Grover,
You sit in a mental technological cornucopia, yet you won’t (or can’t) convince any of us that our fears are just that.
Just to be clear, I don’t have any emotional attachment to the reality that real prices (resources, technology, energy) have been falling my entire life and Americans are now rich beyond anything we’ve seen in human history due to technological innovation. It’s just reality. I certainly don’t need or wish to “convince” anyone or think that I can predict the future. I’d rather just make money ignoring the Malthusian ways of thinking I see here. Why do I read PP and occasionally discuss with those who disagree? Because it’s very dangerous to get into a singular mode of thinking. I like to test my thinking with those who disagree and then try to follow the data without emotion or prejudice.
One of the reasons I believe PP & CM tends to be confused on economic and energy issues (I say this without prejudice merely looking to the massive wealth gains over the last decade while CM and fellow thinkers missed out) is it’s hard to “see” our extreme wealth generation happening today due to technology because it’s so unequally distributed. As I mentioned above, it’s a lot like the Great Depression when farming went away and we had massive oversupply and no buyers. Things like oil depletion makes it even more confusing because it will be another of those “transitions” as the easy oil gets too expensive. But it won’t effect our long-term technological advances.
Anyway, the reason I accept the “technical cornucopia” thesis is because it matches both the physical reality I live in and the economic reality I make money in. It also mathematically matches the economic models I mentioned above but granted those are too fuzzy for me to accept with any certainly (almost as bad as GW models) but I just accept them because they seem to check out (for now).
I’m afraid that I’ve plumbed the depths of your knowledge, skills, and abilities. If you can’t prove your points, I’m chalking my participation up to wasted energy. No use wasting any more on you. Please prove me wrong.
Chuckle. Over the last 30 years my way of thinking has done very well at both matching reality and making money compared to the Malthusian one. We were supposed to be groping in the dark, starving, or living the “long emergency” by now right? Look at all the prediction on PP since 2010 alone. Why would I wish to prove anything? Reality matches my interpretation of things. But it’s been a good convo and again I appreciate it.
karenf - why do you say that? I fully agree with Berman on the “shale oil is a retirement party” meme and nothing I’ve said here contradicts that. I’ve thought that for years. Art is 100% correct here IMO. As I mentioned above, my peak oil prediction was 2020. I just don’t worship oil as some “master resource”. It’s just another excess energy resource we exploit because, well, being rich, we can. Remember when everyone said nuclear was “too cheap to meter”? A lot of truth to that when you take the politics out. Oil is just the easy path so we take it. NG, nuclear, renewables, and conservation would be a lot cleaner and better for everyone.
Look forward to it!
there are no federal guarantees
The Parent Company, Walmart is closing 63 Sam’s Club stores nation wide. Three are in Alaska, apparently transportation costs are too high. WHAT, but we are awash in energy? And doesn’t it cost the same to stock Walmsrt as it does Sam’s Club, are the transportation costs different? Yes, yes, I know it’s only three in Alaska, no big deal right. Well it is for those who live in rural Alaska, limited access to goods became well even more limited. But corporate profits are paramount and the motto for small Alaska villages is IMHO, “it sucks to be you”.
Most people in villages live in SMALL square footage homes. (Your generalizations MK1 are wrong) They, like you and I like to eat three times a day. So, what did we learn here MK1 et-al, it’s all a matter of perspective. For some people a Sam’s Club closing will be an economic collapse, For Them. Being - Awash-In-Energy - is relative. Remember it’s easy to debate the finer points of a topic when you live in a warm home, have food on the table and a steady income. If not, well they don’t give a shit what you/I/we think the basics suddenly become paramount.
Perspective is everything!
AKGrannyWGrit
Now that I’m back at my computer, I have a couple comments on the discussion with Gail, including one disagreement. First comment:
Well, I think of the situation being kind of like a bicycle. You have a front wheel and a back wheel, and actually you probably have the frame as well. And the debt is the front wheel. It's what makes it – pulls it forward. It makes it go. And the frame is all of these technologies that allow you to use this energy. And the back wheel is the actual energy itself. And in order for the economy to keep rolling along, you need to have this whole bicycle operating properly. And once – if you don’t have enough debt pulling the bicycle forward, the bicycle tends to fall over just as your bicycle would fall over if you stopped – if you slowed it down too much.
But it needs the real energy for the back wheel as well. And it needs additional technology. And of course, it needs the buyers for all of these goods and services, and they have to be – have enough money to be able to afford things. And usually the way you get that income down to the buyers is through debt. The businesses borrow some money, and they use that to hire workers. Our governments borrow money, and they use that to pay Social Security payments and such things. And it's this debt that enables this whole process.
I would agree that, the way the economy is currently structured, debt is the essential front wheel pulling the economy forward. However, I disagree that this is necessarily the way it needs to be. I'm not sure if Gail understands that another model for the economy could function much better, since it wasn't really discussed.
The reason we need debt to pull us forward, and the reason everyone believes this, is because we have become a world of debt slaves, for a very loooong time, and we know no different. It is a two-tiered system of the elites versus everyone else, primarily the middle class.
The reason we need debt to do anything nowadays is because the average person doesn't have a positive net worth with which to allocate their money on future enterprises, or a positive net worth on which to fall back on when jobs are lost (for example, a paid-for house). If we want to do something, we need to go into debt to the banks to do it, to get "money", and the banks are owned by the elites.
This also creates the need for a perpetually exponentially growing economy, because due to automation, the amount of jobs needed to keep the economy humming along at steady state without growth or contraction would result in a high unemployment rate over 50%. Since the average person is a debt serf with no net assets, these people would starve in the streets if these jobs were not provided by economic growth.
However, fundamentally, there is no reason why the economy could not be structured entirely differently, in which the middle class, not the elites, owns the wealth, and as a result of this, would not have such a need to go out and work their eyeballs out at minimum wage, because the average person would own their house outright and would have no debt (mortgage) payment. Therefore, with less of a need for work, the 50% unemployment rate could easily be incorporated into the economy somehow without a social collapse.
How do we get to this utopia? It starts with eliminating the elites, which I agree is never going to happen until things get so bad that a popular revolt occurs, which will by definition be too late. There are lots of other changes that would need to be made to the economy to achieve this, but this is not the place to discuss them. The point here is that the reason we require debt to move forward and avoid collapse, and the reason we need an exponentially growing economy (both of which tie directly into the energy / oil picture), is ultimately due to class inequality and debt surfdom of the majority. This needs to be more explicitly included in the discussions of this topic because we didn't just arrive here all of a sudden for no reason. We have at least 100 years of plundering by the elites using their weapons, the banks, which have brought us to this place.
My second comment, the disagreement, concerns the assertion made that wind and solar are basically useless because they aren’t storable. I fully agree that at the present time, they aren’t storable. And I also must say that I agree that given our current trajectory, wind and solar are never going to take over the energy picture as the cornucopians dream about. However, on a purely technical basis, I have to disagree with the conclusion that they would never work, because they could, in a different economic environment, if we had made the changes decades ago, which we didn’t. But still, technically, I don’t see why they wouldn’t work.
There is a potentially very large and ubiquitous energy storage device out there – electric cars. On a related note, I have heard numerous times in other discussions that it won’t be possible to power a complete conversion of the vehicle fleet to electric with the current infrastructure because doing so would require 25% more overall electricity demand. However, this is a false conclusion for two reasons: 1) most people would charge overnight when electricity demand otherwise drops around 50%, easily absorbing all the demand from electric cars, 2) far from being elements making the electrical grid unmanageable, electric cars would do the opposite, simply by plugging into a “smart grid”, in which they charge when electricity is abundant and cheap (when the wind is blowing or sun is shining), and in the reverse case, they would feed back into the grid (making profit for their owners) when demand is high. This could offset maybe 20% fluctuations in electricity production from renewables. Basically all it would require is that people plug their cars in whenever they aren’t using them. They would do this because they would be making money by doing so.
The valid argument could be made that electric cars currently represent a tiny proportion of the vehicle market so I’m just dreaming to think that they would ever reach a scale to be able to do this. Yes, I agree, but the same argument applies to wind and solar. They currently account for a small proportion of the overall market, but that doesn’t stop people from slamming them as being unscalable. Well, what if both electric cars and intermittent renewables rose up at the same time?
As to the impracticality of batteries, well I’ve had my Nissan Leaf for about 6 years now and have probably seen about a 25% reduction in my range and I use it almost daily. It’s haad to say for sure how much it’s gone down because Nissan did a firmware update a couple years ago which hides a certain proportion of my charge to prevent people from running out of charge on the road. Maybe I have lost less than 25%.
Will there be enough lithium available for the batteries? I don’t know, I’ve heard conflicting reports. But if there isn’t I’m sure with the right motivation, other battery technologies will emerge which they seem to be doing. There is no fundamental thermodynamic factor limiting battery technology so in the end, material science will win out.
Also as to the assertion that fossil fuels are needed to build and erect wind turbines and presumably solar panels too, well I don’t see why electric powered machinery couldn’t be used to erect them. The biggest dump trucks in the world are electric drive. As to where the positive net energy comes from to get the raw materials to build the fiberglass etc., well that positive net energy could come from the wind turbines themselves which I have heard have a quite high EROEI even including all the erection costs. With some of this positive net energy in the form of electricity, you extract some otherwise negative EROEI tar sand and use that as a raw material to make the wind turbine. This “solution” wouldn’t last forever, but a very long time because there is a lot of otherwise uneconomic tar sand and other such things like coal which could be extracted in mining operations simply for their chemical use as feedstock, not as a source of energy.
Now, I fully agree that the likelihood of us ever seeing such a transition to a smart grid with a bunch of electric cars balancing out intermittent supply from solar and wind is remote to none. However, on a purely technical basis there is no reason that this won’t work (which is why I must disagree with arguments stating that it won’t work, based on a technical reasons) and I think it is something we should be striving for.
Regardless of all the well thought out retorts through the PP lense, I feel I should say a few words for myself rather than anyone else. MKI’s vision of the future should be appealing to us, shouldn’t it? Why do we “PPers” get so repelled by such viewpoints? I mean, aside from all the data leading us to our conclusions.
Personally, I used to get angry because events weren’t confirming my beliefs. But today, I’m not so sure. I think now it’s more to do with the great sadness involved in such short sightedness. It’s not MKI’s viewpoint that I find difficult, it’s what it represents; business as usual. That’s what’s hidden in it. A presumption of more growth, species loss, consumption rather than connection, pollution and decay. It’s the continuing slow death many of us feel, and MKI has just handed me a shot of heroin to take the edge off a little longer. The cognitive dissonance in our daily lives is so extreme for those of us that don’t buy the maintream narrative, so that when we meet that narrative here it feels like a violation. It’s partly this dynamic I feel that Stephen Jenkinson was touching on “there are times in your life when you go on not being able to”. The sadness is so extreme I can barely breath some days. Not because I have nothing to be joyful about, but because I have a great deal to be joyful about. I’m beginning to understand what a terminally ill person must feel in the extra time they’ve been granted by palliative care, or the person looking at a beautiful flower whilst tied to a train track. Only, it’s not just my demise I’m dealing with, it’s the demise of everything I hold dear. This culture’s inability to be aggrieved by that which has already occurred is the reason it blindly stumbles on into the future it ordered. Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss; I go on.
Good points Pipyman, you have captured some of what I have been thinking as I followed this thread. The problem I have with MKI’s assertions relate more to a perceived callousness/arrogance that fails to address the other predicaments we collectively are facing. I always struggle trying to relate to people who are too focused on money and/or making money, while never seeming to display any caring about all of the other things that are of significant importance, our biosphere and ability to survive - as well as future generations. The fact is I don’t care if we are energy rich now - what gives us the right to do the rape and pillage thing, draining every last drop to use and pad our paycheques? How gluttonous, and immoral, from the perspective of not caring about the future.
Colour me more altruistic in my thinking. While there may be an illusion that we in this (greedy) first world are and remain energy rich, that is all it is, an illusion. The energy illusion is propped up by the debt illusion. To borrow a slogan from one of the big Canadian banks, “you’re ricer than you think.” Ya right…
There has been a lot of great commentary and rebuttal. Perhaps this is a debate of “is your glass half full or half empty?” Hate to say it but I am in the half empty camp because the data and 3E’s are pretty persuasive, while MKI’s ‘data’ is lacking. But then again, I don’t have a vested interest, as MKI appears to have. Perhaps there is data that shows a correlation between one’s beliefs and how those belief’s impact ones paycheque. Just wondering…
Jan
In defense of our buddy, MKI, perhaps instead of focusing on bickering about those things that divide, we could look through the clutter and embrace those things that have withstood the ages; the scythe, the anvil, harnesses, physical labour, wind and water power and apply them intelligently. A couple of simple applications:
http://www.steffes.com/electric-thermal-storage/room-units/
https://www.architonic.com/en/products/ceramic-stoves/0/3238841/1
http://www.voltbike.ca/voltbike-yukon.html
https://www.livescience.com/61389-alligators-snorkel.html (Time to slow down?)
Do we choose to look into the abyss or scale the high ground. (Disclaimer: I have no vested interest in any of these products - wish I did, however). Are we looking at a catastrophe or at a predicament? The “cutting edge” of technology occasionally needs to be honed.
We do all our shopping at Costco; Sam’s Club has never been competitive in our experience. I think that’s the more likely reason for the closure. Walmart and Fred Meyer are still doing well, too. Remember what it was like in the 1970s, how expensive food was? Life in AK is so much easier today.
Well MKI it’s all relative.
You say “life in Alaska is so much easier today”! Really, that’s a blatant GENERALIZATION. Compared to what, were you here? I was. If someone has trouble putting food on the table or generating income today, they don’t care what the price of milk was in 1970. And for your information there are no COSTCO’s in Fairbanks which means a whole lot of people North of Anchorage have to shop retail or have stuff shipped, or flown or driven or snow-machined to their remote locations, and that’s expensive. I have been told that the Sam’s Club in Fairbanks was the highest grossing in the nation. Guess that didn’t matter.
I find your lack of empathy and hubris sad.
AKGrannyWGrit
Pipyman,
My primary thesis: we could easily cut our consumption of everything way back and still live a very rich and pleasant life. So why all the angst? I’ve lived without power or running water for years when younger, and it’s a good life. Imagine if we all had gardens in your front lawn? Lived in 1/10 the SF? Walked instead of drove? We could cut back literally 50% of our GDP and live quite well. No, better! We could completely replace oil and be better off for it.
Regarding the reality of technology growth and economic growth? This is merely factual data and I have no allegiance to it, it’s just blunt reality that things just keep getting easier every year of my life due to technology. This has been a fact of my my nearly 50 years of life. It’s not some prediction where I think I’m so smart I can predict the FED does this or oil prices do that. Could this growth reverse? Sure, but growth has been this way since the 1750’s at least I doubt it will reverse in my pathetic lifetime, and I sure ain’t smart enough to predict if or when this will happen anyway even if it does.
So why not just keep 10% of one’s net worth in gold and own one’s home as a hedge, walk to stay fit, and hunt/fish/garden better and healthier and cheaper food…and continue to participate in our GDP growth? And what steady ride it’s been; I remember in 20 years ago amazed as the DOW broke 10,000. Now it’s 25,000. And I’ve made at least 3% in stock dividends over that time as well by staying in the game. What’s not to like? If WWIII happens or we run dry of oil, just be living well and healthy is it’s own reward and own your home, have a well and garden/hunt/fish to hedge against a crisis. Life is good.
I’m open minded to anyone with a good argument against my thinking. I’ve yet to see it; so many seem so sure they understand and can predict the economics, the FED, the price manipulations, the oil situation. Good luck with all that. I’m not that smart, I just follow the data that has matched my reality for my entire life.
"For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them." Sir Thomas More - Utopia 1516Finn
Hey Tom,
You’ve just gotta love former Bush speech writer Mark Theissen for the promo work on Trump at the Washington Post. I mean, I recall him stating on live interview a few years back that waterboarding wasn’t torture. I bet the revenue in advertisement has been good for the paper of late?
It’s 40 odd years since Bernstein and Woodward blew open Watergate. Nothing changes, yet some things stay the same …
Finn
I’m hearing an awful lot about you and yours MKI. And if I selfishly took the same perspective of my own current situation, from many directions, I could concur. But, I’m talking about the costs, you know, those externalities? The resource wars, the collapsing insect populations, the children doped up on tv, computer games and toxic cheap food (possibly from Costco if my understanding of the place is correct), the consumption/trash heap economy. Even if you can’t grasp where the current trends are heading in the near future, I can’t understand why you are so blind to the costs that are right in front of you. But, I guess “there are none so blind as those who refuse to see”. I’ll enjoy the privilege I have for a while longer just as you appear to be doing, but I sure as hell won’t allow myself to detach from the costs. I rightfully carry that weight, and I honour the living world as best I can.
AKG,
Yes, I was here in 70 & have lived in nearly every type of community (Anch/Fbx/Kenai/Wasilla/bush). Remember the cost of food in the 1970’s? The terrible fruits/veg available? At outrageous costs? Not to mention the paved roads were at least 1/2 the quality/quality of today. And of course cars were maybe 1/3 as reliable…making driving much easier today & flying is cheaper today as well…& Amazon has made everything easier to access here, Kindle cuts down on shipping, the web automates much that took work back in the day. Technology improvements have made our life in AK way, way better over the last 50 years. This is just an objective reality to everyone I know and live with. We talk about it all the time, grateful.
But I’m mystified how my observation about life is better today warrants an accusation I “lack empathy” & am engaging in “hubris”? I’m cheerful in this thread, I have nothing against those who disagree with me. Why all the angst?
My Dear MKI, we live in different worlds and let me enlighten you why your posts give me angst and after this post I will be putting you on my ignore list.
You say, for instance “And of course cars were maybe 1/3 as reliable…making driving much easier today” Ah no, we have a 1974 Truck that still runs. I can sit for months and then start and purrs like tiger. Easy to work on a real gem. People often want to buy it as it’s so much more reliable than high tech vehicles today… Get it, no computers it’s MORE reliable. And, “Kindle cuts down on shipping” I read and collect books no shipping.
“Technology improvements have made our life in AK way, way better over the last 50 years. This is just an objective reality to everyone I know and live with. We talk about it all the time, grateful”. '
Repeatedly in my posts I have pointed out that it’s not an objective reality that everyone is doing better. There are many who are struggling. Your posts seem to reflect that you do not read the posts of others in order to understand but only to respond. Silly me for trying multiple times to get your to see the world isn’t just about you but many others who’s lives are difficult. Much like arguing with a alcoholic it’s an effort in futility. Hey, I get it, let me see if I can push Granny’s buttons. Yep I care deeply and you did. But there is an ignore button for a reason.
End of story, Period!
AKG