yes indeed get out the razor gang on public servants/tyrants

I live in a caravan park in FNQ and there has been doom & gloom by management [Harvey Bains if you will] that their lifeline, the retired Victorians in their huge rigs would not come this year because of fuel prices

well last nite we had 112% capacity with Winebagos hanging off the rafters

the answer? these are mainly retired public servants on their unfunded super [is taxpayer funded]. There is so much slack in the system we saw Costello simply take $60 Billion of OUR money to put into his Future Fund

so first cut? The Child Support Scheme was simply set up as a scheme WITH FULL REDUNENCY if it failed

It failed, so there are 2,000 "jobs" right there

Billie “Yes we should spend more on infrastructure,”

The socialist response to everything.

So billie some Questions –

Is there an economic benefit from that infrastructure?
Or is it the usual grandstands for the political elites?

Who will operate that infrastructure?
The ‘state’ or private businesses?

“Col really want to see teachers, nurses, tramdrivers and policemen's salary cut by a third.”

We hear whining by the public sector for “parity” with the private sector.
In a recession incomes in the private sector dwindle, job opportunities dwindle.

“Parity” is a two way street.

I see neither benefit nor “Parity” in protecting the hangers-on of the national economy (those employed by government) whilst those in the wealth creating “private sector” wither.

Public confidence has taken a nose dive in the past six months. People are pulling up th draw bridge and adoption a siege mentality. The only way of returning to the buoyancy of the Howard government years is to remove the impending constraints which Rudd has planned Carbon Emissions trading tax, Nanny-State taxes (eg Alcho-pops),

Forget fiddling with complicated paid maternity leave, that only increases the costs of business, with no productive benefits.

Remember the Australian economy is a competitor of the Chinese and Indian economies and some of the pointless draconian interference through government regulation for wannabe planning ideals which are pure socialist theory are turning away investors (this applies particularly to the differentials of the Kyoto accords which Mr Howard refused to sign but which Krudd took his own jar of Vaseline along to).

So kick at me all you want billie but whilst you are looking at me through rose tinted distortion glasses of socialism you will always miss your target, just as the fantasy theories of socialism have always missed their target (socialism, the politics of the well intentioned, sentimental failures).

Bull is close to right on most of his suggestions.
I remember a quote from Kenneth Deffreyes a question from his grandson;
"You mean you burnt all that stuff ?"

That is surely the crux of the matter and you should include natural
gas with it. Plastics can be made from natural gas as well as from oil.
Also natural gas is used to make fertillisers.

So eventually oil & gas has to be kept for manufacturing of the large
range of products.

How we get from here to there is the main question.
I had always thought we had about five years before peak oil would hit
us, but I am afraid its effects are preceding it by only a year or so.

Yes Billie traditional solutions are gone I am afraid, but watch how
many economists are still talking of economic growth. They are mostly
still running with the business as usual crowd and governments are
still employing them.

All thransport will have to go electric and eventually even local
truck transport will have to be electric. There will be no choice and
the sooner the better.

The last 20 years have seen technology advance more than it has in any other period in History.

Remember the first mobile phones? They were huge and the batteries didn't last long. Due to advances in mobile phone techology we now have very small phones and the batteries last some time.

Why haven't we developed this technology for the electric car? What about light weight batteries that give up to 500 km of range at 110 km/h. What about developing a high current fast charge so that the batteries could be recharged in a short time when on a journey? Existing petrol stations could be converted to recharging centres or battery exchange centres. At home the car could be charged by a normal power supply.

Maybe one day all roofing material will also incorporate solar cells and we shall obtain free clean power. Where I live there's a lot of wind and I would like to have a wind generator when these are more efficient.

There is no doubt that we are heading for a recession. Indeed, it will be stagflation. The cost of a major input into everything we buy is rising and this will continue. Demand is greater than productive capacity in the long term. So a recession will occur eventually.

If central banks increase interest rates it will have no effect. It could make a recession even worse. Fuel will be set at a very high level. There is nothing consumers or business can do to bring the price of oil down again.

We must face the fact that the good days are gone. Wealthy countries will have to pay a much higher price for imports made in developing countries. Labour in "advanced" countries will be priced out of the labour market.

Steel Mann,
There is a lot of work going on with batteries and some
progress, even if it is slow, is being made.
One of the problems is the low cell voltage mostly in the 1 volt to 1.5 volt range.
This means for a practical electric car up to 100 cells must be connected in series.
The quite high currents that are needed requires large capacity cells
unless you have to start paralleling up cells as well.
This all reduces the reliability and cost and right now no cheap
solutions are available with Lith Ion being the most efficient but
the most costly.

Back on stream: I listened to Prof Garnaut on Meet the Press on ABC.
He said all that was expected but there were two remarks that he
made that told me that he doesn't have a clue.
He said that unless we implement co2 control we will lose our Nth
Queensland tourist market because we will lose the Barrier Reef.
He also said we will lose other parts of our in bound tourism.

Clearly he does not understand that with peak oil the airlines are
not going to be operating in the tourist industry anyway.
He believes that with CO2 reduction we can save the tourist industry.
It would seem that oil depletion and consumption has not figured in
his calculations otherwise he would not be talking about tourism.

That is a real worry !
It means that the governments expert does not understand what is going on.