If oil traders knew the truth about declining energy availability, the per-barrel price of oil would be $300 within a week. If stock traders knew the truth, we’d see capitulation of the markets shortly thereafter. If Americans knew the truth, they just might come to grips with reality, rally together, put their collective shoulders to the wheel, and start building a better world than the ominicidal culture of make believe to which we’ve all become accustomed.
But we’ll never know, because the cabal of morally bankrupt bankers and politicians running this country — and also the industrialized world — will keep playing the shell game as long as they are allowed by the impotent media. Or, more likely, until the reality of oil priced in excess of $200 per barrel interferes with their imperial ambitions.
The consequences of the shell game extend well beyond economic disaster and the likely extinction of our species. In the short term, they include hijacking the world’s marketplace, complete with child labor, hunger, and pollution (especially abroad), continued decline of intellectual “capital” in our universities, ratcheting up the war machine by attacking yet more countries (perhaps bringing a rapid demise to American Empire), further extending imperial overreach, continued shrinking of our credit-based economy, continued enrichment of the financially wealthy (including $100 billion for eight of Warren Buffett’s companies), continued profiteering by the insurance industry, and continued land grabs in poor countries by wealthy countries. All with a U.S. military on the verge of complete collapse and despite widespread acknowledgment that American-style capitalism is not working.
To reiterate the choices facing us: (1) The economically dire truth and potential for chaos, now, or (2) Certain chaos and probable extinction, later. The moral certainty of the former choice is absolute. Perhaps that alone explains why we’re choosing door number two.
Will reality intervene in time to save the living planet, including our own species? Is 2012 soon enough? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, think about what you’d do. Let’s play King For A Day. Would you trust industrial humans with the truth? Or would you commit us to chaos and probable extinction in the name of politics? In your response, please wear two hats: first your own, then, to make the game realistic, the hat of your favorite billionaire.
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This post is permalinked at Energy Bulletin and Counter Currents.

I strongly suspect the world’s elite know what I know, and a lot more: Economic growth kills people, cultures, and species. And if that’s what it takes, well that’s the price of empire (paid, of course, by different people than those who reap the rewards of empire).
Is this dire? Yes. Is it horribly Machiavellian? You betcha. Does it surprise me? Not one bit. Consider, for example, the use of biofuels to sustain the unsustainable concept of happy motoring, knowing full well it starves people to death. Think that’ll stop us? Has it ever? The expected response to catastrophic predictions about this year’s food supply: We’ll get ours, by any means necessary.
One of my least-favorite authors writes, in one of my favorite lines, “Living takes life. But it can be thoughtful.” That’s Barbara Kingsolver, and I think she nails it. Jimmy Carter knew the cost of our oil addiction … he called conservation the “moral equivalent of war.”
And on, and on. Until I work myself into a bona fide tizzy, desperately wanting the empire to collapse in a heap of rotten elitists. And yes, I know I’m one of them. Small price to pay, I’d say.
I never cease to be amazed by the number of people, on this blog and elsewhere, who believe the supply of oil is infinite, and the similar number who believe we’ll innovate, conserve, or organize our way out of our oil addiction. I use “believe” intentionally, because there’s no evidence of any thinking going on. If there were is evidence to support the notion we’ll get through the year without capitulation of the Dow, please bring it forward, and soon. This is important, after all. It’s not about something as silly as what happens after we die. It’s about what causes us to die, in extremely large numbers.
I think there’s some pretty compelling evidence in favor of capitulation. For one, there’s history, in the form of the one of the most common expressions on Wall Street: “Sell in May and go away.” Stock markets have declined, historically, between May and December, even as the markets have exploded during the last 80 years. If we see a sell-off as large as the one we’ve seen in the last few months, we’re at Dow Zero by year’s end.
But, you might argue, that’s just history. There’s no mechanism. True enough, though most people use history as the basis for predicting the economy will not collapse (because it never has). If you take this route, you’ll need to blissfully ignore recent history in places such as the Soviet Union, Argentina, and Mexico.
So, then, we can ignore history, if that’s what makes you happy.
It’s difficult, though, to ignore the economic impacts of a 0.5% annual decline in availability of crude oil during the last four years. And, as they say, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. We’re facing a 9.1% decline, according to the rose-colored-glasses crowd at IEA, who never admitted energy supplies could decline until they released their World Energy Outlook the day after Thanksgiving last year. Economists have been completely out to lunch on this issue, as have politicians and the mainstream media.
And then there’s the issue of the U.S. deficit, which currently runs at about $10.5 trillion. That’s quite a bit more than all the world’s currency and all the gold ever mined, combined, which leaves us with two choices: (1) Pay off the debt (ha ha, not in our grandchildren’s lifetimes, working 24/7) or (2) default. I’m guessing we’ll take the same path as the former Soviet Union, Argentina, and all the others.
While I’ll be the first to admit peak oilers have been predicting collapse for a while, I will not admit to being one of them. In fact, my own predictions have been quite conservative relative to the rest of the Cassandra crowd. With that in mind, I cannot help pointing out the obvious (the role of any decent social critic): (1) Cassandra need be correct only once, and (2) a life worth living turns on this particular prediction.
So, please blithely ignore the news that carbon emissions have exceeded all predictions since 2000, when the world’s governments started taking the issue seriously. Ditto for the associated meltdown of habitat for humans. Never mind altruism of any kind at the level of society. As President Obama said during his inaugural address: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.”
Bombing our way to happiness is an American institution.
If you’re interested in another way, you’d better get cracking. You could do worse than checking out Dmitry Orlov’s latest address, which has the advantage of scattering humor along with sage advice. When you’re done there, and you want to get serious about preparing for your post-carbon life, check the resources here, here, here, and — for my personal favorite — here.
Good luck to us all, no matter what we believe.