang up against you - it is in the self-interest of everyone else to do so. Most normal people (but significantly excluding sociopaths) understand and anticipate this, and thus perceive it to be in their self-interest to not behave in an excessively self-interested manner. This is counterintuitive, but most normal people get it (and maybe are even "hard wired" to get it).
"enlightened" self-interest...
enlightened is the key word here. My self interest is to have crime-free streets. My enlightened self-interest is to pay taxes to support the local police, to get involved in citizen-police education programs, to get involved in neighborhood watch, etc. Simple principles but seemingly beyond the ken of many supposedly intelligent people.