Today in Spain I got scared

Karlos4 · Tar Sands Joined: May 22, 2008 Posts: 28

Each day seems to carry a bad new.
Now taxi drivers in Catalonia (where I live) and Valencia are going on strike. Expect caos at the airports. What do they want? the same as everybody, cheaper fuel.

The supply situation is beggining to look better, now that police has cleared the roads from some of the most radical truck drivers. There are still shortages of certain things, it depends of where you live. Anyway, still convoy trucks have to be escorted by police into the city.
It's not that easy to fill the car's tanks, but the blame here is not on the lack of gas itself, but on pepole's reaction: everybody is filling up their tanks at once! I'm lucky i go to work by bicycle.

(Note: of course I was talking about bottled water. The day there is no drinkable water from our taps, then there will be a problem.)
I gotta tell you that live goes on as usual. This is not doomsday, you can come to Spain and enjoy your holidays and the only thing you'll notice, maybe, are the long lines at the gas stations. But it brings the feeling of the change, gives you a real warning about something you only knew as paper theory or some numbers on a screen.
It all looks like the begining of an adjustment phase, where people still does not realize they are not going to get cheap diesel anymore. We are heading fast into a hig-prices, job destruction era. What amazes me is that here, today, there is no real talk about the real problem "how much oil is left?"
In a week I'm going on holiday to Canary islands with my wife and kids. I'm going by plane and will rent a car. Enjoy things as they are now.

Last night we were watching a very good Peak Oil report on catalan TV. They talked about Hubbert, US Peak Oil, alternative energy and, yes, doomsday scenarios.
My younger kid, 8 years old Lucas, told me: "This is not fair. You've lived all your life in a world with oil, and I won't".
"We'll see" is all I could tell him.

grom · Tar Sands Joined: Mar 18, 2005 Posts: 52

virgincrude · Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:07 pm Post subject: Re: Today in Spain I got scared

SPG: You're right, of course, but this is Europe. It's hard for you to imagine how fundamentally different are the mind sets of Americans and Europeans. The idea of letting fishermen or any other tradesman simply shrivel and lose business is so un-European, especially so un-Socialist.

As for those exact laws, I would not have neither the time nor the inclination to get into a translation of these pernickity 'normativas' and where and how they apply, in which different autonomous region and in which circumstances. Euro-beaurocracy is legendary for a reason! I'm just repeating what I've learned from a few news sources.

It is true that many new jobs were created by the housing boom, lots of small scale hauliers for example, and grom is right: the economic contraction means they literally don't have anything to haul, so what's the European response?: let's go on strike and demand the government do something. This turmoil across the country has been caused by a minority, would you believe, who's aggresive picketing has stunned the nation.

Hartmann · Coal Joined: Jun 15, 2008 Posts: 19

This could be considered the first peak oil simulation.

Shortages in the shops, petrol convoys scorted by the police, some little riots, big factories stopped by lack of supplies and spare parts, workers without work ( no work, no money, no consume and the circle is closed) and other weird effects.

What would happen when the things are real and worse ?? Shocked

cartonet · Coal Joined: Jun 15, 2008 Posts: 5

Those taxi drivers at El Prat airport or the ruthless truck drivers are nothing but animals ( they even burned almost to death a fellow truck driver!) reclaiming a Socialist wellfare system that will subsidize the gas for them! just plain nuts!!!.

I wonder if any of these idiots (same goes for the Spanish fishermen that went on strike recently too) know the futures market exist and there - AT A SMALL FRACTION OF THEIR ACTUAL COST EXPOSURE- they can HEDGE their gas/oil cost exposure!!! So if oil and liquid fuels go up a lot they cover their normal margins, and if (unlikely) oil and/or liquid fuekls go down they only lose that fraction I spoke of (again, unlikely in a roaring bull market for energy).

But of course they were not prepared for this. Spaniards are told everyday the futures market is ripe for the evils of "speculators" ( real funny in a country where a flat in cheesy Sevilla can cost you 5 times the same in a Euro/square meter basis than in Berlin (!) )

Nor was any bank in Spain who could have sold commodity hedge products to actual consumers or producers ( from fuelsto drivers to grains to Agriculture guys ) .

Nor was the Goverment of Spain ( whose Funny Stand Up Commedian Economy(!) Minister Pedro Solbes recently announced a Price for Oil prevision in 2016 of 60 USD / Barrel---ROFLMAO )

And oh.... the real estate bubble burst in Spain as of recent...another case of laissez fair and absolutely no prevision on what could happen..... I ve heard African inmigrants on the radio saying " No one expected this. The "brick" betrayed us! " . OH MY GAWD!!! no one??? Fark NO ONE!. Get a life!!!

I have BETTED on this for long. I m long OIL and oil companies for years. And I shorted the real estate companies in Spain when the bubble forming was WAY too obvious. For Christs Sake! Too easy...

IN MY BOOK:

Part of a sound preparedness on Peak Oil should be INVESTING according to it and making economic progress way beyond the wild inflation I see coming up, if anyone is interested in opening a thread on that I will colaborate, I am really skilled at that.... but that will not give any comfort when the lights will go off...I wont eat off shares, ETFs or bonds!

I want to be very honest on this:

I m making some money right now, but I WOULD PREFER to lose A LOT the next few years and be PROVEN WRONG. I want my 3 year old kid to have a chance to have grandkinds. The way I see things now, I dont think he has any chance...

recent events as exposed in Spain I dont agree are a trial for Peak Oil anyway....that was just some dumb ass disruption...

want to know what has been a Peak Oil trial???

CUBA!

and they survived....with little or no oil.

cheers

virgincrude · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:55 pm Post subject: Re: Today in Spain I got scared

cartonet, thanks for your input. I'm sure the few Spaniards on this board are delighted to be insulted by you and your overbearing arrogance.

Calling Spaniards idiots, calling Sevilla 'cheesy' shouting at Sub-saharan immigrants for not having kept up with the news on their sattelite TVs, radios, or abundant foreign press during the run up to the housing market collapse, yes, sounds like you're really, really knowledgable.
Capullo.

grom · Tar Sands Joined: Mar 18, 2005 Posts: 52

wisconsin_cur · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:07 am Post subject: Re: Today in Spain I got scared

virgincrude · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:46 am Post subject: Re: Today in Spain I got scared

I have no problem with Spaniards criticizing other Spaniards. Calling desperate fishermen and immigrants stupid because they did not know what cartonet says he knows, is not a criticism: it is an insult.

Ignorance has a cure: knowledge, it's available to all. Stupidity is inborn and often has no remedy.

Las Vegas is cheesy. Sevilla has its tacky tourist trade, but a city with several millenia of history and culture could only be termed ‘cheesy’ by someone severely lacking in intellect and education, or someone trying to impress others by their disdane of another’s culture (or pretending to be ‘above’ their own culture): i.e an insult.

He mentions African immigrants on the radio complaining nobody told them of the imminent housing crisis. What makes him think an African immigrant (who knows whether literate or not) could have any interest or details about a country’s economic outlook? To say how stupid they were, and suggest the get a life is not only ignorant it is callous.

wisconsin_cur · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:39 am Post subject: Re: Today in Spain I got scared

virgincrude · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:21 am Post subject: Re: Today in Spain I got scared

Sorry Wisconsin, I don't see the relation .....

SoylentGreen · Heavy Crude Joined: May 25, 2008 Posts: 168

I could see fascism re-emerge in Europe.?

virgincrude · Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:46 am Post subject: Re: Today in Spain I got scared

SoylentGreen:

Hartmann · Coal Joined: Jun 15, 2008 Posts: 19

Fascim again ? i don´t think so, i think that is more about an confidence excess in the market and the power of the economy but the world is like a Titanic at full speed heading directly to the iceberg, and the inertia of the system makes changes very difficult and the "captains" think that it could´t sink.

they continue doing sweet predictions for the future and the endless and continuous grow of the economy, when in reality it can´t continue forever and the collapse can arrive at some point.