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Why gas prices are rising and housing prices are falling
As a freshman congressman in 1955, I regrettably voted with my unanimous colleagues for the Interstate Highway Program. All of us acted on the shortsighted assumption that cheap oil was superabundant and would always be available. This illusion began to unravel in the 1970s, and it haunts Americans today. Oil lies at the epicenter of a critical energy crisis. Petroleum is a finite resource and is the most precious, versatile resource on the planet. Cheap oil played a crucial role in the development of American power and prosperity, and sustains the military machine that dominates the world today. Oil is now nearing a historic transition that will alter the civilization Americans have come to take for granted."
Natural resources are finite, as the drought has taught us. We must wake up quickly to the reality that oil is also finite and that demand has begun to exceed supply. That's the simple answer for why oil prices are escalating and a clue to why housing prices are falling.
There is a direct correlation between oil and housing and the way we live. Claude Lewenz has written a brilliant piece on this relationship entitled The End of Cheap Oil as an Opportunity. I highly recommend that you take some time to read it. By now we have learned that the oft-repeated trope that the two Chinese characters for "crisis" = "danger" + "opportunity" is incorrect. The second character is more accurately translated "critical point." We are certainly at a critical point in the energy crisis. The good news is we still have time to take the road of opportunity if we can snap out of a "business-as-usual" mindset. In the article Lewenz concludes:
It is important that we view this transition as an opportunity to create a far more engaging, wonderful, delightful place and way to live. Let us not respond in fear, but with enthusiasm.
Sometimes the humor and child-like spirit of a cartoon can help us to embrace difficult political and social problems. That's what I appreciate about the environmental comic Rustle the Leaf and why I shared the video above.
I'd also like to share another comic with you. My brother Anthony woke up one day a couple of months ago and decided he wanted to start a comic strip.
I've been working on a blog to feature his work. I figure everybody can use a laugh or two in these times, so check out Hickory Flats at www.hickoryflats.net.
Burke Sisco
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