[quote=Damnthematrix]I agree with you Tony… but I think things in NZ and AUS are still a lot different from the US. Our housing bubble is just bursting now (I think), and out economy (at least on this side of the ditch!) is still cruising, even though there are dark signs of rising unemployment and rising interest rates making their presence felt.Never forget this is mainly an American site…
For anyone interested, we heard Nicole Foss speak the other day, I wrote it up on my blog http://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/a-century-of-challenge/
Mike[/quote]Indeed, this is a US site and it’s slightly irritating (though that’s still too strong a word) that most of the sites I frequent only tip their hats to the rest of the world occasionally. However, in this global economy and global civilisation, most countries have some impact on many others. But when I hear people talk of the positive changes they see, I have to shake my head (once I stop beating it against a brick wall). There is no cause for optimism at all, in my view, except a glimmer that enough people might get angry enough to wrench our societies back from the robber barons.
I think you’re right, the housing bubble is bursting, but it’s taking a long time, at least in NZ, where it’s taking an undulating downward slope. The unemployment rate fell slightly in the last quarter (we only get data quarterly here) but the employment rate didn’t budge. And part-time work is growing, within that fixed size pie, so the economy isn’t really improving.
I always find Nicole Foss interesting and look forward to hearing her at the Australasian Permaculture Convergence in April, in New Zealand.
Tony
jrf, I like Peter Schiff but he does say things that I don’t always get. For instance, he says on the multiplier effect that the rich create jobs, and the middle class spend allowing those funds to float about within the economy. All I can say is you have to have both.
I know this about business, banker loans, and corporate balance sheets. They go to the cheapest slave labor they can find world wide. No problem, and I understand completely. However, if you sell X amount of Nike’s in American then as a government, representing the people of the United States, I believe we have every right to expect something in return for such a great business model. Whatever that combination entails it should be more than building a store front, filling it with shoes, and salesmen. I personally would like to see the chain of business expanded a bit more than, unloading cargo at port, transporting to store, stock shelves, and then sell shoes.
Here’s what I would do. I have coal in the ground, I have food in my fields. I have a useful but aged electrical infrastructure that needs modernizing. I also have an abundance of natural gas, and it is CHEAP. I would not export coal at all, I would use it. I would of course export my excess at a much stronger price because of its scarcity, especially since I’m using more of it. I would use it to build out a steel manufacturing base to compete with any nation. Environmentalist would argue, "but the pollution". Well I would say that China for instance are burning it sooooo, your point is? Also, I happen to think we can burn coal with less pollutants than China is doing today, and that is a certainty. So win, win.
I would modernize the electrical grid using all the new fanged bells and whistles. I would capture as a goal the energy being wasted to the atmosphere at a rate of about 30% a day. We waste 30% of our electrical production each and every day!!! Lets capture it, and we would save a tremendous amount of BTU. So, we modernize, capture waste, and create an energy rich society. We then compete with slave labor (wherever that exist) with cheap electrical energy. We all understand that energy going forward will be in tight supply so we take the lead, put our best electrical engineers to work, and we compete. We bring manufacturing back by showing we are cheaper with our BTU, and can replace cheap labor, with cheaper electricity/ You hire here, and pay a living wage. Win, win. Entice the repatriated manufacturers to use what buildings have already been built so we can save the energy it would cost to use oil to rebuild a new manufacturing building. Plus the soils are fallow in the older manufacturing communities, and its use is better served for manufacturing anyways.
We must lower the corporate tax rates also.
Remember, we are trying to create cheap energy, use conservation too, and our narrative is solid, goal oriented, with service to a better business model. We also use the private sectors cash, let capitalism do its job, and require only from the government (with fairness) eminent domain resolvement (I have no clue if this is even a word). Adding to this briefly would be a modernized transportation system. I have always felt that when energy gets too expensive that we would gladly take a train than drive a car. Especially the baby boomers of which I am one. The idea of taking a train to Yellowstone instead of flying or driving is real appealing to me. It has to make sense financially of course or our capitalist society will reject it. A malor benefit with electrical rail would be the savings from sitting in traffic, and burning the highest consentration of BTU, and that is OIL! Plus, people would be kinder and less stressed. Not as many middle fingers or F-bombs would be required. Medical costs would be lowered, etc…See, now we are going somewhere here I think. LOL
With food, I would say only that we feed ourselves first, and our excesses get exported. So subsidizing the food industry so that we have the calories to work is a good business model (we could argue this if you like, I’m not married to the idea). With what is left I would use as a feed the world mantra. I would also use it as a political tool. If China for instance doesn’t want to sent us REE’s (rare earth elements) then we don’t send wheat. That’s fair. I know this, you can’t eat REE’s. Then again we need REE’s so back to my point, fairness. I would use wheat to subside Egypt for instance. If we have a need to disrupt their country with the exportation of our inflation then the least we could do is support the poor who make only 5 dollars a day there. They haven’t any money anyways. Inflation is really to rob from those who have money. This way no riots, destruction, and terrorists in the making.
This is simplified I know but we haven’t managed things so well (as a country in foreign policy) of late anyways so I figure I’ll take some liberties here.
Regarding exporting inflation. Morally I really have no strong opinion/feelings on this. I know it hurts us but I also know the dollar is manipulated by those countries holding the most dollars. They buy these dollars to keep their currencies more competitive. So that’s business, and you factor all consequences. Like the banksters should have had handed to them, you took the risks so you lose. The commercial banks who were prudent gets the spoils. Capitalism, ahhhh, how I long for the day again.
To wrap this up, these examples were just a quick and easy little to do list. Had no real research time put into this. It does however have some sense to it. I figure it makes as much sense as what I am witnessing going on in the world around me now. With one caveat: It would create hundreds of thousands of living wage jobs, melding technologies with labor. Oh, about natural gas, we have already discussed this so I didn’t see the point. All above examples are National Security Strengths which of course lessons the cost to our military. We need a commercial sized battery, so lets R&D the hell out of that. Please, do not hold me strongly to any position here, I am just typing quickly things I see could be worked on. Lastly, with electrical generation: I would export anything that may get wasted through power lines down to Mexico, and up to Canada. That way the foot print isn’t so large…Regards BOB
…you said: " Indeed, this is a US site and it’s slightly irritating (though that’s still too strong a word) that most of the sites I frequent only tip their hats to the rest of the world occasionally."
Brother, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is in all our bloods. It is only natural for us here (at Professor Martenson’s site) to point the finger of disgust at ourselves first, it is what MEN do. Frankly, most here don’t want to play the blame game at all. We are looking for answers so that we can export good will elsewhere. Unless of course you piss us off! LOL…BOB
Interesting thoughts, Bob, and I agree your plan seems like a good one. But I might suggest, very respectfully, that you missed my point in the last post. Perhaps it would be better if I hadn’t put in the Peter Schiff quote (now that I think about it, I don’t know why I even did).
I was musing about the trouble that capitalism itself will run into once the economy stops growing on a net basis (as it must once energy availability begins to fall). In a non-growth economy, creativity and motivation are no longer enough to allow a person to succeed, because the opportunity isn’t there. In a no-growth economy, there will be no chance for people to move to a higher economic class (e.g., as they could have in 19th or 20th-century America) without knocking somebody else out of that class. While a few people may get lucky, there is no net opportunity because the total number of people who can be "successful" at any single time is not growing.
[quote=jrf29] People tolerate economic inequality because they know that there is always a chance for them to succeed, also. But in a negative-growth economy, social mobility is mostly impossible. Like feudal Europe, those whose parent owned some productive asset (like farmland) will be wealthy for generations, while those who are born poor are up the creek . . . . Under these circumstances, people will begin to wonder why the great-great-great-great grandchildren of the lazy wastrel, who by dumb luck owned land bordering a river, should be entitled by traditional property law to draw an endless stream of income from their water wheel and also sell access to their water to the starving peasants who do not own property bordering the river – for generation after generation – while the great-great-great grandchildren of the man who owned an apartment should be condemned to poverty with no way of getting out. [/quote] To be clear, I am talking about a time in the future when we have tapped all the natural gas and coal that we can, and our net energy availability is no longer growing, but slowly shrinking. I wonder how capitalism and democracy can both survive in that environment.
It seems to me that either captalism or modern democracy must eventually perish:
(1) Traditional property law and rules of inheritance will be severely changed by a population overwhelmingly demanding relief. Or else traditional property law is effectively bypassed by much higher redistributive taxes (a kind of back-door socialism), or,
(2) Tradtional property law and rules of inheritance are maintained, but at the expense of converting the government into something other than a democracy, or,
(3) Voting requirements are altered so that only asset-holders (who would therefore naturally vote to retain traditional property rights) are qualified to vote, as was the case in 18th and early 19th-century Britain and America. Really this is a means of creating a partial oligarchy, and therefore a subset of Number (2).
I would love to hear your own thoughts.
…your point wasn’t lost on me, and I apologize if I didn’t address it properly. Here’s how I feel on energy in the future. During this transition to what I believe will be to electric (30 years yet), and very painful. It will be painful because if I were an investor of a large sum of money into the building and transportation of the Oil infrastructure I wouldn’t want Oil to be replaced just as I was really being rewarded for my investments. These are long term, and large sums of cash we are talking about. So that has to burn out first. Now, I’m willing to start the new energy economy but oil at these prices are just too rewarding not to drag my feet.
I believe some serious nerd will create the near perfect commercial battery. From his creation technology will make it just as powerful but smaller and even more useful. Certainly it is a real possibility that this new energy economy will not mature in my lifetime but I like the idea that it will be well under way. Just think, if you could store the energy of the sun how rich we would be as a world community. Short of this the United States has a tremendous advantage over many countries in that it has lakes, rivers, canals, and many in-ways, and out bound water ways that were used way back in the day to carry our productive goods. So we leave that to future generations should all else fail. While I visit here often, and write too, have opinions, I really don’t stress too much about things. Don’t get me wrong I wish we would move quicker, leadership would be adult like, and I scream at the words I read or may catch on TV, I just don’t get to worked up. I try and let things come to me.
BOB
Bob, as is often mentioned on this site, the next 20 years will be nothing like the last 20 years. This isn’t just because of some economic issue but for a whole load of reasons. I suggest reading Limits to Growth. As Chris has said, we have a predicament. Neither the US nor any other country will have an "energy rich" future, to use your term. We are reaching the peak of energy, if we’re not already there (which could be why so many countries are having trouble getting growth going again). We need serious rethinking of the whole civilisation idea, not just tweaking a few things here or there to get one country back to economic health as measured by our outdated calculations.
And remember that 100% of solar energy is currently doing work for the energy systems and living organisms on this planet. So don’t rely on solar being our saviour or on some miraculous new battery technology. Wishful thinking is not a good strategy, in my opinion. Personally, I’d be interested in a sustainable response rather than another leg up to a failed way of life.
Tony
Tony, of course, I do agree that the next 20 years are going to be different, and will be because of energy. I also believe that DEBT is unsustainable and our future tenuous. However, we are a people (all nationalities) with great resources that have not been used properly. I still maintain that if we invent a battery storage system, that is commercial, that a new electrical economy can replace oil. I believe that this technology will happen some day, and sooner than we might think. I refuse to be depressed at the unknown future. I will live my life as I have always done, and joyfully. See, I know I could eliminate at least 25% of my discretionary spending and live no differently. I know as a country we still have so much waste in the system. For example, and a small one: What do we spend on bottled water each year? We could easily remove that from the budget without any problems. It would add oil to the economy by not making plastic containers that end up in some landfill somewhere, as trash floating in the ocean, or as a recycling process somewhere. I know this, if we don’t use what OIL we have left properly then building out a sustainable (large scale and world wide) new energy society will be impossible. We are not that stupid are my thoughts. Even though we have wasted the last 20 years being stupid by not addressing this problem. Jimmy Carter tried and was ridiculed. Go figure. If we ride our bikes or walk to accomplish many of our tasks on our honey do lists we would save a tremendous amount of energy collectively. Plus be healthier, and save then from the burdens of health care costs rising by being healthier. So, we haven’t really even started yet on conservation, and it is the narrative that must change first from our leadership so the herd starts moving in a massive way (positively) forward. If not then a mass extinction event for humans, and wild animals roam the streets where sky scrapers once stood. We can’t be that stupid, and if we are then nature will do what it do, and I’m OK with that too. Man is not above the natural order of things that’s for sure. The EARTH will take control, and will balance things out, no question about that. I would add that this extinction event may occur anyways because with 7 Billion people now on the planet, that food to feed everyone is going to be a balancing act. Hunger, starvation, disease are real possibilities. However, I can’t and won’t spend much time on this because I cannot do anything about this but voice my concerns. Frankly, I will feed my family first with whatever means I have. I won’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, I won’t. I’ll just live life happily, with compassion, but it is, what it is.
Tony, some people have only a few hours of electricity a day to their homes. They manage around those few hours, very happily, because they have never had electricity. We have to keep this in perspective, we do, and change ourselves, and let others observe us, then decide for themselves. I am not going to change them with words that’s for sure. People change when they see others doing something they too can see as a benefit to themselves first. Growing up we never had air conditioning, the house had one big window fan. What did us kids do? We slept on the hallway floor where the fan was on summers very toasty nights. We adjust is the point, and the fact that we all here know what is ahead then we quietly lead or we are fools, selfish, and are part of the problem. Capeesh?
BOB
Tony, briefly now, I understand Peak Oil as well as is humanly possible. Have profitted from the understanding, and expect to in the future. I could use my whole day, and think depressing thoughts but what would I have accomplished? Instead, I look positively forward, making decisions for my Lady and I, and inform family members when approached. I’ll be able to help, and they help me, when or if the shtf happens. What more can I do? I have read the book you mentioned, and many others. Janszen, Simmons, Rogoff and Reinhart, Schiff, Rogers, Fitz-Gerald, HIRSCH!, Leeb, and research with Martenson, Shedlock, Ross, and so many more. All great words, all good plans, but if a MAN like Hirsch or Simmons aren’t responded too then what am I going to do? All I can do is prepare, over prepare, and react when the fateful time begins. Then do my part. Regards BOB
Bob, thank you for your response. I only pressed because I enjoy talking with you, and wanted to hear your opinion on the subject.
Tony, good points about energy storage, I think. In case either of you are interested, here are two very well-written articles by Tom Murphy, a physicist at UC-Davis (Ph.D. from CalTech), about the energy storage challenges facing our nation if we use renewable energy:
A Nation-Sized Battery
Got Storage? How Hard Can it Be?
Perhaps cause for some concern is the fact that the lead-acid battery pile, a technology invented in 1859, is still the best (balancing cheapness and efficiency) way to store electricity on a large scale. After 150 years of continuous research, that is not comforting.
Furthermore, building enough lead-acid batteries to allow the United States to supply all of its energy needs from renewables would require 60 times more lead than all of the known lead reserves on the planet (bearing in mind that this super-battery would have to be replaced in 5 years). If we cut out 90% of our electricity demand, we would have to look for only 6x known world reserves. The scale of the challenge is immense.
Might the big breakthrough come in the next 50 years? Maybe. The risk is that if we begin to fall too far behind the curve, the situation could deteriorate to the point that even if we eventually discover that new "super" battery, we will have already lost our capacity to build new infrastructure on a large scale.
The lessons I personally draw from all of this are:
(1) Big breakthroughs are always possible.
(2) But if I had to play the numbers, I wouldn’t bet that we’re facing an economic revival fuelled by new technology and new sources of energy. It seems more likely, based on current information, that we’re facing a long downhill slog. To put it bluntly, if we get on the ball and work really hard, fewer people will starve over the next few centuries.
(3) I absolutely agree with you that this does not mean one has to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. As the saying goes, "Separate your problems into two categories: those you can do something about, and those you can do nothing about. Either way, there’s no reason to worry." We should do the best we can, and don’t allow our mood to be darkened by things beyond our personal control.
…your lessons, 1 thru 3 are what most here agree with I think, anyways I like them. We control our own destiny to a point, and then we have to figure things out, and try and get ahead of the pack. In its rawest form it becomes survival of the fittest. Natures singular demand.
BOB
Thank you, Chris, for doing this interview.