The Future is difficult to foresee
When I was in college, The "energy crisis" of the 1970's had just taken place. I was told that in ten years there would be "no" oil and gasoline would cost $15 per gallon. Petrochemical engineering was the highest paying field for new graduates. Steel plants were closing left and right. Carter was President and the Ayatollah took control of Iran. They held our embassy crew prisoner for 444 days until Reagan took office. I expected Jimmy Carter, being a Nuclear Engineer, to be able to solve our problems. Then there was that little incident at Three Mile Island. The Soviets were on the offensive and things looked very bad.
Ten years later, fuel gobbling "SUV's" were all the rage in the US. Gas was down to 60-90 cents a gallon. It stayed like this for 10-15 years. They were pretty good times.
Then early this century fuel prices began their gradual ascent. As the pendulum swings prices keep going up. Most production jobs are now in the "newly developing countries" where people are beginning to buy cars. Like the US of the early 19Th Century there are no Workers' Comp laws in places like India and China, people work like slaves for relatively low wages, and are so plentiful that the lowest paid set the wage (unlike the price of oil described above).
So where am I going with this little history lessson? Right now it looks like the developing world is positioning itself to be the "demand driver" for crude oil. In fact they are already there. Excess demand for oil raises prices as much as decreased supply. We are no longer the energy glutton of the world so an economic shock here will not drive down prices. The cat is already out of the bag. It will not be long before we will really not be able to afford personal automobiles here in the US and Europe. It looks to me like what I was told in college is actually going to happen, but in the next 10 years, not in 1984. And if it does we are up the creek without a paddle. This problem was foreseen in 1974 but we stuck our head in the ground like an ostrich.
Once again, the future is unwritten. We do not have an inkling of where things are going. There are a few truisms, for example the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. There are also some absolutes, e.g. we will all (hopefully) get old and die. What we leave to our children is up to us.
