[Cashmere]

You're in charge. You can allocate money in the U.S. any way you want.

I'd like to know 2 things:
1. What's your best-guess Peak Oil time line, meaning, when do you think production decline sets in and we exit this plateau, and what do you see the annual decline rate at?

2. Where do you spend the money.

My answers:
1. Within 12 months, likely (75%), within 24 months, very probable (90%), within 36 months, almost certain (99% confidence interval). Decline rate of 10%, meaning oil production is cut in half no later than 2018.

My plan would be this:
Cut military spending 90%. Bring everybody home.
Cut Domestic spending 50%.
Raise gas tax 2 dollars per gallon.

Take all revenue thus generated and allocate it thusly:
80% - establishing a non-liquid fuel based agriculture throughout the U.S..
20% - establishing a negative population growth curve - free voluntary sterilizations, free birth control, and, most importantly, the removal of all publicly funded aide currently directed toward those who are breeding who can't afford to raise their own children, except for basic food and health. I'd implement a "welfare handout only with long term birth control" policy as well. In other words, you put your hand out for taxpayer money, you get a long term birth control shot first.

My logic is straightforward - the most pressing need will be food, so ensure food can be grown in sufficient amounts.

The cause of the problem is too many people, so work toward lowering the population using both positive incentives and punishment; the days of ad libitum breeding are over.

I note that, in my view, any money spent on "wind, solar, hydro" and similar things is, for the most part, going to be misdirected. The problem is not going to hit us as an electrical generation problem, and electricity does little to grow food.

Please state your premises and your plan.

[SILENTTODD]

Cashmere: not that I disagree with any of your proposals. But you need to advance them to the Obama and McCain campaigns. Good Luck!

[hardtootell]

Cashmere, you got my vote! Not only do you have an excellent grasp of the problem, your solutions seem measured and well thought out.

Unfortunately 99% of the population is asleep. Most have a depth of about 1 mm and no courage to face the sorts of problems that are going to take them "off the cliff"

If you had an hour on prime time to explain it, with the help of the world's best marketting and production firm, i'd still give it less than 1/1E6 chance of being adopted.

"men argue, nature acts"
Voltaire

[like_the_dinosaurs]

I think cashmere meant it as a hypothetical question.

My brother and I have spent many hours discussing this very situation and we arrived at the conclusion that at the minimum you would cause a depression because of the sudden and fierce retraction of the economic output. On the other hand you have collapse so i guess it's the best bet.

[Cashmere]

Cashmere, you got my vote! Not only do you have an excellent grasp of the problem, your solutions seem measured and well thought out.
Unfortunately 99% of the population is asleep. Most have a depth of about 1 mm and no courage to face the sorts of problems that are going to take them "off the cliff"
If you had an hour on prime time to explain it, with the help of the world's best marketting and production firm, i'd still give it less than 1/1E6 chance of being adopted.
"men argue, nature acts" ~Voltaire

Thank you. Very kind.

I'll tell you what. If I had an hour, I'd convert a few million people.

Sure sure, the spin idiots would "debunk" me and do damage control, but I know two things . . .
There is a huge contingent of people out there that knows something is horribly wrong. They want to know. Maybe only a million or two, but they're out there.

[uncontrolled immodesty]
I'm much more persuasive in person than in writing. With all due respect to Campbell, Hirsch, et al, our spokesmen, for the most part, are geniuses who present the issue in a manner that barely exceeds the emotion required to teach integration by parts.

You give me an hour and I guarantee you that the municipal waste water systems of every major city in the U.S. would be overwhelmed within 5 minutes of my concluding statement, and every grain of rice on every shelf in every store would be gone by the end of the next day.[/uncontrolled immodesty]

[Daniel_Plainview]

I'm much more persuasive in person than in writing. With all due respect to Campbell, Hirsch, et al, our spokesmen, for the most part, are geniuses who present the issue in a manner that barely exceeds the emotion required to teach integration by parts.
You give me an hour and I guarantee you that the municipal waste water systems of every major city in the U.S. would be overwhelmed within 5 minutes of my concluding statement, and every grain of rice on every shelf in every store would be gone by the end of the next day.

You should make a video! (ASAP!)

[Cashmere]

I'm much more persuasive in person than in writing. With all due respect to Campbell, Hirsch, et al, our spokesmen, for the most part, are geniuses who present the issue in a manner that barely exceeds the emotion required to teach integration by parts.
You give me an hour and I guarantee you that the municipal waste water systems of every major city in the U.S. would be overwhelmed within 5 minutes of my concluding statement, and every grain of rice on every shelf in every store would be gone by the end of the next day.

You should make a video! (ASAP!)

My problem is very simple: I've searched diligently for the last few years, but, despite my assiduous pursuit, I have not been able to locate a solitary reason why I should help "humanity".

You often hear people discussing "preserving the human race" or some such thing. Like jet a few dozen people off to Mars before Earth collapses.

Why? What is the intrinsic value in humanity that makes it worth saving?

With a few exceptions, humans are vicious, destructive, and evil, and, as they aptly wrote it in the scrolls in Planet of the Apes - "he will murder his brother to take his land."

I've never doubted I could. I've recently lost any delusions I ever had as to why I would.

[ReverseEngineer]

20% - establishing a negative population growth curve - free voluntary sterilizations, free birth control, and, most importantly, the removal of all publicly funded aide currently directed toward those who are breeding who can't afford to raise their own children, except for basic food and health. I'd implement a "welfare handout only with long term birth control" policy as well. In other words, you put your hand out for taxpayer money, you get a long term birth control shot first.

"Long term Birth Control Shot"? We have one of these? Can you just state the obvious and call for mass sterilization of poor people? LOL.

Of course, Sara Palin's bastard granddaughter is OK, since Sara has enough money to support the child?

Let's forget for a minute about the children of the desperately poor and outrageously rich for a moment, and focus just on the average family making $70K a year. Now that you can no longer afford your mortgage, you should head into a Government clinic for Sterilization?

Sorry Cash, the plan is absurd and can't work. You really think your ex-GM worker, Suburban Homeowner, SUV driver is going to walk into a clinic and have his seminal vesicles snipped?

This seems to me to be this plan: If you happened to luck out and were born into the right family and had money before the crash, you get to reproduce."

Thing is here, about EVERYONE really has no money now, because its all worthless paper anyhow! Nice middle class folks who once were good taxpaying citizens are unemployed. Your viewpoint clearly is to try to keep poor black people from reproducing, but frankly all the white folks are just as poor now!

Black, White, Asian it doesn't MATTER anymore. We ALL are down the same toilet, the Chinese are going to get it just as bad as we do, and the poor black folks here will get it also, but they have been getting it for a long time so its an old story there.

Remember Tom Joad. He was WHITE. He lost his farm like every other Okie in the Great Depression. So also will all the nice White Folks lose thier suburban homes in the GARGANTUAN Depression. You wanna sterilize them too I guess?
Reverse Engineer

[Cashmere]

"Long term Birth Control Shot"? We have one of these? Can you just state the obvious and call for mass sterilization of poor people? LOL.

Seriously, why waste time and space with that trash?

What I suggested is rather simple; if you are so impoverished that you can't feed/cloth/house yourself, then it would be insane to have children.

Here's a link on the 3 month birth control shot:You want handouts? You getta the shot.

Here's my plan:
When presented with a person who cannot feed herself, give her food, but prevent her from creating a baby that she will not be able to feed.

Here's your implied plan:
When presented with a person who cannot feed herself, give her food, and allow her to have children, and then give them food, and then allow them to have children, and then give them food . . .

What you're missing in your tangential rant of "HE'S TRYING TO STERILIZE POOR PEOPLE" is the fact that we have two options:
Restrict breeding and feed everyone, or,
Don't restrict breeding and people are guaranteed to starve.

And so propose your plan. We'd all love to hear how you are going to:
Feed everybody who wants food, while
allowing them to breed freely, while
oil is depleting.

I know I'm on the edge of my seat.

[cube]

Do nothing.

Let nature take care of the rest.

This planet just wasn't meant for 6.6 Billion people.
No amount of technological - energy efficiency - conservation - government program is going to change that.

THAT is the inconvenient truth that Al Gore and all those "Lear Jet Liberals" can't admit too.
The rise of the LearJet liberal

Forget Limousine Liberals. It appears as though we have entered the brave new world of the LearJet Liberal. And the spokesman for this motley crue just might be John Travolta. Recently, Travolta stood somberly at a British airport and admonished all of his fans to "do their bit" to counter the scourge of global warming. Carbon emissions, the actor said, were such a threat that if every member of society did not do as much as possible to trim his or her polution footprint, human beings might have to look to dome cities on other planets as a way to escape climate change. Then, without a dash of irony, Scientologist-turned-scientist disappeared into the cockpit of his customized Boeing 707 jet and fired up all four Pratt & Whitney jet engines and took to the sky.

[ReverseEngineer]

Here's my plan:
When presented with a person who cannot feed herself, give her food, but prevent her from creating a baby that she will not be able to feed.

Here's your implied plan:
When presented with a person who cannot feed herself, give her food, and allow her to have children, and then give them food, and then allow them to have children, and then give them food . . .


What you're missing in your tangential rant of "HE'S TRYING TO STERILIZE POOR PEOPLE" is the fact that we have two options . . .

Restrict breeding and feed everyone, or,
Don't restrict breeding and people are guaranteed to starve.

And so propose your plan. We'd all love to hear how you are going to . . .

Feed everybody who wants food, while
allowing them to breed freely, while
oil is depleting.

I know I'm on the edge of my seat.

Nope, my "Implied Plan" is nothing like that at all. I figure nature will take care of the problem pretty well, people will just starve if there are too many of them.

I do not place myself in the role of GOD and tell anyone they can or cannot reproduce based on their financial means at a given moment. If it turns out long term their progeny cannot survive because the parents could not provide, so be it. I am a thorough Darwinist this way. I have no problem whatsoever with the idea of exposing an infant on a mountaintop because you cannot provide for it, I have no problem wit the idea of aborting an infant either. Choices individual people make based on their own economics.

Sorry Cash, you cannot get more absolute than I am with respect to human life. I just do not place the responsibility for the choice in the hands of the government, while you do. You want some kind of means test for having children, its absurd and could not be enforced. I will let nature take its course. Children will die if the parents cannot support them. That is the way it IS. Its the way of nature. I accept this as the nature of life on earth, and I do not inject myself into determining who lives and who dies by a means test. That is what you are doing.

Reverse Engineer

[Cashmere]

Nope, my "Implied Plan" is nothing like that at all. I figure nature will take care of the problem pretty well, people will just starve if there are too many of them.

I do not place myself in the role of GOD and tell anyone they can or cannot reproduce based on their financial means at a given moment. If it turns out long term their progeny cannot survive because the parents could not provide, so be it. I am a thorough Darwinist this way. I have no problem whatsoever with the idea of exposing an infant on a mountaintop because you cannot provide for it, I have no problem wit the idea of aborting an infant either. Choices individual people make based on their own economics.

Sorry Cash, you cannot get more absolute than I am with respect to human life. I just do not place the responsibility for the choice in the hands of the government, while you do. You want some kind of means test for having children, its absurd and could not be enforced. I will let nature take its course. Children will die if the parents cannot support them. That is the way it IS. Its the way of nature. I accept this as the nature of life on earth, and I do not inject myself into determining who lives and who dies by a means test. That is what you are doing.

Well, thank you for making your thoughts clear - I appreciate that.

In essence then, here is one difference between our thoughts on this - please correct anything with which you disagree:

1. If a woman came to me, as the government, with a child in her arms, on the verge of starvation, I, as the government, would be happy to give her and her child food provided that she first received a shot so she could not make another child.

2. You, as the government, would allow her and her baby to starve.

And in your view, my system would be wrong because I would be "playing God" by "administering a means test" for her reproduction, while your system would be right because you would apply no means test for her reproduction and she, and her baby, would starve.

I gotta say, that is one of the top 5 most bizarre positions I have seen somebody take.

Ever, in all my life.

I do, however, laud you for making it clear.

[Cog]

What would I do?

1) $2 gallon fuel tax with proceeds to be used to maintain existing roads. Raise this by 50 cents a year, forever.

2) No federal funding of new roads and bridges. Only maintenance of existing infrastructure

3) No federal matching funds to states for transportation unless those funds are ear-marked for mass transit

4) 50% cut in military spending.

5) Closing of all foreign military bases.

6) Exploit ANWR and any oil derived from it would go into an expanded SPR.

7) Tax credits for passive solar installation and mandates on passive solar on any new construction.

Mandated fuel efficient vehicles. Raise this standard by 5 mpg per year. Starting with 35 mpg 2010.

9) Tax credit for childless couples

10) Term limits for US senators and Congress. 2 terms a piece and no more


Its nice to be the king.

[Cashmere]

What would I do?

1) $2 gallon fuel tax with proceeds to be used to maintain existing roads. Raise this by 50 cents a year, forever.

2) No federal funding of new roads and bridges. Only maintenance of existing infrastructure

3) No federal matching funds to states for transportation unless those funds are ear-marked for mass transit

4) 50% cut in military spending.

5) Closing of all foreign military bases.

6) Exploit ANWR and any oil derived from it would go into an expanded SPR.

7) Tax credits for passive solar installation and mandates on passive solar on any new construction.

Mandated fuel efficient vehicles. Raise this standard by 5 mpg per year. Starting with 35 mpg 2010.

9) Tax credit for childless couples

10) Term limits for US senators and Congress. 2 terms a piece and no more


Its nice to be the king.

Cog - nice input.

Can you provide your PO timelines and decline rate?

[Cog]

Regarding peak oil time-line and depletion rates.

I take a more conservative viewpoint on global depletion rates of around 2-3% a year, rather then the 10 % that I see on the board once in a while. I'm aware that some fields are much worse off but we have to balance that with new discoveries and younger fields.

This plateau that we are currently on tells me we have reached peak oil now or possibly back in 2006. I do not anticipate any future discoveries balancing the current depletion that is now on-going.

Even a 2-3% depletion rate starting now, in a global sense, will cause a great deal of chaos.

[Ronin]

I agree with your decline rate and overall plan Cashmere. One idea that I had that might go into the mix is cut military production sure but keep all of your personal on the payroll, so that they could be trained and used in non-liquid fuel based agriculture thought the US.

I would do the same for my country, great thread.

[ReverseEngineer]

1. If a woman came to me, as the government, with a child in her arms, on the verge of starvation, I, as the government, would be happy to give her and her child food provided that she first received a shot so she could not make another child.

2. You, as the government, would allow her and her baby to starve.

And in your view, my system would be wrong because I would be "playing God" by "administering a means test" for her reproduction, while your system would be right because you would apply no means test for her reproduction and she, and her baby, would starve.

I gotta say, that is one of the top 5 most bizarre positions I have seen somebody take.

Ever, in all my life.

I do, however, laud you for making it clear.

Glad I made the Top 5, I would be curious as to what the other 4 had to say about this though

You would have to know exactly what I do to understand the depth of my Darwinism. I select children who can succeed based on genetic attributes, and then I teach them what they need to know to succeed.

If you cannot make it, you wash out. That is the way it IS. I don't have to make the decision, the failure to survive the environment makes the decision for me. Its VERY tough, they almost ALL wash out. So it goes in the society at large, almost all will wash out, only a few will survive. I just watch it happen, I don't need to play God here. Nature does the work, always.

Reverse Engineer

[Nano]

Restrict breeding and feed everyone, or,
Don't restrict breeding and people are guaranteed to starve.

Here is the flaw in your argument. There is no such guarantee. In fact, I think it's more likely and preferable that the surplus population die in battle or in labour camps, like the good old days.

What I'm more concerned with if it is feasible to have large scale conventional warfare what with all the nuclear stockpiles lying around. If there were no nuclear weapons, peak oil would not be a serious problem, or at least much less serious than it might be.

People have been going to war because of overpopulation probably since the dawn of the species. There is nothing wrong with that. It's the nuclear factor that is the real problem in our day and age.

So part of my solution would be to reintroduce the draft and tentatively begin a new round of colonisation and invasion, taking care not to cross the outher major powers.

[Ludi]

I have no way of implementing a plan for the nation/world, so it doesn't seem useful to devise one.

How do folks intend to get their plans implemented? If you don't plan to get it implemented, isn't it just a bunch of empty words?

[Ludi]

I select children who can succeed based on genetic attributes, and then I teach them what they need to know to succeed.

In your fantasy scenario as Little Dictator you do.

How do you plan to achieve this kind of power and why do you think anyone would stand for it?