Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
Funny, 'cause it never has before. We've had how many big spikes in the last few decades? (Seems like one every couple of years.) The price of goods (other than a few things like airline tickets & FedEx shipping) doesn't go up, and the economy doesn't collapse, despite the doomsayers, except when a series of really stupid economic moves has it teetering on the brink already, waiting for the least little nudge to send it over.
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Thats because the % of the total cost of oil of most things is not yet significant but it will become so at some point. The cost of sending something and the cost of flights is the most dependant on the price of fuel just now.
Food will follow - take a look at the country of origin of a lot of food and the distance from where you are is quite scary sometimes. We have thousands of miles of greenhouses in the UK but the tomatoes I bought this morning came from Egypt. The supermarkets (Tesco, Walmart etc.) drive prices down from their suppliers, and in turn they look to reduce their primary cost (labour) by moving to where that is cheaper.
But at the same time the cost of making that environment suitable to produce things it doesn't naturally (last time I looked Egypt was hot and dry and tomatoes like hot and wet) costs energy, which is oil, as well as water locals can't use. And the cost of transport (Egypt is not local to the UK) means oil plays a factor there too.
We (in Europe) get our stuff from North Africa, you (the US) get yours from Central and South America. The same drivers are in play - costs.
We all remember times when food came from local sources - I remember going to local markets and buying salad and vegetables from local farmers - and accepting it was smaller and less "lush" in the winter, or cheese and accepting it tasted different when the cows were inside in winter and feeding on silage.
Nowadays supermarkets screen us from this. The payback may not be now but it will happen at some point. At this point those greenhouses here may come back into use as they are local and in a lot of cases energy efficient (recycling biomass for example). But maybe a lot of us may have made choices here.
Most of us like to support the local suppliers so if we went back to using local markets, shops and suppliers then that would also stimulate local suppliers to invest and grow, and employ people and allow the local economy to grow instead of the one in China, Egypt and elsewhere.
And in the event that oil is in short supply then those local producers are there to maintain supplies.
Seems like damn good insurance to me.
