Kurt Cobb: Money Cannot Manufacture Resources

37 Comments on "Kurt Cobb: Money Cannot Manufacture Resources"

Davy on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 8:16 am 



Our cornucopian economic and social narrative is in a state of denial and delusions. We have volumes of science that tell us what we are doing economically and socially is not sustainable. We cannot keep expanding our economy and population. We are trying to expand our economy and we are unable. Our population growth in uncontrollable even if we wanted to.

What is even more of a catch 22 with our human arrangement is it is irreversible. We cannot degrowth without catastrophic collapse. We have far too many people that must be fed. Starvation and famine lead to failed states failed state in a complex global system like ours. This leads to generalized globalized failure. Just because it has not happened yet is no reason it won’t. If Saudi Arabia collapses so will the globalized world if its oil resources are destroyed. This is the inconvenient truth of complexity. It is the double edge sword of complexity and collapse. We have too many resources and networks that are global and in some way are touched by one of these potential failed states.

We have vital resources that cannot be substituted. Not only can these resources not be substituted they cannot become uneconomic. We cannot afford oil at any price. The same is true of our development. We cannot build out vast renewable infrastructure. We cannot afford to have efficient and green buildings for everyone. We are at limits and experiencing diminishing returns now how are we going to renovate a way of living with no future. You can’t get rid of the too big to fail banks just like you can’t change out industrial AG. When I say that I am saying you can’t do that and continue to grow.

You can talk all day long about how we can. You can be like the greenies and talk about how we can have a renewable based world but then you have to diminish all the inconvenient realities facing renewables. We discuss those daily here on this board but the biggest is oil is behind every aspect of renewables.

We have an ecosystem and climate that are undergoing vast and unstoppable changes. Climate is showing every indication of abrupt change. Our food system relies and has always relied on stable climate. I should say our modern human civilization has relied on stable climate for 10,000 years. Hunter gathers could adapt we can’t. Our ecosystem is deteriorating to the point where our ocean food chain are going to begin to fail. Our ocean food chain already is failing we have just adapted with agro-fishing. What happens when the wild fish stocks vanish? How are we going to feed aquaculture? What about when oil runs short?

We are on the down slope on every major human support system. Food, water, soil, and vital economic resources. This decline scenario is happening as our population continues rapid growth. This situation as entropy slowly decays what we have built out. There is little chance we can keep this going much longer.

How long is the million dollar question? In 10 years you folks here will not remember Davy on the PO board. You may not even remember PO dot com. Some of you may be dead. The details of this collapse in motion is a function of humans and their understanding of time. We all get up in the morning and expect to see something on the net, TV, and or radio that is “THE” event. Collapse is a process and it will vary with time. What we can say is we are in a descent process now with economic demand and supply destruction. Our natural environment is degrading at all levels. Our society is straining under population growth and systematic breakdown of support structures. The end is near but is that tomorrow or 10 years?

Rodster on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 8:40 am 



I’m not even sure if given a “do over” that the Federal Reserve would have still been created. The money changers decided that an exponential growth driven system was the way to wealth, power and control. Little did the money changers realize that the planet would be sacrificed for their greed.

There is no turning back now and population growth is essential to keep the collective global systems operating. The only thing that could spare the planet is for a total collapse of the financial, monetary, banking and economic systems.

Then you have two elephants in the room with a warming planet from burning fossil fuels and Geoengineering which just makes everything worse. My bet is by 2100, George Carlin would have been declared a prophet when he said in the late 90’s “pack your shit folks you’re going away”.

ghung on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:02 am 



Rodster said ; “Little did the money changers realize that the planet would be sacrificed for their greed.”

They didn’t even get that far. They didn’t care about anything beyond their greed. Still don’t. The money-changer-class I know today doesn’t consider limits; simply doesn’t compute. Further, they’ll belittle and invalidate anyone who mentions anything that questions their religion of growth and personal gain.

BobInget on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:41 am 



What is going on is a negative feedback loop.

Lower oil prices have taken $550B
of Petrodollars out of the worlds economies. This acts like a significant tightening.
Those $’s would be used by the Petro states for infrastructure, steel, roads etc.
The low prices closed a US Steel pipe manufacturing plant in the US. Fewer goods
were imported from third world countries hurting their commodity businesses &
further pushing down their commodities. At the same time they had to pay up for
dollars in a dollar short world causing the $ to move higher.

It has been a loose loose game for most everyone.

Davy on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:57 am 



I think you all are putting a face on something that is beyond individual control. Pointing fingers at money changers is like the fist banging on the chest to say it’s your fault heart for not beating. At a certain level you can’t blame. At a certain level of size, complexity, and abstraction it is beyond an actor or group of actors. If we are talking a small community, tribe, and or family I would say yes. I would even say with some nations we can point a finger of blame. Assad is a good example of a persona and a family that has had overwhelming influence and deserves blame.

We can say many at the highest level of money changers are psychopathic and sociopathic. These people are greedy and narcissistic. The system has breed a leadership class this way. I see this more of a systematic manifestation of a collective human behavioral patterns that just so happens to have a leadership behind it. In the majority of these cases these people are puppets. In many cases these individuals are part of a huge system of multiple people in vast organizations. At the level of the financial in the global system it is so big and diverse I find it difficult to appoint blame.

Rodster on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 10:12 am 



There is always a common denominator to most problems. When one looks at the exponential growth of the population that is demanded to maintain a functioning system, exponential growth in the consumption of resources where things rarely last for more than 2-3 years so the economy can continue to produce goods and services. The common denominator is MONEY and who supplies it. Governments promise many things to its citizens and thus something has to loan governments the money for the future debt that needs to be passed on. That would be the money changers who supply the money and have created a monetary system where future debt needs to be repaid with more debt. It’s an unsustainable system and it’s why all of our problems can circle back to one main source.

If the money changers were not responsible then the need to constantly create debt would not be an issue and growth would not matter. But it does because in order to maintain the system the Banks require everything continues to grow. What the money changers created was a Ponzi scheme and we are locked into it until it all collapses.

penury on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 11:27 am 



Being human means never having to think about resource shortage. Humans are not designed for anything except continuous growth. All animals have a prime directive to breed. As has been said man has two heads but only enough blood to run one at a time. Banks do not require growth. Debt requires a minimum amount of growth which will cover interest or else all debt becomes impossible to service.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 11:57 am 



Penury.”Being TOO MANY humans means never having to think about resource shortage.”
You can find many “primitive” people with the greatest respect for their companion living creatures.

“Humans are not designed for anything except continuous growth.”
Humans are designed for survival, not growth. The lack of respect for nature developed in man as he started growing and controlling his own food. After that nature was OK and even fun and good tasting, but not realy necessary. And thats where we still are

shortonoil on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 12:06 pm 



“Author Kurt Cobb writes frequently on energy and the environment and warns that our current economic policy suffers from a fatal degree of magical thinking: sufficient new resources will emerge if the price is high enough.”

Mr. Cobb is correct about this. The reason for the confusion is that two metrics are being used. The primary dimension is energy, and the secondary dimension is dollars. Energy is a fundamental unit that encompasses all of know reality; it is only Homo saps that regard the dollar as significant; the rest of the universe could care less.

When attempting to convert from one to the other it has to be keep in mind that one is real, and the other is a synthesis of abstract, and often poorly defined abstractions. This can lead to a number of what appears to be contradictions when the secondary unit is used to determine the primary unit. A couple of examples of this is that the oil age will end when the price goes down, not up. Another is that attempting to increase production after the energy half way point is reached would contract the economy, not grow it. There are many others, and they all result from attempting to use a secondary dimension to define the primary. As a result the secondary will appear to be working backwards in many situations.

If I ever get around to finishing this dam book, I’ll through a chapter in on just this subject.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 12:21 pm 



Growth is a secundary thought in human culture,and is allways connected to organised societies with distinct social layers.
Among hunters living directly of nature, the thought of growth is absurd, because they know that it could only mean scarcity of food.
Humans are victims of their own invention of agriculture. For the better and the worse

Lawfish1964 on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 12:33 pm 



It doesn’t have to be that way. The native Americans were great hunters and great farmers, but they respected the earth and its limits. They somehow managed to keep their tribes from getting too large and overshooting available resources. We could learn a thing or two from them (or we could have, but squandered that opportunity in the name of conquest).

twocats on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 12:45 pm 



I think a fairly large portion of the global population would be willing to begin power-down, and don’t forget – all children are born primitive, so within a couple of generations humanity could transition to an entirely different way of living. but those who benefit most from the system have it really really REALLY good [living 100x better than kings 1,000 years ago], they have absolute zero motivation for that type of transition.

rockman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 12:47 pm 



So true Fish. OTOH being small and not dependent upon more modern technology didn’t end up serving them very well once the Europeans got here. And you see some of that same dynamic going on around the world now.

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the meek will inherit the earth in the future. After all it hasn’t worked that way in the past. Ask the Jewish Poles, the Columbian indigenous or some of the folks in eastern Ukraine. One can condemn such dynamics all they want but it doesn’t change the reality. And much of the “reality” is written by the victors anyway.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 1:09 pm 



lawfish, In other connections I’ve been spokesman for starvation, child mortality, contagious diseases and letting epidemics have their run.
I guess those things were what regulated the numbers in the first nations.
If humans won’t regulate them selves, then let nature do it for them.
It sounds pretty tough, but you can’t expect people to just lay down and die for the benefit of the Bio-sphere and the human race.
We are often talking about the great die off, and this is what it’s made off.

Davy on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 1:12 pm 



Two cats, you mean a fairly large percentage would consider it until you tell them the fine print. The fine print is without our current system in place now only a fraction of our current 7BIL can be fed. With so many dying the power down will be more like a Jim Jones Koolaid party IOW global suicide.

I guess I am exaggerating but the key difficulty is how do you power down without falling into an uncontrolled collapse? No one knows this question. I firmly believe it is only in crisis there will be change. But I also know that a crisis could quickly go critical and out of control. We are blind and in uncharted waters. We are completely unprepared for what is ahead.

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 1:22 pm 



Lawfish, the natives DID respect the earth, but the minute some of them saw the power advantage of the horse an entirely new, and not to friendly to the neighbours, culture sprung up. Same with shinny knives and rifles, etc. The noble savage is an European created myth (18-19th century). No evidence for it whatsoever. Plenty of evidence that hunter gathers, all over the planet, were just as rapacious as modern apes, only less efficient and smaller in numbers. This is simply what we evolved to do. Unfortunately, our technological evolution has outpaced our psychological/emotional evolution by orders of magnitude – we can’t stop. Which is why we are going bye bye. It’s the only way it can be.

Humans responsible for demise of gigantic ancient mammals
Early humans were the dominant cause of the extinction of a variety of species of giant beasts, new research has revealed.

“Known collectively as megafauna, most of the largest mammals ever to roam the earth were wiped out over the last 80,000 years, and were all extinct by 10,000 years ago.”

http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_465673_en.html

New Dates Link Humans to Australia’s Megafauna Extinctions

http://www.archaeology.org/news/3821-151022-australia-megafauna-extinctions

The Invaders
How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674736764

Davy on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 1:49 pm 



An important point is who gets to define what respect for nature is? That’s a question much like who is God. I believe the key point can be found is an existential harmony. I define this as being in a relationship with ones ecosystem that is sustainable, resilient, and ecosystem beneficial.

I am not sure humans can ever be in this kind of relationship with nature because of our intelligence and the duality that results from our intelligence. We seperate ourselves from nature through our ego. You cannot properly connect to nature as an advanced intelligent species like ourselves our large brain always gets in the way. Primitive man was closer to existential harmony but just barely because of the ability of his large brain to advance if given a chance.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 1:54 pm 



Apne said: “Humans responsible for demise of gigantic ancient mammals
Early humans were the dominant cause of the extinction of a variety of species of giant beasts, new research has revealed.”Known collectively as megafauna, most of the largest mammals ever to roam the earth were wiped out over the last 80,000 years, and were all extinct by 10,000 years ago.”

That is not necessarily true. About that time the tundra was melting, letting out huge amounts of methane causing a fast and temporary global warming, which could have destroyed their habitats faster than they could adapt, and there by cause their extinction.
It is difficult to see how such few people could kill off that many animals in such wast areas. But allrigth, I’m just skeptic .

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 2:16 pm 



Davy said:”I am not sure humans can ever be in this kind of relationship with nature because of our intelligence”

Maybe it was our beginning ability to transfer thoughts through language that made us see natural events more as a mythical experience than just as an animalistic “something that happened – what so? “.
As soon as you have a language you have also invented the question, and the rest of your tripe is dying to hear how you personally experienced this or that.
I believe it’s our language and ability to categorise objects and events, that alienated us from nature.

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 2:24 pm 



claman, skepticism is the default position for the scientific mind. Always a good idea to read the entire study first before arguing against it. Sometimes they are behind a paywall, but in this instance, it’s free.

Robustness despite uncertainty: regional climate data reveal the dominant role of humans in explaining global extinctions of Late Quaternary megafauna

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecog.01566/full

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 2:45 pm 



Apne : Around here we have a lot, and too many, wild boars.
The wild boar in sweden went extinct in the 15’th century, when most people hardly knew what a gun was.
To day we can’t get rid of them even though the hunters have semi automatic riffles with scopes.

Just tell me how roaming reindeer hunters managed to kill of the entire population of semiarctic animals with a spear and arrow, from alaska to siberia to scandinavia. That is quite a big piece of land, with very few people in it.

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 2:48 pm 



Reindeer are not megafauna.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 3:22 pm 



Apne,Stick to your encyclopedias and drop common sense, and you won’t be wiser.

I say fast climate warming, based on methane from the melting tundra, just like it’s going to happen soon to day, changed the habitats so quickly that the megafauna was doomed to disappear.

If you are a firm believer in global warming’s devastating effects in a near future, my pointr of view on the iceage megafauna’s extinction can’t come as a surprise .

bug on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 4:45 pm 



Claman,help me out.
Are the wild boars from 15th century the same as the ones today? Or are the wild boars of today just feral pigs? That is two different creatures. Also, maybe in the time you mention, the 15th century, maybe there were more boar predators, like wolves.

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 4:46 pm 



claman, we don’t need an encyclopedia to know that reindeer are not megafauna because they are still with us today and therefore could not have been driven to extinction and therefore cannot be one of the creatures included in the study. It’s elementary my dear clanman. Also, would not said methane release have killed all the hunters too? Non existent hunters do not leave kill sites for later discovery and testing. I like your methane idea. Kinda like a clathrate gun, but for megafauna. I’d more than willing to take a look at any studies that explain it. I’ve seen other studies (flawed) that attribute climate as the main or sole reason for their extinction, but have not seen any methane specific ones that I can recall. Is there a study that attributes a previously unknown climate phenomena for killing 60 million Buffalo on the American plains and thus gets those apes off the hook too.

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 4:54 pm 



Better consume your favorite seafood while it’s still available. Money cannot manufacture extinct species.

This Is The Way The World Ends

http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2015/11/this-is-the-way-the-world-ends.html

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 5:04 pm 



claman, look at the dates and notice how agriculture started right after the megafauna extinctions were complete. That was not a coincidence, it was a necessity.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 5:09 pm 



Bug : The swedish boars of today are recently imported wild boars. But they are still having a really good time.
We think it was what we call “the little iceage” in the 15’th century or maybe some disease that killed the original boars, but that is uncertain. Maybe a combination of the both.
It was about the same time that the aurochs disappeared.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 5:25 pm 



Apne : “notice how agriculture started right after the megafauna extinctions were complete. That was not a coincidence,”
Allright, I admit it. Our agricultural ancestors used the mastodonts as tractors. But they abused them, didn’t feed them and beated them with sticks, and in the end they reached a kind of “peak mastodont”.
Suddenly, and to every bodys surprice there were no more mastodonts. They were all extinct. It’s the sad truth, but there you go. Shit happens

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 6:09 pm 



claman, if you need to tell yourself Flintstones farmer fantasies to make it through another doomy day, then that’s what you got to do. Apes can’t live without soothing stories. Whatever makes you feel best.

claman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 6:26 pm 



Thanks Apne, It’s late, sleep tight

makati1 on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 7:43 pm 



I was following the disagreement over mega-fauna’s demise. I think I will agree with claman on this one, maybe. Considering that all of the North American natives were not able to kill off the buffalo for food and they were much ‘tamer’ and smaller than the megafauna being discussed. (Mammoths, woolly rhinos, etc.)

When the Europeans arrived, there were still millions of buffalo roaming the plains as far east as the Appalachians. There were herds of elk and moose in my native state of Pennsylvania. The Indian population was also in the millions.

I suspect that climate change was the downfall of the megas. If forage plants became scarce, and the climate much colder, requiring even more food to produce energy and heat, it would cause a die off. Add in the likelihood that the human natives did hunt more of them for the same reason, maybe it was a combination of climate and human population?

Thanks for the new ideas claman and apneaman. It’s not often I get a new approach to an old idea to mull over.

apneaman on Thu, 12th Nov 2015 9:59 pm 



Money cannot manufacture water

Declining snowpack, water shortage projected in areas home to 2 billion: study

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/12/us-usa-climate-water-idINKCN0T10OO20151112

The potential for snow to supply human water demand in the present
and future

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/114016/pdf

Davy on Fri, 13th Nov 2015 6:44 am 



“An Interactive Look At China’s Massive Coal Bubble”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-12/interactive-look-chinas-massive-coal-bubble

“China has given the green light to more than 150 coal power plants so far this year despite falling coal consumption, flatlining production and existing overcapacity.”

Folks this is what happens when and economy becomes dysfunctional at the top. We see overcapacity and malinvestment. The reason this is happening is social and economic. China cannot afford to realize bad debt and put millions out of work. It cannot afford to shut down the construction companies. It must have the coal mines busy. This is what happens when you build a hyper growth economy in a finite world next to limits of growth and overextended carrying capacity. This is suicide for the climate and economic suicide for the global economy. China is digging itself into a hole of debt, over capacity, and malinvestment that is going to lead to social collapse. This Chinese social collapse will take the global economy down with it. China is TOO BIG TO FAIL period.

shortonoil on Fri, 13th Nov 2015 7:07 am 



“suspect that climate change was the downfall of the megas.”

Try reading the “The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes” by Richard Firestone, Ph.D and Allen West, Ph.D, ISBN-10: 1-59143-061-5 Then spent $6 at Ace Hardware, get some supper magnets and test for the “black mat”. You’ll find it all over North America.

Firestone’s work has been black balled by the rest of the archeological community because it leads to the establishment of a pre-Clovis culture in North America. That would over turn a lot of cherished theories. Shut off the dam computer, get some BOOKs, and take your fat butt out of that chair, and go look for yourself. What you’ll find is that many of the EXPERTS are just grinding their own ax!

Kenz300 on Fri, 13th Nov 2015 9:40 am 



Climate Change, declining fish stocks, droughts, floods, pollution, water and food shortages all stem from the worlds worst environmental problem……. OVER POPULATION.

Yet the world adds 80 million more mouths to feed, clothe, house and provide energy and water for every year… this is unsustainable…

Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm

onlooker on Fri, 13th Nov 2015 3:27 pm 



Yes as other posters have eloquently communicated world-wide civilization has now reached the state of consequences to overshoot. It is precisely the complexity which is making the unraveling all the more prominent as attested by Tainters book on complexity. The delusions and postponements are ending as the realities of overpopulation and unsustainable resource exploitation are reaching their limits to growth. Resources and Energy no longer able to sustain current population and increasingly lesser and lesser population levels as peak everything unites with overpopulation and failing ecosystems to create a cascading collapse scenario that can no longer be kept at bay.