Originally Posted by wufwugy

this could easily be the beginning of the worst depression in our nations history.

Originally Posted by wufwugy

my plan is to get rich over the next couple years so i dont have to put up with this garbage.

Originally Posted by wufwugy

this could easily be the beginning of the worst depression in our nations history.

Originally Posted by 2_Thumbs_Up

yup, that's pretty much what i have come to believe. I just wanted to know how people were affected on a personal level. Thanks for the responses.

Just make sure you don't have all your savings in dollars. That might be disastrous.

Originally Posted by wufwugy

gold baybee.

also, i was sorta speaking out my ass about worst depression ever. doing a little research on the great depression and that was omgbad. however, IF alternative energy comes by slow and hard then it will spark the worst ever no doubt.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Ummm no, it won't even come close to the great depression. Gas is still dirt cheap in the U.S. so stop all this whining. If people are broke then they need to get their ass to college and get a better job. It's every man for themselves, stop blaming someone else.

Originally Posted by bigred

We have the technology...a depression might be the spark towards major social change regarding conservation

Originally Posted by wufwugy

this is a very weird time and will continue to be for a while. it is likely that the economy will not plummet like it has in the past, but it also will not flourish for a while.

Originally Posted by frosst

most americans dont know how to manage money, and are bad at managing debt, which is why they are having issues making ends meet. so yes consumer confidence isn't the greatest, as for the economy, our gdp increased in the first quarter. in other words, the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States increased. That doesn't happen in a depression. We aren't in a depression. And, we aren't really in a recession. Americans haven't stopped spending money, they have just switched what they spend their money on. Less entertainment, material goods; more on basic necessities and debts incurred from uninformed decision making when banks were "LIKE OMG HERE HAVE A LOAN I DONT CARE WHAT YOUR CREDIT IS..........but the interest rate is variable, or only fixed for x months/years"

Originally Posted by wufwugy

youre thinking short and narrow when you should be thinking long and wide. i did not say this IS, but this could be the beginning of. could be a decade or half a dozen decades from now, but it is definitely inevitable if energy supply does not replenish.

gas may be dirt cheap now (its not, it used to be), but what about when its 20$, 50$, 150$ a gallon? it will eventually be if we rely on oil long enough. also, prices at the pump are not the entire picture. they're actually a smaller part of the picture affected by oil crisis. since just about everything that transports, and all large machines rely on oil, prices of everything will skyrocket.

whats it gonna be like when gas is 20$ a gallon at pump, video games are 100$ USD, bananas are 3$ a pound, etc?

comparing to what this can become to the great depression is a little off, though because they are a little different in causes and solutions.

also dude, your last two sentences are mega naive. if somebody's broke, they do not have the money or time to go to college, as well as college is not the cure all it used to be. not to mention that as prices go up jobs will decrease.

you last sentence is a strawman of economy, for starters. it also sorta represents the tragedy of the commons. it is not black and white as you say.

Originally Posted by Smacktard

I agree. Things will either be bad or they will be good. Or they will stay the same.

Originally Posted by wufwugy

also, i was sorta speaking out my ass about worst depression ever. doing a little research on the great depression and that was omgbad.

Originally Posted by mrhappy333

I cut all this shit and then my wife goes out and bought a Horse, so guess what? I'm Fuked.

Originally Posted by wufwugy

as far as cars go we should all do hybrids, which we will soon enough. hybrids will get very gas efficient as the years go by.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Dude, gas is still cheap here. It's $9.40 gallon in Germany currently and has been $7-8 in Europe for the last 8 yrs.

Originally Posted by Galapogos

Hybrids are so far from the solution for personal transport it's ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Galapogos

Hybrids are so far from the solution for personal transport it's ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Sykedupp

I'm sorry G, but when I'm reading a nice discussion where everybody is addressing their posts and making an argument for each post, and then you post this broad spectrum blanket statement with absolutely nothing written down to explain your point kinda makes you sound like a douchebag.
and I know you arent a douchebag, so dont think im attacking you personally or anything.

Continue discussing, i like reading.

-Chris

Originally Posted by wufwugy

you cannot compare US and europe gas for a number of reasons. 1. when we talk about oil we are talking global. 2. many, if not all, of the areas with higher gas prices than US also have higher taxes, and possibly other things, on gas, and lower taxes in other arenas. also, US geography requires tonssss more oil consumption than pretty much all other places (except maybe canada).

yay for a .25$ reduction in oil, peak production hitting in like 2020, and total production only supplying US for a couple years. there has been tremendous propaganda about how much 'clean' oil we have left and how much it costs to procure it. the more we focus on oil the more we fuck our children and ourselves when we are old.

we actually have less than you'd think. funding is and has been for a long while way low for the sciences. shit cancer would probable be cured already if instead of wars US govt funded science.

your statement is a great example of a folly in how humans think about relatively unknown issues. start hammering out details and you'll see how its not cut and dry. who's plenty of people, what alternative energies, how viable are they, what kind of timeline, tons of other shit? do you think we will magically develop some obscure technology that will fix our problems? a ton of energy sources are just not viable for what we need, and we are not really discovering new sources, we are trying to figure out how to understand already postulated theories.

many 'alternative' sources we've had for a while have not been produced in mass because they're just not that good. most people think we can get on solar power, wind power, some magical geothermal discovery, some magical spontaneous cold fusion discovery, and a bunch of other unnamed shit that is just not a solution. even if we can, thats not the total fix. it costs shittons of money to make the conversion. picture everything we have that runs on oil replaced. we dont have this kind of money. itll happen, somebodys gonna pay out the ass and its gonna be you and i.

this is not how things work. every job is important, but not every job pays well. should high school teachers and garbage men and police officers all get different jobs because they just dont make much? how is it their fault when the economy fucks them? you are addressing a minority and imposing it upon the majority.

im sure you've heard of time? not to mention the fact that college does not cure like it used to.

sometimes people complain too much, sometimes not. you are imposing a formulaic explanation on a non-formulaic subject.

and please tell me youre not making an appeal to something political.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

this is not how things work. every job is important, but not every job pays well. should high school teachers and garbage men and police officers all get different jobs because they just dont make much? how is it their fault when the economy fucks them? you are addressing a minority and imposing it upon the majority.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

im sure you've heard of time? not to mention the fact that college does not cure like it used to.

sometimes people complain too much, sometimes not. you are imposing a formulaic explanation on a non-formulaic subject.

and please tell me youre not making an appeal to something political.

Originally Posted by allabout

And I blame the banks/mortgage companies for being very greedy and f***cking up the whole industry and lots of people in the process.

Originally Posted by daven

nobody going to blame an ill-conceived war yet ?

Originally Posted by Pythonic

I am comprehending you fine. Do you not think people should fix their own issues when the resources are out there to do so?

Originally Posted by frosst

wait, what? last time i checked we were in a capitalist society, in which people were free to pursue their own ways to create a viable living. So, if hs teachers, garbage men, and police officers are bitching about their low paying job, then yes they should go get another job. It's their fault because they knowingly choose to work that occupation knowing it's not the highest paying (although garbage men shouldn't be in the same category because they're actually highly paid). If we're really going to break this down simply, supply and demand (the foundation for capitalism) would take care of this.....i.e. if half a city's police force were to get higher education and a better job, a void would be created which would need to be filled. It would be filled one of two ways: either others would replace the ex officers, making the same wage, or no one would initially fill the positions. which would result in changes made in the compensation given. As for the new employees, their previous jobs would get the same treatment. So how is the economy the one screwing them?

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Im fine with the war because we need to help Iraq take care of itself. If we left now it would just happen all over again. However I'm not alright with all the aid we are giving to other countries.

Originally Posted by wufwugy

its kinda sad, but this is a fucked if we do fucked if we dont situation.

take the movie Charlie Wilsons War for example: people were being slaughtered so charlie wilson got the US people to fund a war against those peoples' enemies. well that saves some of those people from being slaughtered, but it causes a number of other problems including US domestic economic issues. funding war is extremely fucking expensive. in fact, war is the most expensive thing in existence. SOMEBODY has to pay for it, and it ends up being you and me.

this is a verrrrrrry complicated issue. on the one hand, the duty of the US is to the US, but on the other hand it just seems wrong and regressive to not expend some kind of sacrifice for non-US.

i disagree completely that the US should be in iraq because it is not a US issue. it is, however, a global issue. if it was the UN in iraq that would be way different. we would be logically pursuing the goal of liberating them because it is a global human issue, and US wouldn't be paying for it exclusively. in this scenario, because its the US in there and not some conglomeration of nations, the correct move is for US to pull out because US is fucking her first and foremost duty, fucking her citizens.

put succinctly: yes the world needs policing just like small nations need policing, but it is not up to the US to police the world. it is up to the US to provide for her citizens. this is CLEARLY not happening when we are policing the world beyond our means.

Originally Posted by UG

Starbucks shutting down 600 stores.
http://dailybriefing.blogs.fortune.c...a-bitter-plan/.

To get back on topic, I was just reading CNN.com a few minutes ago and I saw this. 600 Starbucks stores shutting down. Why, because people are cutting out things that aren't essential. Well, these 600 stores had employees that thought their money was essential, and now it's gone. .

Originally Posted by wufwugy

this is why i said you're not comprehending me. its not about fixing our own issues exclusively, and the resources are not necessarily out there. i am not referring to now, present day. i am referring to, as i have been through the entire thread, to the course of energy supply and demand. we rely almost completely on oil, and you are kidding yourself if you think that we are not dealing with finite resources cost-effectively viable.

you know how if you look at a winning player's poker graph you see over the short term a line that rockets up and down, but over the long term a line that goes up? well this is how it is with fossil fuels. over the short term, supply and demand can be affected by factors other than our absolute resources, but over the long term, it is affected by that wholly. prices are going up and rapidly, and they will continue to incline until they become so expensive that the companies cannot sell any. if by this time we rely on oil to much of the degree that we do now then we will plummet into unfathomable depression. this will likely not happen, but definitely closer than anybody is willing to admit. we're dealing with economic issues like supply/demand and cost/value. you are not referring to global economic issues, but personal issues and neglecting the rest.

i say you are not comprehending my posts because you are neglecting these points. the point that prices are rising fast and will continue. i repeat myself, what are we going to do when oil is twice or three times as expensive? ill address more in a later post