PeakOil is You
Collapse probably won't happen Pt. 3
Re: Collapse probably won't happen Pt. 3
by AdamB » Fri 03 Jan 2025, 00:05:58
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '.')... but they don't ring a bell when collapse starts in earnest. And they certainly don't give you a couple of years warning. Just like the peak of conventional oil.
Hey! Reminded me...list of all those global benchmark crudes... and WHICH ones are this "conventional" stuff?
Surely anyone who uses the word "conventional oil" at least KNOWS what oil they are talking about? Call it a learning experience from your "OMG IS SOMEONE SO STUPID TO THINK A WAR IS FOUGHT OVER OIL NO ONE HAS EVEN FOUND YET!" moment.
Stick with what you know Lucky... it isn't as though you know much of anything else...
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."
Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Collapse probably won't happen Pt. 3
by theluckycountry » Fri 03 Jan 2025, 02:29:22
What Comes in 2025?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..Much to the European elite’s luck, or shall I say: dismay, though, Russia is not interested in conquering the continent. First: it would not improve their security an iota; quite to the contrary. Second — taking on a European thinking hat — there are already no cheap resources left, and soon there will be no rich market to serve either, only 450 million disgruntled elderly people full of hatred. Who in their right mind would want to control such a territory…?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..Much to the European elite’s luck, or shall I say: dismay, though, Russia is not interested in conquering the continent. First: it would not improve their security an iota; quite to the contrary. Second — taking on a European thinking hat — there are already no cheap resources left, and soon there will be no rich market to serve either, only 450 million disgruntled elderly people full of hatred. Who in their right mind would want to control such a territory…?
The Honest Sorcerer
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')First of all, let me wish you a Happy New Year, and thank all the support you gave throughout 2024. I truly appreciate it. We are living in incredibly interesting times — to say the least — and 2025 will be no different. The post WWII world order is definitely over, and the world economy faces massive challenges among growing polarization and geopolitical upheaval. We are witnessing a worldwide struggle for resources, energy, trade routes and growing financial instability. Western and Eurasian powers are at war with each other on multiple fronts. This, however, is not a war between good and evil where the good side wins and everyone lives happily after. As thing stand today we are in for an awful long race to the bottom. Industrial civilization — based on finite and polluting resources — is unsustainable, no matter how much we want it to succeed and no matter where we live. Life is going to be extremely hard without this much technology, and ultimately it will not matter which team you rooted for. The only way through this bottleneck (if there is any) will be via collaboration, self sufficiency, small local economies and building small scale democratic structures. Large geopolitical entities are on their way out, and even the strongest survivor will fall eventually.
Welcome to part two of my longish analysis of world events at the turn of 2025. If you haven’t done so, please read part one: What a Year 2024 Was, where I laid out the geophysical realities underpinning world events. Again, coming from a world dominated by the Western narrative of things, the following might seem contra intuitive at best, or outright upsetting at worst. As usual, I strongly advise my readers to seek out alternative sources of information, and to take anything appearing on mainstream media with a huge pinch of salt. We are living through the collapse of modernity — which unlike the movies — will take decades to unfold in a slow motion trainwreck. No one will come on TV and admit that we are running out of stuff and the only way through this massive bottleneck is collaboration. Instead we will hear more rhetoric advocating for more war, more great power competition, “removing of red tape” and the like. So, treat what you hear, see and read lightly, and always keep this larger context in mind. Prepare for a tumultuous 2025.
Europe
It is perhaps not terribly risky to start by saying: we should expect more of the same in 2025. A deepening energy crisis, leading to further deindustrialization, layoffs and plant closures. Higher inflation, lower living standards — and not just in the EU. An accelerating collapse in discretionary spending (vehicles, leisure, consumer products etc.). Less democracy but more political theater to obscure the true extent of the West’s malaise. Peace talks commencing between the US and Russia, with fighting still going on unabated, and with European’s being pushed to the sidelines.
The war in Ukraine will reach its endpoint in 2025. Some sort of settlement of the conflict will be reached: if not through a political / negotiating process, then through a forced military collapse. Unfortunately there is still a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation in the West with regards to what is at stake here, although the picture gets clearer by the day (even for mainstream news consumers). Contrary to the now slowly dissolving (old) narrative, this war was never about a ‘land grab’ or the ‘rebuilding of empire’ but about conflicting economic, military and political spheres of influence. And that includes mineral resources, labor and markets for the West, and security concerns for Russia. All this in an area controlled by the latter for centuries, and coming on top of several invasions from the West (first during the Napoleonic wars, then in WWI and WWII). Ensuring a neutral, non-nuclear status for Ukraine thus remains paramount to Russians, but taking hold of the entire country is not. In fact everyone would be much better of with an independent, non-nuclear, de-militarized nation state between NATO and Russia.
The picture is really not complicated: the West wants resources, Russia wants peace. Normal states in normal times could easily solve this “conundrum” by two clever inventions: trade and arms control, both of which were working brilliantly in the past. The good times are over though. Having slowly run out of cheap-to-produce resources and having their industries shipped abroad, debts taken on by Western states could no longer be repaid on the basis of (real) economic growth. Elites there had two choices: continue with the pretense that nothing is wrong, or try to take control over resources abroad (serving as collateral). (Admitting that the current economic arrangement was never sustainable and that it had only led to soaring inequality was never an option.) Since pretense has only led to the money printing press running amok, the only remaining option was to provoke wars and to change as many regimes to favorable ones as possible. (‘Let’s just fight’ — as a former UK prime minister used to say).
Seeing the untenable military situation in Europe, however, the next US administration might start a tardy overhaul of the European security architecture (pulling back missile and military bases together with nuclear weapons) — reversing the policies of the past three decades. There is a catch however: while Russia is fully onboard with this de-escalation approach, it looks wholly uninterested in restoring economic relationship with Europe. This permanent looking cut-off from cheap energy and resources from Siberia, could make the EU’s economic collapse all but inevitable. The continent-wide block has long lost all its competitive advantages and is already busy turning itself into a mausoleum, a tomb of long dead empires. Without cheap energy and resources though, the EU will eventually find itself lying in one of those sarcophagi. And while a slowly deindustrializing and re-militarizing Europe will surely remain a lucrative market for US made weapons and fuel for some years to come, the EU might in the process become too poor to buy anything from America. And then, perhaps much sooner than anyone expects it, Europe could suddenly find itself defending against Russia all by itself, which it won’t be able to do. Again, no affordable energy, no economy. No economy, no military. As simple as that...
Article continues https://substack.com/home/post/p-153843341
We're 17 years past the peak now and the 3rd World is going hungry and dark. We'll be next, we're well on the way in fact.
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Re: Collapse probably won't happen Pt. 3
by theluckycountry » Fri 17 Jan 2025, 16:25:29
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'T')hat's the trump demo, that is the trump movement: hold my beer while we burn this bitch down...
I thought I explained and backed it clearly, the more inequality the less mobility. The less mobiity the more hostility. Enter trump.
I thought I explained and backed it clearly, the more inequality the less mobility. The less mobiity the more hostility. Enter trump.
As an elite beneficiary in the nation's affairs, you (the 0.1%), run the nation into the ground by exploiting the natural environment and labor, milking them at every turn. Interest payments on their homes; on their cars, give them a CC and encourage them to buy stuff from your factories with it then rip them off on interest there too. The public (consumers in the truest sense) start to catch on, at least to the fact that they are slaves of some sort, and they begin to demand change. What do you do? Well you can find an external enemy and go to war against them as a distraction (WWII) or you can anoint one of your own to be a controlled opposition. This person will rise with popular support as they rail against (all the things you rail against) and promise to fix (everything).
It's a great relief valve because in giving the consumer 'Hope' they are diverted from more direct means of protest. All elected leaders do it to some degree, "Change has come to America" Obama
But when things get bad enough you bring out the big guns, TRUMP. A reality TV Muppet, a narcissist. A true 0.1%er with his own private passenger jet and luxury digs, golf courses etc etc. He poses in front of Happy meals to convince the public he's just one of them, a true American that wants to set things straight. Sure he's a rich bastard, but he's gonna help us get rich too. Didn't you watch his TV show? He enjoys a first term and achieves (virtually nothing) then he's ousted in a rigged election, which he doesn't even meaningfully contest, even though he was President at that time with all those powers at his disposal. No investigation, nothing! 4 more years of the evil swamp then, but you just wait! He'll be back, just like the Terminator.
Then he's Back! At last, now we'll see real change, money in our pockets and freedom and strawberrys and cream. Meanwhile 8 years have been wasted, 8 more years going deeper into debt, being flooded with third world refugees, seeing businesses and jobs vanish, watching the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So what will happen now? 4 more years of bullshit basically. He'll never root out those illegals, he'll never stop the military industrial complex and the Pharma complex from looting the nation. Nothing will be done about the crumbling infrastructure, the roads and dams and power grids the little people depend on.
He'll no doubt curtail some government programs and spending but that's simple because it had to happen anyway. The Money simply isn't there to support all that crap now so it has to be scaled back. He can do nothing about the Federal debt since that's what drives the nation, the Bullshit GDP is more of a drain than a boost to the economy, being as it is largely made up of share market transactions, home loans, insurance payments and all the other financial (products) sold now. Things that in reality are more liabilities, onerous expenses, than wealth creation vehicles like a company that sells abroad or a farming industry that creates wealth from the land and the sun. It's true they do transfer wealth, but upward to the Trumps of this world, not sideways and down into the community as in the days when the nation was an agricultural and manufacturing powerhouse.
Agricultural Economy >> Industrial Economy >> Service economy (80's and 90's) >> Financial Economy. This final economy, for there is nothing after it, began in earnest in the 2000's with the dotcom bubble and then the housing bubble, followed by what is now aggregated as the "everything bubble". Which includes resurgences of the other bubbles along with AI and EV and Shale oil and Crypto +++
And it's really all Financial, because it's all fueled by Debt that is NOT repaid. Shale oil is done, and let 800 Billion of debt on the books. Crypto too has a big debt liability, both from individual players as well as outfits like Saylor's Micro strategies. The Huge stock valuations of the tech companies and others have been hoovering up the life savings of a nation. All Financials, all keeping the economy of life support.
What triggered the Great Depression? The same things that will trigger this one. Massive debts at the public and private level, an overvalued stock market, an exhausted industrial sector, and the total lack of meaningful regulations to prevent it all. Just like today. And just like happened then, there will be a great taking of physical assets by the 0.1% at the inevitable firesale.
We're 17 years past the peak now and the 3rd World is going hungry and dark. We'll be next, we're well on the way in fact.
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