Panic abounds - the price of fuel is rising - all the way to $2.50/litre. I find it's all rather grotesque - this overt display of total panic - we're suppose to be the 'Lucky Country', Right?

But really - what did you expect?

Kevin Rudd has demonstrated what I suspected - John Howard in disguise. Unwilling to tell the electorate what it should hear he deals in snake oil remedies - quick and popular fixes.

Fuel, of the price thereof, will stop our hedonistic belief that we can do as we like and not have to pay the piper. Quick fixes and popularists remedies are not what we need. What we need is to take a good hard look at out so-called 'comfortable and relaxed' agenda and realise how much we rely on fuel to support that lifestyle.

And that's the real cause of our collective panic - that we cannot sustain our 'winner takes all' way of looking at life - that there is something out there that says 'Stop'. That's what scares us silly - that we have to stop. Stop our love affair with SUVs, with continuous overseas travel, with pushing farmers to the margins so that yet more fuel must be consumed to give us our daily bread. We are victims of our own insatiable appetite for the good life.

The fat lady has stopped singing - time now for us to pay. Get ready for the pain.

Dear River.....I'm about to disclose a SHOCKING TRUTH :) (4 secrets)

no-one ELSE could do better with fuel prices etc.

Not the Greens..

Not the Demo....who?

Not the 'International Socialists'...

Not even my favorite..Family First. (much as I wish they could)

nope...none

why? aaaah..

FIRST secret discosure time :)

1/ NATIONS which HAVE the oil.. are carefully stringing it's supply out to maximize their dollars and ultimate political impact on our ways of life and economies..

2/ SPECULATORS.. i.e.. the rich capitalist speculators..who's wealth exceeds that of some COUNTries.. are .. quite understandably...BUYING up HUUUUUUGGGEEE quantities of oil and.. probably SITTing on them.. until the price goes up...up..and up..and UP.. then they sell making obscene profits.

SECOND Secret.

In both the above cases, but especially number 2... the more they buy up..and hold, and up the price..the more they can BUY next..and sit on...and get MORE profit..and this in turn enables them on the next round to buy MORE.. and..and..and...

Suddenly we see the rich speculators... proving the emptiness of the deceptive myth of 'market forces' being in any way good.. unless they are restrained....

THIRD secret. Only by the force of the barrell of a gun, or LAW (but most likely both) will these people cease their 'legal' use of 'markets' to engratiate themselves, and adorn their persons with diamond encrusted Mercedes Benz's (google THAT)

FOURTH secret. Countries like Australia, can only go, cap in hand to the "have's" and meekly accept what they dish out..or.. (go figure)

FIFTH secret.. (gotcha.. didn't mention this one at the beginning :)

So this should dispell any idea that "This" or "that" political party in Australia can do much about it.

The reason is.. "all have sinned" and need redemption from God alone.. and once redeemed they will be renewed and THEN perhaps they will fulfill the royal law.. "Love God with all you heart and your NEIGHBOUR as urself"

No mystery or secrets here at all. Ever since the first oil was pumped in the mid 1800's, man kept discovering more uses for the stuff and more and more oil, well, until the 1960's that is. Ever since then, oil discoveries have been falling behind on a year to year basis. Humanity has now come up against one of the limits to growth. We've pumped almost as much oil from the ground as is left.

As it stands, the light sweet crude so sought after is diminishing rapidly. All that is left in abundance is the heavy, sour crudes which require special refining techniques, few of which can be done in Western countries because of limited refining capacity for such heavy oil. Australia has very limited refining capacity for even the light, sweet crude and so sends most of it's oil to Singapore where it's cracked into petroleum and shipped back to us....at a cost. The process also serves to tie us to the petrol "parity price" system.

Humanity is simply a pack of greedy rouges amongst the animal kingdom who are fast destroying our once beautiful planet. No mystery in that. Like all other situations where one animal dominates all to the detriment of the rest, nature will take a hand and dole out natural justice. The human population was around 1.2 billion when oil was first pumped. The only reason it's now 6.7 billion is simply down to the energy contained in oil. Once oil depletion outstrips supply, humanity will begin a journey back to a population dependent of what it can grow or scrounge and the balance will be restored. My hope is for a slow slide, but as recent food riots have shown, desperate people will do desperate things.

Aime “Humanity is simply a pack of greedy rouges amongst the animal kingdom who are fast destroying our once beautiful planet.”

I winced when I read the above and realised your spelling error which should read “rogues” (not rouges)

That aside.

I generally agree.

However, the biggest problem is not “individual greed” of a few people but the “collective need” of so many people.

Fix the population numbers and the rest falls into place. Now bearing in mind population growth is centred around under-developed nations, we should focus on helping the education of the women folk to understand choice and contraceptives. This will improve not just the population numbers but also the life quality of the ladies.

It will also piss off the Roman Catholics and the Christian fundamentalists but I don’t care about them.

A world population of under 2 billion would work well. It will annoy a few who can only see improvement through economic "growth" but that is merely a limit to their understanding.

A worthwhile life is, afterall, more about quality than quantity.

Col ‘Greedy’ Rouge,

“Fix the population numbers and the rest falls into place.”

Stabilising population is an essential part of the necessary new world order. But it isn’t going to achieve much in the short term. Greatly reducing population would achieve a lot…for those lucky enough not to be ‘reduced’!

How do we ‘fix’ the population number? Probably the best way is to just let the current rate of population growth and resource consumption continue full steam ahead. Presumably, the higher the population gets, the bigger the crash event will be and the bigger the resulting population reduction!

So perhaps we should NOT be drawing out the process by trying to mitigate the effects of peak oil or rising fuel prices or any other unsustainable human activity.

Maybe Rudd is our country’s greatest ever environmentalist, humanitarian, economist and nationalist! By boosting immigration and the baby bonus, and accelerating economic growth, thus bringing on the crash event sooner rather than later, and in a tumultuous manner instead of in a long drawn-out painful way, he just might be doing a whole lot more for our natural environment, for the first post oil-crash generation and for the good of Australia through most of the 21st century (:>/

Aime “Humanity is simply a pack of greedy rouges amongst the animal kingdom who are fast destroying our once beautiful planet.”

I LOL when I read the above and realised your spelling error which should read “rogues” (not rouges)

That aside.

I generally agree too, even with you Col.

But as Ludwig says, it isn’t going to happen any time soon.

I totally agree Rivergum. The escalating fuel prices are not going to be alleviated by a short term, short sighted 5 cent/L policy shift from Nelson et al. Rudd knows this and so too does the Opposition – but they do play politics.

I would go further, all energy is going to cost more – we will have to adjust.

Total BS.We have no control over the prime drivers of inflated fuel.China and India created the demand OPEC and the oil companies decided to profiteer.The Global warming debate,is just that.Nothing has been resolved.They cannot predict the planet's climate trends any better than the prediction of the local weather.

We have enormous amounts of gas which will last 140yrs or longer if we alone use it.We in the land of Aust could have had it all,but alas squandered it.Welcome to third world poverty thanks to our greedy State Govts and federal Govts with short term vision.

To Col and Q&A.
Yes, I cringed too when I realised the spelling mistake 'after' I'd hit the "post" button, but it was an honest mistake.

Totally off subject, but I cringe even more when reading through many of the posts both here and on other sites and realise just how far our grasp of the English language and it's spelling has fallen since I went to school. Some of the posts are extremely difficult to read at times and the lack differentiation between simple words such as 'to' and 'too' or 'their' and 'there' astounds me.

Anyway, I feel, I believe, acceptably humbled and have duly taken it "on the chin" and in good humor :-)

Arjay hit the nail on the head when he said "We have enormous amounts of gas which will last 140yrs or longer if we alone use it.We in the land of Aust could have had it all,but alas squandered it.Welcome to third world poverty thanks to our greedy State Govts and federal Govts with short term vision."

Yes we should be using public transport where possible, but first we need to rebuild the public transport infrastructure --> so lose the budget money for road infrastructure.
The generators of electricity and gas need to invest in gas, solar energy, we need to generate electricity on house rooves to reduce the wastage. When electricity travels 200km we lose a third of the electricity generated due to line resistance etc.

My goodness, I actually find myself agreeing with BOAZ, but only marginally ! This was over the sickening display of wealth that some people can deliver. However I suppose the diamond encrusted Car did supply a lot of work to an awful lot of people.

I often wonder about those who rail against capitalism (sure it is not perfect by any means) and if they realise that they are also the beneficiaries of speculation and greed. If they have a superannuation fund they are almost certain to be invested in hedge funds and speculative strategies. The various government sovereign funds invest in the most powerful and "exploitive" companies to get the best returns and if they didn't, they wouldn't put their money there. Churches who also invest in managed funds would also be captive to the uncertainties of the best possible return. Capitalism works on competition within accepted laws. If you want more laws, the competition gets affected and results in a restrictive and controlled economy. There has to be a Happy medium.

So BOAZ and all those who benefit, think where your money comes from unless you want to become a Muslim who feels it is not right to even get interest on his money.

Ahhh Boaz, do you believe the speculators are actually taking delivery
and storing this oil ?
There is not enough storage available to do what you suggest, not by a long way.
If you believe they are forward buying then they are taking an enourmous risk.
If another group of hoarders suddenly start selling the price will fall
and they would lose enormous amounts of money.
No, the forward buying has to be very carefully done by such organisations
as airlines, but they cannot forward buy in anywhere near the quantities
that would cause the effects you put on these mysterious speculators.

Like everything in this field it is the enormous size of the oil
consumption that makes these rumours unbelievable.

The nonsense of of uproar over a 5 cent tax reduction just shows how
stupid are the politicians.
I see the truck drivers are complaining bitterly and demanding the
government "do something". They just don't understand that they will
have to take their loads to the rail yards.
This is a permanent problem and the sooner the politicians admit it
the better off we will all be.
The US may become that desperate that the Saudis will tell them to
become good moslems and they will get all the oil they need, Allah be praised !

There you are Boaz, something else to worry about, hi !