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["Trevor Peck" <trevor AT ISBNread.com>]

> << I'm expecting life, and living standards to get much worse as government
> takes more and more power.>>
> 
> I'm expecting living standards to go all to hell as the price of oil goes
> up and the known supply goes down. Today, an estimate of $104/barrel oil
> prices came out. Even if there is enough gas, oil, NG, etc., if the price
> suddenly goes ballistic, life as we know it is going to be not pretty.
> 
> I'm not so much worried about government power, but about government's
> inability to foresee and exert any control at all upon the basic
> necessities that keep our civilization functioning.

 We're almost on the same page - I see the oil prices as a result of 
government interference and control, rather than a lack of such, but I see 
the end result being *exactly* what you fear. 

 While you didn't specifically mention it, I think you realize that 
*everything* is affected by the price of oil, not just heat and energy 
related things. Everything bought at the store was brought there, and that 
takes a lot of energy too.

 First prices will go up, which of course would encourage production so 
that in the end we would have what we need anyway, at higher nominal 
prices but in a growing economy allowing us to afford it... but the 
shortsighted and personally motivated Government(s) will step in to keep 
prices artificially low, thus removing the major incentive to create more 
and in a short time creating heavy shortages. And the people, not knowing 
any better, will beg the government for exactly this sort of "protection".

 And I don't mean oil. I mean everything.

 I highly recommend "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt. It doesn't 
argue what should be done or not done, it simply shows you very clearly 
what the results of certain policies *must* be. Very clearly.

 - Trevor.

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