[DantesPeak]

Most of the large publicly traded US stocks, including and especially GE, make more money from financial operations than industrial operations. GM and Ford are also heavily dependent on financial income, such as from mortgages.

In the late 1980s, all sorts of major Japanese companies were known to practice what the called zai-tech, or financial engineering. I submit the zai-tech of the US corporations now exceeds that of the Japanese greatly, although it is hidden underneath levels of derivatives.

What most US companies will actually make in the chaos of post peak oil is anyone's guess, but even now, I'm would keep far away from any company whose main source of income relates to banking and/or finance.

[Dukat_Reloaded]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')and is still pretty cheep right now. As my 'ole grandfather used to say, "They aren't making any more of it."'

[Merlin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lighthouse', 'B')ut if you want my advise: Buy land. Land with lots of black nice smelling chemical free top soil.

[goldmund52]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('drew', 'G')oldmund, I thought I'd try to post a reasonable answer to your posit. I play the market myself and wonder the same things you do with regard to PO.

I am not quite so doom and gloom as the other fine folks who answered your query, so I do believe there are investments that will help you. Long term wise PO is going to happen, and maybe has already occured.

I highly doubt it will be the end of things especially the markets. No one is going to seize GE either.

I smell a recession as do many others. What do you think a bad one will do to demand? I'd say a world class downturn may put off a resurgence to 85 mbpd for many years. Just look at production data from the years following the Iranian revolution.

Regardless of PO, global warming, war, etc.. there is always money to be made.

If you have any answers as to how to do that please let me know!

Personally, I could see myself playing the ups and downs of oil for another decade anyways.

Drew

[americandream]

You'll be lucky to get potato chips when capitalism runs out of goodies let alone blue chips matey!

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', 'I')f you held gold, you were not necessarily safe either. In 1932, FDR confiscated the nation's gold, forcing people to sell it for $20 per ounce.

Executive Order 6102

[pup55]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ost of the large publicly traded US stocks, including and especially GE, make more money from financial operations

[drew]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('goldmund52', ' ')I think we are on the crest of the peakoil oil plateau and I'm sceptical that a recession will supress oil prices deeply or for long.

[drew]

HA 500, bye bye heavy crude!!

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'e')nforcement efficiency

[pertz]

I've read some of the replies, and had this to offer:

I DON"T KNOW what will survive what. I do know that human intellect and energy has produced a nonstop string of surprises known as "history". Peak Oil might well sink the ship. On the other hand, its probably a really poor idea to assume with certainty that human creativity will fail this test. After all, we have been in mortal peril since the very first one of "us" [CroMagnon Man] was born. The first tiny band of us had to slug it out with creatures from the microbial to the monstrous. We had to survive five or six ice ages and a huge amount of walking around (the whole planet). We figured out to live in the far north even though we're fundamentally tropical creatures. We figured out how to live on all the continents but Antarctica, with all the variety they all offer. We survived plague, we survived each other (the really hard part). I simply cannot rule out the possibility that there's a seventeen year old kid living in a yurt in kazahkstan -- but with a stolen ancient computer and an internet connection -- who'll figure out how to pump all the carbon dioxide into some pathetic algae someplace and create a positive ocean of new, non fossil oil while sequestering lots of CO2. If he does, GE will be making the turbines to generate the electricity from the algae, Microsoft will be writing code for the algae factory, etc. etc. So, personally, yes, I've bought GE. I've also bought a lot of energy companies, 'cause we'll burn all the fossil fuel to build the infrastructure to handle the algae, before the fossils are all burned up and we're living in northern canada (GE will be building large pumps to make those melted bogs dry). Of course, I've also invested in solar panels, canned goods, and ammunition, since the seventeen year old might be smoking camel dung instead of figuring out the algae problem.
So, at the end of the day, the investment advise is always the same: don't believe for a minute you can predict the future and put all your eggs in as many baskets as you can afford, hoping that at least one or two won't get smashed. And, if they all get smashed, we're all dead anyway...

[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pertz', '
')
I simply cannot rule out the possibility that there's a seventeen year old kid living in a yurt in kazahkstan -- but with a stolen ancient computer and an internet connection -- who'll figure out how to pump all the carbon dioxide into some pathetic algae someplace and create a positive ocean of new, non fossil oil while sequestering lots of CO2.

[Lighthouse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MattSavinar', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pertz', '
')
I simply cannot rule out the possibility that there's a seventeen year old kid living in a yurt in kazahkstan -- but with a stolen ancient computer and an internet connection -- who'll figure out how to pump all the carbon dioxide into some pathetic algae someplace and create a positive ocean of new, non fossil oil while sequestering lots of CO2.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MattSavinar', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pertz', '
')
I simply cannot rule out the possibility that there's a seventeen year old kid living in a yurt in kazahkstan -- but with a stolen ancient computer and an internet connection -- who'll figure out how to pump all the carbon dioxide into some pathetic algae someplace and create a positive ocean of new, non fossil oil while sequestering lots of CO2.

[Iaato]

Here, Matt. Chew on me instead.

So, is capitalism circling the drain? If you look at economic systems relative to energy inputs, capitalism is a "weed" that thrives in successional systems with high energy inputs. During periods of lower energy input, you have less competitive, more cooperative types of systems. It would be a great exercise to go back and look at the more and less capitalistic periods in history and map the relative resource availability. How long will it take to wring the heat out of the system when the taps are shut off? Are we going all the way back to feudalism? Or can we stop somewhere short of that?

My mind keeps making an analogy between wall street, which has lovely quantitative charts, and complexity studies. Complexity studies of heart rates suggest that heart rate variability declines as the heart loses adaptability and complexity and begins to fail. The autonomic ability of the heart to change rates and adapt to the larger system gets blunted. A baby's heart rate is extremely volatile. A 20-year old has beat to beat variability with changes in intrathoracic pressure from breathing. One starts to lose that ability after you pass the age of about 35. The rate gets really stable as the heart fails, until ... well, it goes into Ventricular Tachycardia and stops. Have you taken a look at the volatility index chart (VIX) lately? The last couple of weeks look a bit like bursts of VT to me after a long period of about 7 years of declining variability (rate hysteresis??).

IEEE-HR Variability