Posted: Friday, November 22, 2013, 12:16 AM Likewise, as the American economy got crushed by no-longer-cheap oil, all the working classes in this country below the one-percenters got crushed, hammered and trashed. Among other things they can no longer afford is gasoline. Total vehicle miles driven has gone down by almost 3 percent since 2007. It will keep going down, and the Happy Motoring matrix will collapse for another reason: Capital scarcity will translate into fewer available car loans for Americans and fewer qualified borrowers, and Americans are used to buying their cars on installment loans. The shale-gas situation is also not the “energy savior” it’s cracked up to be. Because it costs so much to export the stuff, and we don’t have the export infrastructure in place – ocean terminals, fleets of special (expensive!) tanker ships – shale gas is hostage to the U.S. domestic market. The initial […]