How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
Joined: Dec 07, 2004 Posts: 463 Location: Cheshire, England
Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 6:37 pm Post subject: Will PO be bad?
"This thread is intended as a survey of opinions, rather than a chat thread. If you post, please can you put 'This is a no-chat thread. See OP.' at the start of your post, so everyone watching knows."
Survey:
On balance, do you think that PO will be a bad thing or a good thing for you personally?
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 2:44 am Post subject: Re: Will PO be bad?
spot5050 wrote:
<'No-chat' thread>
Survey:
On balance, do you think that PO will be a bad thing or a good thing for you personally?
Please put "No chat. See OP" in your post somewhere.
It's a bad thing.
It's like having a all you can eat restraurant for $1 which then closes next week. I will be missing all the dirt cheap good food and the cheap air fares to the other side of the world.
Joined: Dec 18, 2004 Posts: 4053 Location: One Mile From the Columbia River
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 4:20 am Post subject:
Very few will profit from this coming disaster.
There will be only one certain winner and that will be the earth itself. If there was enough oil to last another few hundred years humans would strip the planet bare.
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 5:31 pm Post subject: RE: PO Good or Bad?
Hello all and thank you for allowing me to participate in what I consider to be a great forum.
As to whether Peak Oil will be hard or soft is a very difficult question. The answer relates to your perspective. As we all know, perspective is subjective to the point of observation and two persons viewing the same event can have different takes on what is seen. Peak Oil, like time, is relative.
For my purposes, I will speak of the United States, as this is my point of observation.
The U.S. is already embroiled in the beginning of the resource wars to come. With our seemingly unquenchable thirst for energy in all its forms, the necessity to continue an expansion economy, and the failure of foreign policy in the oil-rich nations of the world I can see no other result than war, eventual retreat, and finally catastrophe.
But this will not happen overnight. For a little while yet the U.S. will feel the slow decline of resources. Prices for all goods will bounce around but show a steady incline over the next few years. But let us face it. The U.S. can afford some price increases, right? The answer lies not in how much you are willing to pay for a product or service but rather how much you can cut out of your consumer driven diet.
Possibly the first and very real jolt will come when the oil producing nations no longer accept the dollar as payment for their product. “I’m sorry sir, but your money is no good here.” This may be the first mortal blow the U.S. receives as people see their almighty dollar reduced to a second rate currency against the euro or the yuan. With the dollar no longer fixed against the commodity of crude oil it will be forced to stand on its own. Not a happy prospect. It will be at that moment the average U.S. citizen will watch their savings evaporate and their earning power decline significantly. This may be the first crisis, but most certainly not the last.
With such internal pressures the imperial expansion efforts of the U.S. will become too expensive to maintain. The great and powerful U.S. military machine will have to return home if for no other reason than to maintain the status quo of our great republic.
With little or no military presence abroad the oil-producing nations will be free to carve out their own destinies. Whether they will be tyrannical regimes or golden cities on a hill is of little consequence. They will all have in common the history of U.S. failed foreign policy and we can expect very little in the way of sympathy.
Energy will continue to become scarce. Skirmishes with Canada and Mexico as it relates to energy may mount to violent heights. With the still cutting edge U.S. military machine now in North America we may see the vilification of our northern and southern neighbors.
The average U.S. citizen will then be scraping to make ends meet and have food on the table. The economy will try to rebuild but it will not be pretty or quick. There is a very real possibility that expensive energies and a military machine in charge of production and distribution that the dollar will never recover.
This is the soft landing and I fully expect that such will be the course of the U.S. within the next ten years. As energy for the U.S. continues to become more elusive it will become harder and harder for the crops and their distribution to be maintained as in earlier times. At this point the hard landing will start to become evident.
Joined: Jun 21, 2004 Posts: 413 Location: Massachusetts
Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2004 7:55 pm Post subject:
PO will be the most extremely devastating thing to happen to me personally. I hope I don't live to see the worst of it. There will be nothing left to stick around for after the dust settles. If I croaked on the day of the crash, I'd consider myself a lucky dead man. _________________ Vision without action is a dream, action without vision is a nightmare.
Joined: Jun 21, 2004 Posts: 413 Location: Massachusetts
Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:17 am Post subject:
Oh, that makes me feel alot better about having to live through the world's greatest collective nightmare from which no being can wake from. Not. _________________ Vision without action is a dream, action without vision is a nightmare.
The crash will happen within 3 years.. with or without peak oil.. The US's debt bubble and banking system are ready to collapse.
Just like all paper currency's backed but nothing but a gov't promise the US dollar will collapse and take the whole world with it since it is the reserve currency.
Peak Oil just adds yet another dimension.
Fannie Mae's book cooking will come out in 2005 and probably take the housing market with it since few nations will continue to finance American's McMansions.
When the Housing Market goes the rest of the US economy will go and with American's WONDERFUL savings rate (currently 0.2%) our GDP will actually reverse and go negative. Capital will RUN from the US and in a last ditch effort to save the US, the powers that be will raise rates crushing the debt bubble.
Unemployment will take off and the Fed will begin to print money like there is no tomorrow.. trigering a HYPERINFLATION. Prices will rise so fast the cost of milk will go up weekly... Then comes Martial Law.
Our only hope is a return to Honest money less gov and total free market.. (which I believe would have solved this Oil problem long ago if it were allowed to exist).
Are you gonna live to see it? You bet your tail you will... Trailer parks will be Upper middle class wait till they have SUV parks with families living in there SUV's because gas is too much and they got there home repo'ed!
So sell your house (unless you own it free and clear or you are close). Dump your 401K and stock portfolio for Gold and get a Gun while it's still legal. Talk to friends and get ready to barter!
well, no offense spot, but the topic itself is kind of an invitation to trouble.
here though... have some of my anti-troll spray. it smells like IGNORE and works almost as well. apply liberally to the bottom of the thread and - wah-lah!!!
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1647 Location: Davis, California
Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2005 8:21 pm Post subject:
Bad short-term, good long-term if we learn from mistakes. _________________ Joseph Stalin "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. "
Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:59 pm Post subject: Only my second post
I posted the above statement about the Economy. It was my first ever posting to this website. Troll I am assuming is someone who is negative? Please understand I have been in Banking and Finance for over 4 years, about a year ago one of my affluent clients asked me to help him start a small Bank with some investors.
Before I agreed I started to study Macroeconmic mechanics I have no TV as I consider it a waste of time.. all I do is read and study money. After finally grasping the fragil nature of our Banking system (I didn't want to belive it was so weak), I turned down his offer and left my Bank. I looked for every scenerio, everyway out of the trouble the US is in but it isn't there, this Peak Oil will surely push us over if the price of a Barrel gets too high, but I tell you the economy would crash anyway, Peak Oil will make it much worse though. I suggest gold because of the Islamic belief that Gold has Intrinsic value and trading Oil for dollars is actually against islamic law.. trading Gold is not. Once the the rest of the world gets out from under the Dollar's reserve currency status we are done. Period.
Islam wants Gold Dinars as currency and they have the most Oil. China a COMMUNIST country is actually encouraging it's people to buy and own physical gold.
You can always count on history repeating itself and EVERY paper currency has collapsed eventualy... and Gold is the money of choice in the end again and again.. so when Peak Oil starts making life hard by 2008 or so; the US may already have started it's economic downfall. I tell you friends Gold will be worth a whole lot here in the US when that happens...
But then I'm an optimist... I hope the economic collapse won't give excuse for loss of the remaining freedoms Americans have... However if Germany is any Historical relevance of what happens when a paper currency Hyperinflates due to Gov printing presses then we have far more to worry about here in the US. But that is short term.. next 5 to 10 years.
Maybe... just maybe some hard times will awaken the liberty spirt in America and we will cast out an oppressive gov in hard times and work together with the hard work ethics that built this great nation... I hope so because Im 26 and most of my Life will be in this period.. I know I will be in the front lines with my sleeves rolled up ready to turn the neighbors back yard into a garden and bicycling to and from.. who's with me!!!!
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