"""
In the 1930s, the Boeing 247
held exactly 10 passengers!
"""

Don't worry about air travel, we'll be flying whales soon enough :)

http://gizmodo.com/5381365/beautiful-concept-airship-looks-85-years-into-the-future

Belly said;
Bazz bloke, oil played no part none in the GFC

Sorry Belly, it was the direct cause of the GFC.
During 2007 oil prices were rising steadily. Unemployment in the US was
rising with it. Banks were getting into trouble.
Fertiliser, maize and petrol prices were rising.
Mortgages were starting to fail.
Why ? because people had the choice of buying food, petrol or paying
the mortgage. Well everyone drives to work in the US so they had to
drop the mortgage payment. Finally in July 2008 oil reached $147 a
barrel and two months later all hell broke lose in the financial world.
These were people who should never have been given a loan.

Then oil prices plummeted to $35 a barrel. Just as had always been
predicted by Kenneth Defreyes and Colin Campbell way back in the 1990s.

Note every one of the last five recessions except one were preceded
by a spike in oil prices.

Bazz sorry never agree with that long bow you have there.
Cheap loans to people who NEVER had the money to service them had nothing to do with oil.
By the time of the GFC oil was down very much in price.
Yabby has it right that plane is a good way to look to our future.
Fact is we nearly give our natural gas away, profit is made but think about this.
IF Australian went gas, government would tax it at about petrol rates, making it maybe less than petrol.
Lets not dream profits and extra tax same price.
Any day any year we could find knew power knew fuels but what we will not do is return to the dark ages.
International trade needs consumers ,we need that trade locally great pain will come but not over oil or fuel.
Personal debt is not covered by government,we pay for banks but it will be us who feel the pain, if we are not in control of our finances.

No Belly, look at the timing of the peak price and the GFC.
It occurred just as the banks crashed but the rising price during
the previous year put increasing pressure on the economy.
Then the economy crashed.
The economists say that when the cost of either energy or just oil,
I don't remember which, reaches 4% of GDP then the economy crashes.

Thats it, it is just too much for the economy.
Go do a search on the oil drum on oil price spike and GFC.
It is all there somewhere graphs and all.

Go read Jeff Rubin's book;
"Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller"
He was head economist at the Canadian CIBC and a well known
Nth American economist. You can find him on Utube also.
73

Bazz, high oil prices can affect economies, but the GFC was a whole
lot more then that. Oil prices just brought things to a head, but the
boil was already festering for a long time before that.

GM and Chrysler had been on the edge of bankrupcy for ages, the US
housing bubble in terms of buildings and price, had been cooking
away, as people reckoned that house prices could only ever go up.
Americans had been borrowing more on inflated house prices and
spending the money. It had to burst eventually, one way or another.

RawMustard, the wheel might yet turn full circle! I'm pretty sure
I read an article over this weekend, which suggested that Palmer
was investing in Zeppelins. The way I understand it, its actually
a fairly energy efficient method of air travel, as long as they don't catch
fire

VFT and Rail improvements and lines are still the best options for the near future; to assist work commuters and people who are and have always been low income earners missing out on a holiday[s] in their 30's 40's and 50's, faced with obstacles and unexpected rip-offs throughout their lives.