Brutal Recession Destroyed Americans' Wealth, Net Worth Down 40% In 3 Years (Forbes)

[NickB79]

25. Speculation can only do so much

You can't speculate and drive the price of a commodity through the roof that's widely available and abundant. There must be a strong underlying demand for the commodity in order for speculators to take it and run with it. While speculation did play a role in the 2007 oil price run-up, take it out of the equation and you still had $140/barrel oil with an underlying demand price point of $100/barrel. In the run-up to the Great Recession, there was indeed a large and growing demand for new oil from China and India, who's economies were growing at 10%/yr. The reason oil prices fell as low as they did wasn't just due to margin calls; the majority of the drop was due to demand destruction as countries and consumers simply couldn't afford to buy as much oil and it's derivatives as they used to. As far as using supertankers to store oil, you've got your dates mixed around. The oil companies were storing oil on tankers AFTER the price collapsed, hoping to re-juice the markets: http://seekingalpha.com/article/113846-super-tankers-and-super-volatile-oil-prices Before the crash, countries with booming economies were eager to secure as much of it as possible, signing long-term contracts and invading certain countries with lots of untapped reserves (cough, cough, Iraq War, cough).

As to what I propose, I guess that in a way I do believe we need to accept a lower standard of living. After all, if the entire planet lived the way Americans lived, we'd be so far over our carrying capacity that we'd burn through the planet's resources in no time. It would be unfair (and impossible) to tell the rest of the world that they can't have what we have. The American way of living is entirely unsustainable, and will come to an end this century, no matter what we do about it. If that makes you uncomfortable, I'm sorry. I agree with you that we need to build as much renewable infrastructure as possible, but the capital, time and resources needed to build out enough of it to support an expanding economy are probably out of our grasp at this time. I'm just hoping we can keep the lights on and the trains running for food transportation. We've pretty much passed the tipping point with regard to climate change, and are locked in for 6C or better of warming by the end of the 21st century. The changes this will bring to our society in the form of wild weather and food disruptions will bankrupt nations as they try to fight it.