[SumYunGai]

Not because we are socialists, but because the wealthy and powerful don't like chaos around them.

Dream on. The wealthy and powerful have no way to stop the coming chaos. They will be in the same boat as everybody else. And they will not be popular.

Sure they do. They have the US military and most police departments.

Your totalitarian fantasy is only possible if you completely disregard the actual mechanisms of collapse. It will be very rapid. There will be no way for our "leaders" to react. Once a credit freeze occurs, supply chains begin breaking down immediately. So do telecommunications networks and ATMs. The timeline from the first onset of economic crisis to the onset of total collapse could be around 3 weeks or so! You need to read the damn Korowicz paper. Then get back to me about EXACTLY how the rich and powerful will stop what is actually coming.

[SumYunGai]

Globally collapse has been underway for decades, ever since the 1970's when oil/capita peaked.

False. We have experienced decades of decline. Decline is obviously not the same thing as collapse. They are starkly different things. It does no good to falsely conflate them semantically. Talk about an over generalized model.

What makes you think it must necessarily be any different here on out?

Because at some point the declining energy return from oil is going to trigger a very rapid, total economic meltdown. The exact mechanisms are described in detail in the Korowicz paper. Please read it.

[Pops]

Actually the only thing that declined since the '70s were wages, productivity has continued to climb and GDP per barrel has continued to fall.

--
On a lighter note, or at least back in the real world where stuff actually happens outside collapse narratives, the bond market dropped a cool trillion this week...

More than $1.1 trillion was erased from bond holdings around the world this election week to knock their value to $48.1 trillion, according to a Bloomberg analysis of the Bank of America Global Broad Market Index. Bond investors have only lost that kind of money in a week twice in the past two decades, says Bloomberg.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/mar ... /93647938/

As it turns out, the plan trump should have kept secret was the one to spend a trillion on infrastructure while cutting taxes by 7 trillion, interest rates are going to rise rapidly now and so will price inflation.
woo hoo

[careinke]

The long-standing ideolized crash a la PO.com and the Tipping Points paper has changed completely. Whatever systemic failure PO might have caused presumes that globalism is a thing, the current trend in isolationism preempts an oil based collapse by crashing the global market preemptively.

gotta get a new paradigm

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Personally, I think nationalism as opposed to globalism, especially in an economic collapse will be our best alternative. Think local. 80% of the world gets their food from local sources, we should be able to make up the slack. The elite progressives (no capital letters) want to control it all. Sorry, that paradigm is going away, replaced by hundreds of different solutions, depending on the local environment rather than the IMF.

[shortonoil]

"Because at some point the declining energy return from oil is going to trigger a very rapid, total economic meltdown."

If you mean by fast, the next 5 or 6 years you are probably correct. 2017 is the 80,000 BTU per gallon point; it is where 80,000 BTU of oil's 140,000 is needed to produce the crude and its products. The industry is already showing considerable stress as a result. The petroleum industry accounts directly for 35% of the world's economy. Once that hypothetical 99,400 BTU point is reached the industry will fail.

We have no way of knowing what the distribution of individual producers is, but looking at the ERoEI graph, and the present situation for the industry it is probably fairly tight. It would not be unreasonable to see 10 to 20% of the entire industry collapse in one year. 3.5 to 7.0 % of world GDP disappearing overnight would bring about a depression of unheard of severity. The situation would only grow worse in ensuing years.

The impact on critical infrastructure and supply channels will be devastating, and almost immediate. Somethings will disappear from the selves overnight. For those who will be seduced by promises of a resurrection, do not be swayed. The situation will only continue to worsen. Where this will end is difficult to tell. 1700, 1800, 1929, we don't know. We will know when we get there. In 1800 hundred many parts of the world had not yet been mapped. No matter where we land, we will be heading into an information "black out".

BW

[SumYunGai]

"Because at some point the declining energy return from oil is going to trigger a very rapid, total economic meltdown."

If you mean by fast, the next 5 or 6 years you are probably correct.

I mean potentially much faster, BW. The Etp max. affordability line represents the best case scenario for oil production, but the economic/financial/monetary system house of cards could implode any day now. It is hard to imagine it could last for another 5 or 6 years. The next economic crisis could very quickly lead to a credit freeze, putting millions (billions?) out of work, and threatening just in time delivery systems world wide. This means wide spread starvation and chaos, i.e. rapid total collapse, measured in weeks, not years. Please check out the Korowicz paper: "Trade-Off --- Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: a study in global systemic collapse" at http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/upload ... e-Off1.pdf.

...the credit backing of fractional reserve banks, monetary systems and financial assets are fundamentally incompatible with energy constraints. It is argued that in the coming years there are multiple routes to a large-scale breakdown in the global financial system, comprising systemic banking collapses, monetary system failure, credit and financial asset vaporization. This breakdown, however and whenever it comes, is likely to be fast and disorderly and could overwhelm society’s ability to respond.

We consider one scenario to give a practical dimension to understanding supply-chain contagion: a break-up of the Euro and an intertwined systemic banking crisis. Simple argument and modelling will point to the likelihood of a food security crisis within days in the directly affected countries and an initially exponential spread of production failures across the world beginning within a week. This will reinforce and spread financial system contagion. It is also argued that the longer the crisis goes on, the greater the likelihood of its irreversibility. This could be in as little as three weeks.

[shortonoil]

"Trade-Off --- Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: a study in global systemic collapse"

The petroleum industry is now pouring 11.4 quad BTU per year into the economy. Most of that is coming from the depletion of their reserves (they aren't replacing them as they pump them out). That translates to $2.1 trillion per year. I don't think that the economy will collapse until they do.

Of course, when that happens will be anyone's guess. It will probably be when Hess files for bankruptcy or a lot of Saudi Princes are hanging from a light pole on piano wire. Anyway, we will hear all about it.

[SumYunGai]

"Trade-Off --- Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: a study in global systemic collapse"

The petroleum industry is now pouring 11.4 quad BTU per year into the economy. Most of that is coming from the depletion of their reserves (they aren't replacing them as they pump them out). That translates to $2.1 trillion per year. I don't think that the economy will collapse until they do.

The oil industry is good at what it does. I agree that the oil industry could continue for some time, so long as the general economy holds. But the economic/financial/banking system is the weak link in the chain. And the Etp model has no way to account for this. I think the oil industry will collapse when the economy does, not the other way around.

Of course, when that happens will be anyone's guess.

I agree. But once it does, I believe the ensuing collapse will be very rapid.

[Pops]

The long-standing ideolized crash a la PO.com and the Tipping Points paper has changed completely. Whatever systemic failure PO might have caused presumes that globalism is a thing, the current trend in isolationism preempts an oil based collapse by crashing the global market preemptively.

gotta get a new paradigm

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Personally, I think nationalism as opposed to globalism, especially in an economic collapse will be our best alternative. Think local. 80% of the world gets their food from local sources, we should be able to make up the slack. The elite progressives (no capital letters) want to control it all. Sorry, that paradigm is going away, replaced by hundreds of different solutions, depending on the local environment rather than the IMF.

By "elite progressives" you mean Cargil, ADM, Conagra, Tyson, Monsanto, and pretty well every multinational in the US? Those "progressives"? LOL

If a preemptive depression in ag and in the stock market—already generally overvalued—is what we need, a trade war is the surefire method to get there. But I don't think that's what people voted for, do you?

But yeah, this is the accidental implementation of the popular PO plan to collapse early and avoid the rush.

[Pops]

The ETP bullshit needs to stay in the ETP BS thread.

[Tanada]

Actually the only thing that declined since the '70s were wages, productivity has continued to climb and GDP per barrel has continued to fall.

Here we fundamentally disagree Pops. IMO as I have written extensively the economy is founded not just on production and consumption as the theories of the past stated. Logistics is the key to every economy, and logistics is founded on infrastructure.

The infrastructure of the USA in particular is in a horrible decayed condition, especially on secondary, tertiary and Quaternary transportation networks. Not only does rebuilding infrastructure stimulate the economy with spending in the location of the improvement, it also promotes travel and trade on local, state and national levels.

[Pops]

Infrastructure is dependent on taxes, cut taxes and infrastructure crumbles, nothing to do with PO.

[GHung]

Infrastructure is dependent on taxes, cut taxes and infrastructure crumbles, nothing to do with PO.

Nonsense. It's all inter-connected, and an economy running in deficit that is diverting more of its GDP to support its energy consumption is reducing its support of other sectors. We've been robbing Peter to pay Paul's fuel bill for years.

[Tanada]

Infrastructure is dependent on taxes, cut taxes and infrastructure crumbles, nothing to do with PO.

That simply is not correct. Major portions of the Infrastructure of the USA were built during the Great Depression and during the 1950's. In both cases taxes did not come close to covering the costs, almost all of it was done with deficit spending. Even worse in the last 40 years the structure of HOW those funds were directed has been totally inadequate.

If you can claim wages stagnated when the USA passed peak oil then everything else falls into line with that statement. With wages stagnant the portion of taxes paid by wage earners has also been stagnant except where adjusted from time to time by the government. Fuel taxes have been locked at there current low levels for decades and traditionally those taxes are the ones used to fund infrastructure repairs and improvements. Q.E.D. if Joe6P and Jane6P had been earning more over the last 40 years they would have been paying more taxes and funding more infrastructure.

[Pops]

You'll pardon my confusion, until last tuesday the right was all about balanced budgets and austerity, and freaking out about Obama's deficit spending on things like the infrastructure stimulus spending bill.

now it's borrow away.

We aren't in debt paying the fuel bill, we're borrowing to pay the profiteers

[Tanada]

You'll pardon my confusion, until last tuesday the right was all about balanced budgets and austerity, and freaking out about Obama's deficit spending on things like the infrastructure stimulus spending bill.

now it's borrow away.

We aren't in debt paying the fuel bill, we're borrowing to pay the profiteers

I more or less gave up on balancing the budget a decade ago when the 2008 crisis precipitated the QE madness that has reigned from the end of the President Bush era right up to today. Where have I posted about balancing the budget recently?

Make no mistake I believe the budget bubble will pop at some point when they run out of tricks for kicking the can down the road further. When that happens the reset is going to extraordinarily ugly because we kept going so far past the point of any reason. IMO the keys to recovery such as it may be afterward will be dependent on internal trade between myself, my neighbors and the residents of the neighboring states. The best way to ensure that is possible is to repair as much of the infrastructure as quickly as possible in whatever time we may have left.

Hopefully that clears up your misunderstanding of my position on the whole deficit spending debacle.

[sjn]

T, don't you think repairing/rebuilding fossil fuel orientated infrastructure would be a mis-allocation of resources at this point?

[sjn]

The ETP bullshit needs to stay in the ETP BS thread.

Whether or not the ETP is mathematically defensible, even ignoring entropy (which I think is a mistake) can't we all agree that qualitatively, as we reach for the fruit (barrels) at the top of the tree, more effort and resources (capital) are diverted from the non-energy harvesting portion of the economy? That at some point that becomes unsustainable..?

[GHung]

T, don't you think repairing/rebuilding fossil fuel orientated infrastructure would be a mis-allocation of resources at this point?

As always, Kunstler weighed in this morning:

...The chatter this week has been all about the upcoming “infrastructure” orgy that Trump will undertake. That depends first of all on how badly the financial sector cracks up. I hope we do not squander more of our dwindling capital on the accessories of car dependence, because that addiction is on the way out. One thing Mr. Trump might get behind is restoring the passenger railroads of America so that we can at least get around the continental nation when the Happy Motoring fiesta grinds to a halt.

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/ ... re-6723%27

I'm pretty sure these and most other changes will be forced by circumstances. Other arrangements will be made (or not) but the current paradigm is on its way out.