I am sorry everyone remembers the oil at $150 a barrel or that gas was over $5 a gallon and what are the chances that it will come again?

Canadian economist Jeff Rubin has a somewhat oracular reputation. Since 2000, he has predicted a massive oil-price spike, and he was among the first in 2007 to prophesy that oil would soar over $100 per barrel (a few months later, he said $150 a barrel and was basically proved right again). Now, even though oil has dropped considerably from its peak, Rubin warns that it’s bound to skyrocket once more and cause another, even greater economic crisis. In his new book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, he lays out how this energy crunch will occur—and why it will spell the end of globalization.

The scenario goes something like this: the ongoing depletion of the world’s oil resources, coupled with soaring demand from emerging economies like India and China, will send the price of crude through the roof, Rubin says. This will seriously escalate transportation costs, which in turn will cripple international trade, reverse commercial interdependence and disable the global economy. The resulting age will be one in which nations are isolated, technological progress is sluggish and travel is infrequent. The Middle East will be less relevant than it is today, and food scarcity will emerge as the foremost international problem. Countries with a shortage of arable land will scramble and compete to buy agricultural real estate from other nations (for example, as Saudi Arabia is already now doing in Sudan) to alleviate their ever-worsening food crises.

Rubin’s future isn’t all bad. To offset the effects of the energy crisis, governments will have to invest heavily in national infrastructure (especially public-transportation systems); national industries once hurt by outsourcing and foreign competition will thrive; and the environment will become cleaner as people are forced to use less fossil fuel and as cars disappear from the streets. But Rubin warns that governments can do only so much—successful adaptation to an energy-starved world will largely depend on individuals altering their energy-consumption norms. Still, he is willing to bet that people will make the right choices. All in all, he says, “don’t be surprised if the new, smaller world that emerges isn’t a lot more liveable and enjoyable than the one we are about to leave behind.”

There will always be a boom or bust cycle in the oil industry.  I do not know if I agree with Rubin on the statement that the people will make the right choice in the long run.  Especially in the US, if they do make the right choice then the oil crisis, the energy crisis, would have been avoided in the 70’s.  It is possible that the people could make a good choice, however the government and industry does not give them the chance to do so.

IMO, I do not see oil companies allowing anything that would harm their profits or their stranglehold on the economy.