If Gasoline Hits 10 USD a Gallon

[Daox]

I agree a sudden increase would be very bad for the economy and people. However, a gradual (but faster then current) rise over 1-3 years to ~$10 would be a good thing. Nothing is going to make people change unless it hits them in the wallet.

On the other hand, I think it would be a great start if we could remove all the subsidizing of oil that is going on here so we know the actual price (well closer to at least).

[Woodeden]

Was sat in the local coffee shop's parking lot last weekend and watched a staggering number of full size, crew cab, 4x4 pick-up trucks parade along the drive thru each with only the driver in it.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Ladogaboy

Part of what prompted my asking this is that I work in a large office building (easily > 1,000 employees) and a VERY large parking lot is filled with cars every day.

Just out of curiousity, what percentage of those office jobs do you think could be done by telecommuting? 99%?

[alvaro84]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Just out of curiousity, what percentage of those office jobs do you think could be done by telecommuting? 99%?

I'm just experimenting with it, and it's a very logical thing to do.
Bad that it's not official - yet?

[redyaris]

Part of the problem is that if we do the job right and give people notice and have programs to suppot the change, the hauls of protest would get the project stoped before it ever had a chance to see the light of day.
Politicaly it might be easyer to progresively remove subsidies without notice so that the market/people could adjust.The responce to the howles of protest could be mutted by programs to support better energy efficiancy. Done right it could be done with minimum pain...

[Superturnier]

Well, at least the pay back time for any ecomod would be much shorter.

[Ladogaboy]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Just out of curiousity, what percentage of those office jobs do you think could be done by telecommuting? 99%?

In my current office? Maybe 10%. For the rest, the workers are dealing with sensitive information and documents, so they can't work with them from home.

[Frank Lee]

The vendors would never bring all those donuts and meals to my house!!!

[GRU]

Just like someone else said, they get by in europe and so could we, the problem is we're used to cheap gas and we abuse it. we should drive only when we have to and combine trips by taking multiple people to the store and work.

the biggest problem would be trucking. everything we buy gets here by trucks. if fuel prices go up, so does the price of the product. i dispatch semi trucks for all kinds of loads. auto parts, steel, food, furniture. etc. all of those items and more would go up in price so the demand would go down because people wouldn't be able to afford them. when that happens people lose jobs because of the low demand and there are even more unemployed/poor people. This will happen sooner than later so we all need to get ready

[Ladogaboy]

Or people would go back to shipping more items by train, since trains are by far the most efficient means of transporting goods. Heck, people might even start riding trains (yes, the slow ones) more often. I used to frequent Amtrak from Los Angeles to Sacramento quite often, and I can only think of one time (if I recall, sometime around Thanksgiving) when the train was more than 50% capacity. And even then, more cars could always have been added to meet demand.