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A comment on What if Gas Cost $100/gal?.

Re:What if Gas Cost $100/gal? by pchristensen on Tuesday May 27, 2008 @01:03PM (#201170)
America would look a lot like it did during the Great Depression. People wouldn't travel much, more things would be produced locally because shipping would be expensive, people would live closer together (both in proximity and density), people would eat local produce because out-of-season foods would be expensive to ship, etc. Things like digital content, electronics, etc would seem extremely cheap ($500 for iPod touch or 5 gallons of gas), while other things like wine, strawberries, air travel, etc would be extravagant luxuries. It wouldn't be like the poverty of the great depression, but a lot of things we take for granted now would get very, very expensive.

On the other hand, the high shipping costs would make local labor a lot more economical for manufacturing, maintenance, etc.

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Re:What if Gas Cost $100/gal? by nostrademons on Tuesday May 27, 2008 @06:33PM (#201491)
People traveled a lot during the Great Depression. That's when hobos, okies, migrant workers, and Route 66 entered popular culture. Much of California was settled during the 1930s, as emigrants from the dust-bowl states moved to the Central Valley and LA areas. One of the fastest-growing professions was "gas station attendant", and the Depression years featured the consolidation of the auto industry.
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Re:What if Gas Cost $100/gal? by jmzachary on Tuesday May 27, 2008 @09:44PM (#201665)
Yep, a lot of us would have to adopt the hobo life and cut other people with our hobo knife.
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Re:What if Gas Cost $100/gal? by petercooper on Tuesday May 27, 2008 @08:43PM (#201611)
> Things like [..] electronics, etc would seem extremely cheap ($500 for iPod touch or 5 gallons of gas)

Almost certainly not, unfortunately. That iPod Touch would be significantly more expensive due to the shipping costs and the massively increased production costs. Anything that contains plastic would be far more expensive (since we'd be looking at a circa $3000 barrel of oil).

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