Tag Archive | "peak oil"
Making connections as the world burns … unless 126 does the trick
I’ve managed to connect via email several people, most of whom I’ve not met. I have connected directly with many like-minded people using myriad outlets, including online fora, email, telephone, and live-and-in-person. The latter has proved most gratifying, particularly including the few hundred visitors to the mud hut. Online opportunities have been largely disappointing to [...]
Continue reading...Reality bites
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The BRICS are making their move to shove aside the U.S. dollar (although their own troubles might interfere). The dollar dump is particularly timely in light of recent recognition that U.S. credit verges on junk status, and rates lower than Mexico and several other countries with relatively small industrial economies. And, as pointed out by [...]
Continue reading...Partial understanding on planet Easter Island
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The recent S&P downgrade of U.S. debt is yet another example of a circus sideshow in a nation filled with clowns sleepwalking off a cliff. Ben Bernanke, the master of ceremonies in the most ridiculous show on Earth, has come up with a new scheme to print money, hence plunge a financially bankrupt nation further [...]
Continue reading...Like an elevator when the cable breaks
Sunday, April 17, 2011
According to Mark Twain, “civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.” It seems western civilization is just about done with the mindless multiplication of anything, much less unnecessary nonsense. It’s too late for a fast collapse of the industrial economy. According to every significant index, the U.S. hit its economic peak in 2000. We’ve [...]
Continue reading...Quickening
Thursday, April 7, 2011
In the United States, various states offer glimpses into the future of industrial economies. Wisconsin is filling the mainstream media outlets, but California really leads the way. In the latter state, the lights have gone out and the water has been turned off for a significant number of people. Those events are coming to the [...]
Continue reading...The ends of the Earth
Monday, March 21, 2011
How far will we go to secure energy? Clearly, to the ends of the Earth. And perhaps even to the end of the (living) world. Judging from their actions, most people I know are more to committed maintaining their imperial lifestyles than in maintaining the lives of their children. Take a look around and tell [...]
Continue reading...The race is on
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Everywhere I turn, I read and hear about $200 oil in the near future (here’s one recent example, from somebody who should know better, here’s another from hyperinflation guru Gonzalo Lira, and here’s another from historian Niall Ferguson. Investors are being sucked in, too, and at least one pundit fool has jumped the shark, calling [...]
Continue reading...Demise of the dollar
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The U.S. dollar continues its journey from Brobdingnagian to Lilliputian stature, and the latest trade report is a prelude to the dollar as microbe. The Prime Mover in this case is King Ben, who has the helicopter on track for a one-way trip to Zimbabwe with every American along for the ride. Death of the [...]
Continue reading...Infallible, unsinkable, inconceivable: a bell curve in three parts
Monday, January 31, 2011
by John Stassek Infallible A sliver of green and fertile earth, far from other lands. Poly- nesians settled long ago, and came to under- stand. Three days of labor, tilling the soil, could feed them- selves all year. Easter Island was paradise. They found a good life here. Time was abundant, since food was so [...]
Continue reading...Third time’s a charm?
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Kurt Vonnegut often described World Wars I and II as western civilization’s first and second attempts, respectively, to commit suicide. He hinted at peak oil as our third attempt in his memoir, Man Without a Country, which was published shortly before his death. After burying our collective heads in the sand for two years, peak [...]
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Wednesday, June 1, 2011
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