Are Oil and Gas Prices Killing Us?

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), a demographer and political economist (according to Wikipedia), came up with a law of population dynamics. In a nutshell, it says that only natural causes and vice will keep populations in check. I believe that there’s another factor: the cost of oil and gas, which could start killing us if the price keeps going up.

Our societies depend so intrinsically on these fuels. Most of us are at the mercy of the $106+ per barrel of oil that was reached this week. And that cost affects pretty much everything. Our cost of living goes up significantly as a result. That includes food, the fuel we need to survive. In just two years, my weekly groceries - which I keep pretty constant for experimental reasons - have gone from about $30 to $45. That’s a 50% increase. And on top of that, the cost of the gas I need to get to the grocery store has gone up.

Before Bush Jr stole power got into office, gas was about Cdn$0.45/litre. Now it’s Cdn$1.05, with predictions of $1.40/litre by this summer. But at the same time, two oil giants made record profits in the billions of dollars in 2007. Something really rotten is going on.

Alternate energy forms, such as solar power, have been either expensive or not ready for prime time. But Konarka Technologies, funded by Silicon Valley, has produced a way to generate solar film cells using a tool as ubiquitous as an inkjet printer.

This could be just what solar power needs, to be affordable and readily available. But not for a couple of years, apparently. What’s more, these cells will be used for industrial and research purposes, and probably not for anything such as powering our homes.

So the cost of everything, including food, will probably continue to rise, thanks to the high cost of oil and gas. How do you fight that? What do you do when you can’t afford to eat? You don’t think that happens? Believe me, it does. The way I see it, you have a few choices:

1. Give up, lie down and die.
2. Scream and shout.
3. Blog about it.
4. Run for office and see if you can do something about it.
5. Build up a prosperity mindset.

How different #5 is from options #1-4. If you read very carefully into what Thomas Malthus said, you’ll see that he suggests that the poor, uneducated and/or unskilled are the ones who’ll suffer from the law of population dynamics. At least, that’s my interpretation. I believe that attaining a prosperity mindset is a form of education, and that more than ever, people need to learn this - especially to weather a recession. I’ve lived through three of them - not including this new recession - and such a mindset has helped me through one of them. (I was too young to know any better with the other two.) I’m hoping it gets me through this one.