[Guest]

Opinion poll: When do you believe the SHTF and the peak oil syndrome will really start kicking in and cause a collapse society?

[PenultimateManStanding]

It looks to me as though the financial shit will hit the fan before we hit the peak oil production. That will probably mean that widespread misery will not even be understood for its underlying geological reasons. Confusion will abound. The governments will lie as usual and these guys will be ruthless. Easter Island on a global scale.

[savethehumans]

I'm with you, Penultimate! The economy goes down the tubes, starting in 2005! Peak oil is no later than 2008. It would be nice to think it would take a few years after this for an actual "crash," but the size of world population, the near-hysterical fears of Western society, and the ever-escalating political/military conflicts everywhere (in large part connected to oil & gas), makes that improbable, at best.

We're not going to get out of this decade without TSHTF, super f***ed up and slipping fast....the next decade begins January 1, 2011. As I've said before, I don't think too much will be standing by 2012--and what's left will just take the right "BOO!" to collapse. Just IMHO....

[Sencha]

It's not fair. There's still so much I wanted to do...

[Disgusted]

The question is downright stupid.

Let's imagine that peak oil occurs in 2008, according to Campbell's predictions. This does not mean we are in Campbell's soup. all it means that if the 2008 production is n bbl, then 2009 will produce, say, 0.99n bbl, 2010 0.98 bbl 2011 0.97 bbl and so on. These changes are negligible with respect to random variations of the economy. Why, the DJ index can change that much, and more in a single day! The effect will be negligible in the medium term, as other methods come on line.

The Kookies, Fruitcakes and Idiots' brigade on this forum fondly imagines that the production in 2009 will be 0.01n, not 0.99n.

Of much more importance to the US economy are a) the National Debt, currently at an all-time high b) the cost of (unsuccessfully) pursuing a war, or several wars c) neglecting the needs of the various forms of social security d) above all, pursuing a policy of de facto devaluation of the dollar, which will end up in a galloping inflation. This Administration will go down in history as the one that ruined the US economy, just as the pre-Hitler one in Germany did, for quite similar reasons.

This will have an auto-adjustment effect, because the new poor will not be able to run their SUVs and Hummers, so the demand for oil will drop more rapidly than the production. Perhaps the cost of oil will have risen to $200/bbl or more, in today's money, by the end of the decade but it's more likely to be $1,000 or more in the 2011 value of the dollar, because of the constant devaluation of the dollar as more and more is printed to pay for the profligaate spending of the Administration, which is more intent on being the world dictatorship than balancing any budget. Of course, a can of beer may well be $10 or 15, as well, in a discount supermarket. This will have neither cause nor effect on PO.

[Guest]

Disgusted, you have a cruel voice of reason!
This is precisely what I was trying to send to these people, but I was trying to do it nicely.

Peak Oil is a gradual phenomena, not a sudden <shit, we'rre out of oil> thing.

[Chuck]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Disgusted', '
')The Kookies, Fruitcakes and Idiots' brigade on this forum fondly imagines that the production in 2009 will be 0.01n, not 0.99n............
...... Perhaps the cost of oil will have risen to $200/bbl or more, in today's money

[mindfarkk]

pfffffft!!!!

[MarkL]

..

[mindfarkk]

the truth is i can't afford the price of oil and gas *today* let alone when it continued to climb. i'm looking at homesteading as one of the only viable options to my surviving things AS THEY ARE, not just "after the crash." i'm trying to scrape together as many resources i can and sink all of it in to a single sustainable plan today, rather than gambling on a future that looks more and more uncertain.

what happens when you are broke (for those of you who have never had the experience) and you are living paycheck to paycheck is you buy smaller and smaller lots of what you need to live week to week at high prices because you are just trying to survive paycheck to paycheck and you can never get ahead enough to buy larger lots and get price cuts, or travel to pick them up and bring them home.

i used to have this job cleaning stalls. i had no employable skills so i had to do manual labor to survive. i got paid minimum wage, which was at the time 3.35 an hour. i worked this backbreaking labor about 50-60 hours a week. ALL my time and money was spent getting to work and getting home, where i would collapse into bed and sleep, exhausted, until the alarm rang at 4am and i had to race out into the freezing cold darkness to start my ten hour day. i would get home at 8pm and fall into bed and sleep. there was no time to get groceries or prepare food, so i ate junk out of the convenience store near the ranch. all this to net about 120-160 a week paycheck, so i was making about 500-600 a month. my rent was 250 dollars, then there was gas, utilities, food, and gosh, the sundry necessity - clothes, healthcare, maintenance on the car, etc. no public transportation, rural area. you do the math. on sunday all i did was sleep. there were guys at that ranch who worked 7 days a week to support a family. now even assuming i could have dragged myself to the grocery store on Sunday, and prepared food for the week, at what point do you think i could have afforded or fit in, say, school or training to better my position? out of 20-30 grooms at this ranch, how many do you think would have opportunity to ascend to the 1 management position when the foreman retired? that's subsistence level living. there is NO future in it. i was lucky - i had people to bail me out when i got tired of it. but if there is no "base" to fall back on, where do you go? what do you do? i don't want to wait until i am living like that again to make a decision to do something about my lifestyle. because this time it's not going to be a personal crisis, it's going to be a national/global crisis, and there won't be any base to fall back on.

[Guest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mindfarkk', '.').. to be a national/global crisis, and there won't be any base to fall back on.

[MarkL]

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[MarkL]

..

[mindfarkk]

WOW Mark!!!! that sounds a LOT like my story. except you worked your way out of it (with support from your spouse) whereas i got out of it with support from my family. alone, i dunno what i would have done.

i have been back to school three times. got my BA, got most of an MA, lost that career and went back for another MA and am about to graduate. of course just in time for the WORLD AS I KNOW IT TO END!!!! /sigh

also i'm not longer an entirely spoiled brat, which is why i can look at this and realize i'm not going to get any handouts, i have to use all my smarts and make some good decisions while i have choices left before the bad ones come paid.

the good news is john can retire (early) in 2011. so at least he won't be able to say "i need to stay where i can commute to this job."

waddaya think? buy some property out in the boonies now, before the urban exodus? or wait until the real estate market crashes?

[MarkL]

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[0mar]

Not fast enough

[mindfarkk]

this may be simplistic but, if they cut production and drive prices higher, then sell again, aren't they maximizing their profit?

[PenultimateManStanding]

Could be the End Of The Mayan Calendar thing

[PenultimateManStanding]

Think about it, many people may have heard at one time or another that the Mayan Calendar ends 2012. (I don't know for a fact that it does, or did, but if not, then its Coast to Coast type folklore) And furthermore many people know about the Mayans' little problems with resources and how it did them in. So there is a SUBCONSCIOUS fear of that year as a choice because the two ideas link up subliminally.

[mindfarkk]

oh cool i never knew that.

makes sense to me!