Oil is the symptom, the credit bubble is the cause of all that we see. Real estate, derivatives, commmodity inflation, mortgage fraud, monolines, the rating agency debacles ALL stem from it.
It's at least a dozen years in the making and will take at least half that long to unwind (more if like the Japs did in the 90's we keep applying bandaids, "stimulus checks", TAF's, non-recourse loans to investment banks and all the other crap we've seen). By then oil WILL be the main problem as we'll be heavily into depletion and well on the downside of Peak Oil.
Judging from the total lack of understanding and focus coming from both Presidential candidates, we're pretty much guaranteed to be woefully unprepared with anything resembling a sensible power down policy. We should have a Manhattan Project going to exhaustively pursue all reasonable remedies: solar, nuke, wind, drilling everywhere, clean coal/CTL, power grid reconstruction, train and mass transit reconstruction. We probably won't get any help on any of it. Indeed, if the debacle taking place with the BLM obstructing construction of solar facilities on "their" land is any indication we can expect nothing but obstacles from the government every step of the way.
nytimes.com
Recessions will simply slow the rate of price increases, but we'll be in a more or less stagnant/stagflationary economy for all of the 'teens because of it, with higher energy prices and a constantly eroding dollar. I predict the DXY will be at < 10 by 2020, with gold at severl thousand (if it all hasn't been confiscated and private ownership of it banned by then.
And then in 2020 the Medicare/SS crises kick in...... |
