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Catalyst for economic collapse

Discussions about the economic and financial ramifications of PEAK OIL

Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 02 Apr 2017, 19:13:01

To me the most fascinating aspect is the dynamic bifurcating the expediency of cooperation vs the competitive mandate or opportunities. Very quickly depending on the prevailing attitude and capabilites of others and the availability of resources, communities can become only your kin or tribe and survival of the fittest battles can ensue. Or if resources are sufficient and/or people are prepared and capable skill wise , a flourishing community can develop. Cooperation or Competition will be an existential choice thrust upon all
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby sparky » Sun 02 Apr 2017, 19:41:35

.
its an old dichotomy , to deal or to hit ,
it's a fluctuating conundrum whose main factors are power ,
either to be used or to be displayed to achieve a deal

in short ,violent take over or blackmail wrapped in fine words
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Revi » Fri 28 Apr 2017, 09:24:21

I think a nice catalyst could be if those dummies down in DC can't come up with a vote on extending the debt ceiling. They have it hung up on all sorts of little things, meanwhile the whole edifice teeters. Imagine if we default on our debt. That would be the end of the present economic order and could be the catalyst for the economic collapse. As soon as they got Trump in they voted to borrow another trillion per year. If we don't put the debt ceiling up we won't be able to do that. I think they should put it up to at least 30 trillion just to keep the whole thing afloat for the next 10 years. There is still a debt ceiling vote looming.

http://thedailybanter.com/2017/01/senat ... -trillion/
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Revi » Fri 28 Apr 2017, 09:30:59

Here's another article on it. They need 216 Republicans and about 8 democrats to pass it. We aren't hearing much about this, but there might be tea party Repubs and some Dems who won't go for it, and then we are in trouble.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/conse ... le/2619039
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby GHung » Fri 28 Apr 2017, 10:26:11

Revi wrote:Here's another article on it. They need 216 Republicans and about 8 democrats to pass it. We aren't hearing much about this, but there might be tea party Repubs and some Dems who won't go for it, and then we are in trouble.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/conse ... le/2619039


In other words, we need about 224 can-kickers. Got it. Seems it's better to kick that can than get flushed down it.
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby GHung » Fri 28 Apr 2017, 11:47:44

baha wrote:Ghung, when you put it that way it should pass with no problem. There are plenty of can-kickers in DC. What are the odds it is done by midnight tonight?


It likely will depend on my congressman, Mark Meadows, and his no-to-everything Freedom Caucus; the same bunch responsible for the 2013 shutdown.

Either way......
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Pops » Sat 20 Feb 2021, 11:16:19

I was just browsing and came across this from Tanada.

Tanada wrote:
onlooker wrote:Okay is the weak point in our Economies the Electrical grid? As per the "olduvai cliff". The financial markets? International commerce and trade? What will be the initial straw that will break the Economies back? Perhaps something exogenous to the Economy ?


Say the 'economic collapse' takes place Monday.

What do you think your town, your state, the USA and the World will look like in October 2021?

If onlooker would have said half a million in the US dead from a global plague, literally trillions in government printing to prop the economy, the highest stock market P/E ratio in history, an impeached POTUS threatening to ignore the election and thinking about martial law to do it, trade war with everyone, massive wildfires, hurricanes, highest temps ever...

Let alone Feb 2021...

Most everyone would have laughed and called him a doomer
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby evilgenius » Sat 20 Feb 2021, 11:45:29

At this time, I think I would have to say it is the thing which really supported Trump: the people's doubt, which is the most likely catalyst. Narcissism is at an all time high, since the internet has allowed us much freer communication. We still don't talk about the dangers inherent to that.

The first danger is how easily duped we can be by people who come across as certain about what it is they espouse. Maybe they taught you a little bit about how to assign credibility to various actors in your life's drama in elementary school, but they could not have taught you enough. No one ever dreamed we would wind up in today's world.

And it was back then, when the fabric of how we think was developed, that we needed those lessons. Not having learned those lessons, it's kind of every man for himself. But you can bet that each new direction the people take in the middle of all this has some person at the heart of it who is certain about their convictions. Too many of us look at that alone, and give those people the sort of credence they do not deserve.

Depending upon the people's relationship with fear, whether they are driven too much by their fears, decisions could be made. When the people use fear to make decisions they are often irrational, so we can expect our world to become more and more irrational, not less.
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby AdamB » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 01:22:45

Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Pops » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 11:26:44

AdamB wrote:all debt is borrowed against future supplies of affordable hydrocarbons


I like CHS though I haven't read him in a while. I think this is an OK theory as far as it goes. But today's money, today's debt are just entries in some spreadsheet in the cloud, they could go poof this minute and the remaining fossils will still be there, they still contain just as much heat per unit— just as much value —as they did 100 years ago, regardless of the currency. That is the problem with CHS' theory, just as it is Gail's and shorty's.

On our current trajectory all debit is a ponzi scheme, oil or no. Not being glib, it is a pyramid, the first people in get their money and pay taxes, more people are added and they get their money and they pay a little more taxes, then at some point there are not enough new people to pay all the taxes, that's when the acceleration clause kicks in and all the chits come due.

This was my rant in the degrowth thread, The gig is up, the growth that matters is over. The rich world party has gone too long, the bar tab is going on the card. After the Boomers die off they will leave a huge bill and the following generations will be too small to foot the tab—if we make it that far considering everything those generations owe me I mean "seniors". (sarcasm there in case it wasn't obvious)

Even if we tear down that wall the population can't grow indefinitely and won't, likely it will top out in 2060 then decline.

Here is mainstream media giving a good overview, the context is the pandemic baby bust but it lays out the situation surprisingly well:
The number of babies the average woman in the U.S. is expected to deliver has dropped from nearly four in the 1950s to less than two today.

The drop could present an entirely different risk to society than one that was first warned about decades ago — when an apocalyptic fear gripped America in the 1960s and 1970s. ...Biologist Paul Ehrlich once explained the threat as "The Population Bomb," the title of a book he authored in 1968. "Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come — and by the end, I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity," he said in a 1970 broadcast.

... The U.S. is already below the so-called "replacement level" by some measures, meaning fewer young people to support the country's otherwise aging population.

Myers said of the decline, "That's a crisis."

"We need to have enough working-age people to carry the load of these seniors, who deserve their retirement, they deserve all their entitlements, and they're gonna live out another 30 years," he said. "Nobody in the history of the globe has had so many older people to deal with."

Sometimes I wonder if these people aren't reading my posts...

Anyway, it goes on to talk about how hard it is for millennials to get by—but never mentions the huge overhang of debt they will inherit. Either that debt will be inflated away, a scarier possibility every day, or it will be defaulted on, there is no chance the smaller population will be able to pay it off. A default would be the Real Reset. Pretty sure none of us know how bad that could be.

I think this is the crux of the actual, non-political immigration debate, even though I realize most people are either stuck in the disco-era population bomb mindset; the nativist camp or the leftist, borders-are-for-fascists clique. Just like the predicted Coming Ace Age headline was totally backward, the Population Explosion turned out to be an implosion instead.

Turns out Cassandra was as wrong as everyone said, but we're still doomed. LOL

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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Pops » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 11:56:45

CHS wrote:"Money" without access to affordable energy is worthless.


Compare to the The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers motto
Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.
—Freewheelin' Franklin

As it turns out this seemingly wise aphorism is also wrong.

Comparison of a drug versus money and drug versus drug self-administration choice procedure with oxycodone and morphine in opioid addicts
Sandra D Comer, PhD,1 Verena E Metz, PhD,1 Ziva D Cooper, PhD,1 William J Kowalczyk, PhD,2 Jermaine D Jones, PhD,1 Maria A Sullivan, MD, PhD,1 Jeanne M Manubay, MD,1 Suzanne K Vosburg, PhD,1 Mary E Smith, Deena Peyser, and Phillip A Saccone3

Two self-administration laboratory procedures, i.e. a drug vs. money and a drug vs. drug procedure, were assessed. Study participants (N=12) lived in the hospital and were maintained on 4 mg/day sublingual buprenorphine. When participants chose between drug and money, money was preferred over all drug doses; ...

National Institutes of Health


LOL, seriously

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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Ibon » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 14:44:57

Pops wrote: Pretty sure none of us know how bad that could be.



Economic contraction is very often viewed through the lens of current consumption and cultural values. If the declining birth rates and debt carry over equals a long and steady drag downwards in wealth then consumption and cultural values shifts accordingly.

Could that mean that we reach more quickly the climate change goals?

Cassandra got it wrong regarding population growth.

What if there is a Cassandra parallel of getting it wrong in regards to consumption habits as well?

Sharpen you shovels and hoes and make your garden the envy of Jones your neighbor who will do everything to keep up with you.

The desire for status never changes, the objects that symbolize that status can change and it can be a garden instead of a Hummer in the driveway.

A cellar full of canned tomatoes might just make her melt with desire.
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Pops » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 15:10:48

The people who are supposed to know say we need to reduce carbon big-time right-now, so the population collapse is good for earth longer term, if we don't sterilize it near term.

One of my granddaughters is around 23-ish and her and her partner are buying up desert scrubland in Eastern Oregon, doing an off-grid homestead thing and commuting to work at Applebee's—they are on Pop's Hippy Homestead Back To The Land Book a month club. I'm proud of her and her rebellious ways. Hard to know if her time or my other granddaughter's time in college is better spent.

I can only compare the two that way because no one here knows me, lol
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Ibon » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 15:46:29

My daughters and their peer groups are very very focused as well on homesteading, low energy consumption, climate change, etc. If I focus on the way they approach these topics vs how I did when I was their age there is a world of difference. In my old hippy days this was something cool and counter culture. In the case of my daughters generation, at least those with whom I am exposed, this seems less about counter culture and more like a mainstream value. I see more sobriety and maturity and less rebellion. More collectivism also in how this generation approaches solidarity around social distancing with the pandemic etc. My one criticism when compared to my youth is that I see more fear with these concerns and more seriousness. In my youth I was much less fearful, more individualistic, more singing the wilderness ethos and less collectivist.

I don't judge, I observe and I am well aware I may be only observing a slice of their generation that might not be representative of the whole.

I despair often of how social media herds the young generation but sometimes if I take a positive view of this herding I recognize it might be a force toward a more collectivist approach towards dealing in a serious way with limits of growth and sustainability.
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby AdamB » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 16:28:10

Ibon wrote:I don't judge, I observe and I am well aware I may be only observing a slice of their generation that might not be representative of the whole.


Observing mine, the world looks like it wants accountants. Both are headed to CPA-hood, and aren't much worried about low carbon impact lifestyles.

Ibon wrote:I despair often of how social media herds the young generation but sometimes if I take a positive view of this herding I recognize it might be a force toward a more collectivist approach towards dealing in a serious way with limits of growth and sustainability.


Great showed the sum total of her brand of social media save the world branding, right? if you squint really, really hard, you can see the effect that enthusiasm about her social media presence returned, in terms of real world results. Or...not. :cry:

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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Pops » Wed 03 Mar 2021, 17:47:06

Social media / my little homestead blog / channel / insta/fb group/etccccc. gives reinforcement to niche "influencers".

GD in the high desert is experimenting with it. People dig videos of chicks ... the poultry kind too. I tried to do that but wasn't into it enough, it wasn't very lucrative back when either pre-fb/insta/etc.

Ibon, do you do that kind of thing? Video channel etc?
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Ibon » Thu 04 Mar 2021, 10:53:29

Pops wrote:
Ibon, do you do that kind of thing? Video channel etc?


We do use social media to promote our project. 95% of all posts are about the ecology of the cloud forest, taxonomy etc. We do not use this venue to discuss much about climate change and limits to growth. This just reflects more my personal focus on how to use social media in how we promote the project. Ibon here on po.com is a different identity than who I am as an owner of a private reserve and resort. I do compartmentalize this.

The demographics of our visitors are mostly folks over 60 years old. Of course this is the demographic that is retired with disposable income and time. But that is not the only reason we do not have younger guests. When it comes to volunteers we do get young folks coming and my conclusions around why we don't have younger guests is two fold; they do not have as much disposable income and they do not have much of a desire to do leisure educational travel even if it means hiking and exploring a cloud forest. Young folks are almost always interested in sustainability and how to live with a reduced carbon footprint. They go gaga over our pelton wheel and are less interested in identifying birds in a field guide.

Older baby boomers love to come here to watch birds and still see the world through the lens of old national geographic magazines, they seek out our location looking for pristine habitat. Young folks are less focused on experiencing habitat still preserved, they are more interested in engaging in the nuts and bolts of living sustainably.

This difference between baby boomers and younger generation is really distinct and reflects the reality of the times they have lived in. Baby boomers remember the world as it was still relatively pristine back in the 60's abd 70's and their travel choice today is seeking out pockets of what remains. The younger generation is more interested in seeing a functional sustainable farm, how we grow food and coffee, how we generate power and compost etc.

The most interested segment of the young generation are those that we never even see. Those that have forgone completely foreign travel as part of their ethics about having a small carbon footprint. More local, conscious of their energy consumption and being consequent about it. OF course this generation has less wealth as well but this financial constraint and value system is deeply intertwined. THat is the reason I mentioned above that when we project out into the future we make the mistake that culture and consumption habits remain static while wealth and energy decline. In my opinion that is completely false and deeply underestimates the adaptability of generations to invent new strategies in reference to status, wellbeing, values, ethics etc. Take the hippies that transformed themselves to yuppies in the 80's as a perfect example in the reverse direction.

Of course there are exceptions to these generalizations I am making but by in large they are accurate IMHO

Most of us here contemplating the future of declining wealth and energy are looking through the jaded eyes of aging baby boomers who were weaned on opulence since we were toddlers. Frankly, we are the worst demographic to forecast the future because we are prejudiced by having been socialized in being members of the me me me have it all generation. How can you expect this demographic from being meaningful mentors to the young? This applies equally to a aging white angry Trumpist as much as to a disallusioned Ibon or Pops.

We have more in common to our tribal opposite on some metrics than we care to recognize
Last edited by Ibon on Thu 04 Mar 2021, 11:33:06, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby Pops » Thu 04 Mar 2021, 11:21:55

Thanks.
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Re: Catalyst for economic collapse

Unread postby diemos » Thu 04 Mar 2021, 12:51:48

Pops wrote:Either that debt will be inflated away, a scarier possibility every day, or it will be defaulted on, there is no chance the smaller population will be able to pay it off. A default would be the Real Reset. Pretty sure none of us know how bad that could be.


Every debt is someone else's asset, an agreement that the debtors will work and give part of their labors to the asset holders.

The debt could be wiped out tomorrow if we wanted to ... just not without some group feeling a lot of pain. The only option that avoids any pain today is to keep piling on debt and pushing out the reckoning to tomorrow.

Default would mean a collapse of the financial system as the paper assets vanished. Everyone's bank account, insurance company, 401K, pension plan would vaporize. So I'm quite confident that the balance will be restored through money printing and inflation. Which is why one of my priorities for retirement is to own a real asset like a house that I can live in.
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