The Drop in Oil: How Big a Problem?

Suitable public transportation systems are even more rare than that. Try get around in the Atlanta suburbs or even getting to a baseball game using public transportation. It's nearly impossible to do that. Atlanta's population is about a half million with about 5.5 million in the metro Atlanta area.

Listening to an auto dealers ad on the radio - It included something along the lines of:"With gas prices low, now's the time to buy a 4 wheel drive truck".I guess when gas prices go back up, it will be "time to sell a 4 wheel drive truck".Moose

A Bloomberg Businessweek article dated today expresses optimism, and they back it up with a little math: This is the kind of information I was looking for. They understate the size of the energy sector by focusing only on its capital spending, but even if for the sake of comparison we exaggerate the energy sector's contribution to be as much as 5% of the economy, it's dwarfed by the 70% that is consumer spending.--Percy

Does anybody think that this oil glut has been orchestrated to influence the behaviour of states like Russia and Venezuela? I am sure that Putin is feeling the pinch (in as much as a guy that is worth $70B can feel the pinch).I was also wondering about the Rockefeller's recent divestment from oil related stocks. This seems suspisciously convienient. I get the impression that someone knows about pending technology that will change things.

Do those numbers include the loss to railway and refinery workers?Consumer spending may be the largest sector of the economy, but those consumers get their spending money from jobs. Even one drop is enough to send a ripple through the whole bucket. When all you talk about is buying and spending, you miss a huge chunk of the picture, such as what the effect of less spending in one area has on the ability of others to spend in some other area.

Who in their right mind would want to live where there's no public transportation?

Pssh, last time I got on a bus I got off at the next stop and hailed a taxi. It was awful.

As in all things it depends on how it is implemented and how dedicated the people involve are to implementing a viable system.The US is an automobile dominated society in part because of large open spaces and in part because car manufacturers bought up and destroyed the public transportation systems. At one point you could travel up and down the coast by trolley cars, so people in NY City could vacation in RI and ME iirc.High speed trains have greater capacity and use less fuel than airplanes and can service into major cities. US trains are antiquated (part of the reason oil tanker trains crash and burn), but remember that trains tied the country together and served the wide open spaces before planes took over.I lived in Toronto for many years and used public transportation often and happily. Clean, timely, easy transfers between lines and cheap, cheaper than parking, let alone fuel and the hassle of driving when you could ride and read. I traveled to Boston and back without car or taxi.Many people commute by public transportation because they can relax and read, and because we have service close to work areas and parking (bikes and cars) for commuter connections. Electric buses are quiet and fume free. The ones here in RI have racks for bicycles.Curiously I took a taxi once here and vowed never again. I had to wait forever for it and it was expensive, the driver chatted the whole time about someone dying in the back seat and he didn't get paid. Horrid.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : ...

I use my bus pass for one or two round trips every day. Using taxis the same amount would cost me more than $1000 a month.

Curiously I wonder if we are comparing Canadian publicly owned public transportation and US corporate owned and operated leased buses?Enjoy

Duluth, MN has excellent public transportation. My son uses it every day. He is handicapped, but can get anywhere in the city or Superior, WI he needs to go. Without it he would not be able to even have a job. I know a number of professionals that use it every day. The public transportation in the Minneapolis/St Paul area is very good also. There are buses that bring people in from the suburbs, the bus lines are pretty comprehensive and accessible and the light rail is fantastic.

Electric motors are much simpler than internal combustion engines. Some of the earliest automobiles were electric, like this 1911 Baker electric car: All of the complexity in hybrid cars and modern cars is due to the internal combustion engine, not the electric one.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Well yes, but that is only because electric cars have absolutely rubbish range.

Perfectly fine for cities and suburbs.

So utterly useless in the U.S., then?