Don’t worry, just a little bump - $70 is just around the corner. Short traders just keep making those margin calls, mortgage the house if you have to. Fortunes await you! PO is for pansies and doomers. At $70 short some more ..... it is going back to $22 .... the world is awash with oil ........ reality has nothing to do with it, its all in those charts!!!!!!!!!!
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:20 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
mos6507 wrote:
Quote:
The assumption here (and in any other debate where armchair quarterbacks outline prescriptive change for the world) is that humanity is this big hive mind that acts logically and singularly in the face of challenges. This isn't what happens in the real world, which is why our problems are mounting. People would like to think that the end results will be the same via the free market. But as we all know, the free market responds to short-term pressures rather than long-term trends.
When it comes to predicting the future - especially in the face of disruptive changes stemming from resource depletion - is that we are all armchair quarterbacks.
But by making the statement "This isn't what happens in the real world, which is why our problems are mounting" you are also making a basic assumption. That the world works a certain way. It doesn't.
Therefore, scenario planning works by cataloguing you're basic assumptions and then red flagging those assumptions. Change the assumptions and you change the outcome. So the original scenario has to be constantly revised unless you are somewhat omnipotent from the very beginning.
Us mere mortals have to use our understanding of economics and finance today to assign probabilities to various outcomes in the future even though we cannot even predict with any accuracy major earthquakes, tsunamis, the extent of climate change, nuclear wars or outbreaks of avian influenza. So what is the alternative? No planning?
I'm concerned that if business fails to act appropriately that it will require government to step in dictatorially otherwise we'll have a massive calamity
Business is only supplying what consumers want. Government is only supplying what voters demand. If there is a massive calamity there is only consumers and voters to blame.
Quote:
But as we all know, the free market responds to short-term pressures rather than long-term trends.
Human history - and therefore its effect on the natural world - has been an endless sequence of man responding to scarcity. Some of those responses have been due to short-term pressures and some have been in response to long-term trends.
Hunter-gatherers _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Joined: Apr 27, 2007 Posts: 4262 Location: The Great Sonoran Desert
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:41 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
MrBill wrote:
When it comes to predicting the future - especially in the face of disruptive changes stemming from resource depletion - is that we are all armchair quarterbacks.
Disruptive changes stemming from resource depletion...will be dealt with using audibles. _________________ "There must be a bogeyman; there always is, and it cannot be something as esoteric as "resource depletion." You can't go to war with that." Emersonbiggins
"... hope is a rotten-thighed whore" Niko Kazantzakis
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:58 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
roccman wrote:
MrBill wrote:
When it comes to predicting the future - especially in the face of disruptive changes stemming from resource depletion - is that we are all armchair quarterbacks.
Disruptive changes stemming from resource depletion...will be dealt with using audibles.
Yes, in the short-term History would suggest that will be the policy of choice. But do not forget that long-term food security issues have also lead to longer term policy responses that avoided resource wars. The European Union being just one example. _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:09 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
Who gives a flying Fark what the Enronomist has to say about anything? _________________ "When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around."--The Police
Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:39 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
chrispi wrote:
Who gives a flying Fark what the Enronomist has to say about anything?
What a bizarre comment. The Economist happens to be one of the most trusted and widely read magazines on the state of the global economy ever. It makes Business Week and other glossy magazines look like 'news-lite'. They have won umpteen awards for their plain use of the English language. I have learned more by reading The Economist cover to cover each week then all my university degrees put together. Biased coverage? Yes, towards transparency, clean government and fair competition. If anything they tend to be social liberals and fiscal conservatives. Where do you get your serious analysis? The Onion?
_________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:48 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
Economist is a curious magazine. The news and analysis can be spot on and hard hitting. The editorials? Meh...
Also, it's not without it's failings. All single issue publications have their blind spots and they are usually ideological.
For instance, Economist has run countless of articles during the past years arguing that markets will fix the oil price, no peak in sight, etc. Some of these articles have even forgotten the old journalistic rule of giving voice to both sides of the argument.
So far, the markets have proven them wrong.
Time will tell what happens, I claim no special foreknowledge one way or the other.
However, I do balance my feed with something that clearly contrasts the viewpoint of the Economist.
Why? Because it's just not very safe to drive with obvious blindspots...
Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:25 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
Twilight wrote:
MrBill wrote:
Where do you get your serious analysis? The Onion?
Now now, The Onion sometimes does a remarkable job of reproducing serious analysis as satire without losing the core message in translation. I don't think basic concepts are cheapened by looking at their funny side.
I read The Onion. I try to read everything I can. Sometimes a good Dilbert cartoon says it all. As a matter of fact, only by trying to read everything can one distinguish between the wheat and the chaff. But anyone who simply dismisses The Economist as The Enronomist is doing themselves a real disservice if they are looking for good analysis. One thing I like about The Economist is that it touches on subjects that I would quite often not see if left to my own devices. Like science and technology as well as special country and industry reports.
I get all my hard news from Reuters and Bloomberg. I get specific analysis from investment bank research reports. I rarely read the financial news because they are usually too preoccupied with the story of the day to give any indepth analysis. Although I scan the headlines. But a weekly like The Economist covers the week's highlights in business and politics, but also takes a lighter look at other topics that I would otherwise miss.
It is a good all-round publication. As for missing peak oil and its implications. They are certainly not unique in that regard and if peak oil dot com were a more serious single issue website with fewer outlyers we might do a better job of educating the mainstream press about the real issues of resource depletion. I have never, yet, met a serious businessman, politician or even University professor that does not read The Economist, so what better medium could we hope to communicate our message through. We are failing. Not them. _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Joined: Jun 13, 2007 Posts: 3329 Location: Minniesotuh
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:44 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
Went to the store yesterday.. In the dairy aisle, was stopped short by the egg cabinet:
Crystal Farm Eggs: $5.69 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are they spoonfeeding those chickens, or have their feed costs gone up that much? _________________ "RRrrruuuunnnn!!!" ~Apocalypto
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:31 pm Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
halcyon wrote:
Economist is a curious magazine. The news and analysis can be spot on and hard hitting. The editorials? Meh...
Also, it's not without it's failings. All single issue publications have their blind spots and they are usually ideological.
For instance, Economist has run countless of articles during the past years arguing that markets will fix the oil price, no peak in sight, etc. Some of these articles have even forgotten the old journalistic rule of giving voice to both sides of the argument.
So far, the markets have proven them wrong.
...
No magazine / anything is 100% correct all the time....certainly NOT peakoil.com That's why it's good to read a little bit of everything --> yes even with things that you disagree with.
How can the truth ever be certain without first revealing all the untruths!
There are of course some publications that are "closer to the truth" then others. The Economist is somewhere near Playboy in terms of respectability. Wall Street Journal is deep in the sh!t hole...but hey that's just my 2 cents.
I attended a speech by John Micklethwait (editor at Economist). When he stated he believed the Iraq was was a good idea, I stood up, pardoned myself as I scooted past 50 seated people, and left.
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:26 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
Exactly!
Quote:
In the aftermath of a whole series of incidents, there have also been troubling reports of just fill in the blanks. Middle East experts say the still somehow worsening situation has inflamed age-old sectarian tensions between the Sunnis, Shiites, Semites, Kurds, Turks, Saudis, Persians, Wahhabis, radicals, extremists, Baathists, mullahs, clerics, et al, which is likely to lead to more gurgle-gurgle over the coming weeks and months.
Or as one Onion reader wrote, "the Iraq war is just so over... even if it goes on for another decade!" _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:46 am Post subject: Re: The end of cheap food (The Economist)
I love the Economist. I just bought a gallon of milk for $3 at the farm yesterday. The price of food is still pretty reasonable, but the "Cheap Food" policy ended with cheap oil. We'll all be paying a lot more for food from now on. Even dairy farmers are beginning to get back on their feet around here. It's a hard life, but at least you can make a living at it now. _________________ Deep in the mud and slime of things, even there, something sings.
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