Well, it finally has happened. The price of gasoline has increased enough to cause pain to Americans so that they are changing behavior. The approach of $4 a gallon gasoline has, in the last month produced two positive results. First, after gasoline consumption increased 1.4% in March over the same month last year, it declined 0.6% in April. Second, ridership is up on mass transit systems around the country, in some cases by double digit amounts. The Minneapolis-St.Paul light rail line has increased ridership of 16% year to date over last year, and the Miami rail ridership is up 13% …

Two years ago in this blog, I wrote a futuristic column from April 20, 2009. The title of the column was “Remember When Gas Was Cheap?” At that time I predicted that the price of oil in early 2008 would reach $125 and that in April 2009 it would be $137.
In January of 2007 I was invited on the “First Business” syndicated business program to discuss the price of oil for the remainder of the year. At the time the price was $53 a barrel. I basically told the flabbergasted reporter that I thought the price of oil …

Regular readers of this column know that I have long predicted that oil would reach and then exceed the $100 price barrier. In fact, when this barrier was first breached the first few days of January, readers congratulated me on the veracity of my prediction. Yesterday was the first time that a barrel of oil actually closed over $100. This drove the stock market down, made economic prognosticators nervous and created headlines across the country.

Six months ago I predicted that the trading range for a barrel of oil will be $80 — 125 for the foreseeable …

In the last post I suggested that the U.S. learn from Europe in the use of high speed trains as a core component of a national transportation system.  Trains are more energy efficient than cars, give off far less greenhouse emissions than airplanes, rarely get cancelled or delayed due to ‘weather’ or ‘flow control’ and depart and arrive near the central city.  Given that America is much larger than any country currently utilizing high speed trains, it can only be a part of the transportation mix.  What might the composite national transportation profile look like in 2015?

High speed trains …