In the previous energy crises in the U.S., the problem was not one of high prices but of unavailability. It didn't matter how much money you had, there simply wasn't any gas at the gas station.
In that case, the cost of a newer car is irrelevant.
Price controls-> shortages.
There were no price controls during the second oil crisis in 1979, and there were no shortages either. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
But then again, absence of price controls creates by-wealth rationing.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
So you'll get a milder form of by-wealth rationing - one in which the people who are flat out of luck are at least compensated for their being flat out of luck.
Did I miss anything?
After all, no citizen has an innate claim to more of the stuff than any other, given that it's all imported and thus heavilty dependent on public infrastructure and institutions to be available to us... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Fairness we get through the progressiveness of the income tax system. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
