Taking a day or so away from tramping...
Does anyone besides myself find the world situation with oil prices alarming? Yes, the lack of direction from out elected leaders is causing problems, as is the dearth of any coherent foreign policy by the Cheney administration. The "war to liberate Iraq" has played a large roll in this mess, and will continue to do so, probably as long as there is oil to be pumped from the ground.
In my opinion, the biggest piece of the oil puzzle is the greed of the major producing nations—especially the worst enemy the United States has at the moment, Saudi Arabia—and the desire to control the world's oil reserves by Communist China, which will soon replace the Sheikdoms as the worst enemy of the "free" world.
China has a lot of oil of its own in the ground; lots of oil. China is also buying every drop of oil that becomes available on the spot markets and is driving the futures market, causing a big part of the present fiasco. It is a fiasco for everyone but China and the producers/exporters. Someday, it will become a miserable spot for the latter because Beijing will own the biggest part of what oil is still available.
Ever notice on newscasts from China how crowded the center-cities are with traffic? Yes, they do have a traffic problem, but have you noticed that away from city centers, there is very little automobile traffic? Even in the worst of traffic jams there, you see a lot of bicycles, many more bicycles than cars, actually. Folks, let me tell you what you already know—those bicycles get very, very good gas mileage. Between the cars and bicycles come the motor bikes. Not big Harleys or Hondas, but small machines the size of Vespas (basically a motor-scooter) and such. They don't get as much gas mileage as do the bicycles, but it is still pretty darn good.
Now, if you ever get a chance to see what the communists don't want you to see, look what is driven mostly in small and out of the way places. For god's sake, they are still using ox carts! A bunch of those around, too, and they get excellent gas mileage. Very few autos in Smallville, China, and not a lot of motorcycles, either. Other than the ox cart for things like we use a pickup truck, they mostly ride bicycles.
So what is China going to do with the oil they are stashing? Produce more and more shoddy merchandise for their own people, plus keep flooding the world with crappy goods, because soon enough, the communists there will be the only ones manufacturing anything.
I better stop now, 'cause I've made myself mad again.
