[hope_full]

The masses know something's afoot, but they seem to be expecting "just another recession."

I've been reading the posts here at peak oil and the posts where people explain what they think comes next and some of them are quite severe and doomerish and even bordering on Mad Max, end-of-the-USA kinda stuff.

Does anyone here hold out hope that this is another dip (albeit a severe one) and that USA could dodge the financial apocalypse bullet one more time?

[RSFB]

What worries me is not what happens during the recession. That's pretty much unavoidable now, there will be more unemployment than the mainstream expects, but that's a given.

What worries me is what happens if the economies try to recover. I'm worried that not enough investment in energy (both renewables and otherwise) will happen during the recession, which means the economy will bounce against an energy wall on the way up. Rinse, lather, repeat.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Does anyone here hold out hope that this is another dip (albeit a severe one) and that USA could dodge the financial apocalypse bullet one more time?

We've reached peak oil. Growth is over. The best case scenario is that, after a deep depression there will be a temporary, short-lived recovery; but that "recovery" will be a blip which will be decimated (once again) by the realities of peak oil.

The only thing giving me hope is that after a massive dieoff, the planet will once again be in a position to achieve equilibrium. But this will take at least one decade from Great Depression II. That decade of transition will be brutal.

[tex123]

Yes, I wonder about this often. I don't see how things will turn around but then I never saw the severe drop in the price of oil coming either. One has to wonder how bad it is for China, India, et al if demand destruction has dropped oil from 140/barrel to less than 60. Opec can't turn the spigots off fast enough to save their butts with the current scenerio. I thought oil had nowhere to go but up.

So with unemployment on the rise, auto makers circling the drain, banks going belly up, credit drying up, foreclosures reaching unprecidented levels, and the addition of 2 Trillion or so newly printed toilet paper set to flood the economy I don't see any way out of this easily but I have been wrong before.

[Madpaddy]

Things are bad and it is hard not to be depressed. Such difficult times always make me think of the song Danny Boy.

Try not to cry when you hear it.

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3 ... re=related

[GeneralGreen]

Peak Oil is now in the rear view mirror. "2006" Yes as one poster said..The days of growth are over! With that in mind this cirisis is only going to go from bad to worse..Even economist who dont even mention peak oil say the crisis is going to get out of hand and we will in 4 yrs find ourselves in a depression.

[SuperTico]

It's totally over. Yhe Mpyre is crumbling ( hear it ?)
Most just don't se it yet.
OOOOOOOOOOOO Britney shaves her cooter and a PETA girl dumped a bag of flour on LiNzzzee Lohans brainless head OMG! OMG!
GET READY !

[SpringCreekFarm]

I think we are now on a plateau. One that gives us a chance to make things a little easier but this will only happen in areas that have that opportunity. It may only happen once. Some areas certainly are doomed. In my situation I'm hoping that I can keep my job for at least another 2 years while I get a plan going for what I'm going to do if I lose my job.

People that lean toward independence from the umbilical cord of society take times like this to enhance their preparations. Staying flexible may be the key skill that one needs to have the best chance at getting through it. Instead of expensive energy being the issue at the moment, we have the financial crisis taking us down instead. Now is the time that you plan your next move in life whether it be starting a business that has a good chance of sustainability, or getting into a trade or some other important job.

Alternatively, you could give up and just wait for what happens. It's all up to the individual.

I think there is a possibility that things won't be that bad if more people get off their backsides and as Pops says..."Make a plan and pork it".

[r101958]

Here is a novel thought for all:

It isn't that 'Opec can't turn the spigots off fast enough to save their butts'. It is that they told us they had to reduce production or risk destroying the capability to continue to produce oil from their aging super giant fields. A perfect example of the tail wagging the dog.

Has anybody thought that this might be the real cause of all that is going on? That TPTB have known for many years (decades actually) that this day was coming? That this may be the true reason for our economies being built on fiat money and bubble 'growth'? That this is the reason for the recent financial consolidation and excessive debt buildup? That in reality, because world per capita energy production had flatlined in 1979, excessive debt was the only thing capable of propping up our economies and allowing the illusion of growth?

[mos6507]

Has anybody thought that this might be the real cause of all that is going on? That TPTB have known for many years (decades actually) that this day was coming?

[patience]

Never believed in conspiracies, personally. But stupidity I believe in, wholeheartedly. And the bigger the group, the more stupidly they behave, as in companies, and countries.

Ignorance can be fixed, but stupid is forever.

[pedalling_faster]

Rinse, lather, repeat.

if you just project recent trend lines, in terms of -
* war
* food shortage
* species die-off
* water shortage
* unemployment related to not being able to use your home as an ATM, also related to the cumulative decisions to stop making things in the US
* "etcetera"

the future looks like more of the same. (self evident statement of fact, i suppose)

add in cascading failures of existing systems, related to Peak Oil, and, in conventional terms, "it don't look good".

if people had trouble getting along when resources were plenty, what reason is there to think they will get along when resources are scarce ?

more than a shortage of liquid fuels, we're seeing the effects of a shortage of - Cooperation.

[r101958]

I don't consider myself a member of the conspiracy tin foil league however, I am not a real believer in coincidences either.

What is the general consensus here about what would happen if the gov't announced that PE (peak energy) was a reality and that we could expect a 3 to 5 % reduction in energy availability from here on out?

What would be the reaction of the populace? Moreover, what would be the reaction of the markets and current debt driven economy?

All this doesn't really 'need' to be seen as a conspiracy. It can be seen as 'delaying the inevitable' in the hopes that some miracle will happen or some other energy source will be found to take up where hydrocarbons leave off.

[RdSnt]

I regard that current attempts to cover over the financial disaster we are in as the WCOTC "Willy Coyote Over The Cliff" moment. You know that moment when he is suspended in mid-air, just before he looks down and then plummets.

The money and other rescue efforts that are flooding the markets represents that moment of anti-gravity, that is delaying the time when we need to act to protect ourselves and mitigate the enormous problems that are looming.
The longer the anti-gravity is applied, then longer we (as a collective society) continue on "business as usual", the worse the decent will be and the greater will be the acceleration applied.

[Heineken]

Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse.

Try as I might, I see no evidence whatsoever for a countervailing trend.

[Don35]

I regard that current attempts to cover over the financial disaster we are in as the WCOTC "Willy Coyote Over The Cliff" moment. You know that moment when he is suspended in mid-air, just before he looks down and then plummets.

The money and other rescue efforts that are flooding the markets represents that moment of anti-gravity, that is delaying the time when we need to act to protect ourselves and mitigate the enormous problems that are looming.
The longer the anti-gravity is applied, then longer we (as a collective society) continue on "business as usual", the worse the decent will be and the greater will be the acceleration applied.

Yes, I think so as well. The longer we prop everything up the harder and faster the fall will be when it collapses!

[EnergyUnlimited]

I don't consider myself a member of the conspiracy tin foil league however, I am not a real believer in coincidences either.

What is the general consensus here about what would happen if the gov't announced that PE (peak energy) was a reality and that we could expect a 3 to 5 % reduction in energy availability from here on out?

What would be the reaction of the populace? Moreover, what would be the reaction of the markets and current debt driven economy?

All this doesn't really 'need' to be seen as a conspiracy. It can be seen as 'delaying the inevitable' in the hopes that some miracle will happen or some other energy source will be found to take up where hydrocarbons leave off.

Peoples at power are about as stupid or clever as anyone else.

They have failed to foresee unfolding events until it was too late.
Even if they understood that infinite growth in finite world is impossible they still hoped for physical constraints to strike in distant future and certainly after recent election in United States.
If they only were in control, unfolding chaos would be postponed few months.
Failure to postpone this chaos is an overwhelming evidence of failure of man in control set of beliefs.

So governments have miserably failed.
Their overall view was that technology will save us in any circumstances.
These hopes are proving groundless right now.

[pedalling_faster]

Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse.

get worse ? the disintegration of a system that supports 750+ military bases around the world, is not necessarily bad, or worse.

the slowing down of a system built largely on American technologies, which pollute the F*ck out of the place we need to live, is not bad either.

if there is a Gaia, or a God, he/she/they might consider the changes we're witnessing a genuine cause for celebration.

an an example of the American technologies that pollute,
#1 the citizens of Sunnyvale had their drinking water polluted by AMD. a big class action suit in the '80's or early '90's. now that pollution has merely been exported.
#2 the surfboard industry.

it is such a farce to hear web announcers talk about their surfing events being green, considering the way surfboards are manufactured. polyurethane foam, TDI (where "I" stands for isocyanate) - 2 things you don't want in your biosphere, 2 things that have been exported with the closure of Clark Foam (they made the millions of foam blanks used by the surfboard industry, and were located in Irvine, CA).

i would be just as happy with slower silicon built using organic circuit boards, spectating surf contests surfed on wood boards, instead of epoxy or polyurethane.

but less-polluting electronics, an American foreign policy that practices the peace it preaches, and wood surfboards, i guess, are less profitable.

[mkwin]

The masses know something's afoot, but they seem to be expecting "just another recession."

I've been reading the posts here at peak oil and the posts where people explain what they think comes next and some of them are quite severe and doomerish and even bordering on Mad Max, end-of-the-USA kinda stuff.

Does anyone here hold out hope that this is another dip (albeit a severe one) and that USA could dodge the financial apocalypse bullet one more time?

Absolutely.

We are having a cyclical recession. This one is particularly bad but in historic terms not unprecedented. The economy will recover unless peak oil hits.

Despite what some may say, we have not yet reached peak oil. The production figures in late 2007 and 2008 confirm that fact.

It is perfectly plausible that we may undergo a long plateau and an organised shift to a low carbon energy system. Nothing is set in stone and anyone who tells you it is are delusional.

[Concerned1]

Since people want to know what's going to happen in the future, I'll tell you. No, I'm not a psychic, far from it, but if anyone will just take a few minutes to look at things objectively, not through the lenses of what we want to happen, but what may come whether we like it or not, it's not too difficult to project the near future. Trends are the answer. Looking at past and current trends, barring some unforseen catastrophe (and there will be plenty of those - we are people after all), this is likely where the world will be in the next couple of years:

Things will go on, at least in the near term, pretty much as they've always gone on. It is a downward trend, yes, but a slow decline. SSDD.

About oil, even if there is a peak in the production of oil someday, most 'experts' predict that won't come for at least 20 years and others, like Exxon (not that we can expect anything like objectivity from them), are saying we have enough to last several hundred more years. As always, and this is a truism that applies in every single area of life, very likely the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We would all do well to remember that fact. It applies to everything. So forget about peak oil. It's not a problem now and won't anytime soon. Period.

About the economy, we've dug ourselves into a very deep hole, but, by and large, things haven't changed that much for the majority of people. A minority of people are hurting, sadly, but most people are doing just fine, thank you, and will continue to do just fine.

The U.S. will continue to print money just as Zimbabwe has done, but, unlike Zimbabwe, it won't do much damage here no matter how much they print. That's because dollars are the currency of choice on the international scene and because of that no major country is going to decouple at any cost no matter what. See China for an example. Their economy is teetering principally because of the dollar and yet they continue to buy our bad debt and will continue to do so.

In other words, the economies of the world have accepted the dollar, despite all it's flaws, as the international currency knowing that it has no intrinsic value in and of itself, knowing that the U.S. is simply printing paper, knowing that there is nothing behind it besides rhetoric. So the dollar has become, not cash but a type of credit. As long as countries continue to accept this situation, things will go on just as they always have. As I said earlier, it is a downward trend, but a slow decline.

The only real variable in all of this are the people themselves. By and large American's are an angry, unpredictable people. Not something intrinsic in themselves, rather it's a mentality created and fed by the ratings loving media. Without that unrelenting negativity, that constant desire to find the bad in every single situation, without that mob mentality which serves principally the interests of the media, attitudes would stablize, people would moderate, things would cool down and the world situation would finally improve. But the media has built itself a very powerful fortress. And so things have gone from bad to worse and will continue to do so. Another prediction, unfortunately. And in that may be the knot which will unravel for us all.