Yeah, that's a big worry. Greenspan thinks, and I agree with him, that recent increases in the price of oil could presage a new, and higher, average price of oil over the long term. The main reason I think this is because of the increasing wealth of large economies like China's. That and other sources of new demand have virtually ensured that current supply levels are long term inadequate to keep the price of oil down. The OPEC monopoly has not realized this yet.
So in the short term, I'm unhappy in that this will put a ceiling on U.S. GDP growth, but in the long term I'm happy because when the collective U.S. consciousness realizes that high oil prices are here to stay, other technologies like fuel cells and hybrids become a heck of a lot more viable. And ultimately, freeing ourselves of the oil addiction is going to solve a lot of the U.S.'s long term problems.
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Can you imagine a world reality where we are no longer subject to the violent vagaries of the Arab world? I can. Take the $225B and counting that we've spent on Iraq and instead spend it to build hydrogen refineries, outfit every gas station with hydrogen refueling stations, and provide massive incentives to manufacturers and consumers of hydrogen fuel-cell and hybrid-electric vehicles, and we would have freed ourselves from the slavery to Arab oil.
But that would have required someone like Lieberman with his Declaration of Oil Independence to win the Presidency. Unfortunately, the world we live in wouldn't allow a Jew to be President, because that would offend the Arabs and other anti-semites. Sad. Very sad.
On the way home from a trip the other day, I was reading USA Today. On one page there was a full page ad showing maps of the Middle East taken out of 5th grade textbooks printed in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and a couple of other Middle East countries. In every case, the area where Israel should have been located, was labeled Palestine. Above this ad was a question: "How can there ever be peace when Israel is not even on the map?"
Good question. Peace starts with an Arab desire to live and let live. But right now the predominant Arab desire is to kill and disrupt, not only in Israel, but now throughout the rest of the world. It's too bad U.S. political correctness has gone so far as to occlude the realities that are taking shape in our world. Only when we start facing reality are we going to be able to make some changes for the better.
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