"What if gas cost $10 a gallon?
"Thousands of truckers would go bankrupt. Airplanes would sit idle in hangars. Restaurants and stores would shut down. Car-pooling, hybrid vehicles, scooters and inline skates would swing into vogue. And telecommuting, rooftop vegetable gardens, home cooking and recycling would proliferate." [more]
And of course, true to the merits of shitty reporting nowadays, the article then procedes to expound on the above points to an exhaustive degree.
What appears to be missing - in fact, "conspicuous by its absence" is more to the truth - is the effect of gas price increases on the federal mail system. Last time I checked, my Amazon packages weren't fired into my mailbox by a cannon.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
File this under "Speculative Fiction is Fun!"
2 comments:
That is a very good point. I imagine when we get to the 4.50 - 5.00 mark you will start to see the rest of corporate America rally against the oil companies and the hedge fund speculators pull out of oil completely. They have already drove airline stocks to 5 year lows, so if they sell their oil contracts and cause a sure drop in oil prices, they can pick up some US Air or Delta, which will go through the roof when oil drops. Retailers, transportation, and other manufacturers will join in at some point.
You are already seeing American Airlines and Ford lowering their earnings predictions based on the price of oil...so one of two things are going to happen. A) Adam Smith's invisible hand is going to work and the market will correct itself out of self-interest, or b) Adam Smith's invisible hand really doesn't work in some cases and things are going to go all to hell.
"b) Adam Smith's invisible hand really doesn't work in some cases and things are going to go all to hell."
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