Lifeboat Earth

What is happening on earth right now reminds me of a human potential test given to my wife when she went through Lifespring training. She and a group of 15 people were given an imaginary lifeboat that could only safely handle 12 people and they were to decide who lived and who didn't. Unknown to the participants the test was to address what issued and wounds that childhood had created in them. My wife decided that she should be one of the ones left behind being the very polite and well educated and civilized person that she is. If I had been there at some point I might have fought the others to survive if it was actually real. I don't know. I'm very polite too. But at the other end I am also capable of being the most ruthless person in any group I'm in if it came to that too.

Earth now reminds me of this test. No one actually is benifitting in any really useful way from the high oil prices. Most people don't know this. The producers don't really want these high prices because they make money in volume and if people by less barrels and use less they actually make less money. The oil companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and others don't like this either because after Bush and Cheney leave, a windfall profits tax is inevitable so then they will lose ALL their windfall profits when there are not oil men at the top. The refiners don't like this at all because they are actually losing money in the states because they can't sell as many gallons because people are using so much less than almost ever before. They have to buy oil at high prices and make very little per gallon. Many refiners in the United States might even go out of business in these crazy times because of this.

To make matters even worse for countries like Saudi Arabia, after they make their money they tend to invest in stock markets like the U.S. and others. Too high oil prices drive their investments down to the point where they have to find less stable investments that might be much more risky in the long run.

Oil speculators for the most part are institutional and scared investors. The dollar dropping has ruined everybody's last 5 years. It was something almost all worldwide investors counted on and with it gone, chaos reigns for now. Almost no one is happy at what is happening. How many people do you know that think 100 million starving or near starving people is a good thing for earth and business. I don't think you will find many.

So what is happening is a panic of epic proportions taking place on earth. The investors are scared, the middle class all over earth is scared, the poor are panicked, dying or already dead. This is a very bad thing. The problem is there is no real leadership on earth right now, just a stalemate so likely everything is going to get much worse until there is confidence once again. I have no idea when that will happen or even if it will!