Economic Warfare

[Jedburgh]

Heck even I looked at what $5 dollar or more gas will do to society. The times they be a changing. I started collecting stories for my BLOG on what the price of fuel was doing to shipping and schools and commuters. No end of the stories resulting in behavior change. Not a lot of people tying it all together either. It isn't my area of expertise but I am really surprised how few stories linking the perfect storm of events together.

Although the increasing costs of fuel and food are real, and are definitely having an affect upon us here at home, we also really need to look at the situation from a global perspective, and see how it the effects within the unique contexts of areas that are important to our interests.

Take Turkey as an example, and look at the significant difference in comparative average salaries and use that understanding to put into context the hard fact of fuel costs triple what it costs here in the US, throw in rising food costs and unemployment at roughly 20% - this all feeds the various social ills in what was already a developing world pressure cooker (dense concentrations of urban poor in the major cities, significant secular-religious political tension, virulent ethno-nationalism, organized crime, urban gangs and drug/human trafficking), not to mention that the radical Islamists and other assorted bad guys are recruiting. That's just one country, one context, of many.

[Surferbeetle]

From today's BBC

The soaring cost of oil is causing growing strain to economies around the world, rich and poor.

With prices more than doubling in the past year to $135 a barrel, the impact is being felt acutely by consumers and businesses alike.

The risk of strikes and social unrest has become a reality in many countries as fuel becomes unaffordable for more people.

BBC reporters around the world examine the effects of the oil prices on their regions.

[Surferbeetle]

Again from today's BBC

The fishermen's blockade began more than a week ago, and was originally confined to a few ports like La Rochelle on the west coast. But it spread until, on Wednesday, Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk on the north coast, all serving cross-Channel ferry services to Britain, were isolated by a ring of fishing boats.

The stoppage forced UK authorities to shut the port of Dover, causing such a long build-up of lorry traffic that the M20 motorway had to be closed.

The fishermen say rapidly rising prices for diesel threaten them with bankruptcy. They are demanding a greater subsidy from the French government, in effect putting a cap on prices. But fishermen say that agreement is redundant, since fuel has become 30% more expensive since the start of the year.

[selil]

I found several stories about French fisherman, European farmers, and others that won't be able to afford to harvest. Here in Indiana and the corn belt they are late to plant (wet spring) which will impact the volume produced radically. Fuel is a lynch pin in the economic circle.

[selil]

Here is an interesting piece about local politics and energy costs.

LINK

Robert Rapier posed an interesting hypothetical yesterday as to how individuals would respond to gasoline at $100/gallon.

However, from my position for the last three years, the question has been “how will local government respond to large increases in energy bills?”

I am the Mayor of Huntington Beach, California, a full service city of 200,000 residents, 27 square miles, 1200 employees and 8.5 miles of beach. We have nearly 200 police vehicles, 3 helicopters, 15 fire engines/trucks, 7 ambulances, 1 HazMat vehicle, and 1 medical decontamination unit. In addition there are hundreds of miscellaneous vehicles and trucks for public works, marine safety, building department, water department, and administration. All said, we consume 495,000 gallons of gasoline/diesel/jet fuel per year. For every $1 fuel goes up, it is a half million dollars out of our general fund budget.

Perhaps more shocking than the amount of fuel our city vehicles use is how much fuel is used to pick up our residents’ trash, sort it at the transfer station, and then haul it 46 miles round trip to a dump that is running out of capacity. Prior to a recent conversion to natural gas vehicles, our contractor reported to me that they were using 525,000 gallons per year of diesel.

[120mm]

I wonder what impact government worker unions have on the cost of operating his fair city? The artificial inflation of government workers' wages combined with some truly unbelieveable retirement benefits HAS to make the cost of fuel into a very tiny drop in a huge bucket.

Maybe they all need to subscribe to this:

www.daveramsey.com