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THE Silver & Gold Thread (merged)

Discussions about the economic and financial ramifications of PEAK OIL

Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Revi » Wed 13 Oct 2010, 21:52:02

I think all that is already happening. The farm economy is stronger than the rest of the economy around here. The three fastest growing businesses around here are Johnny's Selected Seeds, FEDCO and Backyard Farms which raises tomatoes in huge greenhouses with the electricity they get from hydro dams. It's really tough work, and a lot of people just quit in the first few weeks, but it's the only game in town.

The price of gold and silver seem to be headed up pretty dramatically. It may be useless, but it's rapidly appreciating useless stuff.

Here's what silver did today:

http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html

Up about a buck just today.

That means there will be at least 25% inflation if this holds.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby green_achers » Wed 13 Oct 2010, 22:09:07

Here's the rest on the zombie thing. Truncated and pared down, thankfully.

In the long run, I believe order will be maintained, though there might be pockets and incidents of mob action. An instructive piece of history I have referenced before is Reconstruction. People really need to study that period of time. Where I sit, 140 years ago, the situation could have easily been described as our worst doomers like to predict our future. The land and people had been ravished and plundered. The main energy source that had built the culture, slave labor, had been taken away in an eyeblink. The transportation and industrial infrastructures had been largely destroyed. There were even "zombie hordes" roaming about for some period of time in the form of:

1. Rogue Federal troops, white and black;

2. Freed slaves, many pressed into service in the Federal Army and recently furloughed with little forms of support, but an education in violence;

3. Ex Confederate soldiers and "Home Guards," barred from military and governmental service, but also trained in violence, many of which turned to crime; and

4. The "Night Riders," nascent versions of the Klan, wreaking terror to restore their idea of the right society.

The South that grew out of those troubled times was not one of anarchy. Within a generation, the prosperous people here were once again sending their children to school in Europe and shopping in New York and Chicago. And yes, paying for things with gold and silver.

The systems that eventually grew out of Reconstruction, the plantation and sharecropper systems, were brutal and unfair to African Americans and to poor whites. No one I know of is hoping for it's return. But I think it's possible to learn a lot from them. Maybe we don't have to repeat the mistakes to get the benefits.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby efarmer » Wed 13 Oct 2010, 22:15:29

Thanks for a very thoughtful post. We are so attached to thinking that how it has been is what is supposed to be in the future, to the point where we lose our ability to create an adequate new future.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Revi » Wed 13 Oct 2010, 22:34:33

Yes, I just read the article and I have to agree. We all know that gold and silver thing isn't going to save us. I agree that we are all zombies or becoming one soon. The whole investor thing seemed a bit pretentious anyway. We are all one step from barbarism. Where I live it's about a half a step. When we have traded and bartered away all our possesions just to keep eating we will be remember this article.

I just want to live in a little bubble of normalcy for a couple of months more. I know it's an illusion.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby gollum » Wed 13 Oct 2010, 22:47:25

Gold and Silver have always been a store of value, even in the ghettos and concentration camps of WW2, Things would have to be very bad indeed for this to not be true in the future.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Revi » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 09:43:36

efarmer wrote:Thanks for a very thoughtful post. We are so attached to thinking that how it has been is what is supposed to be in the future, to the point where we lose our ability to create an adequate new future.


I think it's time to envision a future. One where we get around in small electric cars, food comes from nearby farms and we have time to do things like read books from the library. What's the matter with that?

We're doing that already, but there are a lot of people still invested in the oil infrastructure. As it topples it will bring down a lot of them, and a lot of us.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 12:34:12

Ludi wrote:Don't pay any attention to EU, he doesn't even live in America, though he likes to comment on American issues for some reason. A lot. A whole lot.

It is correct that I don't live in US, albeit I do have some family there.

I have a wider interest regarding PO and I concluded that one must understand US related ramifications to make sense of overall picture.

Ailing US is (and for some time will remain) a driving force dictating various aspects of global economic collapse.
So it is best to observe it closely.

My comments relating to slavery are based on historical record of United States.
If slavery was fine there not so long ago, one may also expect it coming back in the future.
There is plenty of evidence suggesting that American society is not as coherent as one might think.
In difficult time of economic collapse various tensions within this society can lead to flaring up in various locations and I find it really interesting to observe consequences.

It is fascinating to observe how most advanced large country with very affluent society is facing intractable ecological constrains.
Sort of situation where irresistible force meets unmovable object.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Oakley » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 12:58:25

I would not go so far as to say "useless".

Gold and silver are cyclical and appear to be making a spike top. If gold moves to the mid $1,700's between now and early December, 2010, then I think the exuberance will end, and we will see gold and silver be taken down to lows in 2015. Gold could get back under $300 in a deflationary wave as the overwhelming need for cash is driven by the banking house of cards collapses.

The next great bull market in gold and silver should begin in early 2015 and take us up beyond anything most people imagine today, driven by war, civil war and/or revolution. Blood drives gold up more powerfully than paper.

I consider Automatic Earth to be quite credible.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby gollum » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 13:05:54

You have some valid points, I wonder if "slavery" will take some form of indentured servitude, or passing debt down generations? The wealthy seem to be getting a lot of mileage from blaming the poor and unemployed for the problems of this country.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Pops » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 13:17:43

green_achers wrote: the government institutes a WPA-type project in which workers are bussed to farms in their area to replace some of the petro-inputs.

Thanks for that achers, here are a couple of things I looked up. According to this calculator, if diesel fuel were 3x what it is now, say, $9/gal, it would cost about $7 an acre to run a swather - basically a hay/grain mower, using a 80HP tractor. Google says the average reaper in 1850 could cut an acre or a little more using a scythe. Factoring in the fitness of the average unemployed shoe store clerk I'm thinking you might expect 1/2 an acre at most. So labor (and pretty strong labor at that) would need to be worth less than $3.50 a day or fuel would need to be much higher than $9/gal before it would be worthwhile for someone to provide these people room and board.

Not that it won't happen, but realistically it will be a far fall before we go back to stoop labor, there are just too many ways to grow 50-100 gallons of vegetable oil on an acre of land.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby gollum » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 14:16:52

Pops wrote:
green_achers wrote: the government institutes a WPA-type project in which workers are bussed to farms in their area to replace some of the petro-inputs.

Thanks for that achers, here are a couple of things I looked up. According to this calculator, if diesel fuel were 3x what it is now, say, $9/gal, it would cost about $7 an acre to run a swather - basically a hay/grain mower, using a 80HP tractor. Google says the average reaper in 1850 could cut an acre or a little more using a scythe. Factoring in the fitness of the average unemployed shoe store clerk I'm thinking you might expect 1/2 an acre at most. So labor (and pretty strong labor at that) would need to be worth less than $3.50 a day or fuel would need to be much higher than $9/gal before it would be worthwhile for someone to provide these people room and board.

Not that it won't happen, but realistically it will be a far fall before we go back to stoop labor, there are just too many ways to grow 50-100 gallons of vegetable oil on an acre of land.



I'm not sure where things are going, but it won't be to manual farm labor even at greatly reduced levels oil produced machinery is just to cheap for human labor to compete. I do think we will see gardens and local farming again, and a lot of things will be canned then transported by train instead of fresh. People might even move closer to the food. Things would have to get pretty bad before we resort to cutting grain by hand or plowing fields with a mule. In my area there used to be a brewery, sugar mill, and farms that grew beets and grain all of which I do expect to return some day. Things don't have to be so bad, but the people who run things need to start to understand and accept the nature of the problem.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby EnergyUnlimited » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 15:06:56

gollum wrote:You have some valid points, I wonder if "slavery" will take some form of indentured servitude, or passing debt down generations? The wealthy seem to be getting a lot of mileage from blaming the poor and unemployed for the problems of this country.

I don't think that you should worry too much about passing debt down generations.
Such ideas would meet too much resistance and I also expect current edition of financial system to collapse by hyperinflation.
This should take peoples off the hook.
Enough of double standards was recently brought into system to make such trick not really viable IMO.

If such a risk ever appears, it may be a result of some new Draconian financial framework where all debts are reseted by bare necessity (general bankruptcy of nearly everything), but some substantial deterrents are legislated in to discourage future borrowers from repetition of current reckless behavior and also to restore confidence in new edition of currency.
However I still think that it would be a debtor only (and not his kids), who would risk slavery.

As per blaming poor for troubles and enslaving them.
*If* societal collapse accelerated enough that zombie hordes are a real threat there must be some final stand of those who are still alive (not zombified).
Doing nothing would convert US into Haiti and Americans are by nature rather solution seekers than surrenders.
Zombie problems are intractable if substantial numbers of zombies are involved, unless something beyond current ethical status quo is attempted.

Ludi is completely deluding herself (pun not intended) if she believes that we would succeed in converting millions of zombies into sustainable gardeners in available time-frame and base on resources available for collapsing society.

The bottom line is that as society facing intractable ecological challenge we cannot handle tens of millions of idle hands and hungry mouth also enjoying free will to act.
Hence some mass enslavement of such individuals may be attempted, just to preserve remaining scraps of social order left.

Now there is all important question, *of whom* might these zombie hordes consist.
Generally it is assumed that they will consist of current *poor*.
Partially true, partially not.
Many poor have and will preserve their marginal source of income, so they will be spared.
Many other are fit enough to do some physical work in emerging hand made economy of the future.
Not all but many.

I expect zombies to be formed out of current petty criminal element (usually poor) but also of countless members of middle class from sectors of economy which cease to exist or take a substantial hit.
So I also expect plenty of clerical staff of all sort, lawyers, insurance reps, IT sector workers, service economy workers etc to join zombie outbreaks.
IMO not only current poor will be affected.
Much of current middle class and rich are living in phantom economy and we are going to find pretty soon that they are of no use really.

Of course most (but not all) of American super rich will manage through fine.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Ludi » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 17:46:53

gollum wrote:the people who run things need to start to understand and accept the nature of the problem.



Who are "the people who run things"?

:?:
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby gollum » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 18:01:14

Ludi wrote:
gollum wrote:the people who run things need to start to understand and accept the nature of the problem.



Who are "the people who run things"?

:?:



The political and financial elite, who else?
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Ludi » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 18:08:35

I guess I just don't look at the world that way. :oops: I mean, I know what you're saying, but it always seems weird to me that people think of some special group of people as "running things." It just seems to imply too much, I don't know - knowledge, skill, something....which it seems to me nobody has. Some people have power (which we to a greater or lesser degree allow them to have) but, I don't know if their blundering about really qualifies as "running things." 8O

The idea of a group of people "running things" makes me think of the Stonecutters.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby gollum » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 18:15:56

Ludi wrote:I guess I just don't look at the world that way. :oops: I mean, I know what you're saying, but it always seems weird to me that people think of some special group of people as "running things." It just seems to imply too much, I don't know - knowledge, skill, something....which it seems to me nobody has. Some people have power (which we to a greater or lesser degree allow them to have) but, I don't know if their blundering about really qualifies as "running things." 8O



It's not skill it's connections, the Bush's, Rockefellers, Kennedys, Clintons now... We have an elite that has no connections to the citizens, just as other societies that collapsed did.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby patience » Thu 14 Oct 2010, 23:44:27

Ludi,

I'm not sure how you see the idea of "running things"? We know that authorities exist, and make the rules we live by. I think what you mean is some over arching small group that dictates to everyone else, maybe? If so, I can see that as a high probability, at least, say, a group of super rich who pretty much say how things go in Europe and th eUS, and some of the rest of the world. If you read the book, "The Creature from Jekyll Island", this is not a stretch at all. Combine that with annual meetings of the Bilderbergers, and it becomes pretty much common knowledge. All we DON'T know for certain is what they have in mind. Some of that is becoming increasingly obvious, however. 8O

And, as Gollum said, within the US there are those who are connected. Oddly enough, you will find that those who are connected are all members of at least one or two of certain organizations, like Bilderbergers, Tri Lateral Commission, Cato Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, etc.. Dig a little deeper and you find that many have strong ties to major corporations (oil companies come to mind), and above all, banks. Strange, huh? You can't just make this shit up. Nobody would believe it.....

It all reminds me of the "informal" power groups within corporations where I have worked, and also of local politics. I got a 5 MPH+ speeding ticket once at a locally known speed trap, a 25 MPH zone at the edge of a small town, on a 4 lane, limited access highway. At the time I was working with a local machine shop who was doing a big job for my company. I griped about it to the shop owner. He grinned and asked me for the ticket, saying, "My wife did a lot of campaign work for the local mayor. I think I can take care of this." I never heard another word about it. It's just the "good ole boy" network, except on a VERY high level, who "run things", IMHO. :P
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Revi » Fri 15 Oct 2010, 09:17:36

I always hear this. Of course there are powerful people who run everything. Us little people don't care as long as we are still on the payroll. I think the plan is to dump a bunch of us, however. We are the ones who take care of the place for them, but they have a contract as well. They were supposed to keep the economy going well enough so that we got fed, housed and taken care of if we got sick.

The problem is that all of our possessions are now worthless. Real Estate is junk, and the dollar has been devalued by about 25% just since August. All that saving we were doing is nonsense compared to what the Fed can do in a single meeting. It will take at least 5 more years to get back what we lost just this past month or two.
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby Ludi » Fri 15 Oct 2010, 09:34:11

I guess it seems to me if some "elites" are "running things" they're doing a totally crap job of it! :lol:
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Re: Automatic Earth: all your gold and silver will be usele

Unread postby gollum » Fri 15 Oct 2010, 09:45:02

Ludi wrote:I guess it seems to me if some "elites" are "running things" they're doing a totally crap job of it! :lol:



I don't know, they always seem to walk away rich.
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