Tag Archive | "Hubbert’s Peak"
A review before the exam
Actually, this review is too late for the many people who have already endured economic collapse. As any of those folks can tell the rest of us, we do not want to receive the lesson after the exam. I’ve written all this before, but I have not recently provided a concise summary. This essay provides [...]
Continue reading...Rollercoaster redux
Thursday, May 6, 2010
To his imperial credit, Barack Obama did manage to calm the stock markets for a year. But his promises of oversight and transparency are being overwhelmed by his actions. It’s obvious the banksters will not be regulated on Obama’s watch in any significant manner because the entire American economic system is based on fraud, and [...]
Continue reading...Surveying the field and charting a course
Friday, April 16, 2010
It’s all the rage to talk about a double-dip in the industrial economy. That would be an economic trend in the shape of a W. I think an M is far more likely. The assumption of never-ending growth underlies all neoclassical economic assessments, but I think that assumption is about to break up on the [...]
Continue reading...Ramping up the Speculator
Friday, September 18, 2009
I'm going to ramp up the Speculator™ with this post, notwithstanding the pathetic failure of my short-term prediction for the week just ended. Seems all my wishful thinking won't push the teetering industrial economy over the cliff. I'm sure there's a lesson here, but -- in classic American style -- I'll pretend there's not.
Continue reading...Saving the world: a transcript for your review
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Civilization represents a grave threat to the existence of myriad cultures and species, including our own species. And we can do better.
Continue reading...BushCo’s peak-oil plan
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
My talk to archaeologists focused on peak oil and the associated collapse of civilization. Turns out archaeologists love to study the collapse of civilization, with a minor exception: They aren't particularly keen on hearing about the collapse of their own civilization.
Continue reading...Christmas, Christianity, and the fall of empire: A year-end reflection
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Reason is the basis for understanding the material world. Mysticism has proven an insufficient foundation for dealing with peak oil and runaway greenhouse. As such, I suspect it will prove inadequate for saving humanity. Whether or not we're worth saving is a separate issue.
Continue reading...Math. The scary kind, not the fuzzy kind
Thursday, December 6, 2007
I'm starting to understand the many peak-oil deniers out there. It's tough to wrap our hummingbird-sized intellects around these pterodactyl-sized numbers. Our ability to power down with all the peace and tranquility of Buddhist monks seems a little far-fetched (we are, as pointed out by Nietzsche, "all too human"). It's easier to deny the impending collapse of empire than to deal with facts. On the other hand, as Matt Savinar points out, you'd better "Deal With Reality or Reality Will Deal With You."
Continue reading...Three documentaries describe the fall of empire
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Yep, there are two sides to the peak-oil story. The side we go up (which ended a couple years ago), and the side we go down. We're on the downhill side of world oil supply, and the slope's about to get a helluva lot more slippery.
Continue reading...The Fed slashes, the dollar bleeds
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Seems Ben “Helicopter†Bernanke is living up to his nickname. But instead of kicking green leafy material out of helicopters, he’s rewarding big banks that packaged bundles of hallucinations into financial “products.†Bernanke is taking a page from Alan Greenspan’s cheap-money strategy, the one that got us into the financial debacle that turned every house into an ATM for its owner, while turning the U.S. dollar into an international joke.
Continue reading...
Monday, August 16, 2010
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