Originally Posted by Clayton


You obviously do not have a service oriented company.

I am a marketer for 3 medical companies. i think this is a service industry (health care is a service right?)

One of the companies sells products that we ship. i am well aware of the cost of shipping, and we are still paying "fuel surcharges" on every order we ship (despite fuel rates dropping 25% since the $4/gal).

However, I completely understand and basically agree with your points (and Tadd's).

I am also no economist but my comment was more ideology than actual theory.

my point was that higher costs (apparently around $4/gal) spurred on a tidal wave of "non oil" ideas and demand. wind, solar, thermo, etc were a hot topic 2 years ago (as was drill baby drill).

Of course our memory is sooo short as soon as prices fell back around $3 people canceled their prius orders and got back into their suv's.

I drive a 6 cylinder car, have a boat made from oil related materials, have lots of plastic in mu life (not really by choice), and am just as much a user of our oil nation as anyone else, but i would hope we find new ways (or go back to some old ways) that would reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

i am no scientist and don't have many solutions to our current socio/economic love affair with oil, but i hope we can move away from it in my lifetime.