[Carlhole]

Okay, we had 911, the price per barrel is at highs and going up further. Peak Oil has been in the news for quite some time. Websites are developed. Books have been written. A war in the Middle East is on and threatening escalation. Congress has been lectured (Did Bartlett lecture to empty seats?). And the DoE and IEA have just about declared that "Shucks, I guess you guys were right after all".

But wouldn't the US Oil Elite from the Rockefellers on down have been well aware of Peak Oil since the time of the US production maximum at the very, very latest. I mean, they are crafty buggers. C'mon.

If you owned a golden goose, wouldn't you want to know how long the fabulous bird would live? And if you were an extremely wealthy oil magnate and well-connected all over the world, wouldn't you want to know how to manage your business as the resource costs and availablity changes over time?

Further, the CIA has previously made careful calculations about Russia's oil supplies during the Cold War; certainly, they would have made every serious effort to arrive at reasonably accurate calculations as to Saudi Arabian reserves, North Sea reserves, etc and calculated, years ago, when approximately the world would peak, as a matter of National Security and geostrategic planning. The RAND Corporation or some other such body must have been queried about oil peaking topics long, long ago.

Doesn't it seem silly that the Peak Oil crowd is the group that is on the cutting edge of knowledge as regards the future of the most valuable resource on the planet and everyone else is being taken by surprise including the Council on Foreign Relations and their ilk? ...and it's up to us to convince everyone that this terrible crisis is impending?

They say, in politics, nothing happens by accident. So assuming that the powers that be have been aware all along that PO would arrive more or less on schedule, all the books, websites, articles, seminars, hand-wringing and scare-mongering (even peakoil.com!) is more or less part of the plan.

Assuming that all this has been known by elites and their organizations for a considerable length of time and much thought has been given already to strategic business planning and military matters, what do you suppose they might have in store as this phenomenon unfolds for the rest of the world's people?

[Doly]

Assuming that democratic governments last 4 years and Middle East dictatorships last indefinitely, who do you think prepared best for peak oil?

[bobbyald]

Oil executives and some smart politicians (they do exist) have known of peak oil for many years and have planned accordingly - that’s what makes it so scary.

You simply have to look at what they doing to reach a conclusion of how they view it.

1) Don’t tell the public.
2) Make as much money as possible.
3) Don’t invest in alternative energy.
4) Spend fortunes on the military


This could also mean that they don’t know but I can’t believe that they are all that stupid – can you?

[satjeet]

Your argument is persuasive if you assume people are rational. I do not. People see the world through a mosaic of their beliefs. I have an older brother who is a "world expert" on transportation issues. Travels widely and consults all over the world. Brushes elbows with government officials, economists (Boo!) and academics. He dismisses peak oil without even given it a second thought.

[Jack]

A lot depends on their perception of peak oil.

Let's suppose that oil goes to $250 per barrel - say, tomorrow. Let's suppose it stays there for awhile. That suggests that gasoline would be about $10 per gallon, and lots of other things would increase in price with it.

Lots of people wouldn't be able to afford gasoline, or home heating, or even food. Lots of people would be unemployed.

But from the perspective of someone with $100,000,000 or so, this doesn't matter in the least. Gasoline will be a trivial expense. They can purchase home generators if the power grid fails. If the food distribution channels are disrupted, they can hire some staff to grow gardens and livestock. If they lack land, they simply purchase it. Are interest rates high? Marvelous! They don't need to finance it...they write a check.

Is the stock market down? So what! Accredited investors (millionaires or better) can invest in market neutral hedge funds...which have been doing quite nicely, thank you very much.

So, from one perspective, peak oil will merely solve the servant problem.

If one assumes a real hard crash, of the Mad Max variety, this model fails. But not too many people, even here, fully subscribe to that theory.