I do. I was 13 years old living in the Golden Triangle. We had a great run from 1973 to 1982.
I remember the little airport with Cessnas lined up wing tip to wing tip ready to burn 10 gallons of gasoline an hour so people could bore holes in the sky. I remember dirt bikes running every Sunday, burning gas see who get around the dirt track first. I remember two stroke outboard motors running up and down the lake pulling water skiers.
By 1982 that was all pretty rare. I also remember that a 1971 Plymouth Fury III with a 360 v-8 producing 200 hp managed 13 miles per gallon at 75 miles per hour.
And I remember hearing that just a small increase in the energy efficiency of tankers would balance the supply demand imbalance.
I also remember being unemployed in Houston in 1986. The oil prices had collapsed and there were no jobs. None.
The oil crisis in the 1970’s was a collusion or should I say collision, of trends. The biggest was that the United States wasted oil in every aspect of its economy. It wasn’t just inefficient, it wasted it. It leaked it out of pipelines, it burned out of flares, it used it in non productive refining activities.
I say all this because we have a labor crisis. We really do. But we have known about it for a long time. Even the super conservative AT&T was talking about it in leadership conferences in 2014. While covid took a lot of people out of the work force quickly, it was no more the cause of the supply/demand than was OPEC.
No the problem is that the USA has been wasting labor for 50 years and nobody has even thought about using it properly.
Steve points out that he ventures in and out of three or four different burger joints regularly. Why not one? The economy simply does not require fast food places anymore than it needs dirt bike races.
I think it is Amazon that has a store that you swipe you card to get into. Pick up what you want and walk out. You get billed automatically. (I have never been in one but it seems like it would cut way down on shrinkage) Also cuts back on labor. No cashiers at all, no self checkout, no door checkers, just stockers and technicians to keep the equipment running. That is labor innovation!
Give it ten years, in ten years there will be plenty of people.
Cheers
Qazulight