First, the ERROR #76 problem when creating forums is fixed.
MSN money is currently running a story talking about the effect that sustained $50/barrel oil prices could have on the day to day economy — escalated gas prices, shipping prices rise (bringing everything up), job market toughens, housing and heating costs go up, and so on. Now, first I'll point out their closing paragraph to put this “new record price” into context so I'm not being a total fearmonger:
Adjusted for inflation, oil would have to reach $57 per barrel to surpass its peak during the 1990 Gulf War. And it would have to jump to $80 per barrel to match prices seen during the 1978 and 1981 oil crunches.
The uninflated price for 1980 was $38, and the uninflated price for 1990 was $34 to put it into context. There's a longer history of oil prices here. But let me put it into a real world context: if oil continues to go up in price, it will widen the gap between the rich and the poor in Western nations.
In Western nations, in terms of a percentage relation to their total income, poor people (including the middle class) spend a lot more money on oil than those who are very wealthy. For those who are very wealthy, an increase in oil pricing will only minimally affect them, but for those who are not as well off, it will hit them very hard. In an American context, it will be coupled with them having to give up their healthcare and similar concessions to make ends meet.
But that's good for the rich — with retirement savings systems around the world failing under huge aging populations, we've got to figure out a way to make poor people die before they retire. Everything from slovenly TV lifestyles, targetted fast food and junk food marketting, low quality food, to disease-inducing diets like Atkins are working very hard to create a generation of people who won't live past 55 or 60. To sustain our current economic model, we need a relatively small (1% of the population) ruling class that is very powerful, and an immense working class that is too financially strained to rebel, and doesn't live long enough to reap the benefits of their hard work. Look at the political changes that have happened over the last twenty years if you want to decide if there are forces putting this plan in motion.
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