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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Reason for high gas prices

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Ken Hargesheimer <minifarms2@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Reason for high gas prices
  • Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:53:05 -0500 (CDT)

I like Jim Hightower, but in this case he's doing a big disservice in
suggesting that high oil prices are all about manipulation by the big
players. Sure, the big players are going to milk things as best they can
(they also got hammered on low prices in the 80s; don't recall any sympathy
there), but there IS a fundamental that no one can maniuplate- Peak Oil.

The "bad guys are scamming us" view distracts us away from the fact that oil
production/extraction is in decline and will forevermore be that way. It's a
limited resource.

The biggest reason for the big ramp up in prices (it would happen eventually
anyway) is the decline of the US dollar. And that is due to our massive debt
(welfare/warfare state).

Oil was never really cheap, we just put off the tab into the future and it's
now catching up to us. The illusion of cheap distracted us away from
maintaining control over our local food production. It helped push a totally
unsustainable system. Doesn't matter whether it was/is good guys or bad guys
doing this, it's still a bad system. Its externalized costs are now starting
to pop out at the seams.


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA




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