The Benefits of Surging Oil, Recession, and the Housing Bust

[Ming]

A good spin on the otherwise bleak news on the economy. GM is mentioned also in the video.

'Wake-Up Call': The Benefits of Surging Oil, Recession, and Housing Bust
Jun 30, 2008 01:24pm
Aaron Task
Yahoo! Tech Ticker

VIDEO

With oil surging, the economy slowing, and housing in a tailspin, there's obviously a lot of pain for investors and citizens alike these days. But there's a long-term silver lining to all these negatives, says Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab.

While not guilty of Schadenfreude, Sonders does see some upside to all the downside, most notably from rising energy prices, which are:

-Causing U.S. manufacturers to rethink outsourcing jobs because of higher costs to re-import goods as well as higher wages overseas.

-Compelling Americans to rethink energy usage and politicians our (non-existent) energy policies.

-Focusing attention on the need to improve our transportation infrastructure and create alternative energies, which could be the next big industry.


As for the slowing economy and housing bust, both are teaching Americans a lesson (albeit painful) about learning to live within their means vs. using debt to live beyond them.

Source: http://quote.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/a...HW,XLB,%5EGSPC

[Mikkoo]

Asking Americans to give up their cars requires great public transportation systems like we have in Europe. Now that everyone in local and state government levels have been sleeping at the switch, the time is now to put forward proper public transportation plans to get more people willing to get out of their cars. Isn't 4.50 USD in California and other expensive area's to refuel your vehicle enough of a wake up call? Yes, it will cost plenty, but it needs to be done a.s.a.p

[jkennedy293]

The sinking dollar is the best thing for the U.S. manufacturing sector. A lot of European companies are considering building factories over here because the labor is so cheap. Now we know what mexico must have felt like in the 80's.

[Saturn69]

Originally Posted by Mikkoo

Asking Americans to give up their cars requires great public transportation systems like we have in Europe. Now that everyone in local and state government levels have been sleeping at the switch, the time is now to put forward proper public transportation plans to get more people willing to get out of their cars. Isn't 4.50 USD in California and other expensive area's to refuel your vehicle enough of a wake up call? Yes, it will cost plenty, but it needs to be done a.s.a.p

If they had a train that ran from where I live to where I work, I'd take it. They don't. Now, should I sell my home and move to the city? Should I take my children from a no-crime area where they can receive individualized attention in schools and the safety of being able to play outside without wearing Kevlar and move them to a high-crime, high drug traffic area where they have to remain in the house, with the doors locked, where they are just another face in a sea of students and get lost in the pupil-mill that is our current education system (NCLB my arse....), all to save $25 a week in gas? Hell no. I'll survive.

[igor]

I wholeheartedly agree with the article.

I have been anxiously waiting for this tipping point. I have no illusions that once economy improves people will go back to trucks and ignoring public transportation - even if gas is $10 a gallon. But it will not be as blatant as it was in the 90's and until 2004.

I am a big believer in small cars, public transportation, smart energy use, and making responsible decisions with the resources we use - I will not go without a shower, or live in a crummy apartment downtown - but I might replace my bulbs, combine my trips, maybe NOT move to 50miles-away suburb, and NOT drive the Expedition to work. it is all about making responsible decisions, and for the first time in bout 20 years people are finally paying attention.

Igor

[bonecrrusher]

I take public transportation into work every day, I was filling up for $55 a week in the C6, that car sits in the garage and I spend $30 per month on the light rail.

So some cities are actively building transportation systems.

[zete]

If this refocuses the American mind on not spending like drunken sailors and living completely on debt, it'll be a good thing. Living beyond your means is never a good thing.

[SUPERBADD75]

sure, higher fuel prices are causing many of us to rethink what we drive, where we drive, and how we drive, it's going to cause a lot of lower income Americans serious financial strife. some of us are going to have to put off certain purchases, postpone or cancel vacations, or trade in the Tahoe, but many more are going to have to decide whether they eat or pay the rent. this is a serious issue right now, and to me, the bright side isn't really one worth celebrating. maybe the government needs to stop trying to get other countries to produce more oil and instead do something about it here. we have enough oil here to make it while we develop a new energy strategy for the future. it's past time to stop relying on other nations, we need to do something for ourselves. Congress needs to stop the partisan B/S and get something going that's good for America.

[Maetrix66]

since HoosierRon isn't here to do this (yet) I'll provide the two most important words when it comes to todays current energy crisis.

Bio

Fuels

Cellulosic Ethanol and Biodiesel are the future, at least the immediate future.

Hydrogen will take decades to become viable, and in the meantime Biofuels will allow us to provide stability to the energy sector. No longer will we have to worry about a natural disaster hitting one fuel refinery and the price shooting up 50 cents. Diversity will help alot.

[benroethig]

In the terms of public transportation this is having the opposite effect in a lot of cases. Despite a rise in ridership, the state of Illinois is talking about cutting its Amtrak funding and more than a few municipalities are talking about cuts in bus service.

[Ming]

Originally Posted by bonecrrusher

So some cities are actively building transportation systems.

From just a few weeks ago. The extreme resistance Houston's Light Rail once faced from Conservatives is hardly to be heard these days, even on local Talk Radio:

HOUSTON — The Houston City Council approved the addition of five new light rail lines Wednesday to help ease congestion in the nation's fourth-largest city.

The rail lines approved in a 13-2 vote could be completed by 2012, the Houston Chronicle reported in its online edition.

Houston was listed Tuesday as the seventh-most congested city in the nation by Inrix, a traffic information service. The rail lines would give the city 30 additional miles of light rail — up from the current 7.5 miles, said Metro spokeswoman Sandra Salazar.

www.chron.com

[Saturn69]

Originally Posted by zete

If this refocuses the American mind on not spending like drunken sailors and living completely on debt, it'll be a good thing. Living beyond your means is never a good thing.

I have to agree with that. Sometimes, after telling the child dozens of time that they are going to hurt themselves, you just have to let them get hurt. We need a wake-up slap across the face.

[PhishPhood]

Originally Posted by Ming

A good spin on the otherwise bleak news on the economy. GM is mentioned also in the video.

'Wake-Up Call': The Benefits of Surging Oil, Recession, and Housing Bust
Jun 30, 2008 01:24pm
Aaron Task
Yahoo! Tech Ticker

VIDEO

With oil surging, the economy slowing, and housing in a tailspin, there's obviously a lot of pain for investors and citizens alike these days. But there's a long-term silver lining to all these negatives, says Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab.

While not guilty of Schadenfreude, Sonders does see some upside to all the downside, most notably from rising energy prices, which are:

-Causing U.S. manufacturers to rethink outsourcing jobs because of higher costs to re-import goods as well as higher wages overseas.

-Compelling Americans to rethink energy usage and politicians our (non-existent) energy policies.

-Focusing attention on the need to improve our transportation infrastructure and create alternative energies, which could be the next big industry.


As for the slowing economy and housing bust, both are teaching Americans a lesson (albeit painful) about learning to live within their means vs. using debt to live beyond them.

Source: http://quote.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/a...HW,XLB,%5EGSPC

Giving up our personal transportation is a reach too far methinks. I'm all for the GREED factor. Entrpreneurs can see that Americans like their large powerful comfortable vehicles but they don't like high prices or paying ransom money to Big Oil and the MidEast.

I think that the next huge surge will be in innovations at the fuel level and in the distribution of same. I'd be all for each municipality getting into the biodiesel production market for it's local citizenry. This would generate revenue, potentially lower taxes, possibly lower fuel prices and create new competition for Big Oil.

True this would potentially create different qualities in different regions but the SAE and ASTM have some say in standards. Add celluosic ethanol to the mix and there's a great potention for .... PROFIT ....( i.e. GREED ). Want to become the next 'Redmond Millionaire'? Get in on the ground floor of some alt fuel company..better yet start one.

[logansowner]

Yes, we should just give up having a good life, filled with the things we enjoy, so we can focus on getting to work, and then staying home doing nothing the rest of the day. What a ****ing great country that will be.

There is a reason North Americans are NOT Europeans, because we aren't robots, our lives to not consist of the cheapest possible way to get to work and then just rotting away at home until we get to go back to work the next day.

You can pry my motorcycles out of my cold dead hands ya bunch a hippies.

How long till people finally catch on that this is a made up problem created to make certian sectors filthy rich? We don't need to use less fuel, we have plenty. We need to stop supporting the sand pirates, by buying their fuel when we have our own.

There is nothing good about making the poor people poorer, regardless of what certian enviro Nazis want us to think. There is no "benefit" to the rising cost of fuel and the recession.

That's like telling a terminally ill cancer patient that the benefit of their death is they wont have to go to work anymore.

[68CoupeDeVille]

Sigh... The reason American cities don't have the extensive public transit systems you find in Europe has nothing to do with the American love of freedom or a robotic European mind-set. I know of plenty American car owners who do nothing but drive back and forth to work, going nowhere else except when they have to.

Most American cities had their population growth spurts AFTER the car was invented. The US was a very rural nation until the 20th century. By the time things began to urbanize beyond the Eastern Seaboard, gas was cheap, cars were cheap, property outside the city limits was cheap. Why would you spend money developing public transit, the best systems of which demand a very high population density (Europeans don't just sit at home after they've taken the train away from work - they WALK places because there's actually stuff other than more homes within 1/2 mile of the average urban, European home), when everyone wants space and has the means to buy and enjoy it?

NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. What do they have in common? Public transit. Anything else? They're OLD. Maybe not by European standards but certainly compared to say, Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Denver, etc.

Anyways, internet soap-boxes don't make you any taller in reality. I just get tired of the self-loathing, American left eye-balling Europe as if whatever they do is always, 100% of the time the right thing to do.

If they stick around, high energy prices will surely change the way our cities grow and function. It will be different than ever before, without a doubt, but will it be for the better? All I'm saying is, if it's a better thing to have compact, dense cities with good public transit, why are all the youngest American cities arranged in the exact opposite? Because we all wanted to do the thing we thought was wrong...?