Governments and economists around the world have not figured out that what the world economy is suffering from, to varying degrees, is “high-priced fuel syndrome“. With the world now running short of cheap energy, especially cheap oil, are countries still able to fund their energy needs without breaking their budgets?
Can The Global Economy Recover From Its “High-Priced Fuel Syndrome�: Gail Tverb
Has Fuel Become Too Expensive For The World To Afford?
Photo Credit: Don Hankins - Flickr
"High-priced Fuel Syndrome" has a number of symptoms:
Slow economic growth, or contraction
People in discretionary industries laid-off from work
High unemployment rates
Debt defaults (or huge government intervention to prevent debt defaults)
Governments in increasingly poor financial condition
Declining home and business property values
Rising food prices
Lower tolerance for immigrants
Huge difficulty in funding retirement programs, programs for disabled, and regular pension plans
Rising international tensions related to energy supply
The countries with the most problem with high-priced fuel syndrome are the industrialized countries that are big importers of oil. This is the case because oil has been a particularly high-priced fuel in the past few years. Importing high-priced oil adds challenges of its own, since funds used for imported oil flow out of the country.
