Oil continues to roll.
"Peak Oil" is soooooo passe... and past tense. The phrase itself is now firmly entrenched in the popular lexicon, if not in government and banking's. The implications of the issue are just so overwhelming that even the vast majority of highly intelligent and well educated adults just doesn't know how to address it. Believe me, they would if they could - but that would mean coming to grips with ALL of this phenomenon's implications.
I am speaking about people my age, of a certain age if you will, with offspring that are now young adults. Our issue need our guidance and direction at this critical juncture... and where, and how, are we directing them? In a direction that takes no account of what the absolute certainty of what Peak Oil means.
The new generation of young adults will need the same things that every new generation has needed: A home, skills to make a living, and skills to operate a family unit and within a community. Yet my generation is still pointing our young into educational endeavors that will yield no practical skills but will leave them with debts sufficient to prevent them from acquiring a debt free home BEFORE they reach a certain age (just ask any 60 something person who still has mortgage debt AND a 5 figure property tax bill how his financial health is affecting their physical health).
To be fair, "Peak Oil" likely times well with "Peak People"... and in a Peak People scenario, some folks by mathematical necessity must remain childless and houseless.... but we are talking micro solutions here (you guys know how I feel about macro solutions)... and if you want grandchildren (and I really do), this is a time to pay close attention to your personal forecasting models.
Family businesses and family farms et al, are going to matter a great deal in the financial planning of the future. Financial assets? Beautiful now but could be quite ugly later. The small family business might well be today's "ugly duckling". For middle class millionaires spending $200k on an undergraduate degree in liberal arts, irrespective of prestigious the institution, might well echo painfully for a couple of generations. A modest, debt free home will "echo in eternity", as will practical skills in everyday life. Engineer, dentist, leather worker, horticulturist? Mazul Tov! Sensitivity coach, journalist (rofl!), english prof (really rofl!), political activist (really, really ROFL!!!)? Oy. "And from that you make a living?'
We're "here", and we've been here for 3 years + or -. Things will evolve just the way they do, and at the pace they do... this will present great opportunities and great challenges, and the beer will still be cold, and waves will roll in, and life will always be good - even hard times... hard times are better than no times, if you catch my drift.
Oh, and one last thing... given the future for transportation fuels, if you want to have any kind of relationship with your adult children and their children you gotta think long and hard about just how far away from the family compound the college they attend is. My wife came hear from Asia as an exchange student... and now her parents have to travel 9,000 miles to see their daughter and their grandchildren. How much longer do you think that model will work?