[AdamB]

Car use isn't decreasing

More people are working from home now. It may be a temporary thing, but it could also become the new normal. The technology for home office is all there.

Like gollum said, basically any job that can be done from home is a mouse-pusher job, a bureaucratic job, and those jobs will be shed as the energy situation gets worse and worse.

The energy situation of...if you want some, you can buy it? We've had pricier energy before and...folks still bought it. So are you just harping on doomer porn recycled from the past that didn't work out then and missed it in real time, or did someone not have enough premium to run your high test fueled motorcycle and now you are pretending the rest of us can't get it either?

For the record, we can. But who cares, those of us not worried about the energy situation are EVing around and don't even know what the price of fuel is right now.

It's also very easy for a boss to sack someone in these situations, and that's happening too. What the world will need in the future is more farm labor, people out building, or rebuilding, efficient railways, roads, etc. The media is very shallow and they promote this concept of work from home like it's a huge trend, and it was, in limited fields.

Jealous much?

How do you get rid of millions of workers you can't afford to pay? The No Jab No Job policy that is being implemented all across the globe is one effort they are implementing. Many of these workplaces were struggling to pay the wages of the staff, but cutting back can be a political time bomb. No problem, blame it on the Magic Virus, as Catherine Austin Fitts, calls it. Push the redundant workers out into poverty and rework your budget.

Well, there is a name you don't hear often except among those who were suckered into the peak oil of yesteryear because they lacked the neurons to think for themselves. Catherine Austin Fitts? Is that the wife of Alex Jones?

[Pops]

Just a little more...

I kind of look at the LTO glut of the teens as a do-over for us. I tried hard to "collapse early" like JMG suggested but the opportunity cost of, say, growing, harvesting and threshing wheat by hand when wheat is 8¢ a pound is not just prohibitive but nonsensical. It is good as exercise, perhaps good as prep of tools, skills, etc, but a poor investment as a lifestyle.

That is what makes transition hard, eventually we as a society may be back to basics but forecasting the timeline is tough. Luckily my horizon is closer and our responsibility to offspring lower, they are grown, even grandkids are getting up there. I had offered them a chance to join us but their priorities were different. No hard feelings, we may get together on a place when they retire but I don't feel the need to have a place big enough to support everyone anymore and that's a good thing.

So again, a small efficient place where we could keep a cow and grow some calories...
or a lawn.

.

[theluckycountry]

Catherine Austin Fitts? Is that the wife of Alex Jones?

...I know trolling seems to be an addictive habit with some people

Yes you have trolling down pat don't you, Catherine Austin Fitts is a former investment banker and public official who served during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush, as United States Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Housing. She has widely written and commented on the subject of public spending and has alleged several large scale instances of government fraud.

Which means Goly, she knows a hell of a lot more than you ever will, about anything lol.
Thanks for exposing yourself early in the game, I have no time for dreamers, fools, AstroTurfers or trolls, so you go straight on the Foe list with the dozen or so other brain-dead that infest this good forum. bye

[theluckycountry]

I tried hard to "collapse early" like JMG suggested but the opportunity cost of, say, growing, harvesting and threshing wheat by hand when wheat is 8¢ a pound is not just prohibitive but nonsensical. It is good as exercise, perhaps good as prep of tools, skills, etc, but a poor investment as a lifestyle.
.

lol, I loved his blog, he's a smart thinker and back then he directed his intelligence toward a good end, though today, the Magic stuff, I care not for. I never used him a model, as you rightly said pops, growing your own food is a waste of time in the modern world. JHK on the other hand had it right I believe, move to a small 'peaceful' rural town. He grows some veggies but it's more of a hobby, not to live on. He makes money off the web, $4000 a month alone goes into his patreon account. It's one reason I would never subscribe to it, he makes enough as it is.

But I owe him, his advice got me out of the city and away from all the madness of the covid lockdowns. Fuel is cheaper out here? The local food is delicious and doesn't go off in the fridge after a week, and the quality of the meat is exceptional. The plains around me are full of farms, the hills covered in cattle, but the best part, from one who grew up in the city, is the traffic. No traffic

[AdamB]

Catherine Austin Fitts is a former investment banker and public official who served during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush, as United States Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Housing. She has widely written and commented on the subject of public spending and has alleged several large scale instances of government fraud.

I know who she is. I checked her resume before I posted. Turns out, she doesn't appear to be quite the authoritative source she was meant to be, but anyone with that much goobermint experience has plenty of....goobermint...experience.

Why does an Aussie care? Assuming you are really an Aussie of course.

[AdamB]

The plains around me are full of farms, the hills covered in cattle, but the best part, from one who grew up in the city, is the traffic. No traffic

The better to ride high speed motorcycles as well. Why do you pretend to be some kind of half assed retired doomer/farmer while pounding your chest over hyper sports bikes and how cool they are?

[AdamB]

Catherine Austin Fitts is a former investment banker and public official who served during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush, as United States Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Housing. She has widely written and commented on the subject of public spending and has alleged several large scale instances of government fraud.

I know who she is. I checked her resume before I posted. Turns out, she doesn't appear to be quite the authoritative source she was meant to be, but anyone with that much goobermint experience has plenty of....goobermint...experience.

Any reason why someone so qualified in your eyes is a Covid conpiracy enthusiast? How about we just use refernces that don't come with the kind of baggage that gives a heads up on their built in looney tunes?

Sort of like Matt Simmons, except with breasts.

Why does an Aussie care? Assuming you are really an Aussie of course.

[Doly]

Demand peak is just a click-bait story, always was. I think politicians know that talking about a demand peak, green transitions and unicorn farts is better than talk about actual constraints.

I'm not talking about demand peak. Anyway, in economics separating demand from supply is a purely intellectual exercise. You only know for sure how much is being sold and at what price, you simply speculate how much would theoretically be sold at some other theoretical prices.

I'm saying that lots of people have had an opportunity to think about peak oil and make their moves accordingly. This includes people in the IT business developing tech for home office. And that when people see their chance to make their business move, they are likely to fight to consolidate their gains. I'm saying that there may be some small, rather than negligible, truth to the American concept that entrepreneurs looking after their own business can help reduce potential disasters. Not saying that it will be enough to take the brunt of the shock, just saying that it's being attempted.

I agree with you that probably the economy hasn't grown since 2008, and finance people have been mostly doing smoke-and-mirrors to hide this. And oil constraints almost certainly have something to do with the problem.

As for why partisan people have to deny that any of peak oil, etc could be happening, I think you answered your own question. With our current economy, certain topics have become taboo because if too many people joined the dots, a whole lot of economic tricks would straight away stop working. Basically, it's got to the point that the state of the economy depends on the majority of people believing lies. I don't think this can go on for very long, so either somehow a bumpy energy transition is managed (and it looks very bumpy to me, even in a best-case scenario), or it's all going to unravel spectacularly in some very ugly way.

[Pops]

I'm saying that lots of people have had an opportunity to think about peak oil and make their moves accordingly.

You might be right, I've been working from home on and off since dial-up almost. I really like the working from home especially if home if is a farm. Fibre is going more and more out to the sticks, finally. I'd love to see some brain drain back to the country.

With our current economy, certain topics have become taboo because if too many people joined the dots, a whole lot of economic tricks would straight away stop working. Basically, it's got to the point that the state of the economy depends on the majority of people believing lies. I don't think this can go on for very long, so either somehow a bumpy energy transition is managed (and it looks very bumpy to me, even in a best-case scenario), or it's all going to unravel spectacularly in some very ugly way.

I agree with all that.

[jedrider]

Nobody panic yet. That will just bring down the house of cards down way faster. We're inflating the economy not because the future is grim, but because there is no future beyond some point (you just take a guess of when that will be).

[Pops]

Nobody panic yet. That will just bring down the house of cards down way faster. We're inflating the economy not because the future is grim, but because there is no future beyond some point (you just take a guess of when that will be).

Saw in the NYT this AM that there might be 2.4 Trillion in stimulus money still percolating through the economy in the US but the effects are starting to wane.



Mortgage rates (most loans are provided by the government) are still 3%,
the discount rate is .25% lowest in my lifetime,
10 year bond is 1.5% (avg was 4.5%),
Shiller PE is 39 second highest ever (44 was the record in 1999, mere 30 in 1929),
Even with 3% mortgage rate housing affordability is the lowest on record with the average income only 18% of the average new home price:



Not sure what happens if the Ds are successful giving everyone free babysitters so they can go hump trucks for Bezos, but if they don't redistribute some money from the pinstripe casino into the real economy I don't see how things keep muddling along.

[Doly]

Which means Goly, she knows a hell of a lot more than you ever will, about anything lol.

Glad to know that apparently Catherine Austin Fitts is a greater expert than me on the famous World3 Limits to Growth model. I wonder why Jorgen Randers ever approached me rather than her.

Yeah, I mean it literally. Why do you think I get an "expert" badge on this forum? I got it back at the time when it meant something, not when the forum fell apart like it has now.

And your claim to know something is that you apparently play around with the occult? So do many people these days. I know of a certain famous wizard that proudly states that the housing bubble caught him unawares, when people in this forum were well aware of it with plenty of time. I gather that asking an occultist about the future is much like asking a gay man about vaginas.

If you actually want to know what's going on and what's likely to happen in the future, you ask someone like me. That's how it is, as simple as that.

[Pops]

Unfortunately trolling is what passes for discourse nowadays, Doly. Don't leave us, please.
I use the "Foe" button to more easily ignore those folks who have nothing new to say. Just click the nickname on a post of the person you want to ignore then when their account profile pops up just click "foe."

[Pops]

Just recieved the Short Term Energy Outlook for November, EIA estimates November consumption at 99.7Mb/d, 1.1Mb/d short of 2019, 4.9Mb/d more than 2020.
They guess consumption next year to avg 96Mb/d due to Omicron. On that I saw a bit in the news that it may be less deadly than Delta, that would be nice.

[AdamB]

Which means Goly, she knows a hell of a lot more than you ever will, about anything lol.

Glad to know that apparently Catherine Austin Fitts is a greater expert than me on the famous World3 Limits to Growth model. I wonder why Jorgen Randers ever approached me rather than her.

Are you really an expert on the LTG model? Or is World3 LTG different/improved from the original and substantially different? And will you take questions on the topic? Modeling questions as much as the logic behind some of the input assumptions. Assuming we are talking about either LTG, or World3 LTG depending on what was changed/fixed/solved to make that version better.

Yeah, I mean it literally. Why do you think I get an "expert" badge on this forum? I got it back at the time when it meant something, not when the forum fell apart like it has now.

I like literal experts. And the forum didn't fall apart, the topic it focuses on did, allowing those of us who knew better in real time to point it out to those who forgot to take their geology/engineering/economic classes in school and apply them properly back then.

[Pops]

This fits here

The End of Growth: Ten Years After December 7, 2021

Fifty years ago the authors of the groundbreaking book The Limits to Growth showed that, in any of a series of computer-generated scenarios, world economic growth would end sometime during the 21st century. Using simple math and logic, they pointed out that growth in any material input or output cannot continue indefinitely within a finite system. Since the Earth is a finite system, the effort to perpetually grow human economies (which, by their very nature, extract resources and produce wastes) is doomed to eventual failure, leading to significant declines in resources, industrial output, food production, and population. Despite the fact that the book was a bestseller and its conclusions were well supported, world political and business leaders ignored it and persevered in their efforts to expand resource extraction, agriculture, and manufacturing.

Lots more...

[Doly]

Moderators, why aren't vaccine/virus posts on this thread moved somewhere else? They're off-topic. I appreciate some trolls believe that vaccine/virus talk is relevant to everything, but some of us still believe in topic moderation. I may have added to the confusion myself, I apologize and please move any of my off-topic posts as well.

[Tanada]

As requested the Covid OTP have been moved over to the medical thread.

wuhan-coronavirus-pt-13-t77979-400.html?1

[Doly]

Are you really an expert on the LTG model?

Since Jorgen Randers did actually ask for my help, I got invited to research conferences on account of my work on the topic, and I got cited a number of times by other scholars on the topic, yes, I think I must be an expert in the minds of relevant people.

Or is World3 LTG different/improved from the original and substantially different?

The original World LTG model got a couple of very minor updates that were used for the next books that the Meadows couple and Jorgen Randers wrote.

My work was on a substantial change to it, with the goal of explicitly modelling into it fossil fuels and the most basic features of climate change. It also had a calculation on GDP.

And will you take questions on the topic?

Certainly.

[AdamB]

Or is World3 LTG different/improved from the original and substantially different?

The original World LTG model got a couple of very minor updates that were used for the next books that the Meadows couple and Jorgen Randers wrote.

My work was on a substantial change to it, with the goal of explicitly modelling into it fossil fuels and the most basic features of climate change. It also had a calculation on GDP.

And will you take questions on the topic?

Certainly.

Your work on explicitly modeling the fossil fuel component, were the resource volumes in your work modified from the original (somewhere near page 57 I think)? And if so, what was your rationale in those modifications, data sources available, the basis for them? I happen to do fossil fuel modeling as well (but not with a climate change component), Dennis and I have had some nice conversations on this website about domestic modeling mostly, his interest is primarily domestic, mine is both domestic and international.