16GB ram is plenty for everything but getting into LLM’s.
If you do that then more is always better… 32GB plus a 6-8GB GPU would be a basic setup for qwen 35b-a3b for example

Your last paragraph crossed my mind recently as the oil prices really start to spiral out of control. There were so many protests bordering on riots because people were stuck at home due to covid - now we’re already hearing news that truckers are starting to sit idle instead of driving at a loss.

Imagine how much free time and how much anger everyone will have when the economy grinds to a halt from product shortages all over the country.