[ralfy]

If we all believe even 5% of what is forecasted for the next several decades it doesn't really matter if most people understand it or not. They and their lifestyles are endangered and irrelevant.

Which puts to question your argument that he is merely "whining" because he presents no alternatives. That's because there are no alternatives.

What's the point in "whining" then? It's to make more aware so that they can prep.

[ralfy]

I sometimes think more folks are sufficiently aware of the problems.

However there is no alternative solution that is either better or that does not violate their innate sense of morality, fairness.

So they are stuck, the present is good enough and they have no idea of a better future. So here we are, dead culture walking.

2¢

Also, many might not be aware but have experienced effects of such problems for decades, but not out of choice but because of poverty.

We (members of the middle class, or those who earn at least $10 a day) will be joining them in the future.

[Ibon]

What's the point in "whining" then? It's to make more aware so that they can prep.

Listen Ralfy,

I am not interested in the vast majority of humanity being aware of the fate that awaits them.

You shouldn't either.

The competition will be worse and your odds go way down if you bring awareness to the vast majority of humanity.

Let them stay exactly where they are.

Now that's not very nice but it is very honest.

[The_Toecutter]

Be grateful in a strange way that so many have chosen imprisoned dead lifestyles.

It makes more room for the rest of us.

A lot of that would depend on one's location and unique circumstances. Some of us are surrounded by these dead lifestyles, and it ends up impacting us, no matter how much we'd like it not to.

A lot of people, especially close friends and family, may even think you are mentally ill for rejecting such a dead lifestyle. Random strangers may even think you're about to go postal when they couldn't be further from the truth.

But indeed, a bit of room is much needed. Finding it in the U.S. is quite a tall order. The U.S.A. is imprisoned dead lifestyle central, and most of us are dragged into this lifestyle kicking and screaming, because the alternative is often imprisonment, institutionalization, and/or denial of basic needs. The U.S. government's persecution of the counter culture and the regimentation of daily existence within its general society had consequences that most people will not understand, even when they're directly suffering from them.

[ralfy]

Listen Ralfy,

I am not interested in the vast majority of humanity being aware of the fate that awaits them.

You shouldn't either.

The competition will be worse and your odds go way down if you bring awareness to the vast majority of humanity.

Let them stay exactly where they are.

Now that's not very nice but it is very honest.

Too bad the problem isn't just competition. I'll let you figure that out.

[Tanada]

Some Other People Do Some Other Things - Kunstler

An almighty bafflement befogs the nation as the first full business week of 2020 commences and events pile up like smashed vehicles on a weather-blinded highway. Before we even smoked that Iranian bird on the Baghdad airport tarmac, something ominous was tingling away in the financial markets, in fact, has been since way back in September. Perhaps one-in-100,000 Americans has the dimmest clue as to what the repo mechanism stands for in banking circles, but it has been flashing red for months, with klaxons blaring for those who maybe missed the red flashes.

The repo market represents trillions of dollars in overnight lending in which bonds (or other “assets”) are used as collateral for ultra-short-term loans between large banks. Theoretically, this flow of supposedly secured lending acts as mere background lubricant for the engine of finance, like the motor oil circulating in your Ford F-150. You don’t notice it until it’s not there, and then all of a sudden you’re throwing rods and sucking valves, and the darn vehicle is a smoldering goner in the breakdown lane.

The strange action on the repo scene suggests that some big banks are in big trouble, and probably because the “innovative investments” they’ve engineered — as a substitute for the true purposes of capital, such as enabling production of real goods at a profit — are proving once again to be little more than swindles and frauds, like last time. Things like interest rate swaps and credit default “insurance.” Have your eyes glazed over yet? The bottom line is an impressive potential for losses to go critical, multiply daisy-chain style, cascade wildly, and then start wrecking real things — like the supply lines to your supermarket.

When you cut through all the esoteric crap, what’s likely behind all that is the dynamic of a failing affordable global energy supply. Yes, really. It’s not working to run the global economy anymore, so we resort to swindles and frauds instead. That must seem crazy to Americans especially, who look at our all-time record oil production of nearly 13 million barrels-a-day now and behold the blue sky of “energy independence” as far as the eye can see. The trouble is, it’s a hologram of a mirage of a Ponzi scheme. Suffice it to say that shale oil just doesn’t make any money and all the other regular oil around the world is harder and harder to get to. A lot of that other oil is in the Middle East.

So, a lot depends on what happens in the Middle East, easily the most politically mixed-up and confused region in the world — though central Africa may have it beat for sheer horrifying chaos. In general, we tolerate all that confusion as long as the oil keeps flowing to world markets, enabling the flows of everything else. But any hint of an interruption sends humanity and all its signaling systems — such as financial markets — into a psychotic fugue. Which is what we’re approaching now.

The financial markets know that a lot less new investment will flow into shale oil from now on, since it was a lousy investment the past ten years, despite all he admirable techno-virtuosity behind it, and that before long the mighty shale oil bell curve will turn down, and everything economic with it. Folks who make foreign policy and military plans may sense this too, perhaps dimly. But then they confront the additional mystifying calculus of all those moiling parties in the Middle East jockeying for position and advantage as the oil-hungry big dogs of the world desperately try to figure how to keep those oil flows going their way.

Eventually — and sooner rather than later — the mighty flows of everything in the global economy have to neck down, and the process will probably consist of sharp political and economic shocks rather than simple deceleration. Just such a shock was the assassination of General Qassim Suleimani. His multifarious activities all around the Middle East were in themselves a symptom of the instability dogging Iran as its economy wobbles. Much of that is due to the squeeze that the USA put on Iran in the way of trade sanctions and currency movements. And much of that stems from events over forty years ago when the mullahs ran the shah out of town and took the American embassy staff hostage for well over a year. The enmity on both sides runs wide and deep.

Iran’s neighbor, Iraq, is quite a prize oil-wise, and Iran has made significant inroads attempting to gain control of that broken country, even while the USA retains its garrisons there. The region of Iraq closest to Iran, Basra, is overwhelmingly Shia, like Iran, and produces a lot of Iraq’s oil. Baghdad is not so hot to give it up. Remember, the two countries slugged it out through the entire 1980s. About a quarter-million people died in that war. It is surely a high priority for the USA to not let that Iraqi oil slip into Iran’s hands. It’s a zero-sum game, of course, because even Iraq’s copious oil reserves will not save the global economy’s ass, let alone Iran’s economy.

Nobody knows what happens next. The Iranians are pissed off to beat the band. They’ve pulled many a prank the past couple of years, like attacking a major Saudi Arabian oil terminal, capturing American sailors, shooting down American drones, seizing tankers in the Persian Gulf and suchlike capers — all with no response from their foes, including us. And, of course, there is the question of all the other monkey business they’ve engaged in around Syria, Lebanon and even faraway Libya, which is where General Suleimani came in. Serious people wonder: is Iran crazy enough now to try to shut down the Straits of Hormuz? Or attack the Ras Tanura complex?

For the moment, impeachment is on the back burner. We’re in for a double-feature this first month of the rollicking 20s: financial carnage and something that looks like war. It will make for quite the attitude-adjustment here.

Kunstler

[Revi]

That blog post was up to the standards of Kunstler of old. It's about the best I've read in a long time!

[Cog]

Except for the fact that Kunsler doesn't know squat about what the Repo market is for and does.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Except for the fact that Kunsler doesn't know squat about what the Repo market is for and does.

Kunstler showed his full hand during his Y2K prognostication (and personal profit, re selling things like "Y2K buckets" for absurd amounts) era.

(Heaven forbid he actually look at the data experts were publishing on the subject). And yes, I was an IBM expert at the time, and yes, the experts got it exactly right. Remarkable what a huge amount of testing and serious analysis can do. Think science.)

BUT AFTER ALL, THERE'S PROFITS TO BE MADE FROM THE UNEDUCATED, FRIGHTENED MASSES.

The only question left is why so many idiots continue to follow his endlessly nonsensical braying.

Of course, we know the answer: He says what they want to hear. Forget incidentals like facts, reality, logic, etc.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Listen Ralfy,

I am not interested in the vast majority of humanity being aware of the fate that awaits them.

You shouldn't either.

The competition will be worse and your odds go way down if you bring awareness to the vast majority of humanity.

Let them stay exactly where they are.

Now that's not very nice but it is very honest.

Too bad the problem isn't just competition. I'll let you figure that out.

Are we all dead yet?

(Rhetorical question): Is it worth it to ask that question every week, much less every day, re the array of "we're doomed real soon now" posts that show up daily from the crowd of usual suspects that have a track record of zero. And credibility to match?

Hint: In the real world, probability is "a thing".

[ralfy]

Behind Iran that "pulled many a prank" is a dominant warmonger.

[asg70]

That blog post was up to the standards of Kunstler of old. It's about the best I've read in a long time!

How so? He didn't mention peak oil once.

Just because he's doom-mongering? He was doing that before (remember Y2K?). What value does he have to the peak oil movement if he never talks about peak oil?

Is this all peak oilers have left to cling to--the miscellaneous ramblings of someone who used to talk about peak oil but spends most of his time defending Trump and bashing Democrats?

[Revi]

At least it wasn't quite as crazy a rant as usual. He isn't really connected to peak oil any more, which is strange, since it might actually be happening now!

[asg70]

The thing with Kunstler is his shift from doomerism to alt-right seems to match a similar shift in many of the active posters here. That explains why he keeps getting featured. Sad.

[jedrider]

I liked Kunstler's 'Architecture of No Where'. It was all downhill after that.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I liked Kunstler's 'Architecture of No Where'. It was all downhill after that.

Do you mean "The Geography of Nowhere"? That's what I get when trying to google "Kunstler Architecture of No Where".

Assuming that's right, hat was 1994, per Amazon.

Do you mean Kunstler's output has been all downhill, or the world overall re the implied doom clock, etc?

[jedrider]

I liked Kunstler's 'Architecture of No Where'. It was all downhill after that.

Do you mean "The Geography of Nowhere"? That's what I get when trying to google "Kunstler Architecture of No Where".

Assuming that's right, hat was 1994, per Amazon.

Do you mean Kunstler's output has been all downhill, or the world overall re the implied doom clock, etc?

No, Kunstler and Trump's America descended together. But, there's more hope for America than Kunstler now, as despite authoring 'The Geography of Nowhere' and having some appreciation of peak oil, Kunstler now just seems to be an angry person and we already have enough of those.

[asg70]

No, Kunstler and Trump's America descended together. But, there's more hope for America than Kunstler now, as despite authoring 'The Geography of Nowhere' and having some appreciation of peak oil, Kunstler now just seems to be an angry person and we already have enough of those.

Kunstler's real claim to fame was as a novelist, writing "A World Made By Hand". He wasn't doing that as an exit-strategy from short-term doomerism but it sort of paved the way for Greer who is also now a writer of fiction. Doomers have invested so much time using their imagination to envision doomsday scenarios that it makes sense to just write a story about it given that doomer fiction sells a lot better than just being a chicken little blogger.

[Pops]

The thing with Kunstler is his shift from doomerism to alt-right seems to match a similar shift in many of the active posters here. That explains why he keeps getting featured. Sad.

The recession and fracking made PO less of an urgent threat. Lefty doomers turned to other topics, GW, plastic straws etc. And younger folks moved to other platforms, which left this comfortable backwater for old folks to marinate and ruminate.

My thought is the swing to the wacky right in the population in general could be described as normalization of deviance: what happens when, over a period, undermining of standards, institutions, rules, expectations, etc, becomes acceptable, not to mention profitable. Start with "government is the problem" and wind up with FOX/trump. If government is the problem, the solution is incompetence, chaos, carnage. Woo whoo! Success!

On PO and doomers, some time back a student posted a paper here about environmental apocalypticism and peak oil in particular. In it he surveyed participants here and elsewhere and found a relative few "conservatives." Despite the obsession lots of people on the right have over perceived threats; "of course I always answer the door with a pistol in my hand," most studiously avoid environmental topics that challenge their base ideology of dominion, rapture, authoritarianism, etc. Why be concerned about the environment or resources? After all, gawd created it specifically for us and I'm going to heaven next Tuesday anyway.

I find doomers in general are of two types, hand-wringers and hands-on. I find most fan fiction of the apocalyptic type centers on the initial period where the long-suffering gary cooper type is forced to kill all the gang bangers, drug dealers and blasphemers. That's the right's fantasy of doom, not sure whether it is a consequence of or the cause of all the sales of ARs but doesn't really matter I guess.

The thing about Kunstler's Made by Hand, like Forstchen (one second after) all the way back to Frank (alas babylon) is while they include the requisite good vs evil action, they also flesh out the hands-on aspect of doom, the low-tech reimagining of society. The story is as much cautionary tale and tutorial as action fantasy.

[asg70]

most fan fiction of the apocalyptic type centers on the initial period where the long-suffering gary cooper type is forced to kill all the gang bangers, drug dealers and blasphemers. That's the right's fantasy of doom

Yeah, I think advocating preventative measures (aka powerdown, renewables) are a non-starter with those who see apocalyptic scenarios as an improvement over the status quo. Of course, this means such people are a) part of the problem, and b) suffering from massive hubris that they won't get pulled down with the rest of us.