Baraka_Guru

I think the basic argument that Rifkin and Rubin make is that oil prices affect the prices of many things: gasoline, food, clothing...basically anything that requires transportation. This also includes anything that requires energy for production. This also includes anything that uses oil or oil products as materials...etc., etc.

Rifkin specifically states that the spike in oil prices led to a spike in the cost of living. If your cost of living spikes, it becomes difficult to pay your mortgage, especially if you lose your job.

The mortgage crisis was a huge factor in the economic meltdown, but I'm becoming more convinced that oil prices triggered the problem. Remember when people were complaining about gas prices? Remember businesses becoming concerned about people not travelling/vacationing, etc. Remember when rice prices hit news headlines?

These things are more connected than I previously assumed.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot