[JohnDenver]

Lot of angst here about the new regulation banning short selling. A couple of regulars got caught with their hand in the till. Apparently cube lost $7000 in two hours, and Tyler was moaning about "getting raped" etc. And that's just the ones we know about.

The funny thing is: Why didn't you guys see that one coming? You peakoil.com'ers are jabbering about preps 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you spend so much time prepping, why did you get blindsided? Why weren't you *prepared* for the government to seize control?

Personally, I think you got blinded by greed. You actually thought the market would continue to be governed by BAU rules, even in the midst of a national emergency. That's not a good assumption, and I can see a lot of you putting your foot in the same trap again.

You think you're going to make big money by hoarding gold, or oil etc. You're going to try to profiteer off the collapse, but you need to think hard about something:

Should we, the general public, allow greedy selfish hoarders like you to interfere with the public welfare? Should we allow you to handsomely profit by driving up prices for everyone else? I don't think so. Which is why it's pretty much inevitable that the government will step in and:

a) Confiscate gold and other precious metals
b) Confiscate and ration oil

These measures will render your so-called "investments" worthless, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

Just a friendly public service message for you folks who want to "prep". Don't get caught with gold and oil in your pants when the 800 pound gorilla knocks on your door.

[shady28]

I'm going to put words in JohnDenver's mouth here and speculate that he is primarily talking about people who buy futures (for oil) or buy gold stocks.

If oil continues to go up, I think it's very likely that only companies that intend to consume oil will be allowed to 'invest' in oil. Frankly, it should have been that way to begin with.

I don't think anyone 'legal' is going to knock on anyone's door and ask them to turn over the 50 gallon barrel of gasoline in their barn, or the 5 gallons in their garage, or even the 3000 gallons some kook put into a tank installed in the ground.

Gold, OTOH, may get confiscated as it was in the 30s. After all, history does tend to repeat.

[JohnDenver]

Not being snarky (though I know it sounds like I am), JD, I seriously want to know where you draw the line.

Shanny, shady's right. I'm talking about "investors" who are motivated by greed. People growing their own food is a positive thing. It should be encouraged in times of national crisis. People bailing out of paper money and trying to adopt gold or oil as a de facto currency is NOT a positive thing. It is a deadly serious threat to the welfare of the country, and will be controlled by any means necessary if it starts getting out of hand. I'm just pointing this out to the starry-eyed noobs who might be listening to roccland and cashmere about "loading up" on gold, or buying oil futures for 2015 etc. etc.

The assumption that The System is going to continue to be friendly to greed and profiteering is a very shaky assumption.

[seahorse]

JD,

I asked you in another thread and I will ask you here, if the gov't is not going to allow free markets to work, how will the markets ever solve the energy problem and move to alternative fuels? You've always preached the market will solve the problem, but it doesn't look like the markets will be allowed to work.

[Captain_Meh]

I may agree with you about the futility of hoarding, but I fail to see the connection between them and the people who got f*cked on their short positions. Let's be honest: they were (and continue to be) right about the discrepancy between the market valuation and actual value of many of these troubled firms. While its convenient to vilify the short sellers, its also naive and misguided as they help dampen downward market swings.

[TheDude]

Prefer your Julian Simon to your Che Guevara, JD.

Tyler lost out on SKF along with millions of others who were simply trying to make ends meet - pensioners and the like. To conflate him with hedge managers is really silly.

Should we, the general public, allow greedy selfish hoarders like you to interfere with the public welfare?

Again with the "we." Got a turd in your pocket, gaijin?

[eastbay]

Gold worthless? That's ridiculous.

Even if private possession is made illegal (again) for Americans (in the USA), the international bullion market will always remain strong.

[coyote]

I haven't lost anything because I don't have anything invested. But I'm still sickened by the turn this thing has taken. I don't know how anyone could care about this country and not be.

[seahorse]

JD,

Twice now I've asked you free market capitalism in the US will solve the PO problem since the US is intervening in free markets and not allowing them to work. You still have not answered. Since you refuse to discuss, you're presence here is obviously to be a troll.

Further, all those years ago, you attacked anyone who suggested that the Iraq was was a war for oil. Back then, I asked you if you didn't believe the war was a war for oil, why did the US invade. You have yet to answer that question either. Again, this shows your presence here is not to participate in the discussions, only to "troll."

[manu]

The Gov't and the Fed are making up things as they go along but they will fail. What's fair and unfair to the "scum" politicians and their buddies in the big corporations? Get used to the unfair as things will get alot worse before it gets better. The run on the banks has begun, except in a few cases, most will be by a phone call or a click of the mouse instead of a line outside of a bank.

[JohnDenver]

Twice now I've asked you free market capitalism in the US will solve the PO problem since the US is intervening in free markets and not allowing them to work. You still have not answered.

Seahorse, I'm not avoiding your question. I'm just busy and haven't had time to respond.

The answer to your question is that it's not a black or white issue. I'm a capitalist, but not a market fundamentalist. I believe in strictly regulated capitalism for the benefit of Main Street, not Gordon Gecko capitalism for the benefit of Wall Street.

Clearly capitalism is not going to solve our energy problems if
-Frauds are allowed to extend and sell garbage loans
-Short-sellers are allowed to sequentially destroy companies in pirate raids
-The banking system is allowed to collapse
-Fearmongers spark a panic leading to a loss of confidence in paper money
-Speculators are allowed to turn oil and gold into speculative profit centers

My ideal is a capitalist system governed, directed and supervised by a strong technically-savvy bureaucracy, as in France or Japan. China is also a good model in some ways. The Chinese recently completed a plant to build modular components for AP1000 nuclear reactors in 11 months.

I don't have any problem with state-directed capitalism, and I definitely don't have any problem with the state quashing speculators, financial interests or hoarders when their behavior interferes with the interests of industry and the general public.

So where do you stand on this issue? It seems a lot of people here are suddenly standing up for capitalism, even though they've been saying for years that capitalism is the problem.

[seahorse]

JD,

There are two essential groups of Poiliers. Those that believe the problem can be managed and dealt with, and those that don't. Breaking it down further, those that believe it can be dealt with fall into two general categories: (1) it can only be dealt with via a gov't driven solution (Hirsh report to the DOE) and (2) those who believe that capital markets will deal with it absent gov't intervention, because as energy prices rise, alternatives become viable, people conserve etc.

I'm one who believes it would take gov't action, in additon to a working free market, to solve the problem. I believe that gov't intervention is necessary simply because of the scope of the problem and bc there is so much gov't intervention in the energy markets already, i.e. drilling permits, building permits, fuel regulations, fuel taxes, subsidies, etc. I generally subscribe to the Hirsh analysis regarding peak liquid fuels. I also like Boone Pickens idea to move to CNG for commerical vehicles, but as he admits, it will take gov't intervention to get things moving.

So, do I think PO will be solved? I have serious doubts for two reasons. All problems are solvable if people recognize the problem and then work to solve it. Unfortunatley, despite all the publicity on PO as of late, we see no recognition of the problem by the gov't and neither of the candidates is recommending any real plan, other than debating off-shore drilling. Both Pickens and Simmons are very critical of the lack of leadership being shown by McCain and Obama, and I share that criticism. In the end, I simply don't see the US gov't ever taking real action to solve the problem. We can't even take action to address our bankrupt entitlement programs, which are far easier to solve than PO, so I have little faith the gov't will ever act in any meaningful way on PO. I hope to be proven wrong.

The other problem with the US solving PO is its ongoing credit crisis and move away from capitalism. The credit crisis is affecting, for example, loans for new coal plants. So, our credit crisis is affecting the financial ability of private industry to initiate new projects at a time when we need them. Further, instead of using what capital we have left to do a "Marshall Energy Plan" we will waste it all bailing out profiteers and, at the same time, destroy our free market capital system that we need to operate as a free system if it is to react and help solve, in conjunction with the gov't, the PO/energy issues confronting the US.

PO is really a US driving problem, since it is the overconsumption by the US that is driving the issue. As you mention, there are countries out there that are much more effective at dealing with energy issues, and you name two of them, but the world needs the US to change in order to solve the issue. As Simmons says, the easiest way to deal with PO is conservation, which the US refuses to even consider right now. There is one caveat to all this and that is it seems with China's growing demand, that even if the US suddenly got responsible, China may become the world's energy problem.

That's how I see things right now. Basically saying that these bailouts and market intervention by the gov't which hurt capitalism, not help it, only make me more pessimistic that the US or the world will ever deal with PO and thus we will walk into the PO problem with too little too late to deal with it. I personally do not believe we have reached PO yet. Most models seem to suggest its another 3 years away, but, that three years will be here before the next president leaves office, so, there's not much time left to deal with the issue and, we will probably be broke when it arrives.

[Ferretlover]

My goodness, JohnDenver! All I "hear" in your post is an extreme case of jealousy. I suspect you are going to be one of those...the word, collaborator comes to mind; or one those mousey little men who hide behind pillars taking notes on who has what and then reports them to the [s]Gestapo[/s] law enforcement.
Planning ahead to be a zombie horde warlord, are we?

[jboogy]

John Denver wrote

The funny thing is: Why didn't you guys see that one coming? You peakoil.com'ers are jabbering about preps 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you spend so much time prepping, why did you get blindsided? Why weren't you *prepared* for the government to seize control?

Why are you painting ALL us .com'ers with the same brush? I don't know many here who are in wall st. to any serious degree.
To our credit I believe the majority of us have shown tremendous foresight as far as prep and prudent investment. Most of us have been predicting exactly what has happened, to one degree or another. So Tyler didn't see the ban on short-selling coming and now we're all unprepared, greedy profiteers? As a matter of fact I can't think of any other group of people on the planet that have been more correct about what was coming than this bunch here. Saved my freakin' bacon.
Tyler is Tyler and not to be confused with the rest of us, OK? And a lot of the people buying gold are buying it as a medium to replace dollars when we eventually get around to using dollars to light the fireplace. I've been hearing the goldbugs telling people to buy physical gold for a while now, not futures contracts as an investment, but actual gold coins, there is a difference. Yes there are precious metals speculators, but I believe most of us are doing it for reasons other than wealth aquisition.
And no one who isn't a millionaire is going to hoard crude oil, where do you get this sh*t? How many know how to distill gasoline from crude? Nevermind having the space and permits required to store the tanker or tanks. And I'm sure you're aware refined gasoline will only last 9 months with sta-bill, max. As far as some of your other silly assertions.

the government will step in and:
a) Confiscate gold and other precious metals
b) Confiscate and ration oil

This isn't 1930 or whatever, I'm not going to go into the specific reasons but gold confiscation is not going to happen, and if oil gets really scarce the federal government will not have to confiscate it from me,( I don't think I've ever owned a drop of crude oil), they will simply tell the oil companies that their reserves now belong to uncle sam, and if they have a problem with that then they can just shut-up and hand over ALL their assets. Seriously, are you for real?

People bailing out of paper money and trying to adopt gold or oil as a de facto currency is NOT a positive thing.

This is ridiculous, I can't imagine anyone handing out their krugerrands as long as paper still has value, it's almost too absurd. The gold is a means of commerce/barter AFTER the currency collapses, dingleberry. And oil as a substitute currency? I can't even get my brain around that. Maybe gasoline, but then we are deep into road warrior stuff aren't we? Whole new set of problems and things to think about.

I believe in strictly regulated capitalism for the benefit of Main Street.

I can amen that. Semi-socialist capitalism has clearly won the war of ideas. Unfettered, unregulated capitalism has clearly lost, it only remains to be seen how much influence the totally no interference free-market psychos still wield amongst our elected officials.

[JohnDenver]

PO is really a US driving problem, since it is the overconsumption by the US that is driving the issue.

It's interesting that we agree on this point. In that context, I'm curious what precisely you mean when you talk about "solving PO". What exactly constitutes a solution in your mind?

Personally, I don't see any impediment to solving the US driving problem entirely by conservation. Even today, a huge impact could be made by, for example:
1) Jamming people into existing vehicles by mandatory car pooling
2) Shopping-pooling (i.e. one person shopping for multiple households)
3) Telecommuting/Telepresence in all cases where it is possible

That's a huge chunk of oil right there, and it doesn't involve any large investment. So I don't buy into the Hirsch idea that we need 20 years and massive investment to prepare. Hirsch is operating under the assumption that we must maintain car culture business-as-usual. He devotes no attention whatsoever to conservation or changes in lifestyle.

[seahorse]

Personally, I don't see any impediment to solving the US driving problem entirely by conservation. Even today, a huge impact could be made by, for example:
1) Jamming people into existing vehicles by mandatory car pooling
2) Shopping-pooling (i.e. one person shopping for multiple households)
3) Telecommuting/Telepresence in all cases where it is possible

Even if the above listed conservations measures do the trick, the problem is, all of the above would require gov't legislation. In my opinion, there's zero chance of getting that type of legislation passed, thus, I'm a pessimist.

I therefore subscribe to Michael Klare's opinion that PO will be solved by the world through resource wars. In wars, Marshall law could be declared by the President which would mandate the above conservation measures.