[dohboi]

"Now is the time to take advantage of the lull and prep as best you can."

Excellent advice, of course, but I was hoping you might at least see what he's saying and critique it for us. But it is a busy time of year. Anyone else care to take a crack at it?

Best wishes for the sure-to-be-interesting New Year.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')I was hoping you might at least see what he's saying and critique it for us.

[notill]

.I agree with Simmons. I've been in agriculture and cattle for about as long as he's been in oil, and could change a few words in his presentation and describe the cattle business pretty well.

but there's something else at play here. All persons in the US, and elsewhere, consume resources, or wealth. But relatively few contribute to the creation of that wealth. I don't mean to be critical of anyone, but in the questions' starkest form, what are the non productive going to do to earn, or use to barter for, their food, homes, and fuel?

I fear we've long ago maxed out on direct and indirect taxing of productive economic activity, thus discouraging all but the most productive projects.

[pedalling_faster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'R')evi found this and we both agreed it deserved a thread of its own. I was glad to see a somewhat more detailed analysis from this grandfather (or midwife?) of PO.

Simmons slideshow

[Micki]

Matt is not an economics expert so his opinions on such things should be taken somewhat more lightly than his opinions on energy infrastructure etc.
I however don't see him being terribly wrong in the longer run.
As I started writing in 2005 I expected that a downturn in economy would hide PO until the economy tries to pick up again and we then learn that we can't get above the previous peak in output. Secondly, and I am still waiting to see if this happens, I expected US to go down harder than many other nations, allowing nations, like China and other nations that can recover faster than US, to continue to party a bit longer without feeling the severe effects of PO. (The wildcard of course being a world war where nations like US don't want to freely take the backseat.)

[Geodesic]

What happened to the gasoline shortage? There's a large surplus now. Makes me question his credibility.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... fer=canada

[AirlinePilot]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geodesic', 'W')hat happened to the gasoline shortage? There's a large surplus now. Makes me question his credibility.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... fer=canada

[Revi]

Matt Simmons paints a picture that shouldn't be ignored. A rusty, aging oil industry pumps out the last barrels of easy oil, with not much waiting in the wings.

I don't think that there will be many eager investors for hard to get oil with the price at $30 a barrel.


This makes the descent off the peak steeper and scarier.

And coming soon!

[TheAntiDoomer]

Matt Simmons is one step away from being "the end is near" guy on the corner. what a long hard fall for this guy.

[yesplease]

Simmons has consistently revised his estimates for peak so I gotta wonder about how impartial he is when he has an investment co. Look, a production peak in 2004!

[bratticus]

I like this slide
http://www.321energy.com/editorials/sim ... 080014.jpg
(image is 560 pixels wide so I won't embed it here)

[dohboi]

OK, I'll bite. What so enchants you about the distinction between paper and wet barrels? He doesn't even have any of his goofy images on that slide.

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'O')K, I'll bite. What so enchants you about the distinction between paper and wet barrels? He doesn't even have any of his goofy images on that slide.

[Zero-point]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('notill', '.')I agree with Simmons. I've been in agriculture and cattle for about as long as he's been in oil, and could change a few words in his presentation and describe the cattle business pretty well.

but there's something else at play here. All persons in the US, and elsewhere, consume resources, or wealth. But relatively few contribute to the creation of that wealth. I don't mean to be critical of anyone, but in the questions' starkest form, what are the non productive going to do to earn, or use to barter for, their food, homes, and fuel?

I fear we've long ago maxed out on direct and indirect taxing of productive economic activity, thus discouraging all but the most productive projects.

[Zero-point]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheAntiDoomer', 'M')att Simmons is one step away from being "the end is near" guy on the corner. what a long hard fall for this guy.

[Newsseeker]

I love doom.

Tim

Asatru - A Native European Religion
runestone.org

[dohboi]

"Basically those banks live off the people and those banks produce NOTHING for society kind of like vampires"

This comparison feeds into my latest paranoia--that the PTB are encouraging the latest fad for vampire novels (Twillight and many others) so as to drain away the negative stigma from the most apt metaphor for their behavior.

I would love to hear more about the CFR paranoia, though. What statements have they come up with in the past that have proved to be the opposite of reality? I really don't know much about them.

They can't be much worse at prediction than CERA has been in the last ten years.

[Zero-point]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '"')Basically those banks live off the people and those banks produce NOTHING for society kind of like vampires"

This comparison feeds into my latest paranoia--that the PTB are encouraging the latest fad for vampire novels (Twillight and many others) so as to drain away the negative stigma from the most apt metaphor for their behavior.

I would love to hear more about the CFR paranoia, though. What statements have they come up with in the past that have proved to be the opposite of reality? I really don't know much about them.

They can't be much worse at prediction than CERA has been in the last ten years.

[dohboi]

Great. I'm always up for another conspiracy.

But back to oil--it looks like it's starting a steady ascent. Is this the reaction that Simmons has been talking about.

On the one hand, it doesn't seem like anything too dramatic so far compared to the near-$150/bbl prices we saw last year.

On the other hand, we've moved from around $30 to almost $50 in less than a month, a price jump of nearly 100%.

In any other time in the history of oil prices this would be shocking, big-print-headline news. But we see little discussion of it. Should we assume that's because $50 just doesn't seem very stunning anymore?

[Micki]

I guess you are right. $50 is still cheap in most people's minds.
Secondly, as the economy overall isn't supportive of a V bounce, it should have a steadier appreciation and perhaps even a fair amount of hiccup sales as people are too scared to hold on if it drops again.
I think oil should be able to stealth it's way back over $60 before a lot of people pay any attention.
Secondly, I think appreciations will be welcomed in mainstream media as they will perceive it as a sign that the economy is recovering.


EDITED:
If you followed my line of thinking you would know that I think the CB's will hesitate to increase interest rates even if inflation reappears. Reason being htat it will be pushed as economic recovery rather than inflation.
And I just came across this snippet from Fed Reserve:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve policy-makers wanted to send a clear message that they intended to keep interest rates very low for a long time to help the economy recover from a recession, minutes of their December meeting showed on Tuesday.
"Participants judged that communicating the committee's expectation that short-term interest rates were likely to stay exceptionally low for some time could be useful," the Fed minutes said.