[Carlhole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')arlhole
Knight of the Realm

Posts: 4199
Joined: Mon Jul 05, 2004 5:00 pm

[JohnDenver]

I joined a little after you Carlhole, and I agree. The hype which ruled this forum in 2004-2005 was nothing but hot air. In 6 years, peak oil has had no material effect on my surroundings. The roads are still clogged with cars. The 3000 mile salad is going strong. We're still swimming in a sea of salad shooters and other cheap doo-dads. The avalanche of cheap junk from China continues. Food prices and availability are completely normal. Oil is at $75 and dropping. The IEA predicts oversupply of oil until 2015...
Peak oil continues to be a ridiculously over-hyped non-event, and it amazes me how much time people have wasted in this forum over the last 6 years. Peak oil is like Waiting for Godot. It never comes.

[Cloud9]

Funny how when oil got to $147 a barrel everything slid off the rails.

[Roy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') joined a little after you Carlhole, and I agree. The hype which ruled this forum in 2004-2005 was nothing but hot air. In 6 years, peak oil has had no material effect on my surroundings. The roads are still clogged with cars. The 3000 mile salad is going strong. We're still swimming in a sea of salad shooters and other cheap doo-dads. The avalanche of cheap junk from China continues. Food prices and availability are completely normal. Oil is at $75 and dropping. The IEA predicts oversupply of oil until 2015...
Peak oil continues to be a ridiculously over-hyped non-event, and it amazes me how much time people have wasted in this forum over the last 6 years. Peak oil is like Waiting for Godot. It never comes.

[drgoodword]

At the start of the Iraq war, seven years ago, oil was $28 a barrel. For the last two years the price of oil has held the $60-$80 range steadily, after reaching a record high of $147 in 2008.

A more than 100% increase in oil over a seven year period--a period during which wages have been nearly stagnant--is, to me, a tremendously significant development and a strong validation of peak oil theory.

[Pops]

I'm glad you guys aren't effected (or affected). Did you notice anything in the news recently about economic troubles, high unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcies? Don't think energy prices had anything to do with that?



Sorry about that chart, it shows inflation adjusted consumer energy costs and all that volitility on the right is the oughts. Better charts here

I know it's more enjoyable ridiculing your favorite survivalist strawman than poking fun at people who think higher energy prices will seriously hurt many in the J6p category but the majority here have always said po will be more like a Steinbeck novel than Mad Max.

At any rate, things moved much faster than I thought. I was pretty close to right in my assessment of the economy:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('In early '04 I', 'M')y short-term concerns are primarily the precarious conditions of the economy. Bubbles, bubbles everywhere, real estate over exuberance, weak dollar, current account deficit, huge federal, state and personal debts, jobless recovery. A short-term political or terrorist induced oil crunch could be devastating to this house of cards.

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Roy', '
')I couldn't disagree more. But I guess we all see what we want to see.

I see businesses closing, people being laid off and unable to find new jobs, government debt exploding, state finances imploding, stock market manipulation, and blatant government corruption that has only increased in the last 6 years. I see the president that promised change continuing the ruinous policies of the Bush administration or even accelerating them. I wager that's not the kind of change Obama voters envisioned when they pulled the lever. However it is exactly what I expected and wrote as much on this site.

I still think things are bad and getting worse. We live in different bubbles I

[Sixstrings]

I dunno, everything sure isn't the same in the Gulf of Mexico. We're only drilling that deep because we have to now, and sure enough there's a blowout that can't be fixed because the it's so damn deep.

The crisis even has TV news reading The Oil Drum posts verbatim (DougR's posts).

[Carlhole]

It's "Carlhole", dammit. Are you trying to offend me or something?

Look, I've always had a concern about oil supply. I always thought that the oil majors and intelligence agencies knew enough about the problems associated with oil depletion to factor it in to major foreign policy decisions -- well in advance of any actual peak. In 2004, I surmised that the government probably knew that peak oil would occur in the 2010 - 2015 timeframe, and so the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan took place a decade or so before.

I should say that in 2010, I'm still interested and concerned about peak oil -- but I'm not scared about it like I had been at once. I'm with JD in that I think the world has oodles of room to reduce its energy consumption and make all sorts of adaptations in response to increasing energy prices. And I, like him, don't see much knock-on effect from 2008's high prices. During that price run-up, Peak Oil Theory got all sorts of press as people tuned in to find out if our oil armageddon were really true. Well, you know, the peak oil story simply hasn't caught on and stuck. People are generally aware that we have energy problems. But most of the world tends to see these problems as solvable while those on this site tend to see dire straits at every turn.

I think our economic troubles have been mostly caused by policies which promoted decades of debt-binging, nationally and globally. I've lived through several "severe" economic downturns in my time, and this one isn't any more difficult than the others. I think the world's economies have been extremely imbalanced for a long time and we are living through a time where these imbalances are unwinding.

Also, I'm much more interested in science & technology than the average PO.com member. I'm really, really interested in what sort of results NIF is going produce this year and next -- not from any corny "cornucopian" standpoint, but simply because it's a huge, potentially game-changing energy experiment. Such a thing ought to be interesting to anyone. But the strongest impression I've ever gotten from POers is that they are all HOPING for a failure with fingers and toes crossed.

I remember seeing a MonteQuest post once titled: "Why a successful fusion energy breakthrough would be the worst thing that could happen". Man, who could have any respect for such an attitude?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'P')eople are generally aware that we have energy problems. But most of the world tends to see these problems as solvable while those on this site tend to see dire straits at every turn.

[Comp_Lex]

@TS:

what is your definition of "everything"? Does it include "me still having my job"?

[americandream]

The last three sources of surpus on this planet are tied up in the energy, in oil (EROEI) and, labour (China and India) as well as any further rights that can be added to the existing asset pools worldwide, aka derivatives (classes of assets increasingly removed form the source asset).

Of all the above three sources of surplus, asset formation is the most lucrative. The process of securitisation by which these derivatives are created, (with the application of common law principles on rights and intangibles), can take this asset creating process to the nth degree. However, the resulting creation is essentially a house of cards awaiting a disaster as the arrangement revolves around faith (trust need not be present but there must be faith in the chains of ownership.)

If one element in these three sources breaks down, the whole house crumbles. China and India have ample surplus to carry us over the next 5 decades. The weak links are oil and the credit bubbles that sustain securitisation. Both can severely damage the faith thats necessary for it to function and expand.

edit. In essence, much of the wealth creation and ownership on this planet is occurring at the derivatives level with oil and labour as collateral.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'S')ix years and everything's pretty much still the same ???

Wrong.

All the worlds banks are insolvent, All the world is in hock to the aforesaid banks
The amount of (fictional) money tied up in derivatives etc, is more than the net worth of this planet. Can someone explain that - I can't.

Yet, the books will have to balance, worldwide.

Yes, peak oil has probably, silently, recently passed. The shitstorm is on the horizon, a 360 degree field of view. Energy, resources, commodities, water, food.

Batten down the hatches.

Gasmon

[Tami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Roy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') joined a little after you Carlhole, and I agree. The hype which ruled this forum in 2004-2005 was nothing but hot air. In 6 years, peak oil has had no material effect on my surroundings. The roads are still clogged with cars. The 3000 mile salad is going strong. We're still swimming in a sea of salad shooters and other cheap doo-dads. The avalanche of cheap junk from China continues. Food prices and availability are completely normal. Oil is at $75 and dropping. The IEA predicts oversupply of oil until 2015...
Peak oil continues to be a ridiculously over-hyped non-event, and it amazes me how much time people have wasted in this forum over the last 6 years. Peak oil is like Waiting for Godot. It never comes.

[americandream]

I've been on this forum for years and opinions on the effects of peak oil have been rather varied I have to say. There are those like me who felt and continue to believe that the process will be more drawn out whereas others had and still have a more imminent view (I am less sure these days with the increasingly monumental cockups we are seeing from private wealth such as the Gulf but thats a whole 'nother can of worms).

At then end of the day, this site's objective is to warn us of the risks in living beyond our means. Whether those risks materialise tomorrow or in a few decades (as I generally believe), it still plays, in my opinion, a valuable role.

If however, you feel that it has added nothing to your awareness as a political animal, why, there is a whole world of the web to sift through.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tami', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Roy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') joined a little after you Carlhole, and I agree. The hype which ruled this forum in 2004-2005 was nothing but hot air. In 6 years, peak oil has had no material effect on my surroundings. The roads are still clogged with cars. The 3000 mile salad is going strong. We're still swimming in a sea of salad shooters and other cheap doo-dads. The avalanche of cheap junk from China continues. Food prices and availability are completely normal. Oil is at $75 and dropping. The IEA predicts oversupply of oil until 2015...
Peak oil continues to be a ridiculously over-hyped non-event, and it amazes me how much time people have wasted in this forum over the last 6 years. Peak oil is like Waiting for Godot. It never comes.

[Newfie]

The point I see is that, from one perspective everything IS pretty much the same in that JSP has not awoken to the problems.

That does not mean that nothing has changed, it just means that most people are still in denial.

The changes are that GW is now a more proven fact, we have done nothing to solve the overpopulation problem, the US and World economy is in the tank and unlikely to get better.

I feel like I am watching a B horror movie. The heroine is running and hiding from this or that foe. But as the dramatic tension builds, the screen cuts get faster and faster and more frenetic. The music gets louder, more sinister, the heart beat rhythm quickens. Nothing has changed, she is still a beautiful young blond........for now.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'b')ut the majority here have always said po will be more like a Steinbeck novel than Mad Max.

[americandream]

I'll reiterate a point made consistently on here. What we have are a convergence of oil inflation and China/India generated consumer deflation. In other words, Chinese and Indians are generating sufficient surplus to counter oil's gradual increase. It's a balancing act at the moment as once the Western consumer is no longer able to fund his/her purchases of Chindian goods and services, one significant root of the global tree of capitalism withers. With the increase in casual, self and multi-employment in the West, this couild go on for quite a while unless oil prices shoot off the radar and overwhelm the surplus generated by low cost zone labour. It's a very fragile picture I can tell you and much more precarious than you realise, especially with deep water drilling in turmoil.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'b')ut the majority here have always said po will be more like a Steinbeck novel than Mad Max.

[Tami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')
At then end of the day, this site's objective is to warn us of the risks in living beyond our means. Whether those risks materialise tomorrow or in a few decades (as I generally believe), it still plays, in my opinion, a valuable role.