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"Oil Won't Stop Until The Economy Breaks"
As gold strengthens on the back of the extreme experimentation of the world's (now-sheep-like) central bankers' easing and printing protocols, it does no real harm to the world, but as John Burbank (of Passport Capital) notes, the painful unintended consequence of all this liquidity is energy costs skyrocketing - and it won't stop until the economy breaks. The negative feedback loop, that we pointed to yesterday as potentially the only thing to stall a magnanimously academic response to the insolvency we see around the world (and the need for deleveraging at this end of the debt super-cycle), of oil prices into the real economy will be devastating not just for US but for EM economies, though as the bearded-Burbank reminds us - Saudi benefits greatly (and suggests ways to trade this perspective). Flat consumer incomes while costs are rising is never a good thing and while we make new highs in oil in terms of EURs and GBPs, he warns we may soon in USDs also. Summing up, his perspective is rising tensions in the Middle East combined with central bank liquidity provision are a huge concern: "We're actually quite bearish. The only reason all this liquidity is coming into the market is because things are really bad. It's not because things are good. It's hard to know where things are going to go. The point is, just because they're putting liquidity in the market doesn't mean the economy is improving."
Edited Transcript below:
On the price of oil and his Saudi investments:
"[Oil] is up 16%, more than any of the indices. It's a big problem for the rest of the world - central bank easing and liquidity providing presents a lot of problems for the average consumer here but also for emerging markets around the world.”
“The one market it really helps is the Saudi market. We have 15% of our capital in the Saudi market - only about 1% is held by foreigners. It should be opening up this year. So we think unfortunately QE3, which is now being pursued in Europe and Japan, essentially in the U.S. with other programs, has negative feedback loops. And oil we think is the one. Gold goes up 10%, 20%, 50%, it doesn't cause any problems with people the way banking is done these days, but oil does… I don't think oil is going to stop until the economy breaks which is a real risk."
"The average consumer isn’t doing well. Their income has been flat for almost ten years, but their costs keep rising. They had a benefit with natural gas being cheaper this year, but the oil price is now breaking out and it's breaking out because of all the liquidity in the world. The oil price is making new highs in euros and pounds and it may soon in dollars. That's a big problem."
On investing in Saudi:
"Right now, we have to use swaps. We've been in the market for about three years. Foreigners couldn't actually own Saudi stocks until August 2008. So we've spent quite a lot of time doing our research and understanding the market.”
"[Saudi Arabia] is very sincere in opening up the market to foreigners. It reminds me of India in the 2003, 2004 time period before you could buy Indian stocks directly. Saudi, which is 70% of the G.C.C, and by far the most important, the most liquid market, is something that foreigners are going to want to own.”
"Right now, you can't buy an ETF, you can't buy Saudi stock. It's obviously very difficult to buy a security directly. We have done that. We know that foreigners now are looking at the market. The market is about 11 times earnings with almost a 5% dividend yield in 2012, and that's on an unlevered basis. The Saudis have about $600 billion of reserves and corporates have very little debt. To me, there's a lot of systemic risk in the Western world…[but] in the Saudi market, they've been very restrictive. Banks have not wanted to make it easy to borrow money and buy stocks after the bubble that happened in 2005, 2006."
On tensions in the Middle East:
"If tensions with Iran means oil goes up, then that's good for the Saudi economy but not good for the rest of the world. Fundamentally, if there's a problem with Iran, it's a problem for the whole world…The biggest risk for Saudi is really a risk that the whole world bears, but actually Saudi benefits. Oil goes to $150, $200, it means the economy is going to grow even faster because the government has more money it can deploy in the economy."
"Saudi is not like an overbuilt economy. It's just opening up now. Building is going on. The Saudis are so conservative that they don't lend against land. "
On the European Central Bank issuing more money:
"A lot of the risk has been taken out of the market, on a near-term basis. We're actually quite bearish. The only reason all this liquidity is coming into the market is because things are really bad. It's not because things are good.”
"I don't believe in a global rally right now. It's a bounce back from oversold conditions last year. But I think the confidence in central banking is far overdone. It's hard to fight the Fed when prices are going in the other direction."
"It's hard to know where things are going to go. The point is, just because they're putting liquidity in the market doesn't mean the economy is improving."
On Passport's strategy:
"We’re stock pickers. In fact, this is a great year to be long and short individual securities. In 2008, everything went down. In 2009, everything went up. In 2010, everything moved together and eventually ended up. Last year, things started separating. Our strategy is to be picking individual securities, companies that are not depending on economic growth.”
“Biotech and healthcare is one of those sectors. There hasn't been an obesity drug approved in over 30 years and we thought Qnexa would have a good chance of being approved…We were one of I think four big holders in the stock. We think it can double again because we think a large pharma would probably like to own the company at some point."
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ahhh, the economy already BROKE.
So are you saying the premise of the article is wrong?
Nope, I am saying that we as a country are fucked/broke and that when Israel hits Iran things are going to get a lot uglier. And as for the Ass munchers in DC, they will blame everyone but themselves. As for liquidity in the economy, say hello to a future of hyper inflation.
Things you will hear -
#1 It's not Obama's fault
#2 It's not Pelosi's fault
#3 It's everyones fault but not the policy makers fault. No way, no how, it's your moms fault before they admit to a dangerous fiscal/monetary policy which is leading to very high inflation.
Some days, the day of reckoning feels closer than others. Today it feels very close, you can almost hear it if you listen closely.
I can hear some democrat saying:
This is Bush's fault
I guess it never occurred to anyone that those helicopter dollars would eventually land somewhere
If I owned stock in the Federal Reserve, I'd really be seriously thinking about selling my stock right now.
The Fed is stuffed to the rafters with toxic waste and its currency is virtually completely debased.
Michael
The Bernank's (and all fractional reserve banksters) message to all debt serfs everywhere (they just keep on CNTRL + PRINTing):
It could be Barack ("he's gonna pay my mortgage and fill up my gas tank") Obama's re-election theme song, too:
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough - YouTubeIf it's because of CO2;
Without CO2, Nothing Green Would Grow On The Planet.
Don't stop printing, Bernank, you whore:
http://dailybail.com/picture/benny-bucks.jpg?pictureId=2065887&asGallery...
recovery summer dumb bichezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
02-24 15:15: Fed's Dudley says fiscal policy plan needed to achieve Fed'...
Fed's Dudley says fiscal policy plan needed to achieve Fed's mandate of full employment and price stabilityLMMFAO BITCHEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if the central bankers are now "sheep-like," when can we shear them?
policy plan needed to achieve Fed's mandate of full employment.......
fukin jeebus...reallly? holy frekin ass clap......yo mama is so fat a helicopter tried to land on her ass cause it thot she marked an X...
Here is how you shear the banks and government in one fell swoop. The best part is it's all legal and within your rights.
Cut off the money supply. It's the only way.
First tell your employer you want to change your dependants from 1 or 3 to about 11 or 13 on your tax forms. You will have to pay the following year on or just before April 15th, but the government will be so broke without monthly income. Image the debt run. lol
Second, stop paying your mortgage, car payment, and credit cards. It will take 3 years for them to get around to you, then file for bankruptcy. That will stall them for another 2 years.
Take the money away and watch the system blow. very simple and all legal. Game them the same way they gamed you.
Keynesian microeconomics state that a minimum wage above the equilibrium on the supply / demand curve will prevent full employment. That mandate isn't possible with minimum wage laws.
The logical conclusion of your argument is real feudal serfdom and eventually slavery...
Not that I find your logic flawed, just the value system that gets you there...
lol, you think that forcing people to pay other people more prevents a decline toward serfdom.
Sure, removal of freedom prevents slavery. That's REAL logical.
If you want to claim to have logic on your side, how about you actually reason out an argument rather than just assuming a conclusion?
In your own words, explain the concept of Sharecropping and the overall socio-economic status of the sharecroppers?
Have you read a little history of the Great Depression and the wages paid farm workers?
Do you think FoxConn labor practices are acceptable?
Do you read any history at all?
Or do you simply arrive at a worldview based on ideological beliefs?
Based on your confusion over technical matters dealing with energy it is abundantly clear that you do not think things through. You have demonstrated an intellectual laziness where clear matters of fact exist. Why should I believe any conclusion you have reached in a far more complex subjective subject....
I've said it before, T. Mosley is full of shit.
Gravity is transitory.
Isn't this massive liquidity dump the result of Government's attempt to rescue all the banks, hedge funds and other market players who should have been wiped out in the 2008 crash? In order to save the speculators, the savers and the consumers had to be trown to the wolves. ZIRP killed the saver class, and consumers will be killed by liquidity driving commodities to the moon.
The people who waste key strokes complaining about "did the deomcrates do this? Will Bush be blamed? Aren't the republicans going to come to power and rescue the situation?" All that talk is rubbish! Bush was president when this whole system crashed, Obama has been president as trillions have failed to turn around the real economy. In a simple world people would take note of this simple fact and say "Both parties serve the elite, both parties will rape the nation to save the speculators." Perhaps the hight of stupidity is to claim Obama did it or Bush did it. That is what the eltie rulers want you to say, to play a stupid game of Republican versus Democrat. All the while they rule with an iron fist and people can't even figure that out because they are blinded by the two party system, which is one party when it gets real.
If there was to be a future history (which looks unlikely) then Bush would be acknowledged as someone with long term vision who at least tried to secure Iraqi oil for America and her allies.
Geology doesn't care about politics. Bush may have understood that.
If you had replaced Bush with Cheney.... maybe...
Cheney understood it and Bush knew that Cheney knew what had to be done...
The fact that the US had to give up any claim going forward on "Moral Ascendancy" was the price paid....
It's been said that the Roman Empire was a pillage economy - it looks like that's what our Fourth Roman Empire has become - a pillage economy - only problem is the world is wising up to our scheme
He was fully aware of peak oil and understood that this country would fall without black gold. But Obama thinks he can do the same with Iran. SORRY! Asian countries will pay more + not bomb other countries in order to get it. The petrodollar is finished. America is over. Thanks boomers; bang up job!
That's a pretty broad slam. Most boomers have had no choice in the goings-on with this country and world financial or geopolitics. I've been raped. I didn't ask to be raped and I didn't enjoy it. To blame boomers is wrong. So what are you "newbies" doing about it? TPTB have reamed us out. They're looking for some new tight-ass. I hope you've got some lube.
You have to admit boomers have been gloriously self-interested and hedonistic. What institutions have they courageously upheld? None that are the least bit constricting to behavior, that's for sure. America's moral, spiritual, and soon it's financial decline all fall on their watch.
Well I guess we're a bunch of wimps. Let's see here...... the only answer to this is to rise up and slay the beast. I (we) will be counting on the fine brave "new generation" to complete this task for us lazy useless old farts. Here is some breaking news for you. Your generation and any to follow have NO CONTROL of this. If you're lucky, you'll live to be 60+. At that time I'm sure some young buck will blaming you for his "poor luck."
Until "ALL" of us decide to correct this matter, it will remain the same for a millennium. This "boomer" is ready.
Don't play that heglian game. It was every generation since 1913. Entering WWI was the greatest mis-step on a path full of mis-steps.
I went thru the oil embargo. That woke me up. I don't know why it woke up so few.
The "Generaltional Wars" were predicted in the 1980's, mainly based on a statisical look at Social Security and Medi-Care - the bottom line was too few paying in and too many taking out. That time is now & past.
The boomers aren't too blame - look to your government - it thought that Everything was exponential; population growth and incoming/expanding taxes to pay for all the "shiney" programs that would buy votes.
The problem is, the boomer population is a bubble. As the boomers move thru their life-cycle, they bring with it a boom and bust - schooling, housing, medicine, and hospice care. I don't blame my parents for taking out social security payments they put in - but should I blame them for living long past their expected death date and taking more in SS payments than they put in?
It's a very flawed system designed by fools we elect that have no education in statistics, economics, or business - and then we blame each other for THEIR failings. Aim your arrow of wrath at the right party; not at each generation but at the fools we elect the design systems that always fail - Social Security, Medi-Care, war on drugs, war on poverty, war on war after war. Don't buy into the generational war - buy into the war that is brought to YOU by your government.Goes without saying, real questions are whether or not, morals and murder aside, (1) this was a good return on cost and oil spent (2) it's actually secure or ever will be (3) it created massive other security / energy costs (4) having most of your citizens and world citizens hate and distrust you is good energy policy
Compute the value of the oil that the US has imported since the Iraqi war (2003) that we have been able to pay with fiat paper....
Now assume that that the US could not get more than 50% of the daily imports because the dollar was not accepted...
It kept oil "cheap" for Americans and may keep oil "cheap" for a while...
If you think oil is expensive now when fiat can be converted at will, imagine it when it you need gold or some other hard asset to pay for it....
There is your answer...
Before anyone gets their panties in a knot.... I am not saying what was done was morally consistent with the ideals of the US or that it is right or even whether it should have been done...
I only outline the calculus going into that decision....
------
Here is a further gedanken:
A smart person would look at the US treasury holdings of a number of net oil importers and using the coupon rate and their level of imports, figure out what fraction of their oil they are getting for their earned dollars....What might they conclude?
As usual Flak, all good points ... and I could be wrong but I can't help thinking that from the largest, maybe non mathematical, historical empire perspective, still a self defeating strategy that in its attempt to put off, force off, hide or ignore the innevitable worked ironically (but histo-logically) to accelerate the decline, narrow the options (going down one path) and lessen support groups, military allies and economic friends. An army is not an economy, certainly not a diplomat and, along with drones, can't keep the petro dollar alive any more than begging and pleading or printing fiat. The nuclear cat is out of the box, our military is already stretched pretty thin, and the oil / empire problem is too big to prevent other big players from entering the game of risk.
No argument...
Given the US has the abilitiy (still!!) to "print" a couple of trillion dollars and pass them off for real goods, the proper path would be massive investment in a new energy infrastructure and the attendant transportation system...
However, that was the hard path....
As I alluded to below, Peak Oil will require changing the value system of society, or we will become an insignificant species ekeing out an existence on this planet... If our technical civilization crashes too hard, it will not rise again... resource extraction has become too energy and technology intensive....
And at worst, we totally fry the planet in a nuclear error...
I prefer Davey's calculus, above. The point is you are glossing over the negatives. I only outline the calculus going into that decision....
Yep... plenty of negatives...no argument there...
Objectively speaking, I think most Americans would rather some violence "over there" with the relatively few attendant body bags compared to oil shortages and hardships here.. Unless of course that you are going to argue that Americans are unlike any other peoples on the planet throughout history...
After all, out of sight, out of mind still works...
Sorry to offend your sensibilities but Peak Oil is going to be a bitch...
Edit:
Please remind me what happened the last time a President even suggested that the "American way of life was negotiable"...
...Kind of why a Vice President said it isn't
you're right though, I think a lot of "us" know the problems but just aren;t ready to make the sacrifice. I remember about a year back debating whether there's a little Dick Cheney in all of us. He indeed is the ugly american truth. There's an excellent discussion on this in the documentary "crude awakening" ...who is going to vote for the politician who says elect me and I'll dramatically change your standard of living..because we have no other choice. Of course, great historical catalysts and heroes are usually killed because they jeopardize so many and so much. That tragedy is only eclipsed by the greater tragedy of inaction.
Nicely put....
I have been through too many street fights using bicycle chains and baseball bats here at the Hedge to wax so eloquently....
it ain't eloquence that fix things (sorry Barack)
it's honesty then sanity
Your posts have done more than most to educate us just how insane this problem is.
Flak - murdering people to steal their stuff is still murdering people to steal their stuff. I don't think most Americans would advocate that. Certainly not the members of the US military who back non-interventionist Ron Paul with their campaign contributions to a far greater dergree than any of the other war-4-israel puppets.
It is all in the perception... and I ain't gonna defend anyones...
FWIW, the Vietnam War protests made the Iraqi ones seem very lame...
Flak - here's a flash for you. Some people have scruples. Some people are guided by their morals. They have what's often called a moral compass. Have you ever heard that before? Maybe it's news to you.
Re. Viet Nam v. Iraq war protests.
Yes and a simple reason - The Draft.
Yes.... there was a Draft then...the protestors (males at least) were legitimately protesting that they would be called up... Iraq, nothing, because it wasn't their problem... so my point is made....
Hell, you could convince me that a draft now wouldn't be bad idea now...
My last comment...
I don't get too wrapped up about touchy feely stuff when it comes to geo-politics as History has taught me that the Idealists are usually the first to go...
And I don't make the rules of the game... I only observe and comment on the movement of the pieces....
I hope you led the invasion force to get that Iraqi oil that Bush so cleverly conquered. If you didn't put YOUR life on the line for the Bush oil liberation war then perhaps silence would be a good course to take when bragging up a war that killed tens of thousands, including a shit load of Americans!
Not Bush oil liberation. American oil liberation.
We're going to be liberating some of Hugo's oil soon, too.
Don't forget the "speculators" (and Halliburton)...
Got VIX?
Am stacking VIX
Complacency is a bitch
I like the smell, really clears up the congestion, too....
Oil is heading skyward. Gold and Silver pretty much flat.
No manipulation here folks. Let's all just move along.
I heard they are proposing closing proprietary silver markets with the Volcker Rule come July. If the markets don't tell a good story, I guess there will be no market. Then the silver bugs (like myself) can never cash in on the wisdom. As if market forces aren't at work whether it's legal or not.
Hmmm, black market silver would be priced at a premium though....
So you're saying today is a good day to rob the train?
Only if the train company can afford the diesel to make the train run.
That could explain my uber jovial mood today.....or perhaps it's the liquid lumch. Hic.
Why put your favorite "I hate this face" slant on what you know is a money machine that dictates policy to everyone in government? Is it your intention to change the subject?
Nah, couldn't be!
What it seems to be is a religously fervent compulsion to blame government rather than corporatized greed that business type loyalists just can't stop themselves from indulging, imo.
The guys who spread their feet extra wide at the urinals in every men's room . . . like they just got too much to contain. They're like that everywhere they go.
Seems to be nothing more than a breed.
battle axe
Nope, I am saying that we as a country are fucked/broke
Newsflash, the ENTIRE world is in the same boat.................................WE are all on the Titanic.
Nailed it!
+ .338 Lapua
What's left besides gold?
Seeds, agricultural skills and calcium carbonate.
Silver. The other white metal.
The title of the article makes the false presumption that the economy isn't broke. Huh?
The title of the article is a QUOTE. Press the little sideways triangle in the box and see what happens.
I did. Wow! Like magic.
I listened to it as well.
The point remains whether the title is is a QUOTE or not, it is still the title of the article.
If we want to split hairs in the cause of accuracy then it could be titled:
"Burbank says 'Oil Won't Stop Until The Economy Breaks' ".
Methinks you missed the sarcasm of my original post.
Methinks you need sarcasm lessons.
Are you being sarcastic? ;-)
I don't know about the rest of you but I'm being completely serious. Really.
"Crack is Whack!"
-Whitney Houston
too soon?
There is time for Obama to act on the SPR. There is time for Chavez to die and open up about 250K bpd of very short term flow increase to Obama liberating it.
But geology cares about neither. If geology has asserted itself and choked off the liquid that is actual refinable crude, then there's nothing he can do.
Who killed Whitney Houston?
An "Illuminating" read - http://hollywoodilluminati.com/2012/02/17/who-killed-whitney-houston-dea...
and here I thought it was all the drugs she did.
The worst drug to be found in Hollyweird: FAME!
Bobby Brown is an Illuminati member?
Speaking of which, any reports on whether inflation is creeping in to the black market narcotics business?
Well, we do know that demand recently took a dive, so...
Nope a nickle baloon of smack is still five bucks. However, with the amount of abscesses we are seeing in the ED I think they are cutting it with dog shit.
It will really be something when the drug cartels start to demand gold.
Users of the "product" have to have some Au to trade with, first!
@ mayhem
+ 1
That's an interesting question (I have no idea what the answerr would be), let's hope that someone here can tell us.
Heard on the floor of the Nymex: Peak Bitches Oil!
Not that I follow pop culture at all, but Whitney had everything going for her until she hooked up with Brown. Sure, she's responsible ultimately, but hanging out with or falling for losers certainly doesn't help your odds in life.
Like Greece getting debauched by Germany. They are hooked on crack too I guess.
she was dead on
Famous last words.
But probably too soon ;-)
....and here I thought "famous last words" were "Hey, hold my beer and watch this!"
Read a weekly commentary of Armada Markets 3 weeks ago. In it they said that short EURCHF and long USDJPY are the trades of this year. I was an idiot that I didn't pull the trigger.
Read a weekly commentary of Armada Markets 3 weeks ago. In it they said that, although they paid a fine, they admitted no wrongdoing.
Be sure to point the gun at your head when you do.
The playbook right now really seems to be:
long crude
short consumer discretionary
But at what WTI price does the economy "break"? $140? $200? I agree with the premise, but the word "break" needs more definition.
Considering a $143.74 peak on July 2, 2008 http://ycharts.com/indicators/crude_oil_spot_price
And considering the government inflation
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
I would garner a guess at $151.32. Perhaps May of this year if recent history is any guide.
Thanks Dr. Head. That was a very satisfying, because properly quantified answer.
Of course it is just an educated guess based on historical evidence, but I would eye that level myself. It sure was the straw that broke the camel's back last time through.
good stuff, of course it's really ticky isn't it? The reliability of those providing supply and depletion rates. How long the world will value the dollar and whether or not that will be a gradual or "explosive" adventure and other fun stuff
Once the Saudi Princes start getting whacked, that's when you'll know that these fools are playing for keeps
Oil? Why not $500 a barrel - or perhaps, it will become more efficient to burn money than oil.. who knows
I thought a black swan was a white swan covered with oil.
you can't kill a zombie
This guy would have been cut off mid sentence on CNBC with........."Now let's go to Cramer with an interview with The Oracle and behind him, Becky Quick"
Hope & Change negative feedback islamo-marxist loop.
It is a shame that the Orifice from Omaha was not in the bath and someone threw a hairdryer in the tub.
One of them Chinese hairdryers that was intercepted by border patrol...
You mean pulled the plug?
Gee Carl, it looks like Becky has Warren's nutsack in her mouth again, maybe one of the crew can get her a smaller mic.
Becky can you here us?
Cramer was so much more fun when he was allowed to throw chairs and destroy foam bulls/bears.
i wouldn't know, i switch him off soon as i hear his voice (aka the squeeling buggered pig from Deliverance)
Good point. Speaking of which, the monthly CNBC interview with Buffet is coming up next week.
"So Mr. Buffet, since you're worth billions you're obviously smarter than everyone else except President Obamao, please tell us what you might be investing in down the road, and while youre at it, tell us why you're so good to your secretary? Clearly you have no political connections, therefore it would be foolish of us to even bring up the issue. But most importantly please tell us if you're still drinking Cokes daily"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYuLjGQQ-jg This link will tell everything you need to know about oil.
As I was saying in a previous post: Considering you could but a gallon of gasoline in 1960 for a shiney silver quarter (in the US) and now a shiney silver quarter is worth more than a gallon of gasoline today, then the conclusion is that gasoline's value has depreciated relative to the value of a shiney silver quarter, right?
There really isn't any "inflation," only a devaluation of the value of a dollar thanks to the FED's unlimited release of Federal Reserve Notes thanks to the profligate spending habits of Government idiots (not to mention the continuous bailouts of the world's banking cabal).
"only a devaluation of the value of a dollar thanks to the FED's unlimited release of Federal Reserve Notes"
Actually that's pretty much the Austrian definition of inflation.
BenBee: "It's a time we love to hate, I can give you..."
Fossickers':"Once out of reach, we never speak, we never compromise. As they turned to gold the edges froze and seemed to turn to ice... Sometimes you'll find that truth is never kind."
In fact, priced in gold and silver, practically everything is less expensive than around 2007. One might think we are in a deflationary environment. Combine that with real GDP contraction, rising unemployment, more and more people in poverty, and waves of defaults, and you might think we are not actually in a recovery. Some might even be bold enough to call it a Depression.
Go on in to your local convenience store, put $50 of oil in the tank and walk in to the counter and offer up your quarter. Offer it up even if it's an old quarter made of silver.
Now offer up an oil based plastic mag strip equipped CC and see which gets accepted.
Moral of the story: a quarter paid for oil then, regardless of its material. A quarter won't pay for it now, regardless of its material.
Not actually worth replying too, since you reveal yourself as a moron. A quarter contains enough silver to pay for a gallon of gas; not "$50 worth of oil". Check out your local service station personnel; my lady at the gas pump is all ready to go and waiting for me to bring more quarters. It's not nuclear physics.
Silver pays for nothing. The cash register doesn't have a slot for silver. You want to buy your $50 of gas, you better bring $50. If you can find someone to buy your silver for $50 then you can buy gas.
It, like gold, is insignificant. If it ever were significant, to the point where, say, some Treasury bond buyers were diverting money to it, then government will tax all your silver and gold transactions at about 50% of value.
And that will be the end of that silliness. You think governments are going to tolerate any threats to the system so you can swagger about about pieces of silver? These are the people that killed Gadaffi. These people gutted GM bond holders. You think they will tolerate threats from the likes of you?
You buy gasoline with $50 at the convenience store. You can't buy it with 50 Euros. You can't buy it with equivalent Mexican pesos. And you can't buy it with silver.
Bring money to the counter to pay for your gasoline.
Ah, you're stealing my material. thank god; I've been waiting for it to go viral. the price of oil did not go up. Nor did the price of gasoline. This is not good for the peak oil ranters and hyper-ventilators; but fuck them. It tells you exactly what you need to know about what to use for a savings account.
i thought the americans were trying to financially starve Iran, they must have known the consequences of their printing, not understanding their process to start a war anymore??
Let them eat petrocarbons!
"The only reason all this liquidity is coming into the market is because things are really bad. It's not because things are good."
Spot on.
The Powerz that be think by flooding the markets with liquidity the average joe will get some of that trickle down fiat ponzi paper in his pocket...THEY ARE SO WRONG! Oil prices up is a big big big mistake... They have added inslut to injury,
Revolutions are coming...
He is flooding the market with liquidity alright, but it's swirling around in the eye of the pyramid. Ben and his friends are purchasing the resources of the entire world. But don't expect any of that wealth to trickle down, to the contrary, the economy for the regular joe is under a vacuum. There is currently approximately twice as much liquidity being sucked out of the economy as is being injected in to it at the bottom of the pyramid. good luck making your house payment over the next few years
The kind of dripping down benny didn't expect to happen...
It would never dawn on anyone that maybe we should go on a boycott of gas/oil consumption. Like leave the car in the garage, cut back on usage. Let it pile up alongside the camel dung.
That's a bit like telling Whitney Houston to cut back on her oxycontin use ... nice idea but never gonna happen ...
That will happen on its own when you can't afford to buy the stuff. I believe the term is called "Supply and Demand" and it hurts like hell when it intersects with "Want and Afford".
it gets even uglier when 'need and unavailable' cut in.
Or China Brake apart ! Long live Republicans.
Yeah, right. Have you noticed that the price of oil goes up as the dollar gets weaker and the goes down as the dollar gets stronger. I haven't done the math, but it does not look like it has moved much in other-currency terms.
"Oil Won't Stop Until The Economy Breaks"And that's forever, sports fans.
There's no reason to do any sort of nihilistic chuckling in self satisfaction about it, but there IS reason to insist that it be accepted and it be the basis for government policy. FOREVER is the single more important word about what oil is doing, and if it's not accepted, the deveastation cannot be lessened.
I don't care about conservation. The liberals who pretend to be conservative jump up and say "you peak oil left wing assholes just want to erode my lifestyle". Bullshit. You faux conservatives refuse to acknowledge the math of what MUST happen.
And that is population slash. If you're a real conservative, you would accept that and advocate ensuring Americans represent less of that slash than others. That means pre-emptive use of military force against the major population centers of China.
This is not about morality. This is about survival of the US. The US will not survive 7 billion people on a planet whose oil is running horribly short. Action must be taken.
And like all humans, any readers of this reached the part where it is clear radical action must be taken recoiled from that, and they instinctively then decided all the preceding is wrong. Life is much more comfortable if they just deny FOREVER. Shrug.
So the NWO agenda of wiping out 6 bils is ok with you?
Why would you think it matters who has what opinion about this.
GEOLOGY DOESN'T CARE. GEOLOGY HAS BEEN AROUND LONG BEFORE OPINIONS.
There Is No Choice, other than disintegration of the US.
Morality has a lot to do with it. If nobody gives a fuck, then nothing gets fixed, the right way.
The fraud is proof of lawlessness. They are saying "let's keep this party going." bitchezz.
Start to worry when you are going broke. Until then, support local and fuck off global.
You can't feed 7 Billion with local food. NYC is surrounded by parking lots, not farmland.
Support local is the left wing meme that allows them to avoid the math.
People must die. If you're American, you should act to ensure they are not American.
Crash, I gave you a green man. You're right.
You have to realize that most of the readers here have probably never even set foot on an operating farm. I won't even go into the difference between a real farm and the agribusiness bullshit that passes for one these days. Back in the 70's, early 80's there were still quite a few farms here where chickens got raised on the side here, down the road the neighbor might run 100 or 200 head of hogs, etc. The next family down might have a small dairy herd and sold milk to the local bottler. Kids got paid during the summer to do shit like bale hay, walk beans (that means weed the field by hand) and other mundane tasks. All that is gone around here now.
If you haven't seen it up close, seen just how much fucking work it takes to feed mile by mile of 20 story buildings. You probably just don't understand that you're going to fucking starve. If someone doesn't go Wendigo and kill your ass and eat you first. Oil moves the tractors, Oil kills the weeds, kills the bugs. Oil makes the fertilizers that ensures bumper crops that keep you fed.
We are in one hell of a mess people. All that small infrastructure, knowledge and simple animal census levels are gone now. Those little family farms are gone, all that's left are the drain culverts leading into the field where their driveway used to be. It's all ploughed under and owned by agribusiness now. We won't just walk out into the field and start growing Kentucky wonder bush beans and tough it out a few years. We are dicked, and a lot of people are going to just plain starve.
17 million calories per acre from potatos.
But only with oil based insecticide, oil based weed killer, oil based planting, oil based harvesting, and fertilizer delivered by oil.
Without all that it's old Ireland, at about 3 million calories per potato acre.
A human doing manual labor needs about 1 million calories per year.
You can feed 3 humans with an acre of potatos, not even counting how many acres have to be in hay to get the oxen through the winter to plant next year's potatoes.
That is one hell of a lot of acres planted to feed NYC's 8 million, and those potatoes will have to transport 50 miles to get to NYC from outside the surburban parking lots.
It's Not Going To Work.
Your masters approve of your interview Miss Brennanke.
Your twittering of the interview only discussed rising oil prices with a small phrase concerning "our peril". Make sure that mistake doesn't happen again.
Your GMO vegan break is available now. Thank you for your service.
so our current food construct is the only one? our massive reduction in food and plant variety is the only method of nutrition? Our first world meat eating / oil using methods are the only way to feed ourselves? There are no other food systems that use significantly less oil? Petroleum Monocrops are more efficient than seven layer permaculture methods that stack crops on top of each other an multiply the output per acre?
Potatoes are not the only way, nature is temendously more efficent - in fact she wastes very little. we are just too stupid to learn from her.
This is a great piece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShCEKL-mQ8
DJ - Right as usual, but the transition looks to be traumatic for many.
Checking out the video. Thanks
Labor-intensive farming does produce higher *real* yields per acre than the mass-production operations, though, so there's a bit of a bright-side.
The agribusiness approach only works under a very strictly-defined set of conditions. That's what's coming to an end. It's not a *necessary* outcome that we starve off 80% of the global population. We could easily stabilize at 5 billion.
Yes, it would be a dramatically different world.
True. Call me crazy but, like everything else, the earlier we build the new systems, the less bloodshed, starvation and death. But I'm sure CongressCorp has our best interests in mind.
The different world is depopulate China, maybe India too.
Then conquer and occupy Brazil.
Brazil gets 3 growing seasons per year. No winter. Either move America there or ship their output via sail to the US.
The USA produces an enormous food surplus even given everything we're doing wrong.
By "different world" I'm not referring to the size of the global population itself. I'm referring to how that population spends its time.
In the post-industrial world, a tiny percentage of the population is currently involved in food production. This is not a bad thing, but there's nothing especially good about it either. We also have high unemployment.
Returning to labor-intensive farming reduces the unemployment problem, increases per acre production yields, and reintroduces a largely helpless population to some slight degree of self-sufficiency.
Billions and billions dead? Bullshit. The Chinese and Indians haven't even finished mechanizing their agriculture.
They have far less to worry about than Europe or the USA on that score. And despite whatever worries we do legitimately have, it doesn't take long for a hungry person to develop some really keen interest in learning how to produce food.
love the last sentence (so do all humans living prior to 1900)
Yeah, but who is going to teach, you?
You can feed 3 humans with an acre of potatos, not even counting how many acres have to be in hay to get the oxen through the winter to plant next year's potatoes.
Using your pessimistic production levels, and all the arable land in America, you could still feed 1.3 Billion people. That number would decline when you take into account oats for feeding work horses or whatever, but you also have to take into account all the urban gardens that will be made.
You can use non-petroleum based fertilizers; before Potash began getting mined out of the ground (which I doubt will suddenly end) they used seaweed, around 30,000 to 40,000 tons per year off the California coast, and they were no where near maxed out. Also used for making gun powder. charcoal for nitrates, although you'd want better time-released delivery.
Just because the oil is gone, doesn't mean we're going to loose all advances in agricultural sciences, Aquaculture, Aquaponics, Permaculture, etc.
Just with potatoes, you grow them vertically and get much better yields per acre than in flat fields, although it is more manual labour-intensive: http://tipnut.com/grow-potatoes/
Matt, stop with the primary thinking. It's secondary and tertiary time.
You have to haul the seaweed. Potatoes have no protein or fats. You have to grow other things. The potato is the calories/acre champion. The rest of the stuff you have to grow is far worse. So your arable land numbers collapse.
Then meats are 4:1 calories in to calories out. That's what happens for protein. Don't stomp your feet about peanuts and beans. They won't grow everywhere.
And frankly I don't care if you can get potash out of the ground. You can't haul it by oxen cart to Iowa in the quantities needed for 7 billion.
You know what else you're going to lose? Roads. In a decade or two, accumulated freezing and thawing will crack them apart to rubble. You'll be hauling that seaweed (actually guano from the islands off Peru) on dirt roads that turn to mud in the rain. You'll haul on oxen cart. You won't do it at 7 billion human levels.
And guess what, sports fans. Oxen aren't oxen anymore. An ox is a cow trained from a young age to haul shit. They have been bred for 150 years to get bigger to adjust that calorie ratio. They Now Eat More. The calories in vs calories planted and harvested ratio is now for shit, and the old ox genes aren't around anymore.
We're fucked.
Must be raising space potatoes.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/27...
If you think we are so fucked, why don't you kill yourself instead of spreading your genocidal tripe?
peanuts and beans are far from the only source of plant protein. What do you think mankind ate for thousands of years? Lots of plants have protein and lots of plants are edible and nutrient rich. Quinoa fed a lot of people, has every amino acid, the whole plant is edible and it grows in a wide variety of though settings. Spirulina fed a lot of folks protein too. All the hauling around takes energy BUT the more local any production, the less energy it takes to get it to your plate or any other spot in your house. A large percentage of humans used to be involved in very very local food production. That only dropped when oil arrived and it will soon return as it declines. So must food production knowledge but a lot of knowledge exists and has been preserved. The bigger issue is food extinction and control - Monsanto, GMOs and environmental destruction.
This I can believe. In a decade or two, accumulated freezing and thawing will crack them apart to rubble.
This I can not. You'll be hauling that seaweed (actually guano from the islands off Peru) on dirt roads that turn to mud in the rain.
Here, I fear, he's on to something. You'll haul on oxen cart. You won't do it at 7 billion human levels.
don't disagree at all and don't get me wrong, I think a lot of people will suffer and drop. Just, the sooner we get on to the other self supporting systems, the less destruction
Agreed Davie and BTW, you were great in the pirate movie with Jack Sparrow.