Thoughts

by

The World Will Not End This Year, or Any Time Soon For That Matter


There seems to be a reality show on television that covers just about everything.  The National Geographic channel has taken upon itself to document people who believe we are in the end of days, “Doomsday” people.  One group believes that an ensuing change in the Earth’s poles is going to cause some sort of cataclysm.  This, of course, is preposterous.

In physics there are four basic forces, strong, weak, gravity, and electro-magnetism.  The strong force is also known as the nuclear force or that force that holds atoms together.  The weak force is radiation, a good example is the radiation from things like uranium.  Gravity, as we all know is what hold us onto the Earth, and the electro-magnetic force is as simple as a magnet that we all had as kids.

The force some of these Doomsdayers are pointing to is the Earth’s magnetic force.  They point out that the Earth’s poles are changing, that is thought to be true.  Every several hundred million years the north and south poles change positions for reasons we do not understand at all.  Scientists think the weakening magnetic force the Earth is currently experiencing is the Earth getting ready to change poles which is due.  But what the Doomsdayers do not seem to understand is that change in poles will be a full 180 degrees and not anything in-between.  The reason is simple.  The Earth generates its magnetism from the spinning of the nickle-iron core spinning at the middle of the Earth.  The spin of the Earth cannot change directions without some other object literally running into it and turning it.  Hence, the spin as it is now will remain as is after the change in poles.  The poles cannot form along the solar plane because of the motion of its core.  If you imagine this motion as the same you would see in a top you will understand it better.  If you watch a top while it is spinning the top of the top is one pole while the bottom is the other and must remain that way.  The picture below shows how the spin of the Earth is directly related to the magnetic poles.  The spin is at a 90 degree angle relative to the spin.

The worst thing that will happen if/when the poles shift is what happens to the Earth when the solar winds created by the sun hit.

Solar Winds

The picture above is a depiction of the solar winds and what happens when they hit the Earth’s magnetic fields.  Simply put, when these charged particles come in contact with the Earth magnetic fields those particles follow the lines of magnetism to either the north or south pole.

The above photographs shows those lines of magnetism as they presently exist.   Now, if you take away those lines of magnetism there is a problem.  The solar wind at that point will buffet the Earth’s atmosphere directly and start to boil it off.  This “boiling” is not the same as boiling water but rather the act of stripping off layer after layer of something, in this case the Earth’s atmosphere.  Not only that, the amount of ultra-violet light that reaches the Earth’s surface will rise significantly.  This, obviously, is the worst case scenario of the Earth changing its magnetism.  But we can take heart.  In the geological record there is nothing that points to a life-ending event.  Scientists have been able to go back literally billions of years in Earth’s history all events that have cause large-scale annihilations have been related to volcanic eruptions and exceptionally large meteor collisions.  We have no reason to believe that either will happen soon.  Also, because of the spin of the Earth there will always be a magnetic field surrounding our planet, even during a pole shift.  This is simply because of the mechanical action of the Earth’s core with its surroundings dictates that there must be a magnetic field generated.  The only way to stop that generation is to stop the spin, an impossibility.

Some of these Doomsdayers think when the Earth loses its magnetism, which it could briefly, we will all be flung off into space.  The Earth’s magnetism has no effect on its gravity.  They are independent of each other.  Gravity is proportional to the mass of an object, and the earth is not changing its mass at all, except maybe to gain a little as bits of space rock hit it.

These same Doomsdayers are also talking like mid-America suddenly taking on the characteristics of the North Pole when a polar shift happens.  Again, an absurd idea.  Where our land masses sit is entirely a function of a little goodie called plate tectonics.  That quite simple is how the various plates of the Earth move relative to one another.

The Earth's Plates

From the above picture you can see each of the Earth’s plates.  The arrows indicate the general direction in which each moves.  As you can clearly see, we here in the Americas are moving in a westerly direction.  The north and south poles are staying put.  One also needs to remember that significant movement of these plates only happens in the tens of millions of years.

Scientifically speaking, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the human race is in any imminent danger.  All the dangers to the human race have been well identified and are, of course, the result of our own actions.  And so, unless these Doomsdayers are suggesting that the laws of physics are suddenly going to change, we are only doomed to live in the midst of our own foolishness.  This includes, by the way, the Mayan predictions.

by

What Does “Buy American” Really Mean?


In 2003 I bought a new Mitsubishi Diamante.  It was the first new foreign car I had ever  bought.  Prior that I had owned Fords and Chevys and one Pontiac Firebird.  I had bought into the idea of buy American long before it was a saying.  I believed in American made goods and always desired to support them.  Last summer I bought a 2012 Ford Fusion thinking I was again buying American.  Much to my surprise, and dismay, I later found out that my car was actually assembled in Mexico with its engine manufactured in Canada.  That really irritated me.  My “American” car was really Mexican.  Upon some more research I found out that most of the popular Toyotas, Hondas, and a few other Japanese manufacturers assemble their car in places like Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.  So that Toyota Camry has a better American pedigree than my Ford Fusion?

Then yesterday I discovered that Levi jeans are actually made in Japan.  Nothing that has the Levi name on it is made where it was founded.  And it does not end there.  New Balance shoes, founded in Boston, only produces 25% of their products in America.  I have known for a long time that most of the clothing we buy here in America is made overseas.  America used to lead the world in textile manufacturing, no more.  That is also true of steel, aircraft, electronics, and so much more.

I want to support the American worker still but I am at a loss to know what purchases are doing that.  My Ford Fusion supported Mexican workers, Canadian workers, and corporate Ford.  My Panasonic television was manufactured in Ohio and assembled in California.  It is confusing.

The Sears brand, Craftsman, are all made in the USA.  Dell computers are made in the USA but Apple’s “i” line are made in China, as is the Kindle and Android.  Intel and Motorola processors are made entirely in the United States but everything else is made overseas.

It seems that if you want to support the American worker you have to purchase items with foreign names many times.  How do I buy American?

by

Fear, Panic Attacks, and Other Adventures


This morning I was reading one of James Patterson’s latest murder mysteries, “Kill Alex Cross.”  He is one of my favorite authors.  In the middle of reading something came to mind totally unrelated to what I was reading.  My mind seems to have that tendency, and I have never been able to explain it except to say, I am just a little weird.

Anyway, in the middle of reading I remembered being very sich when I was small.  I do not remember exactly how old I was at the time but I would guess I was no more than six or seven, but maybe younger.  I remember getting very sick, having a high temperature.  But I also remember hallucinating.  I would feel like my fingers had become very thick and that would scare me to death.  My mother used to say I drank too much cough medicine, Vicks Formula 44 which at the time had codeine in it, and that caused me to hallucinate.  I do not remember ever doing that but it is possible.  The thing is, I know for fact that the two incidents are not related because I remember waking up sick in the middle of the night and then hallucinating.

Many years later, when I was in the army in Italy, I would drink a lot at parties I gave.  One day a guy told me I could get a great high out of taking too many sea sick pills.  One day when I did that in the middle of speeding my brains out I got extremely paranoid and had a panic attack.  I was fortunate that at the party there was a physician who examined me and talked me down.  He told me to see him the next day, which I did, at which time he made me promise him that I would never again take those pills.  I kept my promise.  It was his duty to report me to my commanding officer, which he did not do, and I knew better than to abuse his gift.  That was the last time I ever did such a thing.

Again, years later, I had another panic attack.  And a year after that another, and then they started coming with increased regularity.  In the early 1980s medicine was not well equipped to deal with anxiety and panic.  They prescribed Valium, and then when it came into being, xanax.  Unfortunately those medicines only treat the symptoms and not the cause.  I went through a series of antidepressants that were also supposed to deal with anxiety.  First there was Trofanil, then an MAOI, then Welbutron, Prozac, and now Effexor.   The Effexorf, while seemingly very effective, has totally killed off a very important side of the human experience.  The ability to have anything close to a normal sex life is an impossibility.  The libido is strong but the body refuses.

The panic attacks actually disappeared entirely for well over a decade only to re-emerge with a vengeance.  I return to therapy to deal with them but it was ineffective.  The therapist commended me on my total honesty with her but conceded that we had reached a point where continued therapy was of very limited value.  But the anxiety and panic have not yet gone away.

Through many years of introspection I have discovered that most of my fears, if not all, are based in one of two things.  First, my hiding things that greatly embarrass me causes distress.  That part I have entirely dealt with having related every single thing I have ever done that causes me pain.  The other part is talking about those things that scare me.  Intellectually I know that fear happens in the absence of knowledge and I have done my best to become knowledgeable about all things that scare me.  For example, as a child I had an intense fear of the dark which followed me into my adult life.  I have to admit that there is still some of that today but it is far less than it once was.

I am a bit clautrophobic although elevators I find to be particularly troubling.  But that is the only fear I am aware of that I still have these days.  And yet, I still have anxiety attacks, often, and panic attacks occasionally.  Such things are always fear based and yet I cannot get to the base of what is triggering me.  I am frustrated!  I never know when an anxiety attack begins if it will end in a panic attack.  That means my prognosis, barring my discovering what is at the base of all this, is I will live out my years forever fending against the next anxiety attack, the next panic attack.

Ironically, I think of my life these days as generally being really good.  I am never depressed nor do I go a day without feeling grateful for so many things and people in my life.  I know I am not alone it this struggle although sometimes it feels that way.  Even though I am always entirely honest with my psychiatrist, I feel resistance from her in helping me with proper levels of medication.  But even so, there are other physicians, friends who are physicians, who I can rely upon to give me really good advice.

by

A Kidney Stone in Holland


In 1970 the Army sent me to Camp Darby Italy, a short distance from Pisa.  The following summer I decided I wanted to visit Europe and the Middle East.  I started out flying to Athens.  From there I went to Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, and Israel.  After I returned to Italy for a brief stay I resumed my trip by going to Monaco, Paris and London.  From there I flew home to attend my brother’s wedding, then back to London.  From there the plan was to fly to Amsterdam and take the train from there back to Italy.

While I was at home I started having intense pain in my side.  It would come and stay a little while before subsiding.  I tolerated it and had another incident while on my flight to London.  I figured I would have the problem taken care of as soon as I got back to Italy.  I had no idea what was wrong but I was young and strong.

Upon my arrival at the train station in Amsterdam the pain returned.  This time it was not only intense but it did not subside.  I boarded the train bound for Rome thinking I could wait it out.  European trains are usually compartmentalized, at least the long-distance trains.  I was in a first class compartment, very affordable even on a serviceman’s pay, with one other person.  About an hour into the trip the pain had become so intense that I hyperventilated and fell over in the compartment.  The woman who had been in there with me ran out and brought back both the conductor and a doctor.

The doctor talked to me briefly and told me what my problem was.  His perfect American English told me I had gotten lucky in having an American attend to me.  I was only thinking in terms of language difficulty.  When I told him that he told me he was actually Dutch.  He said that medical schools in Holland required an intimate relationship with American English because most of their text books were written in that language, hence his ease with English.

The train made an unscheduled stop on Arnhem Holland where I was taken off via a stretcher.  Since train windows in Europe go down everyone was leaning out their windows looking at me.  I didn’t care.  I only wanted to be relieved of the pain.

From there I was taken to St. Elizabeth Hospital.

Saint Elizabeth Hospital

As you can see, this hospital does not resemble anything like the hospitals in the United States.  Once inside I was sent into an examination room and told to strip down naked and lie on the table in the room.  I did so.  While I was lying there a young woman came in, looked at me, giggled, and left.  This happened several times more.  I was, to say the least, flustered.  Finally a nurse came in and attempted to take down information about me.  She spoke no English so I thought I could better help her fill out the form she had if I did it myself, which I did.  Then the doctor came in.  His English was halting but passable.  When I asked him about the young women coming into the room he told me that they had never had an American in their hospital before and I was something of a novelty to them.  I still don’t know why they all giggled but all of them were quite pretty so that made it very tolerable.

Finally I was taken to the men’s ward.  There were about a dozen men in the ward.  I found out that the man in the bed to my right with the two broken legs had ended up there because he had attempted to escape from jail and had broken his legs in that attempt.  I was a bit of a celebrity there being an American but I was treated extremely well by both staff and the men in the ward.

In talking to the guy in the bed to my left he asked if I knew anyone in the area.  I told him I did not.  The next day when his family came, his sister, a beautiful woman, split away from the rest of her family and visited the entire time with me.  That bit of kindness has stayed with me my entire life.  My entire stay in the hospital in Holland was a demonstration of the kindness of the Dutch people.  I vowed then and there that no one could ever say a bad word about the Dutch in my presence and not incur my wrath.

At the end of a week in Arnhem I was told I was being moved to the Dutch Military Hospital in Utrecht.  My heart sunk because I was so comfortable where I was at.  I had made friends and always had a visitor.  Oh, the nurses at that hospital were all young, all single, and all beautiful.  I asked about that and was told that it was custom in the country that once a woman got married she removed herself from the workforce.

I was taken by ambulance to the Dutch Military Hospital in Utrecht.

This picture is very recent and much of the building was not in existence when I was taken there.  But, as we drove up to the hospital I saw immaculate grounds that were planted with large gardens of tulips.  It was absolutely beautiful.  I felt a bit of relief that it did not look like American Military Hospitals.

Once again I was assigned to a large ward there.  The conditions I found in the hospital in Arnhem were repeated in Utrecht.  I was welcomed in and found staff and patients extremely friendly.  There were probably 18 men in the ward.  Dutch military tradition had the man with the longest stay in the ward as the ranking person.  Unfortunately the guy who held that position was there because he had received 3rd burns over a large portion of his body.  They guys were great to me.

I remember my first breakfast there.  There was a long wooden table in the middle of the ward where we all took breakfast.  I felt like I was at home because they had cereal, fruit and dairy products.  I took a bowl of cereal and poured what I thought was milk over it.  What I found out was that it was not milk, per se, it was buttermilk.  That is the Dutch way.

Once again someone had a sister come in to visit with me during visiting hours.  And once again she was blonde and beautiful.  What a life!  I was actually enjoying being in the hospital.  Who knew!  Early Sunday morning a nurse came around and asked who wanted to attend religious services.  At first I said no but the guy in the bed to my right said I should go.  When I asked why he told me I would find out.  Later that morning the nurse returned asking who wanted to attend services.  I said I did and started to get out of bed.  The guy in the bed to my left told me to stay put.  A young pretty nurse came to my bed and rolled me to the service.  What a deal!

I was discharged from there a day or two later as I had been operated on and had the kidney stone removed.  During my discharge interview with the Urologist the doctor asked me if I ate a lot of milk products and tomato products.  I said I did and he informed me that I would have to stop since they were a prime contributor to kidney stones.  Then he laughed and said that he liked those sorts of things and he had a long history with kidney stones.  He gave me a half-dozen packets of some sort of medicine that I was to take.  These packets were little more than wax paper with a ground up medicine, resembling dark sugar.  I threw them in my suitcase and was taken to the train.  The trip back required crossing a number of borders and being checked at each.  It never occurred to me that the powered medicine I was given resembled cocaine.  I only thought of that afterward but no one ever asked me to open my suitcase.

In the month and years immediately following that adventure I always said that it turned out to be the best part of my entire vacation.  I came into contact with some of the kindest people I have ever known.  The Dutch hold a special place in my heart.  What I experienced was not a single case of a person showing me kindness.  It was something I believe an entire nation practices.  I will always love the Dutch and always feel in their debt.

by

Life By the Numbers


The largest religions in the world 

1. Christianity — 2.1 billion

2. Islam — 1.5 billion

3. None/Atheist — 1.1 billion

4. Hindu — 900 million

5. Chinese traditional — 394 million

6. Buddhism — 376 million

12. Judaism — 14 million

The 8 languages most spoken 

1. Mandarin Chinese — 1.051 billion

2. Hindi — 490 million

3. Spanish — 420 million

4. English — 510 million

5. Russian — 255 million

6. Arabic — 230 million

7. Bengali — 215 million

8. Portuguese — 213 million

Best health systems in the world according to the World Health Organization 

1. France

2. Italy

3. San Marino

4. Andorra

5. Malta

6. Singapore

7. Spain

8. Oman

9. Austria

10. Japan

18. England

22. Colombia

33. Chile

36. Costa Rica

37. United States

38. Slovenia

Ethnic distribution in the United States 

German                     57.9 million

Irish                           38.7 million

English                      32.7 million

African American    23.8 million

Italian                        14.7 million

Mexican                     11.6 million

French                       10.3 million

Polish                         9.4 million

Native American      8.6 million

Dutch                         6.2 million

Scotch-Irish              5.6 million

Scottish                     5.4 million

Swedish                     4.7 million

Best and worst high school graduations rates 

Best – Wyoming 91.8 and Arizona – 91.4

Worst – Texas 79.9 and Mississippi – 80.4

Greatest and fewest college graduates  

Greatest – Colorado 35.9 and Connecticut 35.6

Fewest – West Virginia 17.3 and Arkansas 18.9

by

Life is Messy


Every now and then someone relates some of their family history and the crazy things that happen within their family. They present the story as a sort of “see how crazy my family is!”  My response is always the same, “all families are crazy, it’s just a matter of degree.”  By extension, that means all normal families are crazy.  It is just a matter of the details peculiar to that family. But in general, they are just simply crazy.

A few years ago a friend of mine was telling me about a part of her life she was not too proud of.  She had spent a week in jail once.  To say I was shocked is an understatement.  You see, she is someone everyone sees as the all American mom sort.  She is happily married, has two young children, and an MBA degree which helps her to a very substantial income.  When I asked her what she went to jail for, she very nonchalantly said it was for larceny over $200.  It turns out it was actually her boyfriend who had done the theft but she was present when it happened.  She pleaded out and got time served plus two years of probation.  If I were to show you a picture of her today with her husband and kids you would probably say, “no way!”

I had another friend who died about six years ago from lung cancer.   It turns out that his cancer was quite curable but a lack of early treatment, doctor’s fault, caused it to move to other organs.  He sued and won, of course.  I remember saying to him that he must really be angry.  The doctor had served a death sentence upon him.  He told me he was at first and then he came to terms with it.  When I asked him how you come to terms with having your life ended prematurely he said, “life is messy.”  I didn’t get it at first but after a lot of reflection I did.  He had arrived at a point where staying angry served no useful purpose and he wanted to enjoy the time he had left.  He enjoyed it, richly.

I thought about that for a long time, years.  I have come to the conclusion that life, external of human manipulation, is always and ultimately fair.  I hear people say how unfair something is.  A person dies in his 40s from cancer and they say how unfair that is.  But it is fair.  It is not like cancer decides to pick on a particular individual while sparing another.  It doesn’t.  It is not different from the flu.  Some get it, some don’t.  These things can be very sad, but they are always fair.

Most people are good.  They follow the rules, are usually polite, and give when they can.  We all, at one time or another, cross paths with someone who is not good.  They cause us grief and pain.  Sometimes it costs us money, other times health, and other times peace of mind.  These people can cause a serious mess in our lives but if we allow it to be anything more than the messiness of life, then we allow it to have more power over us than is right.

You hear people say “shit happens.”  That is way to negative for me.  I prefer “life happens.”  Some of it is not much fun though.  But I have found that by seeing life as a never-ending series of events, many of which are messy, then it is difficult for life to pitch me a curve ball I can’t handle.

by

I Call My Higher Power Ralphie


Most of you call your higher power God.  I call mine Ralphie.  If you want an image of Ralphie simply conjure up the character in the movie “A Christmas Story.”  Yup, that Ralphie.  This might sound sacrilegious but it is not.  My higher power is the universe.  If the universe and God happen to be the same thing, great!  But until I find out the truth, I have Ralphie.

But why would I pick a movie character for a face?  A friend of mine, Jean, said her higher power looks like Jack Klugman.  I always liked that.  She said that was because she only had the “God of her misunderstanding” and she understood Jack Klugman.  A lot of people really liked the George Burns image of God.  I kind of liked that one too, in all respects.

I do like the idea of talking to a higher power but when your higher power is the universe, well, I just needed a human name for that universe.  If you read my previous post, “How Big is Big,” you will get a really good idea of how I see myself in the universe.  I am truly insignificant, relatively speaking, but I do count.  If Ralphie ever talks back to me in a way I really understand, well, then I will have to make Ralphie God, and the universe too of course.

Even though this posting is a little bit of tongue-in-cheek, it is also my reality today.  I am just trying to make sense of things, and this is just another step towards that end.

by

How Big Is Big, and, What About You?


8 minutes — how long it takes light to move from the sun to the Earth

93,000,000 — distance from sun to the Earth

587,000,000,000,000 — distance light travels in one year (587 trillion)

35,000 — number of light years from earth to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy

20,545,000,000,000,000,000 — number of miles to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy or 20, 545 trillion miles

2,540,000 — number of light years to the nearest galaxy (Andrometer) to the Milky Way Galaxy.

The Andrometer Galaxy

13.5 billion — number of light years to the most distant galaxy

Our universe is a really big place!  Go outside and look up at the North Star (Ursa Major).  While you are looking at it consider that the light you are seeing left that star in the year 1582.

the North Star

Now look at the Cygnus constellation and its brightest star, Deneb.  That light left that star over 1400 years ago.  This means you are literally looking back in time depending upon which star you look at.  You are always seeing things as they were, not as they are.

Cygnus constellation

You all remember the first Star Trek movie?  If not, in that movie the Star Trek crew finds the Voyager 1 spacecraft deep in space.  That spacecraft was launched in 1977 and is just now leaving the outer-most part of our solar system.  It is about 11.25 billion miles from Earth and is just barely outside the solar system after 35 years!

Our sun is about 875,000 miles across.  The largest star is about 90,000,000 miles across, or about the distance from the earth to the sun.

Now here is a number for you.  Think about the sand on a beach, any beach.  Think of that sand as a collection of individual grains.  Now, consider taking every grain of sand on every beach on the earth and that is about how many stars there are in the universe.  And the distance between each and every one of those stars is always measured in light years.  The universe must be a really really huge place to hold that many stars and still have that much distance between them all.

My point, next time you think you are the center of the universe, think again.  And next time you think the universe is against you, try looking at an individual atom with your naked eye and know that is exactly how you are seen by the universe.

by

I Am a Real Pain In the Ass


I spent too many years trying to please people or trying to make people happy.  I have stopped all that as being a rather useless practice.  I am not trying to be a pain in the ass, it just seems to work that way.

What does that mean?  It means I do not opt for any dishonesty at all, even to save my own ass.  I do temper my responses.  If I know saying something will be hurtful and I have not been asked my opinion, I opt to say nothing.  But when asked, I will be honest even at the risk of friendship.  I have decided that you cannot comprise on honesty.  There are a lot of people who do not like that.  They say they wish I had said something a little less honest.

But sometimes I feel the need to speak up when I see something I think is wrong.  This is when my being a pain in the ass seems to maximize.  People do not like being corrected or being told something they do not want to hear.  This does not mean I go around correcting people all the time, I do not.  But if I see someone near to me doing something I consider harmful to themselves, I feel an obligation to say something.  The thing is, I say it once and not again.  It may cause hurt feelings but they will not come back at me and ask why I did not say something.  People get defensive very quickly.  A good pain in the ass, like me, does not take that personally, particularly when the person lashes out.  In a way, it is the price of doing business, the price of honesty.  When confronted about my being such I respond, “What kind of a friend would I be if I said nothing.”  And that is my belief.

There are times, of course, when I am quite wrong.  Times like that are simply an opportunity for me to apologize and move on.  I do not like being wrong but I have no problem admitting to being such.

My belief system today tells me to err on the side of caution.  I believe it is better to be wrong saying something than saying nothing when I am right.

by

America’s Next Recession Starts March 1


The Dow-Jones today topped the 13,000 mark for the first time since 2008.  That is a fact.   How, then, can I possibly be predicting a recession starting in a little over a week?  The stock market is one of the worst indicators of the future.  On March 9, 1929 the Dow Jones average was 381.70 but by the end of October in 1929 it had fallen to 198.69.  The market lost 48% of its total value, most of that happening in October 1929.  President Hoover looked at the economy he presided over in March 1929 and said that the warnings of upcoming trouble were worthless.

People are going to look at today’s stock closing optimistically.  But they need to look at a single indicator that directly feeds into imminent economic trouble.  Crude oil prices have risen over 30% since September 2011 and show no signs of retreating.  To the contrary, they show every sign of rising to historic levels.  The average person thinks of such a rise only with regard to what they pay for gasoline at the pump.  But all forms of transportation are equally affected.  This means the price of food, durable goods, clothing, and everything else goes up as well if only because they too have to be transported and that cost is reflected in the price of the item being sold.

But have you ever considered how much of everything in your life is petroleum-based?  Consider that everything that is made from plastic is petroleum-based.  That alone should give one pause to consider what rising crude prices mean.  Petroleum is also used in medicines, clothing, and construction.

I believe crude oil prices are going to keep going up because of the continued unrest in the middle east.  Lybia, Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Iraq are all in a more or less unstable condition.  And all are oil-producing countries.  Adding to this unrest are both Afghanistan and Pakistan, neither oil producers, but both home to radical Islamists who have every intention of continuing or raising the level of unrest in all the countries mentioned.

In today’s world economy energy drives those economies.  Whatever is happening to the price and distribution of oil affects all economies to one degree or another.  It is like throwing a rock in the middle of a calm pond.  The waves that rock creates moves outward in all directions, and the bigger the rock, the bigger the waves.  Right now we are feeling the waves of uncertainty in the market.  Consider that most countries in the world produce no oil at all, and two that do, the United States and China, both in the top 20 oil producers, export none of the oil they produce and import even more.  China will benefit from Iran’s decision to stop sending oil to England but of course England will suffer.  And so the rock Iran threw in England’s water will send its waves throughout Europe.

The unrest in the middle east is unlikely to settle down any time soon.  That means the market jitters are likely to continue as well.  That of course means oil prices will remain high with a high likelihood of their going ever higher.  I think it likely that the average price per gallon of gasoline will be at or close to $5 by summer’s end.  People will, of course, cut back on their purchases and with that the economy takes a hit, probably a big on.