Economist: Pricier Oil Means Less Globalization : NPR

It is a small world, afterall. And that is good news.

Canadian economist Jeff Rubin has a new book that re-enforces a great deal of my suspicions. Throughout the whole Middle East control-the-oil boondoggle and the “drill baby drill” nonsense (only people who get paid in these schemes are the subsidized infrastructure contractors, after you factor in all the costs, you can’t bring the oil to market at an actual profit), I’ve been telling my environmentally concerned friends that the market will take care of this eventually.

Rubin explains, better than I have, how long supply chains are going to go away, and we are going to come back to more localized living and systems of production. The price of oil will drive this, but our increasing awareness of the environmental harm of long supply chains is speeding it up. No more Chinese apple juice, more domestic manufacturing. And all those exburbs megamansion farms will be turning back into real farm land.

There is an excerpt of the book at this NPR writeup and audio interview:

Economist: Pricier Oil Means Less Globalization : NPR.