[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Nothing can be duller than listening to an economist or other policy expert pontificate endlessly on such metrics as gross domestic product, stock market prices, employment, and consumer confidence. Most of all they talk about GDP: Rising GDP is good; falling GDP is bad. But as a measure of economic activity, GDP is what it says it is: a gross number. It doesn’t measure how money and wealth circulates through a system, what use it is put to, how the rewards of its use are distributed. It just counts how much comes out of the spigot at the end of the pipe. This completely avoids taking into account what may be the most important indicator of economic health: equality. Epidemiological studies demonstrate that equality is essential to a host of physical, mental, and social health outcomes. Societies that are more equal

[EnergyUnlimited]

Real growth of GDP is rather out of question, regardless of current statististics indicating just that.
However population growth will continue maybe for a decade more or so.
We have entered an era of fatamorganas and mass delusions. Weath is more and more paper wealth.
It will not take long before 95% is well underwater without realizing that.
These will be first line customers of misery and dieoff.
Nevertheless it is time to grab as much money as one can. These may come handy to allow you for a while to watch collapse from a bit more comfortable position even if at the end they won't save you.

[KaiserJeep]

IOW, there must be Doom?

What if the World actually ended last year, and nobody noticed?

I keep telling you, TEOTWAWKI is a process, not an event. The process started around 1960, and will continue for another few decades. If you are younger than 60 years of age, you have never known a world that is not dying. Which is why it is so difficult for you to notice that it is happening around you.

There may never actually come a time when you actually notice something happening. That does not mean that the World is not ending.

As for timing, my estimate has been declining of late, from on the order of 200 years to on the order of 120 years. The actual range of what I just said is 12-1200 years, because I did not say "on the close order of" 120 years. In spite of anybody's pressing need to know the exact time, the data does not support any closer bounds, because human psychology is a major variable that cannot be modelled, since we do not have a Calculus of Human Behavior.

Slow Crash is happening around you. Some of you sense this and are starting to panic. Not that it matters. There is a tipping point, beyond which the crash happens at an accellerating rate, and it's impossible to halt. That may be in the future or the past, it will only be obvious with the perspective of a few decades. Perhaps for all practical purposes, the World HAS already ended, because there is nothing that anybody - or everybody working to a common purpose - can do about it.

Perhaps, given these facts, the most productive thing that any of us can do is remove our shirts and contemplate the lint in our belly buttons. Hey, the Super Bowl is a week away, and shortly after that, taxes are due again. Reality, what a concept.

[Tanada]

Guns and refugees diversion moved to THREAD

Please reserve comments in this thread for economics not fast crash scenarios. We have dozens of threads for crashes and consequences, a little economics doesn't hurt anyone and if the topic bores you just skip over it.

[KaiserJeep]

FWIW, I really think we are confusing each other with economic terminology. Some of us (myself and perhaps Tanada) studied Economics as undergraduates, although it was a Minor not Major study. Others have backgrounds which steeped them from birth in Marxist nonsense. Even though I studied it, half my Economics courses were related to power plant economics - which I deliberately avoided as a career.

The conventional definition of economic growth is GNP, per capita this and that, and the idea is that each year's figure is larger than the year before. Yet I sense that for many of you, the emphasis on the word "REAL" implies something different than the conventional interpretation of economic growth.

If that's the case, best say so when you post.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'F')WIW, I really think we are confusing each other with economic terminology. Some of us (myself and perhaps Tanada) studied Economics as undergraduates, although it was a Minor not Major study. Others have backgrounds which steeped them from birth in Marxist nonsense. Even though I studied it, half my Economics courses were related to power plant economics - which I deliberately avoided as a career.

The conventional definition of economic growth is GNP, per capita this and that, and the idea is that each year's figure is larger than the year before. Yet I sense that for many of you, the emphasis on the word "REAL" implies something different than the conventional interpretation of economic growth.

If that's the case, best say so when you post.

[KaiserJeep]

Yes, although I majored in EE, I was in school long enough (two years before the USCG, and 3 years plus Summer semesters after) that I could take minors in History, Economics, and Astronomy.

History is the only thing that I have kept with my whole life, although my name is on a few circuitry patents owned by my employer, I never published a paper in EE but have published repeatedly in the periodicals of the Nantucket Historical Society. I'm wondering whether living on the island will increase or diminish the rate at which I publish.

I find the 18th and 19th Century whaling industry to be fascinating. The island was at the heart of the major supply of whale oil right up until it was replaced by the inferior product kerosene. The virtually unprecedented concentration of wealth left a real mark on the island, built a narrow guage railroad that lasted only 36 years, destroyed the island's dense primordial hardwood forests (ship building and firewood) and brought about major changes in ocean ecosystems as the great whales were turned into lamp oil. Not to mention the historical incidents from the whaling ship Essex to the USCG lightships and the wreck of the Andrea Doria, which I watched live on B&W TV as a child. (One of my earliest memories, aerial shots of the sinking ocean liner from helicopters and airplanes.)

I'll have to say however that I'm not finding a lot of parallels betwwen whale oil and FF's. Very different economic forces were at work.

[Sys1]

Nobody needs to study economy to understand our economic paradigm is nonsense.
We are destroying our biosphere for money. There is nothing more to learn than that regarding economic growth.

In official mainstream economy, When you destroy rainforest for junk food, IT'S GOOD BECAUSE IT MAKES MONEY.
All the oil, gas, coal or whatever non renewable ressources burnt for growth are feeding GDP. THAT'S GOOD!
But nobody counts what was destroyed forever for that. Just because oil, gas and coal were not payed by anyone. It was just here. For free. So we can destroy nature presents for our beloved growth. Our beloved God money.

Studying mainstream pro business economy is basically the same as studying Bible, Coran or whatever religion you can imagine.
It's nothing more than a pilestock of BS.
In order to pass as some kind of science, they invented a Nobel price for economy, they decided that people getting in business school should have more money and power than others. If someone critisize growth, they decided that he must be insulted, mocked or killed.
We on Peak Oil are heretics. Just try to explain the truth to people in their fake candy crush world.
You will be looked as insane.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sys1', '-')snip-
In official mainstream economy, When you destroy rainforest for junk food, IT'S GOOD BECAUSE IT MAKES MONEY.
All the oil, gas, coal or whatever non renewable ressources burnt for growth are feeding GDP. THAT'S GOOD!
But nobody counts what was destroyed forever for that. Just because oil, gas and coal were not payed by anyone. It was just here. For free. So we can destroy nature presents for our beloved growth. Our beloved God money.
-snip-

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'R')eal growth of GDP is rather out of question, regardless of current statististics indicating just that.
However population growth will continue maybe for a decade more or so.
We have entered an era of fatamorganas and mass delusions. Wealth is more and more paper wealth.
.....................

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') find the 18th and 19th Century whaling industry to be fascinating. The island was at the heart of the major supply of whale oil right up until it was replaced by the inferior product kerosene. The virtually unprecedented concentration of wealth left a real mark on the island, built a narrow guage railroad that lasted only 36 years, destroyed the island's dense primordial hardwood forests (ship building and firewood) and brought about major changes in ocean ecosystems as the great whales were turned into lamp oil. Not to mention the historical incidents from the whaling ship Essex to the USCG lightships and the wreck of the Andrea Doria, which I watched live on B&W TV as a child. (One of my earliest memories, aerial shots of the sinking ocean liner from helicopters and airplanes.)

I'll have to say however that I'm not finding a lot of parallels between whale oil and FF's. Very different economic forces were at work.

[KaiserJeep]

T, I did read Stirling's SF series and I did enjoy it and indeed it was not so realistic I thought. Generally I do not care for time travel stories, as simply anything becomes possible. However Stirling's "event" of unknown cause for USCGC Eagle made it seem like a natural disaster rather than an HG Wells style "time machine" - a vehicle that a man travels through time on. Aside: the original 1960 George Pal film made use of a "second order" Fresnel Lens from a medium-sized USCG lighthouse beacon to construct the prop time machine, the 2012 remake movie imitated the look with Lucite castings. There is a 3rd order lens (the smallest) on display in the Whaling Museum, from Nantucket's Sankaty Head Lighthouse, very near my former LORAN-C station on 'Sconset Beach. The USCG's latest tech updates include LEDs that much extend the life of batteries used in buoys and lighthouses.

As for your impression of the costs of various grades of whale oil, I beg to differ, they were priced very differently. Nantucket's Whaling Museum should be a destination for you if ever on the island. The docent-lead tour includes an actual comparison of lamp oils where they light oil lamps and measure both light output and allow you to sniff the effluvia. The fragrant oil you mention is the highest quality grade, from the sonar organ in the bulbous head of a Sperm Whale. The blubber derived Sperm Whale oil had a far less pleasant aroma, the other great whales produced lesser grades of oil also from rendered blubber. The latter part of the age of oil was dominated by diesel-powered whaling ships with ice-rated steel hulls to venture into polar waters that would sink wooden sailing vessels. These 20th Century whalers had explosive harpoons and a fleet of a half dozen or more accompanied a factory ship that butchered whale carcasses into oil and frozen meat. It was the early 20th Century that did the most damage to whale populations, and harvested not only the marine mammals you mentioned but many species of lesser whales and dolphins. This oil from mixed sources in fact reeks.

The highest grade of sperm whale oil was $1.50 or so a gallon on the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but there were lesser whale oils that - almost - competed with petroleum kerosene. There were even food grade whale oils, and a brand of margerine that did in fact compete well with butter - "oleomargerine", a mixture of vegetable and whale oils. There was also aviation-grade whale oil hydraulic fluids and even an automatic transmission fluid specified by Ford which contained whale oil. Finally, NASA still has a specification for an extremely high quality lubricant for space machinery which is 100% sperm whale head oil (it's $5,000/oz.). Then whale populations crashed and the industry died, except for the Japanese and Norwegians that still take whales in the 21st Century, as seen on the Animal Planet network's "Whale Warrior" series.

I have a rather complete collection of History books from Nantucket, as well as binders of the last few decades of Nantucket Historical Society periodical pubs, because the wife's GrandMother was one of the Whaling Museum docents 30 years ago. If the topic interests you I could make up a list. Very few such books are available in online versions, I'm afraid.

[onlooker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sys1', '-')snip-
In official mainstream economy, When you destroy rainforest for junk food, IT'S GOOD BECAUSE IT MAKES MONEY.
All the oil, gas, coal or whatever non renewable ressources burnt for growth are feeding GDP. THAT'S GOOD!
But nobody counts what was destroyed forever for that. Just because oil, gas and coal were not payed by anyone. It was just here. For free. So we can destroy nature presents for our beloved growth. Our beloved God money.
-snip-