On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:21:39 GMT, Jere Lull wrote:

On 2007-11-21 13:10:00 -0500, Larry said:

Here's the scariest website I know of:
http://kitco.com/LFgif/au1825nyb.gif
Sure glad I'm not dependent on money for fuel....

I understand your sentiment, but I was around in the 70s when it became
legal to own gold again -- and the price bounced to $800/oz on
speculation. The current valuations are simply speculation by the worst
of the pessimists.

As much as I believe oil is (still) priced artificially low --
particularly in the US -- as the cost of that raw material goes up,
alternate sources and alternate power sources will be developed.

In actual fact the costs of exploration and production drilling
and/or production costs for oil have not gone up appreciably. The high
oil costs are a direct effect of greater world usage.

Now having said that there many fields that were discovered years ago
but were too expensive to produce at crude prices at the time of
discovery that are now being re-drilled as current costs make them
viable to produce.

Back when I was in school (the late 60s), "they" said we'd run out of
oil about 2000. Now that we've passed that milestone, "they" are saying
we'll run out of oil in about the same time period.

Most "estimates" have been made on known sources and were reasonable
accurate for those sources, but as prices go up more expensive methods
of exploration become more economical and new discoveries are being
made. Of course, oil is finite and the day will come when it is no
longer available but I doubt that anyone knows with any certainty when
that will occur.

"They" also said at the time that we were heading towards a little ice age....

The problem with such predictions is that they're based upon everything
staying the same and, as we're all aware, the only constant is change.

Bruce-in-Bangkok
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