“If you don’t read the newspapers, you are not informed. If you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed.” - Mark Twain

OMG! Oil, as measured by the front month WTI contract, is within striking distance of $100 per barrel! That seems to be the theme for CNBC, the WSJ, Forbes, Barrons, etc… you know, all those cheerleaders and rags that previously said there was no problem with oil supplies (the U.S. was merely obsessing about corn ethanol for humanitarian reasons).

I have some bad news for those jerks in the media. $100 is not some kind of ceiling through which oil cannot penetrate. After $100, like 10,000 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, lies some higher, more problematic price – like $150, then $200, and eventually $300 per barrel. As my good friend “FireAngel” from the theoildrum.com is fond of saying, the only way to change this outcome is to cut the number of gallons in a barrel of oil.

So what does $300 per barrel of oil mean to you and me? It means we have much, much less oil available to us for our lifestyle. It means:

1. New Orleans will never be rebuilt, nor will any other future major natural disaster of similar scale (are you listening Florida and California?).
2. American children born in 2007 will not need a driver’s license when they are 30.
3. Your 401k will become a 201k, and then a 101k, and then just a k…
4. Social Security and Medicare will fail.
5. America’s farm labor workforce will be 33% of the population by 2030, not the 1.5% of 2007 (Texas A&M might actually be a better bet than Harvard for junior after all).
6. Student loans will be a future credit crisis. (Borrowing $200k for a literature degree will, in retrospect, not appear to be an intelligent investment.)
7. The luxury car you now drive will be a very nice pottery holder in your garden.
8. But, your milk goat is really going to appreciate those fine leather seats, and your chickens will really enjoy perching on the engraved wood steering wheel.
9. You’ll be using dollar bills to light candles on your birthday cake because they are cheaper than matches.
10. Homes will come with only 1 zone heating and AC - your bedroom.
11. You’ll be thin again!
12. Home cooking!
13. Your wife’s depression/personality disorder, junior’s ADHD, and your alcohol problem… cured, with all that fresh air and sunshine instead of driving everywhere.
14. South Florida’s housing crisis will never be resolved.
15. The Southwest water problem will no longer be academic.
16. You won’t feel so rushed anymore. You won’t be spending time going to the gym, filling up the car, commuting…
17. No problem not fulfilling your new year’s fitness resolution as walking and biking will no longer be optional means of transportation.
18. You will care far more about who is Mayor than who is President.
19. You will get to know the neighbors, one way or another.
20. Conspicuous displays of consumption or wealth will not be good for your health.
21. The response time for 911 is going to be a great deal longer than it is now.
22. The end of Feminism, Liberalism, Conservatism, etc… these were luxuries of the cheap fossil fuel era.
23. No more keeping up with the Jones’. Keeping up will be quite enough.
24. Flush it and forget it will be replaced by compost it and fertilize with it.
25. You will never have to mow the lawn again, ‘cause your gonna need that hay.
26. You won’t have any trouble finding a parking space.
27. No more road rage, you will truly appreciate the use a of vehicle.
28. You are going to look fabulous in designer jeans while working in your garden, fixing your bike, etc…
29. Golf courses will become community gardens or farms and that home on the 9th hole will likely become a home in the Spinach field or pumpkin patch... and you will be working on your swing all right – for your hoe, your scythe, your axe…
30. The demand for lawyers, stockbrokers, accountants, insurance agents, realtors, hair -dressers, massage therapists, psychologists, etc… is going to dry up in ways I am not poetic enough to describe (and I own a brokerage firm).

No, this won’t happen overnight, but that is not the point. The point is that it WILL happen. Things will change, and since “for the better” or “for the worse” is an abstract I have no comment on either. Things will change and some people will be the “winners” in the new paradigm, while others will be the “losers” (sorry, more abstractions), and it is up to you to decide where it is you would like to be and what actions you plan to take to execute your plan.

Yours for a better world,

Mentatt (at) yahoo (d0t) com