100/barrel by end of 08?
Rumored here.
Neat. Combine unstable and expensive energy supplies with a weak dollar and we can:
a. Make a serious push for other energy sources.
b. Learn to do things for ourselves again. You know, make stuff here using our now-cheaper US labor. (We did make things, once upon a time. It wasn’t always like this.)
Ideally, it’d be good to do both, if possible. Looking around sometimes, though, it’s hard to imagine many of the people around you as productive economic contributors. Consumers? Sure. But consumption without production only works as long as the credit line holds out. I didn’t live through the depression, but sometimes I think it would be a good thing for this place to go through something like that again. Reset mentalities a bit.
There’s a lot more that could happen in the next few years aside from the above 2 options, but those would be good things to do to solve some of the core problems facing the country. Dedicate a few areas of high desert to Stirling Energy and we can get at least a large jump on breaking the oil addiction. (I’m partial for being connected to them via FSMLabs/New Mexico.)
With oil rising and the dollar dropping, unless the labor markets really can capitalize on the labor costs (are markets really that efficent?) it seems like we are heading for a recession. I’ll guess the measurable indicators will be coming in July or so, after the rest of the mortgage ARM peaks settle out and the rest of the housing crunch hits the consumer. It has to come sooner or later - constant growth with finite resources doesn’t hold up forever, politically or physically.
We have the potential to become a leader again rather than just the big fat elephant in the room. The US used to be able to innovate, and if we don’t dig ourselves out of this energy mess, I don’t think we’ll ever get there again.