Global oil prices likely to touch to $60/barrel: Osama Kamal

[The2ndWheel]

34. Europe and the rest of the world are different than the US

Japan is an island. China and India have like 2.5 billion people combined. Europe was built up when cars didn't exist, then went through a couple wars in the 20th century, then built back up again, but still in a relatively confined space. Then there's most of the rest of the world, which has enough trouble with more basic things than F150's.

The US is 5% of the human population, but uses 25% of the world's energy. We're going to waste energy. Is it because we're greedy? Maybe a little. The US was also the last one standing after the 20th century, and we set up the international system we have today. The US military is the developed world's military, except only US taxpayers pay for it. We're ok with that because nobody can tell us no. Europe is ok with that since they can spend what would've gone to their own military if they had to get the resources themselves on their various social programs.

The more expensive energy is, the more we'll optimize for efficiency. If it's cheap, then it's going to be about revenue/profit, because why wouldn't it be? That just goes back to what were the eventual benefits from the surplus of agriculture. That surplus bought people, at least some people, time to do other things. That's all money does too.