[mos6507]

The housing boom was UNSUSTAINABLE with or without peak oil and $4 gas. It bust right when the ARMs started adjusting upward, as if on schedule. Higher energy costs were just an extra pressure on the bubble.

[dohboi]

You can get away with all kinds of chicanery for quite a while when you have the favoring winds of plentiful oil behind you. Look at the the crazy "economies" of many oil-exporting countries.

But with shrinking supplies of cheap oil, such houses of cards quickly collapse, or, as mos put it, "It bust..."

[cat]

I cannot find a thread on this issue, so I hope I am not duplicating. I was wondering if anyone is seeing a connection between the current crisis and peak oil, or peak everything? This forum in the past has talked about how that as peak oil sets in, we could possibly see episodes where we hit the ceiling in growth, crash a little, then pick back up again, as we cut back on our usage. Repeating the whole scenario over and over as we slide down the down side of the curve. Is this the beginning of that cycle? Are there some dots to connect between the two events?

It seems that this has been a year of, at least in many countries, of shortened supplies of oil, water, food, metals etc. If we are lacking the basic inputs, how can we expect growth?

Now I do understand that this crisis was started with mortgage failures and connecting the dots between that and peak oil maybe impossible, but still, I wonder if there is not a deeper connection.

Here is someone else that is thinking a little one the same lines:
http://sharonastyk.com/2008/09/25/peeli ... cial-mess/

[mos6507]

I think peak oil has played a minor part in the housing crash. The houses entered into foreclosure because the ARMs reset. Having difficulty paying for gas to commute was only an extra push which was not required to cause these mortgages to default. So we'd be in this position with or without cheap gas.

[Last_Laff]

Even now Peak Oil has passed three years (or has it?). Lately we seem to have unforeseeable crisis on hand. Lately the banks are failing, bail outs and merging and what not has been going on.

So, the questions in two-fold are:

A)
How economics affect peak oil?

B)
What I could understand in my perspective is that the Big Oil gets so much profit funneled by the high price of oil. Should they somehow invest in something sensible such as "giving" back into the economy?

I don't know whether financial crisis trumps Peak Oil even its a underlying problem with Peak Oil itself or it's part of the problem.

I sincerely hope there's no topic like this anywhere, however I think it's a good subject to discuss.

What are your thoughts on this?

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')ovember 4, 2008
USA Today

The U.S. economy is in bad shape — stocks, banks and housing markets — but it's nothing we haven't seen before. Nearly every generation has faced a period of economic upheaval and uncertainty. Only the financial problems themselves have changed. These problems, like those in the past, will be solved with new solutions that must be found, says economist Ken Goldstein of the Conference Board. Today's situation is "terrible, but it's not a second Great Depression," Goldstein says. "It's not even close." This graphic looks at how the Great Depression compares with recent economic upheavals.

[vtsnowedin]

Pretty useless graph when you plot 1925 dollar values and 2008 inflated values on the same line. In 1925 farm help worked and got buy on $1.00 a day.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '8')) Pretty useless graph when you plot 1925 dollar values and 2008 inflated values on the same line. In 1925 farm help worked and got buy on $1.00 a day.

[ReverseEngineer]

Gotta love the slope on the graph in the last graphic. Heading downhill faster than Bill Johnson on Steroids. LOL. Get back to me when that one levels out.

Reverse Engineer

[RSFB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'G')otta love the slope on the graph in the last graphic. Heading downhill faster than Bill Johnson on Steroids. LOL. Get back to me when that one levels out.

Reverse Engineer

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '8')) Pretty useless graph when you plot 1925 dollar values and 2008 inflated values on the same line. In 1925 farm help worked and got buy on $1.00 a day.

[NoWorries]

This would be nice to believe, but the main problem I have with this item is that it presumes the current economic crisis has plateaued, when in fact it appears to be just getting started.

It reminds me of another similar item I saw in the National Review recently which said this crisis is not comparable to the Great Depression because unemployment in 1933 hit 25% nationwide, whereas current unemployment levels are only around 6% or so. Again, this presumes that we have reached the bottom.
So far as I've seen, there is no credible economist who has stated that as yet.

It would be analogous to pundits in November 1929 making comparisons to the Depression of 1873, and saying "the current crisis is not even close".

On a tangentially-related note: The only thing I can see in our favour this time around is technology. The news yesterday from Los Alamos about the new mini-reactors about to go mass-production is just stunning. That could transform our society. It is nothing less than revolutionary, if it holds true.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NoWorries', '
')The news yesterday from Los Alamos about the new mini-reactors about to go mass-production is just stunning. That could transform our society. It is nothing less than revolutionary, if it holds true.

[MikeB]

More crap from the website linked above:

http://standeyo.com/index1.html

[Southpaw]

It isn't a great depression yet.

But we still have the auto industry bankruptcies.

credit card bubble on the verge of collapse.

And when Oil prices crashes back too 40 or 50$ a barrel you can probably say hello to the alternative energy bubble also

Then we are talking about a depression

[Cyrus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'M')ini reactors, flying skateboards, nanopetroleum, and venusian methane are all going to play a part in our energy future. Don't look for a single oil replacement. Rather as smellmyfingerstwo said look for a smorgesboard of tasty energy treats.

This depression won't be anything like the last one. We had plenty of oil then to grow us out of it.

[gt1370a]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'G')otta love the slope on the graph in the last graphic. Heading downhill faster than Bill Johnson on Steroids. LOL. Get back to me when that one levels out.

Reverse Engineer

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gt1370a', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'G')otta love the slope on the graph in the last graphic. Heading downhill faster than Bill Johnson on Steroids. LOL. Get back to me when that one levels out.

Reverse Engineer

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'M')ini reactors, flying skateboards, nanopetroleum, and venusian methane are all going to play a part in our energy future. Don't look for a single oil replacement. Rather as smellmyfingerstwo said look for a smorgesboard of tasty energy treats.

This depression won't be anything like the last one. We had plenty of oil then to grow us out of it.