So the trustless, currency for international settlement that has not been destroyed by 10% hyperinflation…
Solid money that moves without any intermediaries (no central bank), that cannot be printed to defend the bond market.
Both BTC and Gold.
And BTC is much more mobile. Will BTC come to fill this role as a universally trusted ultimate form of money? Time will tell.
Thank you Chris for mentioning this important advice - wondering if you could discuss strategies to emotionally detach in future segments.
I am thinking you are missing digital gold and silver that is vaulted and audited on a 100% backed basis. Todays quickly emerging DeFi Web3 technology will allow us to easily save in PMs and then spend with credit/debit cards that seemlessly convert PMs to fiat quickly and very low fees the to buy/sell/trade on digital exchanges. As with some other crypto projects there likely will be ways to earn rewards (interest) on the PM stacking.
The one project i am aware of actively actualizing this objective is Lode.one would be an interesting CEO interview as Chris @cmartenson asks him or other project Execs insightful questions.
From a diversified investment standpoint having a digital PM option would be a +.
Not to mention having to keep up with crypto technology that allows all the above. Being current on the emerging tech might be one way we get assets from this side to the other side ( where ever that otherside is).
I am thinking the above is a better option than BTC as it is an asset backed crypto.
We will see - the good news is we see various options emerging.
What a dense interview packed with insights.
Wondering if i understood right: i came away thinking he believed we had more time than i gather Chris’s research and podcasts suggests.
$6 gas only $6?
I believe In Gold We Trust is produced yearly. It is available as a free download.
I’m just going to point out the obvious here, as smart as Luke is, he does NOT have any gray hairs on this topic 
We also need to keep this mind. We know as EROI declines and we transition over the energy cliff, Human Activities Will Simplify.
Well, one of our most complicated activities is the manufacturing of semiconductors.
Thus, for all of those putting thier hopes and dreams in technology, AI, and maybe even crypto here is a prediction. The very infrastructure those dependon all depend on will struggle with rampid outage. Those outages will increase in frequency until things just crumble over a 4-8 year time frame.
We did see it during covid supply interruptions that replacement hardware and new servers had very long wait times.
On the plus side, there is some leeway in the system. We can still run on existing hardware for a few years. Perhaps things like civil unrest can become a much bigger issue over night. Or electral power interruptions could be a bigger issue first. Who knows? But point here is, the semiconductor industry is doomed early in the downward process.
Just food for thought.
No, specifically gold would be used to settle trade imbalances.
If country A sold oil to country B, and country B sold bananas back to country A, the difference in trade at the of the month would then be settled in gold.
If a country imports more than it sells the value of it’s currency will keep decreasing. Meaning it’s currency will buy less and less gold. At the same time products from that country will get cheaper. Cheaper products will boost trade and work to push up the value their currency.
This gold backed system should find an equilibrium between all the currencies. Gold is there to provide a frame of reference that can’t be cheated, and used to settle trade imbalances as needed.
A big difference with this system is gold becomes the reserve currency, and no country would be able to run a deficit for very long, unless they have some nice gold mines. The value of gold would need to float.
Gold mining is already in structural decline. Gold mining will be hit with a double whammy. Both the ore grades are declining and the price of deisel fuel is increasing. The barrels of deisel needed to produce an ounce of gold will rise significantly in the next two decades. Thus the total amount of gold in the world will approach some fixed number. Thus the system would be inflammatory over time.
At first gold would be under valued and those with gold in their pockets will make a killing. Eventually the value of gold should stablize. The price of gold should be what it costs to mine another ounce. That means deisel will rise to match. Illegal pan handling for gold will be big business. The legal mining of gold would be a bottleneck in supply.
There shouldn’t be a need for governments to confiscate gold as they can simplify buy it at market price. People will mostly hold gold if they see the price is going to rise. Thus, any significant price to value mismatch will resolve quickly as the value of gold in that currency will have find a price where people stop holding it. Some governments will probably have different rules on owning gold.
The beauty of a gold backed system is that the whole system will be able to find true equilibrium, true value. No more artificial imbalances. No more shenanigans.
There is the small problem of the current entire US financial system. It’s likely to implode and I fear the result would be the collapse of the United States. Possibly the states beeak up, civil war, famine, despriation, etc. I remember a report from DHS in 2012 that predicted if the financial system had collapsed in 2009 the result would have been an 80% die off. Everything seizes up if the financial system breaks down.
The IEA tracks EV sales over the last few years:
2020: 5% 2021: 9% 2022: 14%! That looks like an accelerating exponential. As a result of all the extra oil exploration they track and decreasing demand for oil because of the rise of EV’s - they predict peak DEMAND by 2028 with an oil GLUT of nearly 4mbd!
Wind and solar are on a 4 year doubling curve which is over twice as fast as we adopted oil in the 20th century. Total global demand for ALL fossil fuels peaks at 2030 - and carbon emissions actually start to decline after that point.
As we Electrify Everything, we’ll do the same work we do today with 40% of the energy. Burning stuff like cavemen is just that inefficient. (2nd law of thermodynamics).
While it will be 40% of the fossil fuel energy we burn for electricity and forward motion in cars - Electrifying Everything WILL massively increase the electricity we use and the size of the grid. It turns out this is the hardest part due to NIMBYism and politics! Bloomberg reports on the challenges (July 2022 - 15 minutes.)
Michaux has some wild assumptions. Let’s translate it into bridge building for comparison. Imagine you opened his paper on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and read:-
A: You just HAVE to build it across the widest part of Sydney Harbour,
B: You just HAVE to build it out of GOLD,
C: Therefore building Sydney Harbour Bridge is impossible because there isn’t enough gold in the world!
His energy paper is that bad. When you start from the wrong place to gauge the size of the task, and assume the wrong materials, you can ‘prove’ almost any construction project is impossible!
That’s interesting.
A simple Google search with the non-leading words “global EV sales” gave me this:
Looks like your 2022 trend extrapolation is already stale?
There does seem to be a little slowing - as Bloomberg reports. But it’s just a bump in the road.
IEA’s glasses are rose colored methinks.
And without nuclear, how are we going to get ALL that electricity? Wind and solar? Both have relatively low capacity factors, and are intermittent generation sources with diurnal and seasonal fluctuations to meet the growing electric load all 8760 hours per year? Batteries - at scale with finite resources, both long and short duration, and with what environmental costs? Also, seems to ignore the huge capital, both financial (we’re all broke) and physical – requiring lots of mining, smelting, hauling, etc. And what about the fossil fuel required to build out the electricity generation?
Dear Dr. Martenson…this is a long video, but I feel important…it is about a new technology which is now being open sourced so the inventors don’t get killed, and it has to do with plasma…in short, they are running generators and working on adapations to retrofit cars, etc. etc. etc… (this is VERY EARLY in the game), that not only increases the efficiency of the combustion engine (cars, power plants, cruise ships, etc.) but also produced 20 percent oxegyn as its gas off and no hydrocarbons…so you need only enough oil or diesel to start it.
I know things are bleak (and my outlook is too), but I also have a strange confidence in the human beings ability to innovate…please if you have a little time, or cannot sleep at night, watch this…https://youtu.be/IogPBJyDFWw?feature=shared
I know I’m really out there with plasma energy and bitcoin (which I hope will float in value between countries and maybe then we can deal in gold and silver between peoples…) but I do think it is worth knowing about…before they try and politically wipe it off the face of the earth. Videos of the retrofits and backyard prototypes included.
Yes - as Bloomberg said…
The dramatic about-face, after Hertz announced plans in 2021 to buy 100,000 Tesla vehicles, underscores the waning demand for all-electric cars in the US. EV sales growth slowed sharply over the course of last year, rising just 1.3 per cent in the final quarter as consumers were put off by high costs and interest rates.
https://www.hertz.com/us/en/vehicles/electric-vehicles
A recession could be coming. Economic issues doesn’t necessarily rule out a technology - but it might slow it a little.
But then again, rumours are LFP batteries are going to HALVE in cost just this year alone!
Scary efficiencies are coming out of China.
Also, I kind of hate defending EV’s because I’m a New Urbanist. My daughter’s boyfriend of 4 years is going into Town Planning and got the New Urbanism bug just from watching documentaries about the quality of life issues (let alone peak oil which I’ve been into for 20 years now). My nephew is also a passionate New Urbanist - and says the best EV is a Metro or Subway. I agree!
But I’m interested in trying to understand what’s really going on out there - not what might line up with my New Urbanism and oil-hating cognitive biases.
Biden’s IRA is funding the biggest change in American industrial policy since the western world started buying stuff from China in the 1980’s! It’s that big.
The USA is increasing its own domestic battery capacity by 15 TIMES over the next 6 years. By 2030 you should be at a Terrawatt hour of annual production capacity!!
(My post went on and on from here - but I decided later it was getting off topic and rambling so sorry about that.)
I also wonder about the BRICS, who don’t trust each other, looking for a neutral settlement currency that’s not liable to manipulation by the issuer (otherwise the get out from under the thumb of the US, but meet the new boss, same as the old boss).
Gold works, but it is awkward to move it around. BTC is an obvious choice.
Of course, market cap is too small now. But maybe not for long? So Saudi Arabia and China trade in yuan and settle the differences in BTC?
Also, I think I’m going to stop saying “Bitcoin fixes this” and get a new t-shirt that says “Bitcoin would have prevented this”.
Hi Chris,
Just a quick update to say I chopped my post above down to about a quarter. It was long and rambling and went off topic - so I hope you read this comment first and don’t bother replying to everything you might see in the email. Sorry about that.
Tell me you are a CCP shill without saying you’re a CCP shill. 
Are wind and solar intermittent? I mean - who knew?
SUNSHINE BELT: the seasonal issue is over-hyped as 3/4 of us live in the “Sunshine Belt” (from the equator to the 35th parallels north and south.) So most of the human race live where winter isn’t really a thing.
SUPER-GRIDS to the SUNSHINE BELT: Now that HVDC only loses 1.6% per 1000 km - you could have solar power at the equator hypothetically running a base at the North Pole 10,000 km away and only lose 16% of your power. So regional super-grids are now popular with renewables ISP designers. (Integrated Systems Planners.)
OVERBUILD: Because renewables are now 1/4 the cost of nuclear (Unfirmed - Lazard 2023) - the ISP designers talk about Overbuilding capacity across a wide area for ‘geographic smoothing’ to maximise how much LIVE renewables we can draw on at any one time.
This is quite an old idea - it hit popular culture when it finally hit Scientific American in 2015. Renewable Energy Intermittency Explained: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities | Scientific American
Australia’s lucky in that we’re in the Sunshine Belt - and so only a 170% Overbuild is all our current electricity supplied with minimal storage. Like 5 hours for a firmed national electricity grid!
Professor Blakers (Queen Elizabeth engineering prize recipient) estimates Australia needs 2 days of storage. The first few hours are probably sodium batteries (or a dozen other new batteries being made from super-abundant materials). But after the first hour or so - we would move to OFF-RIVER pumped hydro.
Now that Rondo heat bricks can store 1500 degrees C and only lose 1% heat per day, that’s industrial heat storage covered as well. Basically - every part of the renewable energy transition can be built from super-abundant materials and is pretty much solved - except maybe for Jet Fuel. They seem to have a few options - but it’s going to cost more. Oh well - maybe we’ll try and use the internet and Facetime a bit more? We’ve become a bit soft and entitled these days.
Won’t matter. The raw material’s needed to produce the batteries necessary isn’t remotely close. I think in one of Chris’ interviews, they went over the basic raw material needs for just a few items – if I recall, it was over 200 YEARS at current copper mining production to get the copper needed. You want to increase the rate? That adds enormous energy requirements to do so. Not to mention terrible for land.
It may have been Robert Bryce. This was a nice illustration on power generation raw material needs.
Actually, I think it was one of Chris’ Green Energy Myth episodes.
