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Deflationary Collapse Ahead?
Submitted by Gail Tverberg via OurFiniteWorld.com,
Both the stock market and oil prices have been plunging. Is this “just another cycle,” or is it something much worse? I think it is something much worse.
Back in January, I wrote a post called Oil and the Economy: Where are We Headed in 2015-16? In it, I said that persistent very low prices could be a sign that we are reaching limits of a finite world. In fact, the scenario that is playing out matches up with what I expected to happen in my January post. In that post, I said
Needless to say, stagnating wages together with rapidly rising costs of oil production leads to a mismatch between:
- The amount consumers can afford for oil
- The cost of oil, if oil price matches the cost of production
This mismatch between rising costs of oil production and stagnating wages is what has been happening. The unaffordability problem can be hidden by a rising amount of debt for a while (since adding cheap debt helps make unaffordable big items seem affordable), but this scheme cannot go on forever.
Eventually, even at near zero interest rates, the amount of debt becomes too high, relative to income. Governments become afraid of adding more debt. Young people find student loans so burdensome that they put off buying homes and cars. The economic “pump” that used to result from rising wages and rising debt slows, slowing the growth of the world economy. With slow economic growth comes low demand for commodities that are used to make homes, cars, factories, and other goods. This slow economic growth is what brings the persistent trend toward low commodity prices experienced in recent years.
A chart I showed in my January post was this one:
Figure 1. World Oil Supply (production including biofuels, natural gas liquids) and Brent monthly average spot prices, based on EIA data.
The price of oil dropped dramatically in the latter half of 2008, partly because of the adverse impact high oil prices had on the economy, and partly because of a contraction in debt amounts at that time. It was only when banks were bailed out and the United States began its first round of Quantitative Easing (QE) to get longer term interest rates down even further that energy prices began to rise. Furthermore, China ramped up its debt in this time period, using its additional debt to build new homes, roads, and factories. This also helped pump energy prices back up again.
The price of oil was trending slightly downward between 2011 and 2014, suggesting that even then, prices were subject to an underlying downward trend. In mid-2014, there was a big downdraft in prices, which coincided with the end of US QE3 and with slower growth in debt in China. Prices rose for a time, but have recently dropped again, related to slowing Chinese, and thus world, economic growth. In part, China’s slowdown is occurring because it has reached limits regarding how many homes, roads and factories it needs.
I gave a list of likely changes to expect in my January post. These haven’t changed. I won’t repeat them all here. Instead, I will give an overview of what is going wrong and offer some thoughts regarding why others are not pointing out this same problem.
Overview of What is Going Wrong
- The big thing that is happening is that the world financial system is likely to collapse. Back in 2008, the world financial system almost collapsed. This time, our chances of avoiding collapse are very slim.
- Without the financial system, pretty much nothing else works: the oil extraction system, the electricity delivery system, the pension system, the ability of the stock market to hold its value. The change we are encountering is similar to losing the operating system on a computer, or unplugging a refrigerator from the wall.
- We don’t know how fast things will unravel, but things are likely to be quite different in as short a time as a year. World financial leaders are likely to “pull out the stops,” trying to keep things together. A big part of our problem is too much debt. This is hard to fix, because reducing debt reduces demand and makes commodity prices fall further. With low prices, production of commodities is likely to fall. For example, food production using fossil fuel inputs is likely to greatly decline over time, as is oil, gas, and coal production.
- The electricity system, as delivered by the grid, is likely to fail in approximately the same timeframe as our oil-based system. Nothing will fail overnight, but it seems highly unlikely that electricity will outlast oil by more than a year or two. All systems are dependent on the financial system. If the oil system cannot pay its workers and get replacement parts because of a collapse in the financial system, the same is likely to be true of the electrical grid system.
- Our economy is a self-organized networked system that continuously dissipates energy, known in physics as a dissipative structure. Other examples of dissipative structures include all plants and animals (including humans) and hurricanes. All of these grow from small beginnings, gradually plateau in size, and eventually collapse and die. We know of a huge number of prior civilizations that have collapsed. This appears to have happened when the return on human labor has fallen too low. This is much like the after-tax wages of non-elite workers falling too low. Wages reflect not only the workers’ own energy (gained from eating food), but any supplemental energy used, such as from draft animals, wind-powered boats, or electricity. Falling median wages, especially of young people, are one of the indications that our economy is headed toward collapse, just like the other economies.
- The reason that collapse happens quickly has to do with debt and derivatives. Our networked economy requires debt in order to extract fossil fuels from the ground and to create renewable energy sources, for several reasons: (a) Producers don’t have to save up as much money in advance, (b) Middle-men making products that use energy products (such cars and refrigerators) can “finance” their factories, so they don’t have to save up as much, (c) Consumers can afford to buy “big-ticket” items like homes and cars, with the use of plans that allow monthly payments, so they don’t have to save up as much, and (d) Most importantly, debt helps raise the price of commodities of all sorts (including oil and electricity), because it allows more customers to afford products that use them. The problem as the economy slows, and as we add more and more debt, is that eventually debt collapses. This happens because the economy fails to grow enough to allow the economy to generate sufficient goods and services to keep the system going–that is, pay adequate wages, even to non-elite workers; pay growing government and corporate overhead; and repay debt with interest, all at the same time. Figure 2 is an illustration of the problem with the debt component.
Figure 2. Repaying loans is easy in a growing economy, but much more difficult in a shrinking economy.
Where Did Modeling of Energy and the Economy Go Wrong?
- Today’s general level of understanding about how the economy works, and energy’s relationship to the economy, is dismally low. Economics has generally denied that energy has more than a very indirect relationship to the economy. Since 1800, world population has grown from 1 billion to more than 7 billion, thanks to the use of fossil fuels for increased food production and medicines, among other things. Yet environmentalists often believe that the world economy can somehow continue as today, without fossil fuels. There is a possibility that with a financial crash, we will need to start over, with new local economies based on the use of local resources. In such a scenario, it is doubtful that we can maintain a world population of even 1 billion.
- Economics modeling is based on observations of how the economy worked when we were far from limits of a finite world. The indications from this modeling are not at all generalizable to the situation when we are reaching limits of a finite world. The expectation of economists, based on past situations, is that prices will rise when there is scarcity. This expectation is completely wrong when the basic problem is lack of adequate wages for non-elite workers. When the problem is a lack of wages, workers find it impossible to purchase high-priced goods like homes, cars, and refrigerators. All of these products are created using commodities, so a lack of adequate wages tends to “feed back” through the system as low commodity prices. This is exactly the opposite of what standard economic models predict.
- M. King Hubbert’s “peak oil” analysis provided a best-case scenario that was clearly unrealistic, but it was taken literally by his followers. One of Hubbert’s sources of optimism was to assume that another energy product, such as nuclear, would arise in huge quantity, prior to the time when a decline in fossil fuels would become a problem.
The way nuclear energy operates in Figure 2 seems to me to be pretty much equivalent to the output of a perpetual motion machine, adding an endless amount of cheap energy that can be substituted for fossil fuels. A related source of optimism has to do with the shape of a curve that is created by the sum of curves of a given type. There is no reason to expect that the “total” curve will be of the same shape as the underlying curves, unless a perfect substitute (that is, having low price, unlimited quantity, and the ability to work directly in current devices) is available for what is being modeled–here fossil fuels. When the amount of extraction is determined by price, and price can quickly swing from high to low, there is good reason to believe that the shape of the sum curve will be quite pointed, rather than rounded. For example we know that a square wave can be approximated using the sum of sine functions, using Fourier Series (Figure 4).
- The world economy operates on energy flows in a given year, even though most analysts today are accustomed to thinking on a discounted cash flow basis. You and I eat food that was grown very recently. A model of food potentially available in the future is interesting, but it doesn’t satisfy our need for food when we are hungry. Similarly, our vehicles run on oil that has recently been extracted; our electrical system operates on electricity that has been produced, essentially simultaneously. The very close relationship in time between production and consumption of energy products is in sharp contrast to the way the financial system works. It makes promises, such as the availability of bank deposits, the amounts of pension payments, and the continuing value of corporate stocks, far out into the future. When these promises are made, there is no check made that goods and services will actually be available to repay these promises. We end up with a system that has promised very many more goods and services in the future than the real world will actually be able to produce. A break is inevitable; it looks like the break will be happening in the near future.
- Changes in the financial system have huge potential to disrupt the operation of the energy flow system. Demand in a given year comes from a combination of (wages and other income streams in a given year) plus the (change in debt in a given year). Historically, the (change in debt) has been positive. This has helped raise commodity prices. As soon as we start getting large defaults on debt, the (change in debt) component turns negative, and tends to bring down the price of commodities. (Note Point 6 in the previous section.) Once this happens, it is virtually impossible to keep prices up high enough to extract oil, coal and natural gas. This is a major reason why the system tends to crash.
- Researchers are expected to follow in the steps of researchers before them, rather than starting from a basic understudying of the whole problem. Trying to understand the whole problem, rather than simply trying to look at a small segment of a problem is difficult, especially if a researcher is expected to churn out a large number of peer reviewed academic articles each year. Unfortunately, there is a huge amount of research that might have seemed correct when it was written, but which is really wrong, if viewed through a broader lens. Churning out a high volume of articles based on past research tends to simply repeat past errors. This problem is hard to correct, because the field of energy and the economy cuts across many areas of study. It is hard for anyone to understand the full picture.
- In the area of energy and the economy, it is very tempting to tell people what they want to hear. If a researcher doesn’t understand how the system of energy and the economy works, and needs to guess, the guesses that are most likely to be favorably received when it comes time for publication are the ones that say, “All is well. Innovation will save the day.” Or, “Substitution will save the day.” This tends to bias research toward saying, “All is well.” The availability of financial grants on topics that appear hopeful adds to this effect.
- Energy Returned on Energy Investment (EROEI) analysis doesn’t really get to the point of today’s problems. Many people have high hopes for EROEI analysis, and indeed, it does make some progress in figuring out what is happening. But it misses many important points. One of them is that there are many different kinds of EROEI. The kind that matters, in terms of keeping the economy from collapsing, is the return on human labor. This type of EROEI is equivalent to after-tax wages of non-elite workers. This kind of return tends to drop too low if the total quantity of energy being used to leverage human labor is too low. We would expect a drop to occur in the quantity of energy used, if energy prices are too high, or if the quantity of energy products available is restricted.
- Instead of looking at wages of workers, most EROEI analyses consider returns on fossil fuel energy–something that is at least part of the puzzle, but is far from the whole picture. Returns on fossil fuel energy can be done either on a cash flow (energy flow) basis or on a “model” basis, similar to discounted cash flow. The two are not at all equivalent. What the economy needs is cash flow energy now, not modeled energy production in the future. Cash flow analyses probably need to be performed on an industry-wide basis; direct and indirect inputs in a given calendar year would be compared with energy outputs in the same calendar year. Man-made renewables will tend to do badly in such analyses, because considerable energy is used in making them, but the energy provided is primarily modeled future energy production, assuming that the current economy can continue to operate as today–something that seems increasingly unlikely.
- If we are headed for a near term sharp break in the economy, there is no point in trying to add man-made renewables to the electric grid. The whole point of adding man-made renewables is to try to keep what we have today longer. But if the system is collapsing, the whole plan is futile. We end up extracting more coal and oil today, in order to add wind or solar PV to what will soon become a useless grid electric system. The grid system will not last long, because we cannot pay workers and we cannot maintain the grid without a financial system. So if we add man-made renewables, most of what we get is their short-term disadvantages, with few of their hoped-for long-term advantages.
Conclusion
The analysis that comes closest to the situation we are reaching today is the 1972 analysis of limits of a finite world, published in the book “The Limits to Growth” by Donella Meadows and others. It models what can be expected to happen, if population and resource extraction grow as expected, gradually tapering off as diminishing returns are encountered. The base model seems to indicate that a collapse will happen about now.
Figure 5. Base scenario from 1972 Limits to Growth, printed using today’s graphics by Charles Hall and John Day in “Revisiting Limits to Growth After Peak Oil” http://www.esf.edu/efb/hall/2009-05Hall0327.pdf
The shape of the downturn is not likely to be correct in Figure 5. One reason is that the model was put together based on physical quantities of goods and people, without considering the role the financial system, particularly debt, plays. I expect that debt would tend to make collapse quicker. Also, the modelers had no experience with interactions in a contracting world economy, so had no idea regarding what adjustments to make. The authors have even said that the shapes of the curves, after the initial downturn, cannot be relied on. So we end up with something like Figure 6, as about all that we can rely on.
Figure 6. Figure 5, truncated shortly after industrial output per capita (grey) and food per capita turns down, since modeled amounts are unreliable after that date.
If we are indeed facing the downturn forecast by Limits to Growth modeling, we are facing a predicament that doesn’t have a real solution. We can make the best of what we have today, and we can try to strengthen bonds with family and friends. We can try to diversify our financial resources, so if one bank encounters problems early on, it won’t be a huge problem. We can perhaps keep a little food and water on hand, to tide us over a temporary shortage. We can study our religious beliefs for guidance.
Some people believe that it is possible for groups of survivalists to continue, given adequate preparation. This may or may not be true. The only kind of renewables that we can truly count on for the long term are those used by our forefathers, such as wood, draft animals, and wind-driven boats. Anyone who decides to use today’s technology, such as solar panels and a pump adapted for use with solar panels, needs to plan for the day when that technology fails. At that point, hard decisions will need to be made regarding how the group will live without the technology.
We can’t say that no one warned us about the predicament we are facing. Instead, we chose not to listen. Public officials gave a further push in this direction, by channeling research funds toward distant theoretically solvable problems, instead of understanding the true nature of what we are up against. Too many people took what Hubbert said literally, without understanding that what he offered was a best-case scenario, if we could find something equivalent to a perpetual motion machine to help us out of our predicament.
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Innumerable confusions and a feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transition. -Marshall McLuhan
JPMorgan Says Eyes On Fischer Saturday; ECB, Eying Emerging Markets, Has Itchy QE Trigger FingerA long article with some false premises/conclusions.
"DEPRESSION BY DOWNWARD ASSET DEFLATIONARY SPIRAL;
DETERIORATION OF NATIONAL ECONOMIES BY ASSET DEFLATION;
DEFLATION MORPHS INTO STAGFLATION AND THEN PRICE HYPERINFLATION"
http://cosmicconvergence.org/?p=1987
The ‘FOUR HORSEMEN’ Herald the Death Knell of Predatory Capitalism
Yup, and there are some very special dates on the September calendar IMHO...
The Potential Death of the Stock Market will Happen On…Nice, except you should not have picked September like everyone else also did, but August. Most of the damage as it relates to stocks is already behind us for this year. I would bet that the S&P500 will be higher by the end of this year.
higher than the beginning of the year or higher than now? If you want to bet, then buy some SPY calls. No need to bet here where you can collect
Obviously higher than now. Already bought ESZ today.
Nano-tech, composite carbon based construction materials, and thorium based high temp low pressure breeder reactors can and will solve most of those problems. Humans are highly adaptable and inventive when forced to be
The massive deflation will continue until they realize they're supply-side Fed ZIRP loans they're making to every corporation on Earth is creating oversupply, and thus deflation. Zero interest rates create the illusion of there being plenty of liquidity, when in fact there is almost none left. I'm calling the house's bluff. I took all my cash out of the bank. I've got my chair, as the music's about to stop. Governments will have to create an entire new system before there is any devaluation of the dollar, and will have to start literally printing money. Any new QE will create short-term inflation, then asset inflation, and then long-term deflation. Think miles and miles and miles of cars sitting in lots, unsold. Miles and miles of houses sitting there empty, unsold. Oil and coal sitting there, unburnt. Is this what you see? I do.
Yes, the crash won't happen until people take their cash out of the banks. Chasing higher prices, rich people have bought houses, expensive art pieces, and gold. Get ready for the capitulation when everyone is forced to sell all the things they've been encouraged to buy. You can't buy anything with gold. Not yet.
i understood the entire article. no i didn't.
do you mean, higher when adjusted for inflation, or just higher?
There are various types of inflation this year. Which one of the following are you referring to: Housing, currency printing or oil, copper etc?
Nah. I did that in 2008 also. Worked out pretty well.
FFS stop calling fascism capitalism. Get a frigging dictionary already.
The four horseman of predatory statism.
There , fixed it for you.
The article was spot on. Easy money policy caused commodites, assets, and stocks to inflate. In 2007 the easy money moved out of real estate and into commodities. Then the fed raised rates to normal levels and everything came crashing down. In 2009 the fed started QE1 and stocks and commodities re-inflated. In late 2014 the fed ended QE3 and commodities crashed and now stocks are crashing.
After reading on line 4: "rapidly rising costs of oil production" my eyes started to glaze...
and yes, I remember the seventies forecast by the Club of Rome regarding peak oil. I think oil/energy is not one of the worries we need to have - technology will take care of cost effective alternatives.
I understand the downvotes but in a sense you are absolutely correct.
TPTB will no longer need 90% of human labor soon. 90% fewer humans will mean a huge decrease in consumption.
'I am TPTB. You are a serf. Prepare to die.'
C orrect.
Fewer jobs means less money to buy things, which leads to lower prices and more automation will be needed to reduce costs.
The toilet bowl has been flushed.
Only way out is helicopter drops for eternity
There is no money left for automation.
Dream on ...
Ha ha!There are plenty capable and willing to drive a dagger through the Brain/Heart of TPTB. If you are one (TPTB) I suggest you high-tail it now while you are able...
You say "Jetsons" and I say "Flintstones" - - likely we'll see who's right in our lifetimes.
best line i heard or read all day
Just so you know, I intend to steal that line, forever (well September maybe).
Not the Jetsons, I can promise you that. We've had the best 20 decades that Western civilization has ever seen, technically and financially and energetically anyway. Everything was perfect for massive innovation, Buck Rogers flying cars and the whole thing. But nothing really happened. Telecommunications did well. Medicine. Warfare. The rest is a wash. And now the money and free energy are going and gone, we don't get another shot at those 20 decades.
Think whatever you like but the challenge now is to embrace reality not reject it. And no sorry but reality is not whatever we want it to be. It is what it is and it is all around us.
Marginal oil production costs are heading towards $100/barrel http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2012/05/02/983171/marginal-oil-production-costs-are-heading-towards-100barrel/
The marginal cost of the 50 largest oil and gas producers globally increased to US$92/bbl in 2011, an increase of 11% y-o-y and in-line with historical average CAGR growth. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2012/05/02/983171/marginal-oil-production-costs-are-heading-towards-100barrel/
Steven Kopits from Douglas-Westwood said the productivity of new capital spending has fallen by a factor of five since 2000. “The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120,” he said http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
Sanford C. Bernstein, the Wall Street research company, calls the rapid increase in production costs “the dark side of the golden age of shale”. In a recent analysis, it estimates that non-Opec marginal cost of production rose last year to $104.5 a barrel, up more than 13 per cent from $92.3 a barrel in 2011. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ec3bb622-c794-11e2-9c52-00144feab7de.html#axzz3T4sTXDB5
A barrel of oil today is about $4.00 in pre 1965 silver (i.e. real money).
My best guess is that the "true" all in cost of production for oil can be quickly reduced to the mid 30s.
All the extra is fandango...
;-D
plan for oil to skyrocket once cheap old oil is exhausted(saudi). idoled oil production will not come back fast enough before the economy is decimated with a spike that is awesomly magnificent.
chaos being created by the lust for cheap oil to get by another day. tic toc mutherfuckers
Take a look at a graph showing peak oil production in the US. You'll find it started to decline in 1970. Hmmm... That's when Nixon was forced to go off the gold standard, right? That's when inequality started getting worse. That's when jobs started to get shipped overseas. Because it's so expensive to manufacture in the United States. Why? No more cheap oil.
On a related note, England used to have terrible smog. At the height of its economic power. In the 1800s. Now? It's out of coal. Coincidentally, around the same time it lost its empire and fell into disrepair.
I have a theory that that is what really caused the Great Depression. After all, it started in Europe, not the US. It's when they started running out of fossil fuels.
strong correlations do exist. look no further than the mideast with a religious twist...
and russia, and norway and
So whats plan B?
.. but no one is investing in new technology! They all invest in Money (which seems a bit weird), but they put money into money, so they can make some money, to put unto money ....
Tesla Takes in billions of subsidies, and you end with a house battery that last a couple of years and has the power out put to boil the kettle and run 1 electric fire - top model only;
The Powerwall batteries will go from having a two-kilowatt (kW) steady power output and 3.3kW peak output to a 5kW steady output and 7kW peak output, Musk said.
and that is BEFORE you think about an alternative power source for when it is flat.
Technology is not going to save our asses.
If we use them, the right technologies can save us:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lyXi1efbYrk#t=4028
There has been a concerted effort to hide the very technologies we need to survive. Fortunately that diabolical attitude is changing.
I agree. This is just another Malthusian article. These are boring after a while.
Perhaps you might point out the false conclusions?
A short review which is bang on the money.
Only BASTARD Loser PINKO FASCIST COMMIES want/depend on QE. Death to such evil beings!
The Lizard Kings have cashed out their investments. They will wait on the sidelines as their human acolytes continue sending this world further on the road to hell in a handbasket.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/reptiles/reptiles01.htm
Great quote.
Look at the bible thumpers calling for the world to end, September. Mid September is about two weeks away.
Wait - I thought it was something like Sept. 23rd or 26th?
Maybe that was the date for last year. I wish someone would publish an official schedule for the Apocalypse once and for all. I'm hyper-leveraging loans from several mobster loan-sharks and I'm going to be seriously screwed if this September thing doesn't work out. I'm running out of fingers they can chop off. Plus my twelve credit cards are pretty much maxed out. Hookers and blow are expensive - no deflation there, I can assure you.
Matt:24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Nope
I see more and more bat shit crazy little invisible green space men worshipers doing it though
The Bible also said that...
- That day would come like a thief in the night, unexpected
- People would be crying out "Peace and Safety!" just ahead of the end times
- In addition to "wars and rumors of wars," note that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are basically war, hyperinflation (a day's food for a day's work), and disease coming from the fallout of war and hyperinflation
- People will actually be pretty happy about the Antichrist because he seems to bring the solutions to everything
- A few of the Tribulation judgements look an awful lot like major ecological disasters (seas turning to blood and everything dying -> red tide + hypoxic dead zones)
Anyway, Shemitah wasn't in any Bible prophecy, nor any of the other dates, but maybe we'll get a new version of Jehovah's Witnesses out of it. That's how they got started after all.
Are you looking for a new version of Jehovah's Witnesses or a new version of Jehovah. He has proved his right to rule. Human's seem to be doing the opposite. Ask him for a proper understanding of his word. He gives freely to all. Of course the other god may object.
" In such a scenario, it is doubtful that we can maintain a world population of even 1 billion."
500,000,000 sounds about right....., or so I hear.
Smells like a deliberate policy of "benign neglect" as cover for TPTB during the mass die-off. "Who could have possibly know?" They will get away with it in the confusion of sudden dystopia.
I wonder if the true belivers of this horse shit will be committing hari kari or will they be directing the live fire on women and children...no I don't.
Somebody been to Georgia.
http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/message.htm
it appears that "Deaths" are near bottom and is a near future growth business, and then "Births". How do you hedge that pair?
'I see dead people'
The problem is they won't all go away all at once and a lot of the reduction will be violent. I wouldn't want to live near ANY high population areas.....
the Georgia Guidestones say half a billion....
so SHTF?
So... things are looking up after 2050 or so?
Back to agrarian lives for the survivors...
Better for the biosphere anyway I guess.
I won't be here to see it.
Yeah, nothing like a dose of cholera or typhoid, or you kid with measels and going blind to make the bioshere good. What with you burning coal on an open fire, or worse, wood.
Agrarian is not fun. The world will not be a better place for a good many centuaries, roving bandits, no recourse to law. Then the Ammo runs out (and the charmin).
The Future may not be worse than the past, but it will dam well be hard.
Slowly slipping back to stone age. (why stone age? Because after a brief spell of non-use, factories and power plants will be unusable, after 20 years no-one will know how to use them. No electricity comes quickly as no-one can make replacement parts. No one knows how to smelt with charcoal and clay, so despite hoards of free iron everywhere, no one can use it much, except in the condition/form it is. Everything slides way back, then technology begins again, bit quicker this time as ready resources are available, but still, 100s of years) I reckon anyway.
I see deflation for banks.
Inflation for everyone else.
Life support items - Inflation
Non Life support - Deflation
Lots and lots of signals show at least short term bottom. I'm glad I wasn't reading ZH when I went long at 1PM, lol.
It's known as a dead cat bounce. The market sold off too much too soon.
PPT
+ BTFD?
Yea, I have been long for 7 years and went short two seeks ago and then I went long last night and I will go short when the next leg down starts and then I will go long at the ramp from there.......see, any one can type shit....I mean trade.
I mentioned this on another post, and I know many of you will not like me. But I have really been questioning buying gold and silver. I use to be a gold bug too ok? And I still have a monster box of silver. I am not rich it is the best I can do. I am just wondering who you are going to sell the gold to when the banks dont have money, and I wonder if they outlaw gold like they did in the 1930's. Somebody told me if they outlaw gold there will be riots....lol, nobody will do anything...as usual... Anyway, I dont know anything but I think its important to ask questions...
Use your common sense. Your common sense fits you.
I paid cash for my house. My house is worth about two or three new Cadillac Escalades.
After the crash, my house will be worth about two or three new Cadillac Escalades….
A new Cadillac Escalade may cost $500K or $5K. Why should I care today?
The only risk I have is flight. If for some reason I have to flee, I’ll be broke in the new land. But I’m burning this biotch to the ground first.
Prior to printed fiat, gold and silver were currency. Several other things have also been currency, like salt, spices, giant round rocks. ( see Milton Freedman - Money Mischief for a breif history of moneys and currencys )
Printed fiat is a few cents of paper and ink, that for now, is accepted as currency due to the BELIEF that the receiver of the fiat will be able to swap it for something they want later. When that belief fails, the fiat will no longer be currency. Historically, ALL fiats collasp.
That is when the shiny will return to being currency.
I will supply the gasoline :-) As my post mentioned, I dont know anything, I just ask questions to see what zerohedgers might answer...If I knew anything I would be a banker :-)
Waste not, want not.
What do you gain by destroying property that some one else could put to use?
Gold silver are international instant liquidity and it dose'nt matter one fuck what the US Federal reserve has to say about it.
"nobody will do anything" The fuck you say. You must hang around with some pussys to think that way.
In some locales, at some times, it appears probable that gold (and possibly silver) may go bid-less and be functionally illiquid. But at some future time and place, you or your heirs will be glad to own that formerly illiquid stash.
Just be sure to save all your purchase receipts for tax-reporting purposes.
August, you are the first person to answer my question with some wisdom...thank you.. The problem I have tho is that your thinking relies that after this is all over, things will get better. Maybe it will and maybe it wont....looking back on history things got better, but I think we are living in a different world now that may not turn around, only get worse. But again, you had the only good answer to my question...much love.
The smart move is to get the hell outta dodge, and establish self-sufficient digs in the boonies in the southern hemisphere.
I did, over 3 years ago.
However, 99.9999% won't take such steps, so what's the best simple alternative? One that "regular folks" might be willing to take?
The answer is gold and silver (and gardens, ammo, etc).
Hide it where nobody could possibly find it... period. Invest a little effort to make sure you do this.
As she says, when the dust settles, you'll be one of the few folks who can buy basic goods without producing other basic goods to trade for them. To say you will get a 1000x return on the investment and effort to buy and hide your gold and silver may well be the understatement of the millennia.
The only question is "exactly when".
My answer is... NOW is your last good chance.
I just dont know if the dust will settle... but I did all the rest you mentioned. I just dont know if the dust will settle, thats all I brought this subject for, just to ask a question.
I wont move to the western hemisphere tho, I will stay and fight for my homeland. And central bankers own the southern hemisphere also...its like moving from the pot to the pan, or whatever that saying is. There is no where to move, the central bankers already own it all. In my opinion, I moved to the perfect place. Its because I seeked very hard the creators wisdom. I lost a 17 year old daughter and it hurt much but it brought wisdom because I see how evil the bankers are...Until you figure out how powerful and evil they are, you are lost.
When you say the central banksters own the southern hemisphere and therefore there is no point in moving, that's just crazy talk.
By the same logic, living in the worst prison on the planet is the same as living in the most wonderful spot on the planet. That's just crazy talk.
You are right, but coast warned you: "I dont know anything". Is probably Asian.
Bulk Ammo can be bought in Plastic or Metal Cans.
I wonder if Plastic will hold up as well as Metal buried in the Ground?
Anyone made a study?
In the old days they said they would bury Rifles coated in Cosmoline/Cosmolien... Grease. That was the best way to store weapons in the 1960s I guess.
Well I'll be damned:
http://www.cosmolinedirect.com/cosmoline-for-firearms/
They're usually wrapped in acid-free kraft paper afterwards - at least on packaging friction points - to protect the cosmoline coating. There's also VCI paper (Volatile Corrosion Inhibitor) that is designed for use on bare metal, i.e., no Cosmoline. Plastic or Mylar wrapping has mostly replaced Cosmoline/VCI paper, but you would need the thick stuff like the military uses.
I assume a good mil-grade plastic can is going to last longer if it's not subject to mechanical stress. Bury below the maximum frost line if up north. Metal cans eventually always start rusting - even a brand-new ammo box will rust after being exposed to moisture long enough. And if a metal can is penetrated or the seal fails, it will rust from inside as well.
Coast, to answer your worries, I sold my gold recently. I'm pretty sure Martin Armstrong is correct that what we'll see is a short term deflationary crash, in which many holders of objects that aren't legally money must sell such objects in order to raise cash, because the banks won't work.
The government solution should be very inflationary, and you should buy gold in anticipation of that, but governments around the world will be caught flat-footed, and I'm pretty sure it'll take an act of Congress to solve it because the Fed is out of ammo, and it will require them to once again go against everything Congress swore they wouldn't do (bailouts, devaluing the currency). That means, the solution will take a while. In the meantime, prices will go WAY down. For everything.
Also, they haven't been printing money. There isn't a single new dollar in circulation. Physical dollars are a lot more valuable than anyone realizes, because literally almost no one carries any.
didnt china do something like putting people in jail for selling stocks? dear lord you people jsut dont understand. the federal reserve owns china too in some manner...central bankers, the ones Andrew Jackson talked about 200 years ago....wake the frick up. what are you gonna do when they outlaw gold? go shoot the police who are taking it from you? shoot all the NATO troops? good friggin luck. where are you going to sell your gold? to he banks? who have no money? I asked a very intelligent question and all I got was stupid answers.
No, you don't shoot anyone. You say it was stolen. Or even better, be somewhere you weren't before so they can't find you.
That's not so difficult, especially in extreme circumstances.
Don't be so simpleminded folks!
You are stranded in the middle of the desert, 3 days journey from getting out. There is a pile of gold treasure on your right, and 1 gallon of water on your left. Which is more valuable for the next 3 days?
See how ALL value is relative depending on your situation.
Find out what is the most likely situation you will find yourself, and plan accordingly. I say the best investment is loving your neighbor. Love is the only hope. Love of money is the reason for all this evil in the first place. Love, peace and virtue with our neighbor is the only way out of this. The rulers if the powers of the darkness of this world are trying everything they can to make us turn and fight one another.
I love your thinking..may I please share a song with you, that I know you will love...it fits perfect to waht you posted. love you my friend. this song makes me cry so be aware..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amwVyRH2B8A
Gold has been money since the beginning of time and nothings gonna change that except the end of time. People are always gonna view gold as valuable no matter what. Finding the people that have what you want and want your gold instead will be the hard part though...especially when they outlaw PMs. Thats why I personally think investing in items that people use everyday is a much wiser investment.
PMs are for people with more money than they know what to do with. At some point though I think people will give up thier gold before thier charmin.
The gods want the gold, they need it for radiation shielding.
They'll be back to pick up what we, lulu amelu, have mined during the last four millennia.
The zios think if they have all the gold to present to the gods that they'll be able to go to heaven and be immortal.
And that is why Rothschild wants to rule earth and keep all of us human slaving.
So I do my part and
Stack On
you all opinions come from your own thoughts and not the thoughts of the bankers....you just dont get it... And nobody did anything when we bailed out the bankers, and nobody will do anything when they confiscate gold like they did in the 1930's. All we will see is people posting blogs that they want to kill the bankers...wake up.
And so, be one of the smart ones who don't turn in their stashes. Seriously!
and do what with them...hold on until things get all better? and sell your gold for dollars? I dont understand
No. Remove tiny portions when you need to trade for something you need or want.
Remember, "after" doesn't mean "after everything is fine".
No, "after" means "after the absolute, complete, utter chaos takes over the state of existence for everyone in the evil empire or any of its western allies". In other words, "after" means "after the storm troopers ransack every home".
After the sheeple piss themselves and "voluntarily" turn in all their gold, silver, guns, ammo, and everything else they need to survive, and after the storm troopers ransack most homes for anything they want, life will "totally suck", but they're not going to regular visit every home to steal stuff. This phase will likely last a few weeks.
After that, life will probably absolutely suck due to widespread poverty, but as far as the thugs hired by the predators-that-be are concerned, they'll retire to their camps and enjoy the stuff they stole, knowing "there ain't much left out there".
At that point, your problem will be the starving masses. BUT... the flip side of that is, if you have something to trade for goods you need or want, you'll be able to do that, because the "official" thugs will be satisfied, and chewing on the stuff they stole. In their minds, they've picked everyone dry, and now they're leaving them to die. Which many will. Maybe most. But those who stored away gold, silver, weapons, ammo, food, seeds and lots of Charmin... will have lots to trade for "whatever they forgot to stash away".
Just make sure your "stashes" are both "well hidden and secure", and dispersed into several locations (in case someone follows you and steals your stash).
PS: No, you will never trade gold or silver for dollars, you will trade them for goods and goodies. Quite possibly, dollars will no longer exist... or at least not accepted.
Gold and silver will soon be money again. How soon? Difficult to say, but somewhere between 1 month and 8 years seems a reliable estimate.
Hide your gold and silver where NOBODY knows, and NOBODY could possibly find it. That's not in your home... unless you are super creative and take extraordinary measures to shield it from detection by sensitive electronics.
If they do steal gold again, then you REALLY need to hide it and not turn it in, because after a period of chaos and absurdity, you'll be able to buy goods, while few others can.
Dear Ann, I really like your good and honest advise. How will you be able to safely trade/sell gold after the gov. has asked everybody to turn it in? What if gov. offers a reward to a "dishonest" buyer for turning you in? How about if they declare a high transaction tax?
Looks I'm not a CIA type, or Criminal Type.
But body language and a 6th sense kind of evaluation of Situation... really tells a lot. I mean to say it is easily learned not that it is a mystical ability.
I imagine it is the same for military people who meet other foreign military or tribal leaders.
- You should plan to band together a little with other people and see who is good at this, then plan to backup the members who operate directly in negotiations and trade
But... I'm not know by these kinds of works.
After this kind of event, almost nobody will operate in the non-black market. And nobody will have any residual respect for the predators-that-be.
And almost nobody will pay taxes, at least not those that can possibly be ignored. When it comes to survival or feeding the predators who destroyed the world, people will choose survival. Not much more than that, because they're sheeple, but even sheeple will go that far... most of them.
PS: If you are an extreme chicken, and have several places to store lots of goods and goodies (that people won't find), then don't go as much gold and silver, but buy several tons of basic supplies (mostly food, but also heirloom seeds, ammo, candles, slingshots, water, water-purifiers, LED flashlights, batteries and so forth). Just make sure you can securely hide such a volume of stuff. Oh, and don't forget enormous quantities of soft Charmin! Not kidding.
"And nobody will have any residual respect for the predators-that-be"
Thank you. Unfortunately, usually the predators prevail over the sheeple. As far as I know, gov. is already paying to anonymous tipsters (FBI, CIA) for finding Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and his cronies, tax dodgers etc.
Believe me, Charmin horders aren't very important to the predators-that-be. Simply be smart and you'll do fine!
If you have a water supply, you can use washrags and clean them... I stock up on toilet paper but we dont need it....its a luxury. compost toilets are great also.
I was asking you about Gold, not Charmin. We have some big elephant leaves here in the jungle.
Don't tell anyone.
Keep your yap shut.
Never carry much with you.
You are much too afraid!
You change your topic because of my posts...mayne you and I were meant for each other :-)
The dollar use to be backed by gold. What .gov did in 1933 was said...you can't take your dollars to the bank and turn them in for gold.
.gov didn't go around confiscatin citizens gold.
Silver was still used to mint coins then.
The take away is ..... YOU CAN'T TRUST GOVERNMENT'S. THEY CHANGE THE RULES TO FIT THEIR OWN NEEDS !!
You are as smart as anyone.
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1. Fight club specializes in Fraud, Deception, Accounting Control Fraud, Propaganda, Lies, False Statistics, false memes, False statements from public and private executives or officials
2. No one Knows the future, maybe Gold will become very important as collateral for banking and financial transactions in an environment of high debt or currency crisis
3. I don't think many people actually had gold confiscated or turned in Gold, I read something that said maybe less than 10 people were targeted for hiding gold they were using for transactions
4. Who will do business in gold or cash in your gold? Well the value of MOE, or Currencies, or Gold can all go down. Deflation could mean everything goes down in price. It might be a complicated vision when the current meme is that Fiat is more useful for investments, for finance, for govt budgets... My guess you would only use gold or silver in transaction with someone who is a player. Someone who is working on deals. But silver coins would be very, very easy to use, accept, and promote.
that was a good answer teeth...thanks. we dont know but we always need to ask questions..I agree with your post.
Nobody knows what happens if truly the SHTF or TEOTWAWKI. PMs are just one possible insurance policy that might possibly be used for barter. Other (cheaper) policies are 100 lb bags of salt, sugar, rice and a case of Everclear (i.e. basic, non-perishable goods). Stack up as much water, food, ammo as you can afford. Still, it could all be an exercise in futility. It's like Tyler's tagline says, "on a long enough timeline ..."
It is not "Fossil" fuel and the implication that some dead lizards and seaweed fueled human infestation of Earth to the extent it did over the last century or so is utterly asinine and ridiculous.
EXACTLY!!! Anyone who thinks it is fossil fuel please tell me how much dino shit it would take for us to be able to extract 90 million barrels of oil PER DAY out of the ground! No fucking way. do the math. abiotic oil. that's why they go back to wells a decade later and they are producing again...
wow I've heard that before of course. But you guys seem pretty confident and honest.
I guess I have doubts about the Fossil fuel theory. Maybe I can see certain carbons can come from plants and organics... but not sure the theory is complete like most of our history.
Organic sources of oil, 100%. Not in any significant volume however and certainly not oceans of it within the Earth's mantle.
Check out this site
http://www.gasresources.net/introduction.htm
Thanks.
Quite a bit, too bad much of it was wasted. At several millions of years of detritus collected, we are using it up very quickly, I got one study here that says 98 tons per gallon. Created over millions of years and we are using oil for only 120 years or so.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/uou-bm9102603.php
As for abiotic oil, there is not one serious confirmation. You don't find oil on serpentine rock (well maybe shale oil), you find it where the sea or ocean used to be. All current oil finding models which are fairly effective find the oil where they expect it to be based on biological formation. And than let's take a look at Oil sands of Alberta. Huge area with no serpentine or granite or meteor strikes. No connection to the mantle of the earth. Yet heavy bitumen (heavy bacterial activity regardless of theory as all abiotic include bacteria reducing low chain alkanes) is all over it. And we know there was a sea over it (actual fossils found). Hence did the abiotic oil seep from the mantle upward ti upper crust of earth? Or did millions of years of detritus (dead tissue falling to seafloor bed) get absorbed in the sand. There may be abiotic oil, but in small quantities. We are not drilling rockies yet anyway (granite theory). What all the abiotic theorists have to understand is that wells are depleting faster than we pump them, hence even if abiotic theory is correct for some cases it does not change the fact that it would take millions of years for sufficient amounts to be created.
As for your old well thing, you got yourself an engineer to explain some shit. Each oil basin contains some OOIP (original oil in place) and the amount of OOIP that can be extracted varies from technology, price and pressure. Oil sands is the only one where OOIP is almost 100% (not accounting for tailings or 99% in that case) while other methods yield up to 60,70% economical. When the well is dug, it is full of gas making oil very easy to extract as it pumps under pressure and lower density. Than as the well gets older it turns to very little gas and you need a pump-jack or some sort of stimulation of the well (with steam and solvent stimulation you can get about 80% but these are rare cuz too much money). At some point the well does not return sufficient economical level of oil and it's capped. While capped, some of OOIP seeps through the ground into the reservoir and much more importantly there is gas buildup (from bacteria and surrounding ground). After some time the well will have additional gas to recover and some oil. It may or may not be economic to go after these. If a well was capped in 1993 cuz it was not economic to extract the last 50% of OOIP at $20 a barrel and opened in 2006 when it was worth putting more money in it to extract another 25% of OOIP at $100, it would be an excellent well.
LIES!
No serious science??? Kutcharov et al have proven it in a lab experiment.
How does "fossil fuel", fermented on the surface of the earth, overcome literally all the pressure in the world to seep miles below the surface through rock— collecting in pools, no less?
Saturn's moon, Titan, has oceans of methane. It even rains methane. How many dinosaurs & Jurassic plant life was estimated to live there?
State sanctioned "science" text books present this shit as scientific law, a premise for all hydrocarbon dialog. It isn't even a respectable hypothesis. One of the great lies in this matrix. Funny how this lie lines up w the interest of a key cartel w maximum societal control. Must be purely coincidence.
I posted this link further up the thread but it's more fitting here.
http://www.gasresources.net/introduction.htm
This guy argues the conditions are not present near the crust's surface to catalyze complex hydrocarbon molecules. His arguments are well-developed and compelling.
There is a HUGE biomass of bacteria and small animals on Earth, on the order of 560 billion metric tons of carbon with a primary production rate of 100 billion tons per year. Although only a small percentage of this eventually becomes oil, at that rate there would have been enough oil produced over millions of years to power modern human infestation "civilization", but of course we are burning through oil much faster than the easily recoverable proportion of it is created.
For a while I was one of the people concerned we would see the world tumble into a massive deflationary cycle as debts went unpaid and credit collapsed. QE has up to now stopped an implosion of derivatives and the resulting contagion and shock that would have spread throughout the financial system. One of the main reasons the stock market has benefited so easily from all this money is that it is highly liquid and both easy to enter and exit.
I ask you to consider the possibility that what we have been going through the last six years was the "deflationary period" and that it is mostly behind us. Inflation may take off when money begins to flow from the distorted stock markets and "paper promises" into solid and safer tangible asserts. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/11/deflation-i-think-not.html
That's and important consideration. I've read that they actually tried to use wage inflation as a deflationary function ( double all wages and prices; all debts are effectivly halved), but the wizards pulling the levers gave the money to the top. Wasted, no worse, it's become an insane inflation of debt, and because the banksters re-wrote the rules, the middle class is on the hook for it. Double inflation. They won't even tell us how much we now owe.
Debt to GDP ratios are so far beyond the 70% redline that most countries cannot pay it off conventionaly. There just isn't enough of a middle class left.
I ask YOU to consider the last 6 years were the "kicking-the-can" and "lying-to your-face" period that is transitioning into something much more uncomfortable for most. Happy motoring no more.
A collapse only matters to you if you have debt and value material items.
Own income-producing property.
Keep a cool head and profit.
When they raid the house, they take everyone. You'll be no different- they may have to climb the stairs and drag you out of the closet.
i remember those police state roundup PSAs on MTV during Gulf War 2-they spread a heavy meme of "if you are against the war-then you are traitor/terrorist". scary groupthink
Income producing property, like rental property?
Good luck collecting rent and keeping/finding tenants in a collapse,
and with no or uncertain income, your property value is hardly going to escape a deflationary spiral.
Will mother nature ever take care of those that love living off the hard work of others (the generations of welfare receipients, the sloths of society)? Right there is a HUGE drag on societies.
These people were never meant by the top 0.01% to have proper roles in society because for them it's much more wage-efficient to hire only a certain number of people. End ownership of the economy by the 0.01% capitalists and you will see the Free Shit Army evaporate, slowly but surely, as workdays become shorter, the retirement age is frozen, vacations become longer and more people are needed to do work.
Also, the top 0.01% take up 48% of our economy with debt, interest, and profit. Only 52% of our total national income is allocated to workers who, by definition, produce everything in our economy. We can say that markets are efficient, but how is capitalist ownership efficient when half its expenditures go into overhead for people who contirbute no value?
Deflationary Death Spiral ... watch out below!
"Most importantly, debt helps [lower] the price of commodities of all sorts (including oil and electricity), because it allows more customers to afford products that use them [and mostest more importantly important, producers use debt too! Therefore, more debt, lower rates, necessitates higher production which brings lower prices!].
"Deflationary Collapse Ahead?" Yes, if they keep counterfeiting. No, if they stop counterfeiting.
There is a price mandate, don't ya know?
"Conclusion" - A plate of spaghetti?
Our world is as finite as vision swallowed by clouds.
Don't put the money cart in front of the resource horse. Energy per capita is trending down over the last 10 to 15 years, so either death for many or a new resource base - I already placed my bet.
Ya had me up until this: For example we know that a square wave can be approximated using the sum of sine functions, using Fourier Series (Figure 4).
Exactly what I had been thinking.
She is just trying to sound sophisticated by bringing up Fourier analysis and a fancy plot into her essay. Far as I can tell, what's she's saying in that paragraph is gobbledygook.
Someone needs more practice drawing tits.
YeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaa FEMA camps here we come.
Bitcoin last price: $228
deflation as in the dollar will be worth more? yeah.. that's not going to last
Deflation as in bankrupcies and defaults: paper assets returning to their intrinsic value of zero.
Yes Gail - you and your cohorts over at the automatic clutch have been all over the 'deflation' thing since '08, and how did that turn out...? Secondly, I really wish you types would stop with the long-winded tomes on 'resource depletion', when what you have really been after all along is Eugenics... Hey, why be shy? They just had a big party for Margaret Sanger with Billary as the guest of honor, so it's not like you have to hide behind the rather now long-in-the-tooth, 'peak-resources' canard... C'mon Gail, the water in the depopulation pool is fine...
Wow.
"Yes Gail - you and your cohorts over at the automatic clutch have been all over the 'deflation' thing since '08...when what you have really been after all along is Eugenics"
Ah, troll, Gail is not affiated with www.TheAutomaticEarth.com . And it's Nicole Foss not Gail. And yes, TAE have been writing about deflaton since 2008.
What is your point troll. Linking it with Eugenics?
Come on that's #10 of these techniques.
Is Gail Tverberg a woman? I guess it could be a man's name.
We don't get many Woman posters in ZH.
SO I just want to get oriented to the terrain here.
- Let's be respectful even though this is fight club
- just joking
SInce I don't know Finance or Oil Biz... I'm going to have to hold comments for a while.
take off the gloves and get ready to rumble. welcome to the fight club...
Gail is involved with oil and other limits in several different ways:
1. As a researcher. Gail regularly goes back to data from government and other web sites, and creates her own graphs and does her own analysis. She also follows the work of others doing research.
2. As an actuary. Gail is interested in what the implications of reduced oil supply are for the economy and for financial institutions.
3. As an educator. Gail is interested in bringing the message about what is happening to as broad an audience as possible.
So Guess I should read some of her stuff.
as i mentioned in another post, she is a very smart lady. i don't agree with everything she says but i certainly give it good weight among my basket of info and experiences...
Indeed, Read some of her articles. Her analysis and facts are really good. Reach your own conclusions as we all should on everything we read, but she is true in her perceptions.
Thanks. Good Reference.
Gail ( aka GailTheActuary) is a woman. She is/has been an Actuary for her professional career. VERY smart. Hit the link to her website. A kind looking grandmother type. (but sharp)
I have read her for years back on TheOilDrum and then on her own website http://ourfiniteworld.com/
http://ourfiniteworld.com/author/gailtheactuary/
Gail is a smart lady. I don't agree with everything she says but certainly give it some weight with all of the other sources available. No single person has EVERY answer. She's right though in saying that the problem is complex, huge, multi disciplined, and there are not enough people with the knowledge across all those disciplines to come to a right and proper solution. I do think contraction and decentralization are key parts of the "solution"...
Well all corporate employees, all media, all government employees are Compartmentalized.
- We keep the wages low, by making the jobs narrow, simple, with no career track or promotion opportunities.
And as a result we have plenty of workers who get the mushroom treatment: Kept in the Dark and Fed Shit.
- Compartmentalization, a wage suppression and information control strategy
- As employees learn, get trained, get access they need more surveillance, more monitoring, more tracking, more controls, and potentially they need to be blackmailed and encouraged to take on debt like new cars and new homes
Ehrlich, with math. Calling Rev. Malthus.
The advent of nuclear power was a grave error for the planet and the human race, and the author's polution curve clearly doesn't take this into account. Nuclear energy creates enormous amounts of highly toxic waste, not to mention the very likely possibility of further accidents or meltdowns which will continue to contaminate the Earth's biosphere.
It's easy to discount something that you can't see, smell, or feel, but ionizing radiation is a known killer of all carbon based life forms. The Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns should have been a wake-up call for humanity. Instead, these accidents are discounted, ridiculed, or just plain ignored.
You worry too much. Just put all that spent Plutonium in a rocket and fire it at the Sun.
I like the way you think..and sell tickets to these anti human humans while your at it.
Great idea. It's obviously a known fact that rockets NEVER blow up on the launch pad, or suffer malfunctions and explode in the atmosphere.
Yes, obviously its also a known fact that the cask they ship it in can withstand a direct hit from a god damn freight train powered by 6 Nike rocket motors doing 80mph.
But burying it on our planet is such a brilliant idea right? So yea, we got that going for us.
My idea is that they should drop it in a Subduction zone in the ocean. Like the Mariana Trench. That part of the crust is folding DOWN INTO the mantle. Put in containers on the bottom and it will be taken down into the mantle.
http://tinyurl.com/o2sarxm
Nuclear power is much safer than most other forms of power, and due to the strong regulations on radiation emissions creates fewer health issues than all other forms of power. Just as more people die in car crashes than in plane crashes, more people are affected every day by coal and oil than by nuclear energy. It's just that the nuclear meltdowns are large and catastrophic on the rare occasions that they do happen.
Bullshit, Every reactor in America has cooling ponds with as much fuel as the one in Japan. How are they cooled? How long would they last with grid down.
You telling me you can guarantee that knowledgeable people will be available for the next 50 years? What happens in 10-20 years for some reason they want to decommision a few, will there be people Available who know how to do it?
Apparently you are not knowledgeable, they are "spent fuel pools"
There is PLENTY of spent nuclear fuel in casks that are in storage that require NO outside power to keep cool.