[danjarch]

The reason we don't produce enough energy for our own needs where as brazil does can be better seen by the aditudes of the working classes. One of the waitresses I currently work with drives thirty miles to get to work ( Denton to Grapevine to be precise ). I asked her if she couldn't find a job closer to home, there by saving her money and time. She's pretty sure she could but started working at this store when she lived here and doesn't want to change.

We're not talking about a rocket surgeon. This is waiting tables. There isn't much difference between the different restuarants. Few of them offer any kind of benefits to speak of. The one we work at is no exception. So she keeps spending a fair sum of time and money not because there's no work back home but just for comfort.

I dought that goes on in brazil. They're energy demands are also much lower then ours per capita. So energy independence is easier for them to come by now. The interesting comparison will be in twenty years or so. If brazil continues to see increases in per capita income over and above inflation then they could out strip they're ability to provide energy at profitable levels.

This twisted aditude toward energy consumption is nothing new either. I worked with a fellow back in 2000 that drove for an hour and fifteen minutes one way, across Atlanta GA to come to a job that paid $8.50 an hour. When I asked him if he couldn't get a job with in ten minutes of home, his reply was that it would only pay $8 an hour.

Agian not rocket surgery. Stocking selves at a grocery store. After showing him that an extra three hours at the other job would have erased the gains that was costing him 12 to 15 extra hours a week in travel time, Not even including the money for gas. Nothing changed.

Thats why I belive it really boils down to Atitude. When gas price get up and stay up there will see a quick change in peoples preceptions. Right now they ignore the huge waste in time and energy because they don't have to open they're wllets and pay for it. It just slips by another fourty minutes at a time, or another 1.25 gallons of gas at a time. When that becomes $7 to $10 a day, maybe they'll start to think about it a bit more.