Asia is starting to feel a crunch. Check out CNN today.

Could this be the start of it?

Time Asia: Peril at the Pump

All kinds of mixed feelings about this one...

For instance, I find myself wondering a lot...if North America and Europe in particular pulled back into a conservationist mode of consumption, would Asia follow suit?
I could see Japan doing so...but the thought of China and India determined to emulate American consumption habits is pretty disturbing.
Imagine 2 billion people all wanting a three-car garage?

Rumblings from Wal*Mart. I'm not surprised. If the cost of transporting cheap goods from Asia to North America doubled...there go their profits.
Take that to its ultimate conclusion...and much of globalized business is in similar trouble. (Except perhaps for telecommunications and IT industries.)

And not only are transportation costs affected...but manufacturing costs as well.
I was struck by the comments of that one particular Asian plastic manufacturer - that everyone expects plastic to be cheap.
Remarkable......the word "cheap" has prefaced the word plastic in the North American lexicon...ever since plastic first showed up.
And as the fellow remarked...his raw material costs have risen 30% already...with just the price rise so far. Imagine what just a $100 barrel price would do.

I have to say it: just another example of how globalized profit at all cost was a bad idea in the first place.
Methinks the Asian tigers will become pussycats before too long.

Then again...if they smarten up somehow and regionalize and localize their economies (basically divorcing North America and Europe) they could do okay.
But I guess that is the point: Everyone's still thinking globally.
It strikes me...I have read this phrase so much in the past 6 months..."addicted to cheap oil."
I'm not sure anymore that this phrase is entirely accurate.
Perhaps it would be more to the point to re-phrase that:
"Addicted to cheap profits."

All that globalized wealth came with a hefty price tag, after all.

Very good points!

If plastic wasn't cheap - we wouldn't need it. Think about it - plastic vs. paper - paper is better! Most plastic versions of products are disposable which is definitely unsustainable and a bad idea. If we actually started to wake up to the cost of unsustainable and the cost of globalisation - maybe there is hope yet that we can reduce demand quickly enough to stave off some of the scenerios posted on this site.