http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24076.htm
The Economic Crisis And What Must Be Done
The United States does not control its own destiny. Rather it is controlled by an international financial elite, of which the American branch works out of big New York banks like J.P. Morgan Chase, Wall Street investment firms such as Goldman Sachs, and the Federal Reserve System.
They in turn control the White House, Congress, the military, the mass media, the intelligence agencies, both political parties, the universities, etc. No one can rise to the top in any of these institutions without the elite’s stamp of approval.
This elite has been around since the nation began, becoming increasingly dominant as the 19th century progressed. A key date was passage of the National Banking Act of 1863, when the system was put into place whereby federal government debt was used to collateralize bank lending. Since then we’ve paid the freight through our taxes for bank control of the economy.
The final nails in the coffin came with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
In 1929 the bankers plunged the nation into the Great Depression by constricting the money supply. With Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, the nation struggled through the decade of the 1930s but did not pull out of the Depression until the industrial explosion during World War II.
After the war came the Golden Age of the U.S. economy, when the working man, protected by strong labor unions, became a true partner in the prosperity of the industrial age. That era lasted a full generation. The bankers were largely spectators as Americans led the world in exports, standard of living, science and space exploration, and every measure of health, longevity, and culture.
Roosevelt had kept the bankers subservient to the interests of the economy at large. The Federal Reserve was part of the New Deal team, and interest rates were held at historic lows despite a large federal deficit. One main impact was the huge increase in home ownership. After World War II, the G.I. Bill allowed home ownership to grow further and millions of veterans to attend college. The influx of educated graduates led to productivity growth and the emergence of new high-tech industries.
But the bankers were laying their plans. In the early 1950s they got the government to agree to allow the Federal Reserve to escape its subservience to the U.S. Treasury Department and set interest rates on its own. Rates rose throughout the 1950s and 1960s. By the time of the interest rate hikes of 1968, the economy was slowing down. Both federal budget and trade deficits were beginning to replace the post-war surpluses. High interest rates were the likely cause.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon removed the dollar’s gold peg, allowing the huge inflation resulting from oil price increases that the international bankers engineered through control of U.S. foreign policy when Henry Kissinger was national security adviser and secretary of state. Nixon’s opening to China resulted in early agreements, also overseen by banking interests, to begin to transfer U.S. industry to overseas producers like China which had cheap labor costs.
By the mid-1970s, the U.S. had been taken over by a behind the scenes coup-d’etat that included events in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy that could only have been instigated by the highest levels of world financial control. In the election of 1976, David Rockefeller succeeded in placing fellow Trilateral Commission member Jimmy Carter in the White House, but Carter upset the banking community, thoroughly Zionist in orientation, by working toward peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.
I was working in the Carter White House in 1979-80. Unbeknownst to the president, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, another Rockefeller protégé, suddenly raised interest rates to fight the inflation the bankers had caused by the OPEC oil price deals, and plunged the nation into recession. Carter was made to look weak and uninformed and was defeated in the election of 1980 by Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. It was through the “Reagan Revolution” that the regulatory controls over the banking industry were lifted, mainly in allowing the banks to use their fractional reserve privileges in making mortgage loans.
Volcker’s recession shattered American manufacturing and hastened the flight of jobs abroad. Under the “Reagan Doctrine,” the U.S. military embarked on an unprecedented mission of world conquest by attacking one small nation at a time, starting with Nicaragua. Global capitalism was also on the march, with the U.S. armed forces its own private police force. With the invasion of Iraq under George H.W. Bush in 1991, mainland Asia was revealed as the principle target.
The economy was floated by productivity gains through computer automation and a huge sell-off of assets through the merger-acquisition bubble of the late 1980s which ended in a recession. This resulted in the defeat of Bush by Bill Clinton in the election of 1992. Clinton was able to create another bubble through a strong dollar policy that attracted foreign capital.
The dot-com bubble that resulted lasted all the way through to the crash of December 2000. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force led the way in the destruction of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, whereby the international bankers took over the resource wealth of the entire Balkan region, and the U.S. military gained forward bases for further incursions into Asia.
Do we need to say that none of this was ever voted on by the American electorate? But they bought into it nevertheless, both with their silence and through participation in a generally favorable job market in the emerging service occupations, particularly finance.
By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated president in January 2001, the U.S. was facing a disaster. $4 trillion in wealth had vanished when the dot.com bubble collapsed. NAFTA caused even more American manufacturing jobs to disappear abroad. The Neocons who were moving into key jobs in the Pentagon knew they would soon have new wars to fight in the Middle East, with invasion plans for Afghanistan and Iraq ready to be pulled off the shelf.
But the U.S. had no economic engine available to generate the tax revenues Bush would need for the planned wars. At this moment Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve stepped in. Over a two year period from 2001-2003 the Fed lowered interest rates by over 500 basis points. Meanwhile, the federal government removed all regulatory controls on mortgage lending, and the housing bubble was on. $4 trillion in new home loans were pumped into the economy, much of it through subprime loans borrowers could not afford.
The Fed began to put on the brakes in 2003, but the mighty work of re-floating a moribund economy had been accomplished. By late 2006 another recession loomed, but it would take two more years before the crisis of October 2008 brought the entire system down.
The impact on the job market was immediate and profound. By the time Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008, the U.S. was mired in seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the worst recession since the Great Depression was picking up speed. In order to prevent total disaster, the Bush administration ended its eight years of catastrophic misrule with a flourish, by allocating over $700 billion in financial system bailouts to cover the bad loans the banks had been making since Greenspan gave the housing bubble the green light.
It is now November 2009. Since Barack Obama was inaugurated in January, unemployment has soared from 7.9 percent to 10.2 percent. A few hundred billion dollars were allocated for “stimulus” purposes, but most of that went to pay unemployment benefits and to keep state and local governments from laying off more employees.
A fraction has been distributed for highway improvements, but largely through the bank bailouts the federal deficit has been running at an annual rate of $1.5 trillion, by far the largest in history, with the national debt now topping $12 trillion. Ironically, those Americans who still have productive jobs continue to grow in efficiency, with productivity up over five percent in the last year.
So much federal money has been spent that the Obama administration has been struggling to make its health care proposals budget-neutral through a raft of new taxes, fees, and penalties, and by announcing in recent days that the government’ first priority must now shift to deficit reduction. The word “austerity” has been mentioned for the first time since the Carter administration. Yet Congress voted $655 billion in military expenditures to continue fighting in the Middle East. A U.S. military attack on Iran, possibly in conjunction with Israel, would surprise no one.
So where do we now stand?
At present, the Federal Reserve is trying to prevent a total economic collapse. Interest rates are near-zero, to the chagrin of foreign investors in U.S. Treasury securities, and close to half of new Treasury debt instruments have been bought by the Federal Reserve itself as a way of providing free money for federal government expenditures.
But the U.S. economy shows no signs of coming back, with no economic driver emerging that could bring it back. For all the talk about alternative energy, there has been no significant growth of any home-grown industry that could possibly make up so much lost ground in either the short or the long-term.
The industries in the U.S. that are holding up are the military, including arms exports, universities that are attracting large numbers of students from abroad, especially China, and health care, especially for the aging baby boomer population. But the war industry produces nothing with a long-term economic benefit, and health care exists mainly to treat sick people, not produce anything new.
None of this provides a foundation that can bring about a restoration of prosperity to 300 million people when the jobs of making articles of consumption are increasingly scarce. On top of everything else, since government inevitably looks to its own requirements first, the total tax burden continues to increase to the point where the average employee now pays close to 50 percent of his or her income on taxes of all types, including federal and state income taxes, real estate taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, government fees, etc. Plus the cost of utilities continues to rise steadily and threatens to skyrocket if cap-and-trade legislation is passed.
The Obama administration has no plans to deal with any of this. They have projected a budget for 15 years hence that shows the budget deficit decreasing and tax revenues going way up, but it is all lies. They have no roadmap for getting us there and no plans for following the roadmap if it portrayed a realistic goal. And yet the U.S. military is still trying to conquer Asia. It is madness.
And it is madness because the big decisions are not made by the U.S., by Congress, or by the Obama administration. The U.S. has, for half-a-century, been marching to the tune played by the international financial elite, and this fact did not change with the election of 2008. The financiers have put the people of this nation $57 trillion in debt, according to the latest reports, counting debt at the federal, state, business, and household levels. Interest alone on this debt is over $3 trillion of a GDP of $14 trillion. Failure of our political leadership to deal with this tragedy over the past three decades is nothing less than treason.
But then again, at some point the decision was made that the U.S. and its population would be discarded by history, the economic status of the nation reduced to a shadow of what it once was, but that its military machine would be used for the financial elite’s takeover of the world until it is replaced by that of some other nation. All indications are that the next country up to bat as military enforcer for the financiers is China.
There you have it. That, in my opinion, is the past, present, and future of this nation in a nutshell. Great evils have been done in the world in the last century, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Except…. and that’s what each person caught up in these travesties must decide. What are you going to do about it?
In mulling over this question, it would be wise to recognize that the dominance of the financial elite has largely been exercised through their control of the international monetary system based on bank lending and government debt. Therefore it’s through the monetary system that change can and must be made.
The progressives are wrong to think the government should go deeper in debt to create more jobs. This will just create an even deeper hole of debt future generations will have to crawl out of.
Rather the key is monetary reform, whether at the local or national levels. People have lost control of their ability to earn a living. But change could be accomplished through sovereign control by people and nations of the monetary means of exchange.
This control has been stolen. It is time to take it back..........
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
SC99-2
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16281
Investors Buy Gold...Review of financial markets
.........Long ago the world’s central banks set the course for a planned collapse of the world economy to implement world government and there is now no turning back. We have proof stretching back to 1965 that intervention by the Treasury and the Fed was taking place in the gold market. The illegal sale of gold on 10/19/87 was a good example of that. Then came the FOMC memos of the 1980s and 1990s to kill the perception that gold be allowed to reflect a policy of a weak dollar unbacked by gold. It is all there and probably more proof which our government and the Fed hides from us. We have to laugh at the smug who say why would the Treasury bother to rig the gold price? The point is they have and they are still doing it.
The perception now is that the massive stimulus put into international markets, especially US markets, will be withdrawn as interest rates are allowed to float upward. This stimulus was responsible for the stock market climbing from Dow 6600 to 10,500, a 60% leap built on monetization. If the punch bowl is removed the market will return to test 6600. In addition, the deflationary undertow kept at bay by the stimulus, will overcome monetary policy and the nation and the world will slip into monetary, deflationary depression.
The Fed is now forced to allow gold to trade higher and the dollar to fall lower. What else would one expect under current monetary circumstances? This policy will allow both gold and the dollar to play out to their full extent. The Fed’s job has been very difficult considering a fiscal budget deficit of $1.5 trillion not counting off budget items that take it over $2 trillion – a condition we are told that will persist for the next ten years. The solution has been the creation of ever more money and credit. There has been no cooperation. Nothing has worked together. All the problems have gone spinning off into a number of directions. There is no control on fiscal or monetary policy. What the players refuse to understand is that until the system is purged the situation is only going to get worse. There is no recovery. It is only an interlude in an ongoing depression.
The result will be gold at $2,500 by the end of 2010, and perhaps much sooner. The buyers know what we know. Real inflation since 1980 dictates $6,700 to $7,200 gold. Even official inflation demands a $2,400 price. In both instances how much inflation will 2010 bring? We are projecting 14% real inflation and government and the Fed keep telling us inflation is 1.2%. Our figures show 6-1/8%. In addition the fundamentals show us that gold production has been in shortfall to usage by 150 or more tons for years and that situation will worsen over the next ten years. Yes, we have hit peak gold. Interest rates rises won’t come for at least a year, if ever, and 5% growth in aggregates is in the realm of wishful thinking. Less gold is currently produced annually than in 1980 and there are trillions more dollars sloshing about the world financial system, a good part of it for speculative purposes. Without changes in monetary and fiscal policies, gold and silver prices will just keep rising. The further our government, via Goldman Sacks, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and Citigroup, short gold and silver and the shares, the greater price appreciation will be in the future as they ultimately will have to cover their shorts. We are at the confluence of big things happening. The fiscal debt overhand is so onerous that a ¾% rise in interest rates would mean the Fed would have to monetize another $150 billion and a 5% increase in interest rates would increase debt service interest by $600 billion additional dollars. Yes, gold could reach $3,000 in 2010 and 2011 could bring another doubling as a result of the Fed and government just continuing what they are doing. Will inflation reach 25% or 30% in 2011? We don’t know, but as we reflect on what the Fed has been doing we say that possibility certainly exists. Could that mean $11,000 gold? Perhaps it does, we won’t know until we get there.
Even if inflation abated in 2011 or 2012 and a deflationary depression took command, gold would still be the go to investment. That is because for 6,000 years it has been the only currency that has owed no one anything. Would you really be ready to trade it for a fiat currency? We don’t think so. All bond markets as well as stock markets would have collapsed with the exception of gold and silver shares. Just look at the 1930s and see the gains Homestake had, if you don’t think gold stocks can make fortunes during a depression. Gold and silver are the investments for all seasons as long as you have patience. The banking system may collapse. What better to use than gold and silver coins for barter. This past year we have seen lending by banks fall 16.2% y-o-y or by $600 billion. Just double that figure and you are in depression. Can you imagine what it will be like with little or no lending? Unemployment is 22.2%. Under such conditions the unemployed could be 35% or more. What do we do, let the Illuminati create another world war to cover up their machinations? The dollar is already falling and probably will eventually collapse. Could it be 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 years from now that there will be an official 2/3’s devaluation? The exchange of three old dollars for one new dollar and a 2/3’s default on all debt by all nations with one another and the revaluation and devaluation of all currencies followed by a new international trading unit made up of the top G-20 currencies weighted in an index. That is certainly plausible as the dollar ceases to be the international reserve currency.
These events could push residential and commercial values down 75% or more from their highs. All investments except gold and silver could fall 60% to 95% as they did during the 1930s. The Fed won’t be able to cut interest rates, which will already be at zero. Demand for capital will force real rates higher and bonds lower. All issuers of consumer debt will most likely go broke, as 50% of debtors won’t be able to service their debt.
Real nasty times are just around the corner and nothing can be done to prevent them. The system must be purged. More major layoffs are on the way, real wages will fall and taxes will rise. The Dow will settle somewhere between 1,500 and 4,200. We won’t know where until we get a lot closer. Companies have maintained the bottom line by firing people, offshoring and outsourcing and using illegal aliens. That method of cutting costs is approaching a threshold of diminishing returns. The next big wave of layoffs will be municipal in towns, cities, counties and states that no longer have the reserve to pay employees. Some states, such as Florida has no funds to pay for unemployment benefits and were it not for the stimulus plan they would have stopped issuing checks a year ago. At this rate in many states municipalities will cease to function and schools, fire and police will be disbanded. That is where this is all headed. Americans have to be told the truth about what is really going on and who and what caused it and how we can fix it.
There is no question in our minds that the Fed will monetize and inflate until they cannot anymore. We see no end to increasing deficit spending. That first will perhaps bring about an Argentinean economy and if we do not come to terms with reality then it is Weimarization or Zimbabweization. When this happens everything will be out of control.........
........Wall Street, banking and our government continue to steal from the American people with the assistance of the Federal Reserve. Is it no wonder that 75% to 80% of Americans want the Fed audited? We must also keep in mind that the public still only knows a fraction of what has been done to them. They know little about front running, naked shorting or bogus gold bars, thanks to our media. Criminals are doing 20 to 30 years for much less than what these crooks have done and the core, the heart of the mechanism, springs from the Federal Reserve. The Fed is the center from which the fraud emanates..........
Investors Buy Gold...Review of financial markets
.........Long ago the world’s central banks set the course for a planned collapse of the world economy to implement world government and there is now no turning back. We have proof stretching back to 1965 that intervention by the Treasury and the Fed was taking place in the gold market. The illegal sale of gold on 10/19/87 was a good example of that. Then came the FOMC memos of the 1980s and 1990s to kill the perception that gold be allowed to reflect a policy of a weak dollar unbacked by gold. It is all there and probably more proof which our government and the Fed hides from us. We have to laugh at the smug who say why would the Treasury bother to rig the gold price? The point is they have and they are still doing it.
The perception now is that the massive stimulus put into international markets, especially US markets, will be withdrawn as interest rates are allowed to float upward. This stimulus was responsible for the stock market climbing from Dow 6600 to 10,500, a 60% leap built on monetization. If the punch bowl is removed the market will return to test 6600. In addition, the deflationary undertow kept at bay by the stimulus, will overcome monetary policy and the nation and the world will slip into monetary, deflationary depression.
The Fed is now forced to allow gold to trade higher and the dollar to fall lower. What else would one expect under current monetary circumstances? This policy will allow both gold and the dollar to play out to their full extent. The Fed’s job has been very difficult considering a fiscal budget deficit of $1.5 trillion not counting off budget items that take it over $2 trillion – a condition we are told that will persist for the next ten years. The solution has been the creation of ever more money and credit. There has been no cooperation. Nothing has worked together. All the problems have gone spinning off into a number of directions. There is no control on fiscal or monetary policy. What the players refuse to understand is that until the system is purged the situation is only going to get worse. There is no recovery. It is only an interlude in an ongoing depression.
The result will be gold at $2,500 by the end of 2010, and perhaps much sooner. The buyers know what we know. Real inflation since 1980 dictates $6,700 to $7,200 gold. Even official inflation demands a $2,400 price. In both instances how much inflation will 2010 bring? We are projecting 14% real inflation and government and the Fed keep telling us inflation is 1.2%. Our figures show 6-1/8%. In addition the fundamentals show us that gold production has been in shortfall to usage by 150 or more tons for years and that situation will worsen over the next ten years. Yes, we have hit peak gold. Interest rates rises won’t come for at least a year, if ever, and 5% growth in aggregates is in the realm of wishful thinking. Less gold is currently produced annually than in 1980 and there are trillions more dollars sloshing about the world financial system, a good part of it for speculative purposes. Without changes in monetary and fiscal policies, gold and silver prices will just keep rising. The further our government, via Goldman Sacks, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and Citigroup, short gold and silver and the shares, the greater price appreciation will be in the future as they ultimately will have to cover their shorts. We are at the confluence of big things happening. The fiscal debt overhand is so onerous that a ¾% rise in interest rates would mean the Fed would have to monetize another $150 billion and a 5% increase in interest rates would increase debt service interest by $600 billion additional dollars. Yes, gold could reach $3,000 in 2010 and 2011 could bring another doubling as a result of the Fed and government just continuing what they are doing. Will inflation reach 25% or 30% in 2011? We don’t know, but as we reflect on what the Fed has been doing we say that possibility certainly exists. Could that mean $11,000 gold? Perhaps it does, we won’t know until we get there.
Even if inflation abated in 2011 or 2012 and a deflationary depression took command, gold would still be the go to investment. That is because for 6,000 years it has been the only currency that has owed no one anything. Would you really be ready to trade it for a fiat currency? We don’t think so. All bond markets as well as stock markets would have collapsed with the exception of gold and silver shares. Just look at the 1930s and see the gains Homestake had, if you don’t think gold stocks can make fortunes during a depression. Gold and silver are the investments for all seasons as long as you have patience. The banking system may collapse. What better to use than gold and silver coins for barter. This past year we have seen lending by banks fall 16.2% y-o-y or by $600 billion. Just double that figure and you are in depression. Can you imagine what it will be like with little or no lending? Unemployment is 22.2%. Under such conditions the unemployed could be 35% or more. What do we do, let the Illuminati create another world war to cover up their machinations? The dollar is already falling and probably will eventually collapse. Could it be 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 years from now that there will be an official 2/3’s devaluation? The exchange of three old dollars for one new dollar and a 2/3’s default on all debt by all nations with one another and the revaluation and devaluation of all currencies followed by a new international trading unit made up of the top G-20 currencies weighted in an index. That is certainly plausible as the dollar ceases to be the international reserve currency.
These events could push residential and commercial values down 75% or more from their highs. All investments except gold and silver could fall 60% to 95% as they did during the 1930s. The Fed won’t be able to cut interest rates, which will already be at zero. Demand for capital will force real rates higher and bonds lower. All issuers of consumer debt will most likely go broke, as 50% of debtors won’t be able to service their debt.
Real nasty times are just around the corner and nothing can be done to prevent them. The system must be purged. More major layoffs are on the way, real wages will fall and taxes will rise. The Dow will settle somewhere between 1,500 and 4,200. We won’t know where until we get a lot closer. Companies have maintained the bottom line by firing people, offshoring and outsourcing and using illegal aliens. That method of cutting costs is approaching a threshold of diminishing returns. The next big wave of layoffs will be municipal in towns, cities, counties and states that no longer have the reserve to pay employees. Some states, such as Florida has no funds to pay for unemployment benefits and were it not for the stimulus plan they would have stopped issuing checks a year ago. At this rate in many states municipalities will cease to function and schools, fire and police will be disbanded. That is where this is all headed. Americans have to be told the truth about what is really going on and who and what caused it and how we can fix it.
There is no question in our minds that the Fed will monetize and inflate until they cannot anymore. We see no end to increasing deficit spending. That first will perhaps bring about an Argentinean economy and if we do not come to terms with reality then it is Weimarization or Zimbabweization. When this happens everything will be out of control.........
........Wall Street, banking and our government continue to steal from the American people with the assistance of the Federal Reserve. Is it no wonder that 75% to 80% of Americans want the Fed audited? We must also keep in mind that the public still only knows a fraction of what has been done to them. They know little about front running, naked shorting or bogus gold bars, thanks to our media. Criminals are doing 20 to 30 years for much less than what these crooks have done and the core, the heart of the mechanism, springs from the Federal Reserve. The Fed is the center from which the fraud emanates..........
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
SC99-1
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/11/courting-convulsion.html
Courting Convulsion
.........If a "recovery" is not in the cards, then what exactly is going on out there?
What's going on in the US economy is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a different economy. The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction. Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behavior, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.
The main "historic circumstance" mandating these changes goes under the heading of "peak oil." We've come to the end of our ability in this world to increase energy inputs to the global economy. The routine "growth" in industrial activity and production that has been the basis of our financial arrangements for 200-odd years is no longer possible. Offsetting this decline in oil energy "input" with "alt.energy" is a dangerous fantasy because it distracts us from the urgent task of making new arrangements for trade, food production, et cetera - the very things that would provide jobs and social roles for our citizens in the future.
We are seeing a comprehensive failure of leadership in every sector and every level of American life - in politics, business, banking, education, news media, medicine, and the clergy. All are determined to pretend that we can somehow continue the habits and behaviors of the pre peak oil era. They are all unwilling to face reality, and are all engaged in mutually supporting each other's dangerous fantasies.
If we don't attend to the transformation of American life by downscaling our activities and changing the way they are carried out, and re-localizing them, we will see our society disintegrate - and I use the word "dis-integrate" with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart - our political arrangements, our households, our health and well-being.
At the moment, banking is disintegrating. It's happening because the end of regular, predictable, cyclical, industrial growth means the end of our ability to generate credit without limits, and in fact we passed this point by stealth some time ago leaving the banks in "Wile E. Coyote" suspension above an abyss, where they have lately been joined by government at all levels and the indebted citizens of the land. The profound nausea spreading through the offices of America is the somatic recognition of exactly where we are in all this: off the cliff.
It's important to remind readers that so-called "capitalism" is not to blame. Capitalism is not an ideology. It refers to a set of laws governing the disposition of surplus wealth. There is going to be surplus wealth somewhere in the years ahead, even if our living standards fall substantially, even under the strictures of peak oil. All the communist experiments of the 20th century produced some kind of surplus wealth. All of them were subject to the phenomenon of compound interest. What matters in the disposition of capital are the rules created for accumulating and deploying it. In the USA the past two decades, we ignored the rules, repealed some of the critical laws, and failed to enforce the existing ones so that, when faced by the historic circumstances of peak oil, we allowed fraud and swindling to run wild - just at the moment when we should have taken the most care. That is why our money system ran off the rails.
We're now seeing worldwide a kind of race between the assertion of peak oil and the failures of capital management as to which will provoke a widespread convulsion first. They are obviously related and whichever gets us in the most trouble fastest, our destination is the same: the absolute necessity to reorganize how we live. Among the many elements of this is the fact that "globalism," in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word, is over. The urgent need to re-localize economies makes this self-evident. As a practical matter for us, this means committing to import replacement - making things we need in the US, probably much more regionally. "Globalism" now joins the many other fantasies that we can no longer indulge in.
At the moment, going into Thanksgiving 2009, America's leadership has dedicated itself to the worst action it could take under the circumstances: a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. This is what's embodied in the foolish term "recovery." The way we try to explain things to ourselves matters, if we don't want to be crushed by history............
Courting Convulsion
.........If a "recovery" is not in the cards, then what exactly is going on out there?
What's going on in the US economy is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a different economy. The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction. Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behavior, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.
The main "historic circumstance" mandating these changes goes under the heading of "peak oil." We've come to the end of our ability in this world to increase energy inputs to the global economy. The routine "growth" in industrial activity and production that has been the basis of our financial arrangements for 200-odd years is no longer possible. Offsetting this decline in oil energy "input" with "alt.energy" is a dangerous fantasy because it distracts us from the urgent task of making new arrangements for trade, food production, et cetera - the very things that would provide jobs and social roles for our citizens in the future.
We are seeing a comprehensive failure of leadership in every sector and every level of American life - in politics, business, banking, education, news media, medicine, and the clergy. All are determined to pretend that we can somehow continue the habits and behaviors of the pre peak oil era. They are all unwilling to face reality, and are all engaged in mutually supporting each other's dangerous fantasies.
If we don't attend to the transformation of American life by downscaling our activities and changing the way they are carried out, and re-localizing them, we will see our society disintegrate - and I use the word "dis-integrate" with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart - our political arrangements, our households, our health and well-being.
At the moment, banking is disintegrating. It's happening because the end of regular, predictable, cyclical, industrial growth means the end of our ability to generate credit without limits, and in fact we passed this point by stealth some time ago leaving the banks in "Wile E. Coyote" suspension above an abyss, where they have lately been joined by government at all levels and the indebted citizens of the land. The profound nausea spreading through the offices of America is the somatic recognition of exactly where we are in all this: off the cliff.
It's important to remind readers that so-called "capitalism" is not to blame. Capitalism is not an ideology. It refers to a set of laws governing the disposition of surplus wealth. There is going to be surplus wealth somewhere in the years ahead, even if our living standards fall substantially, even under the strictures of peak oil. All the communist experiments of the 20th century produced some kind of surplus wealth. All of them were subject to the phenomenon of compound interest. What matters in the disposition of capital are the rules created for accumulating and deploying it. In the USA the past two decades, we ignored the rules, repealed some of the critical laws, and failed to enforce the existing ones so that, when faced by the historic circumstances of peak oil, we allowed fraud and swindling to run wild - just at the moment when we should have taken the most care. That is why our money system ran off the rails.
We're now seeing worldwide a kind of race between the assertion of peak oil and the failures of capital management as to which will provoke a widespread convulsion first. They are obviously related and whichever gets us in the most trouble fastest, our destination is the same: the absolute necessity to reorganize how we live. Among the many elements of this is the fact that "globalism," in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word, is over. The urgent need to re-localize economies makes this self-evident. As a practical matter for us, this means committing to import replacement - making things we need in the US, probably much more regionally. "Globalism" now joins the many other fantasies that we can no longer indulge in.
At the moment, going into Thanksgiving 2009, America's leadership has dedicated itself to the worst action it could take under the circumstances: a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. This is what's embodied in the foolish term "recovery." The way we try to explain things to ourselves matters, if we don't want to be crushed by history............
Monday, November 23, 2009
SC98-15
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16218
Red Alert: The Second Wave of The Financial Tsunami
The Wave Is gathering force & could hit between the first & second quarter of 2010
........The New Game
The financial architects at Goldman Sachs had a master plan – to dominate the global financial system. The means to achieve this financial power was the Shadow Banking System, the lynchpin being the derivative market and the securitization of assets, real and synthetic. The stakes would be huge, in the hundreds of US$ trillions and the way to transform the market was through massive leverage at all levels of the financial game.
But there was an inherent weakness in the overall scheme – the threat of inflation, more precisely hyperinflation. Such huge amounts of liquidity in the system would invariably trigger the depreciation of the reserve currency and the confidence in the system.
Hence the need for a system to keep in check price inflation and the illusion that the purchasing power of the toilet paper reserve currency could be maintained.
This is where China came in. Once China became the world’s factory, the problem would be resolved. When a suit which previously cost US$600 could be had for less than US$100, and a pair of shoes for less than US$5, the scam masterminds concluded that there would be no foreseeable threat to the largest casino operation in history.
China agreed to the exchange as it has over a billion mouths to feed and jobs for hundreds of millions needed to be secured, without which the system could not be maintained. But China was pragmatic enough to have two “economic systems” – a Yuan based domestic economy and a US$ based export economy, in the hope that the profits and benefits of the export economy would enable China to transform and establish a viable and dynamic domestic market which in time would replace the export dependent economy. It was a deal made with the devil, but there were no viable alternative options at the material time, more so after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Next Level of the Game
The next level of the game was reached when the toilet paper reserve currency literally went virtual – through the simple operation of a click of the mouse in the computers of the global banks.
The big boys at Goldman Sachs and other global banks were more than content to leave Las Vegas for the mafia and their miserable billions in turnover. The profits were considered dimes when compared to the hundreds of trillions generated by the virtual casino. It was a financial conquest beyond their wildest dreams. They even called themselves, “Master of the Universe”. Creating massive debts was the new game, and the big boys could even leverage more than 40 times capital! Asset values soared with so much liquidity chasing so few good assets.
However, the financial wizards failed to appreciate and or underestimate the amount of financial products that were needed to keep the game in play. They resorted to financial engineering – the securitization of assets. And when real assets were insufficient for securitization, synthetic assets were created. Soon enough, toxic waste was even considered as legitimate instruments for the game so long as it could be unloaded to greedy suckers with no recourse to the originators of these so-called investments.
For a time, it looked as if the financial wizards have solved the problem of how to feed the global casino monster.
Unfortunately, the music stopped and the bubble burst! And as they say the rest is history.
The Goldman Sachs Remedy
When losses are in the US$ trillions and whatever assets / capital remaining are in the US$ billions, we have a huge problem – a financial black-hole.
The preferred remedy by the financial masterminds at Goldman Sachs was to create another hoax – that if the big global banks were to fail triggering a systemic collapse, there would be Armageddon. These “too big to fail” banks must be injected with massive amount of virtual monies to recapitalize and get rid of the toxic assets on their balance sheet. The major central banks in the developed countries in cahoots with Goldman Sachs sang the same tune. All sorts of schemes were conjured to legitimize this bailout.
In essence, what transpired was the mere transfer of monies from the left pocket to the right pocket, with the twist that the banks were in fact helping the Government to overcome the financial crisis.
The Fed and key central banks agreed to lend “virtual monies” to the “too big to fail” global banks at zero or near zero interest rate and these banks in turn would “deposit” these monies with the Fed and other central banks at agreed interest rates. These transactions are all mere book entries. Other “loans” from the Fed and central banks (again at zero or near zero interest rates) are used to purchase government debts, these debts being the stimulus monies needed to revive the real economy and create jobs for the growing unemployed. So in essence, these banks are given “free money” to lend to the government at prior agreed interest rates with no risks at all. It is a hoax!
These “monies” are not even the dollar bills, but mere book entries created out of thin air.
So when the Fed injects US$ trillions into the banking system, it merely credits the amount in the accounts of the “too big to fail” banks at the Fed.
When the system is applied to international trade, the same modus operandi is used to pay for the goods imported from China, Japan etc.
For the rest of world, when buying goods denominated in US$, these countries must produce goods and services, sell them for dollars in order to purchase goods needed in their country. Simply put, they have to earn an income to purchase whatever goods and services needed. In contrast, all that the US needs to do is to create monies out of thin air and use them to pay for their imports!
The US can get away with this scam because it has the military muscle to compel and enforce this hoax. As stated earlier, this status quo was accepted especially during the Cold War and with some reluctance post the collapse of the Soviet Union, but with a proviso – that the US agrees to be the consumer of last resort. This arrangement provided some comfort because countries which have sold their goods to the US, can now use the dollars to buy goods from other countries as more than 80 per cent of world trade is denominated in dollars especially crude oil, the lifeline of the global economy.
But with the US in full bankruptcy and its citizens (the largest consumers in the world) being unable to borrow further monies to buy fancy goods from China, Japan and the rest of the world, the demand for dollar has evaporated. The dollar status as a reserve currency and its usefulness is being questioned more vocally.
The End Game
The present fallout can be summarized in simple terms:
Should a bankrupt country (the US) be allowed to use money created out of thin air to pay for goods produced with the sweat and tears of hardworking citizens of exporting countries? Adding insult to injury, the same dollars are now purchasing a lot less than before. So what is the use of being paid in a currency that is losing rapidly its value?
On the other hand, the US is telling the whole world, especially the Chinese that if they are not happy with the status quo, there is nothing to stop them from selling to the other countries and accepting their currencies. But if they want to sell to the mighty USA, they must accept US toilet paper reserve currency and its right to create monies out of thin air!
This is the ultimate poker game and whosoever blinks first loses and will suffer irreparable financial consequences. But who has the winning hand?
The US does not have the winning hand. Neither has China the winning hand.
This state of affairs cannot continue for long, for whatever cards the US or China may be contemplating to throw at the table to gain strategic advantage, any short term gains will be pyrrhic, for it will not be able to address the underlying antagonistic contradictions.
When the survival of the system is dependent on the availability of credit (i.e. accumulating more debts) it is only a matter of time before both the debtor and creditor come to the inevitable conclusion that the debt will never be paid. And unless the creditor is willing to write off the debt, resorting to drastic means to collect the outstanding debt is inevitable.
It would be naïve to think that the US would quietly allow itself to be foreclosed! When we reach that stage, war will be inevitable. It will be the US-UK-Israel Axis against the rest of the world.
The Prelude to the End Game
The US economy will be spiraling out of control in the coming months and will reach critical point by the end of the 1st quarter 2010 and implode by the 2nd quarter.
The massive US$ trillions of dollars stimulus has failed to turn the economy around. The massive blood transfusion may have kept the patient alive, but there are numerous signs of multi-organ failure.
There will be another wave of foreclosures of residential and more importantly commercial properties by end December and early 2010. And the foreclosed properties in 2009 will lead to depressed prices once they come through the pipeline. Home and commercial property values will plunge. Banks’ balance sheets will turn ugly and whatever “record profits” in the last two quarters of 2009 will not cover the additional red ink.
Given the above situation, will the Fed continue to buy mortgage-backed securities to prop up the markets? The Fed has already spent trillions buying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages with no potential substitute buyer in sight. Therefore, the Fed’s balance sheet is as toxic as the “too big to fail” banks that it rescued.
In the circumstances, it makes no sense for anyone to assert that the worst is over and that the global economy is on the road to recovery.
And the surest sign that all is not well with the big banks is the recent speech by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley at Princeton, New Jersey when he said that the Fed would curtail the risk of future liquidity crisis by providing a “backstop” to solvent firms with sufficient collateral.
This warning and assurance deserves further consideration. Firstly, it is a contradiction to state that a solvent firm with sufficient collateral would in fact encounter a liquidity crisis to warrant the need for a fall back on the Fed. It is in fact an admission that banks are not sufficiently capitalized and when the second wave of the tsunami hits them again, confidence will be sorely lacking.
Dudley actually said that, “the central bank could commit to being the lender of last resort... [and this would reduce] the risk of panics sparked by uncertainty among lenders about what other creditors think”.
To put it bluntly what he is saying is that the Fed will endeavour to avoid the repeat of the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros and AIG. It is also an indication that the remaining big banks are in trouble.
It is interesting to note that a Bloomberg report in early November revealed that Citigroup Inc and JP Morgan Chase have been hoarding cash. The former has almost doubled its cash holdings to US$244.2 billion. In the case of the latter, the cash hoard amounted to US$453.6 billion. Yet, given this hoarding by the leading banks, the New York Federal Reserve Bank had to reassure the financial community that it is ready to inject massive liquidity to prop up the system.
It should come as no surprise that the value of the dollar is heading south.
When currencies are being debased, volatility in the stock market increases. But the gains are not worth the risks and if anyone is still in the market, they will be wiped out by the 1st quarter of 2010. The S&P may have shot up since the beginning of the year by over 25 per cent but it has been out-performed by gold. The gains have also lagged behind the official US inflation rate. It has in fact delivered a total return after inflation of approximately minus 25 per cent. When Meredith Whitney remarked that, “I don’t know what’s going on in the market right now, because it makes no sense to me”, it is time to get out of the market fast.
In a report to its clients, Société Générale warned that public debt would be massive in the next two years – 105 per cent of GDP in the UK, 125 per cent in the US and in Europe and 270 per cent in Japan. Global debt would reach US$45 trillion.
At some point in time, all these debts must be repaid. How will these debts be repaid?
If we go by what Bernanke has been preaching and practising, it means more toilet paper currency will be created to repay the debts.
As a result, debasement of currencies will continue and this will further aggravate existing tensions between the competing economies. And when creditors have enough of this toilet paper scam, expect violent reactions!
Red Alert: The Second Wave of The Financial Tsunami
The Wave Is gathering force & could hit between the first & second quarter of 2010
........The New Game
The financial architects at Goldman Sachs had a master plan – to dominate the global financial system. The means to achieve this financial power was the Shadow Banking System, the lynchpin being the derivative market and the securitization of assets, real and synthetic. The stakes would be huge, in the hundreds of US$ trillions and the way to transform the market was through massive leverage at all levels of the financial game.
But there was an inherent weakness in the overall scheme – the threat of inflation, more precisely hyperinflation. Such huge amounts of liquidity in the system would invariably trigger the depreciation of the reserve currency and the confidence in the system.
Hence the need for a system to keep in check price inflation and the illusion that the purchasing power of the toilet paper reserve currency could be maintained.
This is where China came in. Once China became the world’s factory, the problem would be resolved. When a suit which previously cost US$600 could be had for less than US$100, and a pair of shoes for less than US$5, the scam masterminds concluded that there would be no foreseeable threat to the largest casino operation in history.
China agreed to the exchange as it has over a billion mouths to feed and jobs for hundreds of millions needed to be secured, without which the system could not be maintained. But China was pragmatic enough to have two “economic systems” – a Yuan based domestic economy and a US$ based export economy, in the hope that the profits and benefits of the export economy would enable China to transform and establish a viable and dynamic domestic market which in time would replace the export dependent economy. It was a deal made with the devil, but there were no viable alternative options at the material time, more so after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Next Level of the Game
The next level of the game was reached when the toilet paper reserve currency literally went virtual – through the simple operation of a click of the mouse in the computers of the global banks.
The big boys at Goldman Sachs and other global banks were more than content to leave Las Vegas for the mafia and their miserable billions in turnover. The profits were considered dimes when compared to the hundreds of trillions generated by the virtual casino. It was a financial conquest beyond their wildest dreams. They even called themselves, “Master of the Universe”. Creating massive debts was the new game, and the big boys could even leverage more than 40 times capital! Asset values soared with so much liquidity chasing so few good assets.
However, the financial wizards failed to appreciate and or underestimate the amount of financial products that were needed to keep the game in play. They resorted to financial engineering – the securitization of assets. And when real assets were insufficient for securitization, synthetic assets were created. Soon enough, toxic waste was even considered as legitimate instruments for the game so long as it could be unloaded to greedy suckers with no recourse to the originators of these so-called investments.
For a time, it looked as if the financial wizards have solved the problem of how to feed the global casino monster.
Unfortunately, the music stopped and the bubble burst! And as they say the rest is history.
The Goldman Sachs Remedy
When losses are in the US$ trillions and whatever assets / capital remaining are in the US$ billions, we have a huge problem – a financial black-hole.
The preferred remedy by the financial masterminds at Goldman Sachs was to create another hoax – that if the big global banks were to fail triggering a systemic collapse, there would be Armageddon. These “too big to fail” banks must be injected with massive amount of virtual monies to recapitalize and get rid of the toxic assets on their balance sheet. The major central banks in the developed countries in cahoots with Goldman Sachs sang the same tune. All sorts of schemes were conjured to legitimize this bailout.
In essence, what transpired was the mere transfer of monies from the left pocket to the right pocket, with the twist that the banks were in fact helping the Government to overcome the financial crisis.
The Fed and key central banks agreed to lend “virtual monies” to the “too big to fail” global banks at zero or near zero interest rate and these banks in turn would “deposit” these monies with the Fed and other central banks at agreed interest rates. These transactions are all mere book entries. Other “loans” from the Fed and central banks (again at zero or near zero interest rates) are used to purchase government debts, these debts being the stimulus monies needed to revive the real economy and create jobs for the growing unemployed. So in essence, these banks are given “free money” to lend to the government at prior agreed interest rates with no risks at all. It is a hoax!
These “monies” are not even the dollar bills, but mere book entries created out of thin air.
So when the Fed injects US$ trillions into the banking system, it merely credits the amount in the accounts of the “too big to fail” banks at the Fed.
When the system is applied to international trade, the same modus operandi is used to pay for the goods imported from China, Japan etc.
For the rest of world, when buying goods denominated in US$, these countries must produce goods and services, sell them for dollars in order to purchase goods needed in their country. Simply put, they have to earn an income to purchase whatever goods and services needed. In contrast, all that the US needs to do is to create monies out of thin air and use them to pay for their imports!
The US can get away with this scam because it has the military muscle to compel and enforce this hoax. As stated earlier, this status quo was accepted especially during the Cold War and with some reluctance post the collapse of the Soviet Union, but with a proviso – that the US agrees to be the consumer of last resort. This arrangement provided some comfort because countries which have sold their goods to the US, can now use the dollars to buy goods from other countries as more than 80 per cent of world trade is denominated in dollars especially crude oil, the lifeline of the global economy.
But with the US in full bankruptcy and its citizens (the largest consumers in the world) being unable to borrow further monies to buy fancy goods from China, Japan and the rest of the world, the demand for dollar has evaporated. The dollar status as a reserve currency and its usefulness is being questioned more vocally.
The End Game
The present fallout can be summarized in simple terms:
Should a bankrupt country (the US) be allowed to use money created out of thin air to pay for goods produced with the sweat and tears of hardworking citizens of exporting countries? Adding insult to injury, the same dollars are now purchasing a lot less than before. So what is the use of being paid in a currency that is losing rapidly its value?
On the other hand, the US is telling the whole world, especially the Chinese that if they are not happy with the status quo, there is nothing to stop them from selling to the other countries and accepting their currencies. But if they want to sell to the mighty USA, they must accept US toilet paper reserve currency and its right to create monies out of thin air!
This is the ultimate poker game and whosoever blinks first loses and will suffer irreparable financial consequences. But who has the winning hand?
The US does not have the winning hand. Neither has China the winning hand.
This state of affairs cannot continue for long, for whatever cards the US or China may be contemplating to throw at the table to gain strategic advantage, any short term gains will be pyrrhic, for it will not be able to address the underlying antagonistic contradictions.
When the survival of the system is dependent on the availability of credit (i.e. accumulating more debts) it is only a matter of time before both the debtor and creditor come to the inevitable conclusion that the debt will never be paid. And unless the creditor is willing to write off the debt, resorting to drastic means to collect the outstanding debt is inevitable.
It would be naïve to think that the US would quietly allow itself to be foreclosed! When we reach that stage, war will be inevitable. It will be the US-UK-Israel Axis against the rest of the world.
The Prelude to the End Game
The US economy will be spiraling out of control in the coming months and will reach critical point by the end of the 1st quarter 2010 and implode by the 2nd quarter.
The massive US$ trillions of dollars stimulus has failed to turn the economy around. The massive blood transfusion may have kept the patient alive, but there are numerous signs of multi-organ failure.
There will be another wave of foreclosures of residential and more importantly commercial properties by end December and early 2010. And the foreclosed properties in 2009 will lead to depressed prices once they come through the pipeline. Home and commercial property values will plunge. Banks’ balance sheets will turn ugly and whatever “record profits” in the last two quarters of 2009 will not cover the additional red ink.
Given the above situation, will the Fed continue to buy mortgage-backed securities to prop up the markets? The Fed has already spent trillions buying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages with no potential substitute buyer in sight. Therefore, the Fed’s balance sheet is as toxic as the “too big to fail” banks that it rescued.
In the circumstances, it makes no sense for anyone to assert that the worst is over and that the global economy is on the road to recovery.
And the surest sign that all is not well with the big banks is the recent speech by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Dudley at Princeton, New Jersey when he said that the Fed would curtail the risk of future liquidity crisis by providing a “backstop” to solvent firms with sufficient collateral.
This warning and assurance deserves further consideration. Firstly, it is a contradiction to state that a solvent firm with sufficient collateral would in fact encounter a liquidity crisis to warrant the need for a fall back on the Fed. It is in fact an admission that banks are not sufficiently capitalized and when the second wave of the tsunami hits them again, confidence will be sorely lacking.
Dudley actually said that, “the central bank could commit to being the lender of last resort... [and this would reduce] the risk of panics sparked by uncertainty among lenders about what other creditors think”.
To put it bluntly what he is saying is that the Fed will endeavour to avoid the repeat of the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros and AIG. It is also an indication that the remaining big banks are in trouble.
It is interesting to note that a Bloomberg report in early November revealed that Citigroup Inc and JP Morgan Chase have been hoarding cash. The former has almost doubled its cash holdings to US$244.2 billion. In the case of the latter, the cash hoard amounted to US$453.6 billion. Yet, given this hoarding by the leading banks, the New York Federal Reserve Bank had to reassure the financial community that it is ready to inject massive liquidity to prop up the system.
It should come as no surprise that the value of the dollar is heading south.
When currencies are being debased, volatility in the stock market increases. But the gains are not worth the risks and if anyone is still in the market, they will be wiped out by the 1st quarter of 2010. The S&P may have shot up since the beginning of the year by over 25 per cent but it has been out-performed by gold. The gains have also lagged behind the official US inflation rate. It has in fact delivered a total return after inflation of approximately minus 25 per cent. When Meredith Whitney remarked that, “I don’t know what’s going on in the market right now, because it makes no sense to me”, it is time to get out of the market fast.
In a report to its clients, Société Générale warned that public debt would be massive in the next two years – 105 per cent of GDP in the UK, 125 per cent in the US and in Europe and 270 per cent in Japan. Global debt would reach US$45 trillion.
At some point in time, all these debts must be repaid. How will these debts be repaid?
If we go by what Bernanke has been preaching and practising, it means more toilet paper currency will be created to repay the debts.
As a result, debasement of currencies will continue and this will further aggravate existing tensions between the competing economies. And when creditors have enough of this toilet paper scam, expect violent reactions!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
SC98-14
http://transition-times.com/colorado/
WHICH WAY OUT?
The report which follows here…by our longtime friend and colleague Richard Heinberg, an associate member of IFG and senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, is the first to use the newly emerging techniques of “life cycle technology assessment,” and in particular “net energy” analyses, for in-depth comparisons among all presently dominant and newly touted “alternative” energy schemes. These include all the major renewable systems currently being advocated. For the first time we are able to fully realize the degree to which our future societal options are far more limited than we thought.
With fossil fuels fast disappearing, and their continuing supplies becoming ever more problematic and expensive, hopes have turned to renewable sources that we ask to save “our way of life” at more or less its current level. Alas, as we will see, the “net energy” gain from all alternative systems—that is, the amount of energy produced, compared with the amount of energy I as well as money and materials) that must be invested in building and operating them—is far too small to begin to sustain industrial society at its present levels. This is very grim news, and demands vast, rapid adjustments by all parties, from governments to industries and even environmental organizations, that thus far are not clearly in the offing. There are, however, viable pathways forward, most importantly and urgently the need for a wide-ranging push for conservation; it is only a question of realism, flexibility, dedication, and more than a little humility. Our beloved “way of life” must be reconsidered and more viable alternatives supported.
THE WRONG TREE
We observe daily the tragic, futile official processes that continue to unfold among national governments, as well as global political and financial institutions, as they give lip service to mitigating climate change and the multiple advancing related global environmental catastrophes. Those crises include not only climate disruption, and looming global fossil fuels shortages, but other profound depletions of key resources—fresh water, arable soils, ocean life, wood, crucial minerals, biodiversity, and breathable air, etc. All these crises are results of the same sets of values and operating systems, and all are nearing points of extreme urgency.
Even our once great hopes that world governments would rally to achieve positive collective outcomes in some arenas; for example, at the United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen, as well as other venues, are proving sadly fatuous. But certain things are ever-more clear: Global institutions, national governments, and even many environmental and social activists are barking up the wrong tree. Individually and as groups, they have not faced the full gravity and meaning of the global energy (and resource) conundrums. They continue to operate in most ways out of the same set of assumptions that we’ve all had for the past century—that fundamental systemic changes will not be required; that our complex of problems can be cured by human innovation, ingenuity, and technical efficiency, together with a few smart changes in our choices of energy systems.
Most of all, the prevailing institutions continue to believe in the primacy and efficacy of economic growth as the key indicator of systemic well-being, even in light of ever-diminishing resources. It will not be necessary, according to the dogma, to come to grips with the reality that ever-expanding economic growth is actually an absurdity in a finite system, preposterous on its face, and will soon be over even if activists do nothing to oppose it. Neither does the mainstream recognize that economic systems, notably capitalism, that require such endless growth for their own viability may themselves be doomed in the not very long run. In fact, they are already showing clear signs of collapse. As to any need for substantial changes in personal lifestyles, or to control and limit material consumption habits? Quite the opposite is being pushed—increased car sales, expanded “housing starts,” and increased industrial production remain the focused goals of our economy, even under Mr. Obama, and are still celebrated when/if they occur, without thought of environmental consequences. No alterations in conceptual frameworks are encouraged to appreciate the now highly visible limits of nature, which is both root source of all planetary benefits, and inevitable toxic sink for our excessive habits.
In this optimistic though self-deluding dominant vision, there is also dedicated avoidance of the need for any meaningful redistribution of the planet’s increasingly scarce remaining natural resources toward more equitable arrangements among nations and peoples—to at least slightly mitigate centuries of colonial and corporate plunder of the Third World. And on the similarly ignored question of the continued viability of a small planet that may soon need to support 8-10 billion people? Some actually say it’s a good thing. We should think of these billions as new consumers who may help enliven economic growth, so goes that argument. But only if we find a few more planets nearby, perhaps in a parallel universe somewhere, bursting with oil, gas, water, minerals, wood, rich agricultural lands, and a virginal atmosphere.
The scale of denial is breathtaking. For as Heinberg’s analysis makes depressingly clear, there will be NO combination of alternative energy solutions that might enable the long term continuation of economic growth, or of industrial societies in their present form and scale. Ultimately the solutions we desperately seek will not come from ever-greater technical genius and innovation. Far better and potentially more successful pathways can only come from a sharp turn to goals, values, and practices that emphasize conservation of material and energy resources, localization of most economic frameworks, and gradual population reduction to stay within the carrying capacities of the planet.
THE PARTY’S OVER
The central purpose of all our False Solutions documents, including this one, is to assert that this whole set of assumptions upon which our institutions have hung their collective hats, is tragically inaccurate, and only serves to delay, at a crucial moment, a major reckoning that must be understood immediately.
We are emphatically not against innovations and efficiencies where they can be helpful. But we are against the grand delusion that they can solve all problems, and we are against the tendency to ignore overarching inherent systemic limits that apply to energy supply, material supply, and the Earth itself. For example, the grandest techno-utopian predictions at large today, such as “clean coal,” via carbon sequestration, and “clean nuclear,” via a new “safe 4th generation of reactor design,” have already been revealed as little more than the wild fantasies of energy industries, as they peddle talking points to politicians to whom, on other days, they also supply with campaign cash. There is no persuasive evidence that clean coal, still in the realm of science fiction, will ever be achieved. Most likely it will occupy the same pantheon of technological fantasy as nuclear fusion, not to say human teleportation. In any case, the entire argument for clean coal, however absurd, still ignores what happens to the places from where it comes. Visit Appalachia sometime—now virtually desertified from mountain top removal, and its rivers poisoned to get at that soon-to-be “clean” coal. Clean nuclear offers similar anomalies—no currently contemplated solution for waste disposal is anywhere near practical—even if uranium supplies were not running out nearly as quickly as oil. To speak of nuclear as “clean” or “safe” is a clear sign of panic while, vampire-like, it’s permitted to again rise from its grave.
Okay, we know that some technological “progress” is useful, especially among renewable energy alternatives. Systemic transformations toward a highly touted new complex mix of “renewable” energy systems such as wind, solar, hydro, biomass, wave and several others, will certainly be positive, and together they could make meaningful contributions, free of many of the negative environmental impacts that fossil fuels have brought.
But, as this report exquisitely explains, as beneficial as those shifts may be, they will inevitably fall far short. They will never reach the scale or capacity to substitute for a fossil fuel system that, because of its (temporary) abundance and cheapness, has addicted industrial nations to a 20th century production and consumption spree that landed us, and the whole world, into this dire situation. As Richard Heinberg has so eloquently said before, and used as the title of one of his very important books, “the party’s over.”........
WHICH WAY OUT?
The report which follows here…by our longtime friend and colleague Richard Heinberg, an associate member of IFG and senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, is the first to use the newly emerging techniques of “life cycle technology assessment,” and in particular “net energy” analyses, for in-depth comparisons among all presently dominant and newly touted “alternative” energy schemes. These include all the major renewable systems currently being advocated. For the first time we are able to fully realize the degree to which our future societal options are far more limited than we thought.
With fossil fuels fast disappearing, and their continuing supplies becoming ever more problematic and expensive, hopes have turned to renewable sources that we ask to save “our way of life” at more or less its current level. Alas, as we will see, the “net energy” gain from all alternative systems—that is, the amount of energy produced, compared with the amount of energy I as well as money and materials) that must be invested in building and operating them—is far too small to begin to sustain industrial society at its present levels. This is very grim news, and demands vast, rapid adjustments by all parties, from governments to industries and even environmental organizations, that thus far are not clearly in the offing. There are, however, viable pathways forward, most importantly and urgently the need for a wide-ranging push for conservation; it is only a question of realism, flexibility, dedication, and more than a little humility. Our beloved “way of life” must be reconsidered and more viable alternatives supported.
THE WRONG TREE
We observe daily the tragic, futile official processes that continue to unfold among national governments, as well as global political and financial institutions, as they give lip service to mitigating climate change and the multiple advancing related global environmental catastrophes. Those crises include not only climate disruption, and looming global fossil fuels shortages, but other profound depletions of key resources—fresh water, arable soils, ocean life, wood, crucial minerals, biodiversity, and breathable air, etc. All these crises are results of the same sets of values and operating systems, and all are nearing points of extreme urgency.
Even our once great hopes that world governments would rally to achieve positive collective outcomes in some arenas; for example, at the United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen, as well as other venues, are proving sadly fatuous. But certain things are ever-more clear: Global institutions, national governments, and even many environmental and social activists are barking up the wrong tree. Individually and as groups, they have not faced the full gravity and meaning of the global energy (and resource) conundrums. They continue to operate in most ways out of the same set of assumptions that we’ve all had for the past century—that fundamental systemic changes will not be required; that our complex of problems can be cured by human innovation, ingenuity, and technical efficiency, together with a few smart changes in our choices of energy systems.
Most of all, the prevailing institutions continue to believe in the primacy and efficacy of economic growth as the key indicator of systemic well-being, even in light of ever-diminishing resources. It will not be necessary, according to the dogma, to come to grips with the reality that ever-expanding economic growth is actually an absurdity in a finite system, preposterous on its face, and will soon be over even if activists do nothing to oppose it. Neither does the mainstream recognize that economic systems, notably capitalism, that require such endless growth for their own viability may themselves be doomed in the not very long run. In fact, they are already showing clear signs of collapse. As to any need for substantial changes in personal lifestyles, or to control and limit material consumption habits? Quite the opposite is being pushed—increased car sales, expanded “housing starts,” and increased industrial production remain the focused goals of our economy, even under Mr. Obama, and are still celebrated when/if they occur, without thought of environmental consequences. No alterations in conceptual frameworks are encouraged to appreciate the now highly visible limits of nature, which is both root source of all planetary benefits, and inevitable toxic sink for our excessive habits.
In this optimistic though self-deluding dominant vision, there is also dedicated avoidance of the need for any meaningful redistribution of the planet’s increasingly scarce remaining natural resources toward more equitable arrangements among nations and peoples—to at least slightly mitigate centuries of colonial and corporate plunder of the Third World. And on the similarly ignored question of the continued viability of a small planet that may soon need to support 8-10 billion people? Some actually say it’s a good thing. We should think of these billions as new consumers who may help enliven economic growth, so goes that argument. But only if we find a few more planets nearby, perhaps in a parallel universe somewhere, bursting with oil, gas, water, minerals, wood, rich agricultural lands, and a virginal atmosphere.
The scale of denial is breathtaking. For as Heinberg’s analysis makes depressingly clear, there will be NO combination of alternative energy solutions that might enable the long term continuation of economic growth, or of industrial societies in their present form and scale. Ultimately the solutions we desperately seek will not come from ever-greater technical genius and innovation. Far better and potentially more successful pathways can only come from a sharp turn to goals, values, and practices that emphasize conservation of material and energy resources, localization of most economic frameworks, and gradual population reduction to stay within the carrying capacities of the planet.
THE PARTY’S OVER
The central purpose of all our False Solutions documents, including this one, is to assert that this whole set of assumptions upon which our institutions have hung their collective hats, is tragically inaccurate, and only serves to delay, at a crucial moment, a major reckoning that must be understood immediately.
We are emphatically not against innovations and efficiencies where they can be helpful. But we are against the grand delusion that they can solve all problems, and we are against the tendency to ignore overarching inherent systemic limits that apply to energy supply, material supply, and the Earth itself. For example, the grandest techno-utopian predictions at large today, such as “clean coal,” via carbon sequestration, and “clean nuclear,” via a new “safe 4th generation of reactor design,” have already been revealed as little more than the wild fantasies of energy industries, as they peddle talking points to politicians to whom, on other days, they also supply with campaign cash. There is no persuasive evidence that clean coal, still in the realm of science fiction, will ever be achieved. Most likely it will occupy the same pantheon of technological fantasy as nuclear fusion, not to say human teleportation. In any case, the entire argument for clean coal, however absurd, still ignores what happens to the places from where it comes. Visit Appalachia sometime—now virtually desertified from mountain top removal, and its rivers poisoned to get at that soon-to-be “clean” coal. Clean nuclear offers similar anomalies—no currently contemplated solution for waste disposal is anywhere near practical—even if uranium supplies were not running out nearly as quickly as oil. To speak of nuclear as “clean” or “safe” is a clear sign of panic while, vampire-like, it’s permitted to again rise from its grave.
Okay, we know that some technological “progress” is useful, especially among renewable energy alternatives. Systemic transformations toward a highly touted new complex mix of “renewable” energy systems such as wind, solar, hydro, biomass, wave and several others, will certainly be positive, and together they could make meaningful contributions, free of many of the negative environmental impacts that fossil fuels have brought.
But, as this report exquisitely explains, as beneficial as those shifts may be, they will inevitably fall far short. They will never reach the scale or capacity to substitute for a fossil fuel system that, because of its (temporary) abundance and cheapness, has addicted industrial nations to a 20th century production and consumption spree that landed us, and the whole world, into this dire situation. As Richard Heinberg has so eloquently said before, and used as the title of one of his very important books, “the party’s over.”........
SC98-13
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16181
The Pentagon Budget: Largest Ever and Growing
On Oct. 28, President Barack Obama signed the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, the largest military budget in U.S. history.
It is not only the world's largest military budget but is larger than the military expenditures of the whole rest of the world combined. And it is growing nonstop. The 2010 military budget--which doesn't even cover many war-related expenditures--is listed as $680 billion. In 2009 it was $651 billion and in 2000 was $280 billion. It has more than doubled in 10 years.
What a contrast to the issue of health care!
The U.S. Congress has been debating a basic health care plan--which every other industrialized country in the world has in some form--for more than six months. There has been intense insurance company lobbying, right-wing threats, and dire warnings that a health care plan must not add one dime to the deficit.
Yet in the midst of this life-and-death debate on medical care for millions of working and poor people who have no health coverage, a gargantuan subsidy to the largest U.S. corporations for military contracts and weapons systems--a real deficit-breaker--is passed with barely any discussion and hardly a news article.
Physicians for a National Health Program estimates that a universal, comprehensive single-payer health plan would cost $350 billion a year, which would actually be the amount saved through the elimination of all the administrative costs in the current private health care system--a system that leaves out almost 50 million people.
Compare this to just the cost overruns each year in the military budget. Even President Obama on signing the Pentagon budget said, "The Government Accountability Office, the GAO, has looked into 96 major defense projects from the last year, and found cost overruns that totaled $296 billion." (whitehouse.gov, Oct. 28)
Harry Madoff's $50-billion Ponzi scheme, supposedly the biggest rip-off in history, pales in comparison. Why is there no criminal inquiry into this multibillion-dollar theft? Where are the congressional hearings or media hysteria about $296 billion in cost overruns? Why are the CEOs of the corporations not brought into court in handcuffs?
The cost overruns are an integral part of the military subsidy to the largest U.S. corporations. They are treated as business as usual. Regardless of the party in office, the Pentagon budget grows, the cost overruns grow and the proportion of domestic spending shrinks........
.........Half of military costs are hidden
The announced 2010 military budget of $680 billion is really only about half of the annual cost of U.S. military expenditures.
These expenditures are so large that there is a concerted effort to hide many military expenses in other budget items. The War Resisters League annual analysis listed the real 2009 U.S. military expenses at $1,449 billion, not the official budget of $651 billion. Wikipedia, citing several different sources, came up with a total military budget of $1,144 billion. Regardless of who is counting, it is beyond dispute that the military budget actually exceeds $1 trillion a year.
The National Priorities Project, the Center for Defense Information and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation analyze and expose many hidden military expenses tucked into other parts of the total U.S. budget.
For example, veterans' benefits totaling $91 billion are not included in the Pentagon budget. Military pensions totaling $48 billion are stuck into the Treasury Department budget. The Energy Department hides $18 billion in nuclear weapons programs in its budget. The $38 billion financing of foreign arms sales is included in the State Department budget. One of the largest hidden items is the interest on debt incurred in past wars, which totals between $237 billion and $390 billion. This is really an endless subsidy to the banks, which are intimately linked to the military industries.
Every part of these bloated budgets is expected to grow by 5 to 10 percent a year, while federal funding to states and cities is shrinking by 10 to 15 percent annually, leading to deficit crises.
According to the Office of Management and Budget, 55 percent of the total 2010 U.S. budget will go to the military. More than half! Meanwhile, federal block grants to states and cities for vital human services--schools, teacher training, home-care programs, school lunches, basic infrastructure maintenance for drinking water, sewage treatment, bridges, tunnels and roads--are shrinking.......
The Pentagon Budget: Largest Ever and Growing
On Oct. 28, President Barack Obama signed the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, the largest military budget in U.S. history.
It is not only the world's largest military budget but is larger than the military expenditures of the whole rest of the world combined. And it is growing nonstop. The 2010 military budget--which doesn't even cover many war-related expenditures--is listed as $680 billion. In 2009 it was $651 billion and in 2000 was $280 billion. It has more than doubled in 10 years.
What a contrast to the issue of health care!
The U.S. Congress has been debating a basic health care plan--which every other industrialized country in the world has in some form--for more than six months. There has been intense insurance company lobbying, right-wing threats, and dire warnings that a health care plan must not add one dime to the deficit.
Yet in the midst of this life-and-death debate on medical care for millions of working and poor people who have no health coverage, a gargantuan subsidy to the largest U.S. corporations for military contracts and weapons systems--a real deficit-breaker--is passed with barely any discussion and hardly a news article.
Physicians for a National Health Program estimates that a universal, comprehensive single-payer health plan would cost $350 billion a year, which would actually be the amount saved through the elimination of all the administrative costs in the current private health care system--a system that leaves out almost 50 million people.
Compare this to just the cost overruns each year in the military budget. Even President Obama on signing the Pentagon budget said, "The Government Accountability Office, the GAO, has looked into 96 major defense projects from the last year, and found cost overruns that totaled $296 billion." (whitehouse.gov, Oct. 28)
Harry Madoff's $50-billion Ponzi scheme, supposedly the biggest rip-off in history, pales in comparison. Why is there no criminal inquiry into this multibillion-dollar theft? Where are the congressional hearings or media hysteria about $296 billion in cost overruns? Why are the CEOs of the corporations not brought into court in handcuffs?
The cost overruns are an integral part of the military subsidy to the largest U.S. corporations. They are treated as business as usual. Regardless of the party in office, the Pentagon budget grows, the cost overruns grow and the proportion of domestic spending shrinks........
.........Half of military costs are hidden
The announced 2010 military budget of $680 billion is really only about half of the annual cost of U.S. military expenditures.
These expenditures are so large that there is a concerted effort to hide many military expenses in other budget items. The War Resisters League annual analysis listed the real 2009 U.S. military expenses at $1,449 billion, not the official budget of $651 billion. Wikipedia, citing several different sources, came up with a total military budget of $1,144 billion. Regardless of who is counting, it is beyond dispute that the military budget actually exceeds $1 trillion a year.
The National Priorities Project, the Center for Defense Information and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation analyze and expose many hidden military expenses tucked into other parts of the total U.S. budget.
For example, veterans' benefits totaling $91 billion are not included in the Pentagon budget. Military pensions totaling $48 billion are stuck into the Treasury Department budget. The Energy Department hides $18 billion in nuclear weapons programs in its budget. The $38 billion financing of foreign arms sales is included in the State Department budget. One of the largest hidden items is the interest on debt incurred in past wars, which totals between $237 billion and $390 billion. This is really an endless subsidy to the banks, which are intimately linked to the military industries.
Every part of these bloated budgets is expected to grow by 5 to 10 percent a year, while federal funding to states and cities is shrinking by 10 to 15 percent annually, leading to deficit crises.
According to the Office of Management and Budget, 55 percent of the total 2010 U.S. budget will go to the military. More than half! Meanwhile, federal block grants to states and cities for vital human services--schools, teacher training, home-care programs, school lunches, basic infrastructure maintenance for drinking water, sewage treatment, bridges, tunnels and roads--are shrinking.......
SC98-12
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144109/15_signs_american_society_is_coming_apart_at_the_seams?page=entire
15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams
Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far?
The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.
1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.
2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.
3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth."
As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse.
4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.
5) Home foreclosure filings "hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2009)… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter" in this three-month period; “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.”
President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.
6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed.
This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come."
The New York Times reports: "Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking….” As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages -- average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year.
Economist Nouriel Roubini, a man who accurately predicted our current crisis, just reported on unemployment stating: “Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening…. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.”
7) As the few elite banks thrive, there have been 123 U.S. bank failures thus far this year. Recently, three banks that the government declared “healthy” and gave taxpayer money, have folded. The Wall Street Journal reports: “U.S. regulators have seized or threatened at least 27 banks that got capital infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including some lenders government officials knew were troubled when they awarded the money. The troubles put taxpayers at risk of losing as much as $5.1 billion invested in the banks since TARP was launched in October 2008.”
8) As bankruptcies surge across the board, 10 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy, with several ready to declare a financial state of emergency. California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are all “barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services."
9) This is occurring at a time when the “federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before." In total, "U.S. public debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history… The public debt topped $10 trillion in September 2008. The debt is quickly approaching the statutory limit of $12.104 trillion, meaning Congress would have to raise the ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations."
Economist Dean Baker explains the risk of running such a large deficit: "The debt limit must be increased at regular intervals in order to allow the government to function normally because the government is currently operating at a deficit. If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won’t be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt."
Needless to say, all of this will make life drastically more difficult for American citizens. As the middle class continues on the path of economic decline, the number of citizens living in poverty has already hit an all-time high.
10) Although the government’s official figure tries to low-ball the number, 47.4 million U.S. citizens live in poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the industrialized world.
Predictably, homelessness is rising at an increased rate as well. "The U.S. government does not tally the numbers but interested organizations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year…. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children.”
Children have been hit especially hard by the economic crisis:
11) * 50 percent of U.S. children, one out of every two children, will need to use food stamps to eat.
One out of every two children in the United States of America will need to use a food stamp… to EAT!
If you didn’t think starvation was a serious threat in the U.S., just read this new Washington Post report: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat… Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. 'This is unthinkable. It’s like we are living in a Third World country,' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America."
The United States Department of Agriculture released these findings in a study that was completed in December 2008, which means these numbers don’t take into account the millions more unemployed throughout 2009. The numbers of people living in poverty and struggling to eat has seen a significant increase since then.
This a national tragedy. But it gets much worse.
12) In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the number of U.S. citizens without health care grew to a record 46.3 million. “The new figures, however, understate the severity of the economic downturn because a large portion of the nation’s job losses and unemployment rate increases occurred after the Census survey data was collected in March as part of the annual Current Population Survey."
13) Lack of health insurance has caused 45,000 preventable U.S. citizen deaths in the past year. The American Journal of Medicine recently released a study that stated, “Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness.”
A Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study reported that 17,000 children have died due to lack of health care. You can also add in a recent report that revealed that 2,266 U.S. veterans have died in 2008 due to lack of insurance.
The 50 million now uninsured and the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistics are expected to drastically rise over the next few years. As the Senate continues to strip meaningful amendments from a health care bill that wouldn’t even take effect until 2013, it has become clear that, despite the media hype, the health care bill is going to fall far short of meaningful reform and continue to rig the game in favor of large insurance company profits at the expense of the U.S. population. With the highest cost healthcare in the world, current trends will continue and much needed change is not on the horizon.
Never before has the United States had so many citizens with so little means, little to no income and heavy debt. Debt and costs of living have now shackled U.S. citizens just as they have shackled people throughout the world. The economic hit men have now hit the United States as well and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death.
Economic Imperial blowback has hit the mainland.
And the clock is ticking louder by the day…
And here’s two more facts for you:
14) The gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States has over 200 companies producing billions of dollars in annual revenues. This huge manufacturing base cannot fulfill demand quickly enough. The demand for guns and ammunition has hit a record high and the gun industry cannot produce enough bullets to keep up with orders.
Americans are arming themselves to the teeth!
15) In the past year, 100 new armed militia groups have been formed, as militia members have doubled in numbers. Federal authorities are gravely concerned about the “uptick in militia activities." One federal authority recently said, “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."
So let’s break down these numbers.
You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care or help of any kind. Part of this population probably also has loved ones who can’t get life sustaining medical treatments, or loved ones who have already died due to lack of costly medical treatment. The clock is ticking loud for these people and they are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death.
While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate… and armed.
We are sitting on a powder keg!
We are now witnessing the critical unraveling of U.S. society.
15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams
Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far?
The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.
1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.
2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.
3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth."
As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse.
4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.
5) Home foreclosure filings "hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2009)… They were the worst three months of all time… 937,840 homes received a foreclosure letter" in this three-month period; “3.4 million homes are expected to enter foreclosure by year’s end, with some experts estimating that next year will be even worse.”
President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and has proven to be another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.
6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed.
This means we have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. The unemployment rate is expected to rise further and remain high for several years. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come."
The New York Times reports: "Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse. Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one, the worst ratio since the government began tracking….” As this ratio continues to grow, it will lead to a further reduction in wages -- average worker wages have seen a sharp decline over the past year.
Economist Nouriel Roubini, a man who accurately predicted our current crisis, just reported on unemployment stating: “Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening…. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.”
7) As the few elite banks thrive, there have been 123 U.S. bank failures thus far this year. Recently, three banks that the government declared “healthy” and gave taxpayer money, have folded. The Wall Street Journal reports: “U.S. regulators have seized or threatened at least 27 banks that got capital infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including some lenders government officials knew were troubled when they awarded the money. The troubles put taxpayers at risk of losing as much as $5.1 billion invested in the banks since TARP was launched in October 2008.”
8) As bankruptcies surge across the board, 10 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy, with several ready to declare a financial state of emergency. California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are all “barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services."
9) This is occurring at a time when the “federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before." In total, "U.S. public debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history… The public debt topped $10 trillion in September 2008. The debt is quickly approaching the statutory limit of $12.104 trillion, meaning Congress would have to raise the ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations."
Economist Dean Baker explains the risk of running such a large deficit: "The debt limit must be increased at regular intervals in order to allow the government to function normally because the government is currently operating at a deficit. If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won’t be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt."
Needless to say, all of this will make life drastically more difficult for American citizens. As the middle class continues on the path of economic decline, the number of citizens living in poverty has already hit an all-time high.
10) Although the government’s official figure tries to low-ball the number, 47.4 million U.S. citizens live in poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the industrialized world.
Predictably, homelessness is rising at an increased rate as well. "The U.S. government does not tally the numbers but interested organizations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year…. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children.”
Children have been hit especially hard by the economic crisis:
11) * 50 percent of U.S. children, one out of every two children, will need to use food stamps to eat.
One out of every two children in the United States of America will need to use a food stamp… to EAT!
If you didn’t think starvation was a serious threat in the U.S., just read this new Washington Post report: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat… Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. 'This is unthinkable. It’s like we are living in a Third World country,' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America."
The United States Department of Agriculture released these findings in a study that was completed in December 2008, which means these numbers don’t take into account the millions more unemployed throughout 2009. The numbers of people living in poverty and struggling to eat has seen a significant increase since then.
This a national tragedy. But it gets much worse.
12) In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the number of U.S. citizens without health care grew to a record 46.3 million. “The new figures, however, understate the severity of the economic downturn because a large portion of the nation’s job losses and unemployment rate increases occurred after the Census survey data was collected in March as part of the annual Current Population Survey."
13) Lack of health insurance has caused 45,000 preventable U.S. citizen deaths in the past year. The American Journal of Medicine recently released a study that stated, “Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness.”
A Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study reported that 17,000 children have died due to lack of health care. You can also add in a recent report that revealed that 2,266 U.S. veterans have died in 2008 due to lack of insurance.
The 50 million now uninsured and the 45,000 preventable deaths per year statistics are expected to drastically rise over the next few years. As the Senate continues to strip meaningful amendments from a health care bill that wouldn’t even take effect until 2013, it has become clear that, despite the media hype, the health care bill is going to fall far short of meaningful reform and continue to rig the game in favor of large insurance company profits at the expense of the U.S. population. With the highest cost healthcare in the world, current trends will continue and much needed change is not on the horizon.
Never before has the United States had so many citizens with so little means, little to no income and heavy debt. Debt and costs of living have now shackled U.S. citizens just as they have shackled people throughout the world. The economic hit men have now hit the United States as well and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death.
Economic Imperial blowback has hit the mainland.
And the clock is ticking louder by the day…
And here’s two more facts for you:
14) The gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States has over 200 companies producing billions of dollars in annual revenues. This huge manufacturing base cannot fulfill demand quickly enough. The demand for guns and ammunition has hit a record high and the gun industry cannot produce enough bullets to keep up with orders.
Americans are arming themselves to the teeth!
15) In the past year, 100 new armed militia groups have been formed, as militia members have doubled in numbers. Federal authorities are gravely concerned about the “uptick in militia activities." One federal authority recently said, “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."
So let’s break down these numbers.
You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care or help of any kind. Part of this population probably also has loved ones who can’t get life sustaining medical treatments, or loved ones who have already died due to lack of costly medical treatment. The clock is ticking loud for these people and they are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death.
While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate… and armed.
We are sitting on a powder keg!
We are now witnessing the critical unraveling of U.S. society.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
SC98-11
http://energybulletin.net/node/50748
The Peak Oil Crisis: Accusations
Not many years from now, there will be a huge uproar over who missed the coming of peak oil. There will be Congressional hearings and much finger pointing and protestations that the peaking of world oil production was impossible to predict.
It will all sound much like current discussions of whether our great recession was foreseeable. The uproar will come amidst very high gasoline prices and still greater economic difficulties and, hopefully, widespread understanding that the final energy crisis has begun.
Last week we had an early insight into the recriminations when the UK's Guardian newspaper (formerly the Manchester Guardian) published an exposé on how the world's official keeper-of-the-books on energy matters, the International Energy Agency (IEA), has been manipulating its forecasts. Two senior IEA officials, one active and one retired, were the sources of the story which was corroborated by others who have had close contact with the inner workings of the IEA in recent years.
The most damning part of the exposé was the allegation the manipulation of the oil production forecasts was done at the behest of the United States government which feared the consequences, should it become generally known and believed that oil soon would no longer be available in unlimited quantities. Oil products would become too expensive for many uses and the world would change forever. The IEA, of course, immediately denied that they were cooking the books to keep the Americans happy. They pointed out that for at least the last two years they have been warning of a near term supply crunch and that hundreds of outside experts reviewed their projections.
The evidence however that their projections were out of line with reality is very strong - whether American pressure was involved or not. Five years ago the IEA was projecting that world oil production would increase by another 35 million barrels per day (since reduced to 20) at a time when existing oil fields were depleting faster and faster. Every serious, unbiased, outside analyst that looked at the numbers said their projections were absurd as they required discovering and producing from new oil fields at a rate faster than had ever been achieved in the history of the oil age.
This, of course, would all be an interesting academic debate except that the fate of industrial civilization over the next century is at stake. Every one looking at the oil depletion problem has concluded it will cost trillions of dollars and take decades to effect a transition from oil to some other form of energy to keep civilization running in a recognizable form. Even then the chances of "success" are not that good. The longer we put off serious planning and implementing this transition to a post fossil fuel world, the worst the situation will get. However, to this day, almost no senior politician anywhere in the world has been willing to step forth and lay out the case that we almost certainly have one of the most serious problems of the 21st century just over the horizon.
We can probably give a pass on responsibility for ignoring peak oil to the Clinton administration. When the administration left office in January 2001 the proximity of peak oil was understood by only a handful of people, and peak production was still five years off. The Bush administration, however, is another matter. By Bush's second term, the debate over peak oil was going hot and heavy, much research had already been published, and dedicated governmental energy research organizations such as the US's EIA and OECD's IEA certainly were aware of the likelihood that large increases in oil production could not continue much longer. Some are already holding the Director of the U.S.'s Energy Information Administration during the Bush Administration responsible for ignoring peak oil and for pressuring the International Energy Agency. For now however we can leave this up to the Congressional investigators.
While In its first ten months the Obama administration has made valiant efforts to stem carbon emissions, so far as is known, it has never mentioned the far more imminent problem of peak oil. Third parties report that Obama's Energy Secretary Chu understands peak oil and its ramifications, but so far has remained silent as have the President and other senior officials.
The problem of course as we now have witnessed through two US administrations, and numerous foreign ones, is how does a government start to explain the phenomenon, peak oil, and more importantly the extreme sacrifices required to mitigate its occurrence to its citizens. Suppose the President gave a prime-time speech describing the evidence for the proximity of peak oil and laying out proposals to the Congress as to what needs to be done. It does not take a rocket scientist to deduce that there would be a huge political flare-up and likely a collapse of the equity markets. The President's political opposition, which has yet to figure out just why polar ice caps are melting, would go completely berserk at the hint of restrictions either through taxes or other means on energy consumption.
There would be calls for impeachment and the likelihood that any legislation could be passed that might be helpful in preparing for or mitigating the consequences of global oil depletion for the time being are zilch. The reason of course is that the evidence for peak oil must first become so overwhelming that even the simplest amongst can understand that there is no cheap and easy way out of the problem.
All this means that it is unlikely that our leaders will be taking the initiative to head off and attempt to mitigate the consequences of peak oil prior to its arrival. The political consequences of raising the issue in a polarized political world would almost certainly be seen as too uncertain and too severe.
The Peak Oil Crisis: Accusations
Not many years from now, there will be a huge uproar over who missed the coming of peak oil. There will be Congressional hearings and much finger pointing and protestations that the peaking of world oil production was impossible to predict.
It will all sound much like current discussions of whether our great recession was foreseeable. The uproar will come amidst very high gasoline prices and still greater economic difficulties and, hopefully, widespread understanding that the final energy crisis has begun.
Last week we had an early insight into the recriminations when the UK's Guardian newspaper (formerly the Manchester Guardian) published an exposé on how the world's official keeper-of-the-books on energy matters, the International Energy Agency (IEA), has been manipulating its forecasts. Two senior IEA officials, one active and one retired, were the sources of the story which was corroborated by others who have had close contact with the inner workings of the IEA in recent years.
The most damning part of the exposé was the allegation the manipulation of the oil production forecasts was done at the behest of the United States government which feared the consequences, should it become generally known and believed that oil soon would no longer be available in unlimited quantities. Oil products would become too expensive for many uses and the world would change forever. The IEA, of course, immediately denied that they were cooking the books to keep the Americans happy. They pointed out that for at least the last two years they have been warning of a near term supply crunch and that hundreds of outside experts reviewed their projections.
The evidence however that their projections were out of line with reality is very strong - whether American pressure was involved or not. Five years ago the IEA was projecting that world oil production would increase by another 35 million barrels per day (since reduced to 20) at a time when existing oil fields were depleting faster and faster. Every serious, unbiased, outside analyst that looked at the numbers said their projections were absurd as they required discovering and producing from new oil fields at a rate faster than had ever been achieved in the history of the oil age.
This, of course, would all be an interesting academic debate except that the fate of industrial civilization over the next century is at stake. Every one looking at the oil depletion problem has concluded it will cost trillions of dollars and take decades to effect a transition from oil to some other form of energy to keep civilization running in a recognizable form. Even then the chances of "success" are not that good. The longer we put off serious planning and implementing this transition to a post fossil fuel world, the worst the situation will get. However, to this day, almost no senior politician anywhere in the world has been willing to step forth and lay out the case that we almost certainly have one of the most serious problems of the 21st century just over the horizon.
We can probably give a pass on responsibility for ignoring peak oil to the Clinton administration. When the administration left office in January 2001 the proximity of peak oil was understood by only a handful of people, and peak production was still five years off. The Bush administration, however, is another matter. By Bush's second term, the debate over peak oil was going hot and heavy, much research had already been published, and dedicated governmental energy research organizations such as the US's EIA and OECD's IEA certainly were aware of the likelihood that large increases in oil production could not continue much longer. Some are already holding the Director of the U.S.'s Energy Information Administration during the Bush Administration responsible for ignoring peak oil and for pressuring the International Energy Agency. For now however we can leave this up to the Congressional investigators.
While In its first ten months the Obama administration has made valiant efforts to stem carbon emissions, so far as is known, it has never mentioned the far more imminent problem of peak oil. Third parties report that Obama's Energy Secretary Chu understands peak oil and its ramifications, but so far has remained silent as have the President and other senior officials.
The problem of course as we now have witnessed through two US administrations, and numerous foreign ones, is how does a government start to explain the phenomenon, peak oil, and more importantly the extreme sacrifices required to mitigate its occurrence to its citizens. Suppose the President gave a prime-time speech describing the evidence for the proximity of peak oil and laying out proposals to the Congress as to what needs to be done. It does not take a rocket scientist to deduce that there would be a huge political flare-up and likely a collapse of the equity markets. The President's political opposition, which has yet to figure out just why polar ice caps are melting, would go completely berserk at the hint of restrictions either through taxes or other means on energy consumption.
There would be calls for impeachment and the likelihood that any legislation could be passed that might be helpful in preparing for or mitigating the consequences of global oil depletion for the time being are zilch. The reason of course is that the evidence for peak oil must first become so overwhelming that even the simplest amongst can understand that there is no cheap and easy way out of the problem.
All this means that it is unlikely that our leaders will be taking the initiative to head off and attempt to mitigate the consequences of peak oil prior to its arrival. The political consequences of raising the issue in a polarized political world would almost certainly be seen as too uncertain and too severe.
SC98-10
http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1389/1/
THE FALLACY OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
........I sympathize with those who, since about the 1960s, have been putting all their money into the bottomless pit of the “alternative energy” industry, but my compassion does not extend to prevarication. There is really no sense in devoting vast amounts of time in trying to prove that 2+2=5. But the case is worse than that: unfortunately, so many people who get into discussions over “alternative energy” have simply never bothered to do their basic homework.
The kind of writing I look for could be roughly described as follows. We might consider the 11 points listed below. Then we might ask: What would points 12 and 13, etc. be? At the same time, of course, we should not be brooding perpetually over points 1 and 2, or acting as if 1 and 2 were great new discoveries.
1. The entire world’s economy is based on oil and other fossil fuels. These provide fuel, lubricants, asphalt, paint, plastics, fertilizer, and many other products. In the year 2000 alone, about 30 billion barrels of oil were consumed.
2. In 1850, before commercial production began, there were about 2 trillion barrels of oil in the ground. By about the year 2008, half of that oil had been consumed, so about 1 trillion barrels remained.
3. By the year 2030, oil production will be down to about half of its peak production.
4. “Unconventional oil” is not very useful. Oil can be produced from tar sands, for example, but 2 barrels of conventional oil must be burned as fuel in order to produce 3 barrels of tar-sands oil.
5. The amount of energy that can be derived from “alternative energy” is not sufficient to replace that of 30 billion annual barrels of oil ― or even to replace more than a small fraction of that amount. In addition, “alternative energy” itself requires “oil energy,” even if only as an infrastructure.
6. “Alternative energy” has a host of other problems. Fuel cells require hydrogen derived from fossil fuels. Biofuels require enormous amounts of land. Hydroelectric dams are reaching their practical limits. Solar, wind, and geothermal power require prodigious amounts of equipment, a self-defeating process. Nuclear power faces a shortage of fuel, and it creates serious environmental dangers.
7. Modern agriculture depends on fossil fuels for fertilizers, pesticides, and for the operation of machines for harvesting, processing, and transporting. Without fossil fuels, it will be impossible to feed a global population of several billion people. Widespread famine is inevitable.
8. The global economy is highly dependent on metals, including iron, copper, and aluminum. The mining industry faces two problems: huge requirements of energy (derived from fossil fuels), and a shortage of high-quality ore.
9. The global economy also uses enormous amounts of electricity. (Electricity is not a source of energy; it is just a means of carrying energy.) Electricity is almost entirely derived from disappearing sources: fossil fuels, water power, or nuclear energy.
10. Without oil, metals, and electricity, modern forms of transportation and communication will disappear. Without transportation and communication, the social structure in turn will disappear: government, education, and large-scale division of labor.
11. Small human communities will survive, but they will be relying on primitive technology, since their daily needs will have to be provided mainly by resources in the immediate environment. These communities may need to defend themselves against — or isolate themselves from — groups that are less able or less willing to be self-sufficient.
To say that the coming centuries will be a challenge would be an enormous understatement. Perhaps in a future scriptorium, when the facts and legends about the present era are being scratched onto parchment, there will be a chance to reflect on the foolishness of spending time on electric toys and magic tricks, when so much of more practical value could have been done to mitigate the ravages of famine, plague, and war.
THE FALLACY OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
........I sympathize with those who, since about the 1960s, have been putting all their money into the bottomless pit of the “alternative energy” industry, but my compassion does not extend to prevarication. There is really no sense in devoting vast amounts of time in trying to prove that 2+2=5. But the case is worse than that: unfortunately, so many people who get into discussions over “alternative energy” have simply never bothered to do their basic homework.
The kind of writing I look for could be roughly described as follows. We might consider the 11 points listed below. Then we might ask: What would points 12 and 13, etc. be? At the same time, of course, we should not be brooding perpetually over points 1 and 2, or acting as if 1 and 2 were great new discoveries.
1. The entire world’s economy is based on oil and other fossil fuels. These provide fuel, lubricants, asphalt, paint, plastics, fertilizer, and many other products. In the year 2000 alone, about 30 billion barrels of oil were consumed.
2. In 1850, before commercial production began, there were about 2 trillion barrels of oil in the ground. By about the year 2008, half of that oil had been consumed, so about 1 trillion barrels remained.
3. By the year 2030, oil production will be down to about half of its peak production.
4. “Unconventional oil” is not very useful. Oil can be produced from tar sands, for example, but 2 barrels of conventional oil must be burned as fuel in order to produce 3 barrels of tar-sands oil.
5. The amount of energy that can be derived from “alternative energy” is not sufficient to replace that of 30 billion annual barrels of oil ― or even to replace more than a small fraction of that amount. In addition, “alternative energy” itself requires “oil energy,” even if only as an infrastructure.
6. “Alternative energy” has a host of other problems. Fuel cells require hydrogen derived from fossil fuels. Biofuels require enormous amounts of land. Hydroelectric dams are reaching their practical limits. Solar, wind, and geothermal power require prodigious amounts of equipment, a self-defeating process. Nuclear power faces a shortage of fuel, and it creates serious environmental dangers.
7. Modern agriculture depends on fossil fuels for fertilizers, pesticides, and for the operation of machines for harvesting, processing, and transporting. Without fossil fuels, it will be impossible to feed a global population of several billion people. Widespread famine is inevitable.
8. The global economy is highly dependent on metals, including iron, copper, and aluminum. The mining industry faces two problems: huge requirements of energy (derived from fossil fuels), and a shortage of high-quality ore.
9. The global economy also uses enormous amounts of electricity. (Electricity is not a source of energy; it is just a means of carrying energy.) Electricity is almost entirely derived from disappearing sources: fossil fuels, water power, or nuclear energy.
10. Without oil, metals, and electricity, modern forms of transportation and communication will disappear. Without transportation and communication, the social structure in turn will disappear: government, education, and large-scale division of labor.
11. Small human communities will survive, but they will be relying on primitive technology, since their daily needs will have to be provided mainly by resources in the immediate environment. These communities may need to defend themselves against — or isolate themselves from — groups that are less able or less willing to be self-sufficient.
To say that the coming centuries will be a challenge would be an enormous understatement. Perhaps in a future scriptorium, when the facts and legends about the present era are being scratched onto parchment, there will be a chance to reflect on the foolishness of spending time on electric toys and magic tricks, when so much of more practical value could have been done to mitigate the ravages of famine, plague, and war.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
SC98-9
http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/1380/1/
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE END OF CIVILIZATION,
Carolyn Baker Reviews "Collapse"
Why would someone go to a movie that is essentially an interview of someone else? Don't we go to movies to be entertained or watch documentaries in order to be inundated with voluminous information and breath-taking cinematography? What would compel anyone to sit for 82 minutes watching some guy chain smoking while he's being interviewed about the collapse of industrial civilization in a room that looks like a bunker?
If incessant adrenalin rushes enhanced by stupefying special effects are what you desire, seeing "Collapse" should be postponed until you are ready to hear, see, and feel how Director Chris Smith's uncanny discernment is brilliantly conveyed in one of the most poignant, but inspiring movies of this decade.
When was the last time you saw a movie that opened with a plea for revolution-no, not the kind with bullets and bombs, but the kind Thomas Jefferson said should happen every twenty years-a revolution in our thinking? In fact, the kind of revolution Mike Ruppert calls for in the opening scenes is one that takes place inside us. In fact, that kind of revolution is one he's lived since he was a political science major at UCLA in the seventies. Whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, you cannot argue that every word that comes out of his mouth in "Collapse", issues from bone-marrow experience-the kind none of us would ever welcome, the kind some of us would have long since committed suicide over, the kind most of us would gladly walk away from. Yet, Mike Ruppert is still alive, still speaking his truth, and amazingly, still able to laugh and play music.
From this point forward in this review, I will refer to Mike Ruppert as simply "Mike." That's because despite the fact that we've had our disagreements in the past and not a few "come to Jesus" moments, this guy named Mike--"Ruppert", "MCR", the LAPD narc, the investigative journalist, and "batshit insane conspiracy theorist" as he has been derisively labeled, is still my friend, and has been for almost a decade.
So what kind of movie opens with the main character coming in, sitting down, lighting a cigarette, and being asked, "So who are you?" Shortly, the viewer may be thinking, "Wish they hadn't asked that question because I really don't want to know." That means that by the time you've heard three minutes of Mike's personal story, you are already appalled and prepared to plug your ears and do anything but hear more. Your first response may be, "That can't be true", yet his story is fully documented in writing and by verified numerous eyewitnesses. In summary, his was no ordinary childhood and certainly no ordinary law enforcement career. All roads led to that career as a highly decorated Los Angeles Police Department detective, and everything after has been impacted by it. For as Mike very clearly states in the movie, that clean, dedicated, twenty-seven year-old cop is still alive in him and has always wanted some answers-and yes, some justice.
But to the same extent the conscientious cop lives within him, so does the cartographer, the map maker, whose life depended on finding out how the world really works as opposed to how we've been told it works. I would say that at least 80% of his work has evolved out of an attempt to save his own life. That brings it down from ivory tower speculation to a cellular, soul level.
PEAK OIL
So if you're still hanging out with doubts about the validity of Peak Oil, you won't be after you watch this movie's second segment. I've heard and read volumes on Peak Oil, but Mike's explanation always rings in my ears more loudly than that of any other because of its clarity and simplicity. However, he admittedly stands on the shoulders of numerous Peak Oil researching giants such as Dale Allen Pfeiffer and what he calls "The Three Wise Men": Colin Campbell, Matt Simmons, and Richard Heinberg.
Mike explains that it requires the mind of a cop to understand how Peak Oil fits into the rest of the map of events in terms of motive, means, and opportunity. It is now the fundamental underpinning of foreign policy-not only that of the United States, but of all industrial nations. Institutionalized denial of Peak Oil or the refusal by our government to tell the truth about it is nothing less than criminal, according to Mike, because it means that we are building our future as if Peak Oil doesn't exist-sacrificing the lives of future generations so that we can live comfortable lives based on a lie. As for "alternative energy options", I've yet to hear anyone surpass Mike's explanations of how futile and farcical this notion is in terms of sparing us from a global energy crisis. On a small, local scale, renewable energy is necessary and useful, but it is an untenable solution for the long-term, big picture reality of the end of the age of oil.
THE DEADLY ACCURATE MAP
About the same time that Mike's newsletter, From The Wilderness began publishing stories about Peak Oil, he started connecting the dots between a number of other issues, and several articles published on the website at that time by Catherine Austin Fitts and by Mike, revealed the likelihood of a massive housing and debt bubble that would inevitably burst and result in a global economic meltdown. In his numerous articles and lectures, Mike began admonishing people to get out of debt, buy gold, pay off credit cards, and learn to grow their own food. It is illumining to return to the From The Wilderness website from time to time and revisit the economic forecasts made there which predicted the current crisis superbly. Some aspects of timing and minor details may have fallen short of accuracy, but for the most part, the forecasts were spot-on in terms of the larger picture.
Others, including myself, read, wrote for, and published aspects of the From The Wilderness map which at the time resulted in being scorned and called crazy. Those years from 2001 to the beginning of the economic crash in September, 2008 were especially tough for many of us in terms of being labeled inveterate doom and gloomers. Some of my close friends who got it were calling me "Cassandra Baker" and with good reason.
But neither Mike nor I have broken out the champagne to celebrate how right on target we were during those years because the collapse of civilization and all of its attendant horrors is not something to celebrate. However, we are both buoyed by the number of people who paid attention and acted accordingly and are still doing so today. Likewise, we are inspired and encouraged by the people who have awakened more recently and all those who are just now connecting the dots and experiencing in their bones, the same revolution to which Mike refers in the opening moments of "Collapse."
Fiat Currency, Fractional Reserve Banking, and Compound Interest-these are the only three things you need to know, says Mike, about money. These three inherently comprise a pyramid scheme; in fact, the entire global economy is a pyramid scheme. It is based on the infinite growth paradigm which has now collided with something much more powerful. Our economy is collapsing, but many other countries in the world are collapsing much more rapidly. In summary, the people who have been running the planet are now losing control.
POPULATION
Anyone who has been researching the collapse of industrial civilization understands, as Mike clearly reminds us, that a global population explosion occurred almost simultaneously with the discovery of oil as the 19th century moved into the 20th . Population has steadily increased as the availability of oil has increased, and it is axiomatic that as access to oil decreases, so must the population.
A question that naturally arises from these disturbing realities is whether or not the human race can understand them and change its behavior in time to avert catastrophe. At this point, Mike reminds us of three types of responses to a Titanic-like situation. One is the deer-in-the-headlights response in which one is frozen with fear and surprise and begins to ask, "What does this mean? What do I do?" Another kind of response is, "We know this is happening, we know we're all going to die unless we build lifeboats, so let's get busy doing it." Another group says, "This is the Titanic; it's unsinkable."
Everything is going to break down differently in different places, according to Mike. Currently, we are seeing the bumpy plateau of energy prices which fluctuate wildly. The critical, lethal point of the plateau for the human race is when oil prices spike again, and no one can afford to buy the oil, at which point, everything will shut down.
THE TRANSITION PHASE
What is critical now is for us to begin to put new structures in place before the old infrastructure completely crumbles. That phase could last between 20 years (which would be incredibly fast) to 50 or 100 years. What is crucial is that we don't panic but rather analyze our own local situation to see what structures must be put in place there. Shortages will occur, but most likely, gradually as opposed to abruptly. Specific shortages will happen in specific places for a specific period. Thus, what is important is not to prepare for the end result of collapse, but to prepare for the transition.
When asked if a collapse be "prevented" by human ingenuity, Mike pensively responds with, "No amount of technology, no amount of human ingenuity can overturn the laws of physics and the laws of the universe." Humankind's greatest peril, he asserts, is to believe that it can overturn the law of the universe and "become God."
He very directly admonishes us to: Buy gold, insulate your house, restore the soil around you and grow food in the restored soil; get organic seeds and store them; get a land line and realize that your cell phone will not be available as the system's collapse exacerbates. Local food production is the most fundamental key to human survival in the collapse of industrial civilization.
For example, when the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea and Cuba were desperately dependent on Soviet oil. The two nations adapted to the loss differently. North Korea maintained its rigid communist system, and millions starved. The Cuban government, however, adapted by growing organic food almost everywhere, abandoning the agribusiness model. The idea was to grow food where people were going to eat food, and the result was remarkable resilience-and survival. The phenomenon to which Mike is referring in this section of "Collapse" is extremely well documented in the 2006 film, "The Power of Community". In summary, in the new human paradigm, everything will be local, and as all animals species know, survival must occur in community, not in isolation.
Director Chris Smith has succeeded in capturing the essence of Mike Ruppert, and one aspect of that essence is the monumental load of grief he carries regarding having spent three decades crying "from the wilderness" to humanity to awaken and embrace the new paradigm. Yet even as the grief is poignantly revealed to us through Mike's tears, so is the balance he maintains through savoring love, fun, play, and making people smile-all of which are very instructive to those of us who are consciously preparing for collapse.
Mike reminds us of Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief and comments that currently, our society appears to be caught in the Anger stage. Ironically, the day I began this review was the same day in which the Ft. Hood massacre occurred, followed by another terrifying shooting rampage in Orlando, Florida. The protracted debate on healthcare over the course of 2009 has been punctuated with numerous violent outbursts at town meetings and insane rages against "socialism" by thousands of hurting middle class Americans. Caustic vitriol pervades our crumbling culture, and that chilling reality is exacerbated by mainstream media's massive lies, distortions, and omissions. How we get through this phase, according to Mike, is critical, and unfortunately, we have little in the culture to assist us in moving through it. However, once we do, and once we begin experiencing acceptance, we are then able to discover like-minded "passengers" on the Titanic with whom we can ally to build lifeboats.
I was recently asked if I thought it was possible that I could be "wrong" about Peak Oil and climate change. My response is that it's possible to be wrong about anything. But as Mike so powerfully comments in "Collapse", there is no longer anything to debate. Engaging in debate on these issues is very much like debating whether the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Peak Oil and climate change are happening; what's to debate?
For those who expend energy with political solutions, Mike points out that capitalism, socialism, and communism are terms "that need to be put in the trash can immediately." The only thing the human race will be concerned with in the future is survival, and ideologies and political parties are showing us less than nothing about how to do this. Engaging in large-scale political processes is not only futile, but deprives us of the energy we need to be investing in survival. All these ideologies were created on the premise of infinite resources, and none offer a balance with the planet's resources and other species.
Yes, we have a sincere, likeable guy in the White House, but, says Mike: He's a prisoner-a prisoner of the government, of politics, of the Federal Reserve, of a system that's archaic. Don't make success or failure rest on his shoulders. The only thing any of us can possible change is our minds.
Stop running from your fear, Mike admonishes us, and starting moving toward embracing your fear because therein lies our ability to survive. This will be, he optimistically reminds us, the greatest evolution in human thinking our species has ever known. Do not run away from your fear, your love, or any emotion because that is the life experience. In those emotions we find the richness of art, music, poetry, and all human creations. Our greater work, he says, is to pull that richness out of the rubbish of civilization's paradigm--a comment which bears uncanny resemblance to what I have written in Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse.
Asked if he would ever "walk away" from three decades of work, Mike asks: If there was a German in 1932-33 who had the foresight to look ahead and see what the end result of the Third Reich would be, could they have in good conscience turned around and walked away? We are collectively as a species responsible for what may be the greatest holocaust in human history-our own suicide.
While I have no negative comments regarding "Collapse", I do have concerns about two issues which could be interpreted as contradictions. One is Mike's statement in the movie that during the Bush administration, he believes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were paying very close attention to his work. The viewer is left to wonder about his rationale for this bold statement, especially as he concludes the comment with, "that's all I care to say." Three decades of persecution by the powers that be does not, in itself, indicate that any two members of those powers were intensely interested in Mike and his work. So I'm left wondering what he knows that we don't.
Those of us who have been close associates of Mike in the past witnessed his dramatic exodus from Los Angeles to Ashland, Oregon in 2006, based as he said at the time on what a horrible place he believed L.A. would turn out to be in collapse. Yet it is precisely to that city that he returned in 2008. One may be tempted to accuse him of hypocrisy, but only if one does not understand that Mike spent most of his life in L.A., and it is for him "home" in every sense of the word. Some people preparing for collapse choose to relocate to exotic locations; some choose what is familiar and comforting.
The movie draws to a close with Mike's recounting in detail the Hundredth Monkey story. For all its poignancy and sad moments, "Collapse" leaves us with great optimism, joy, possibility, and inspiration. While the logistical focus of the movie is on Mike Ruppert, the ultimate focus is on each of us-on that part of us that knows in every cell of our bodies that we are now in the throes of collapse and that our survival and the meaning of our very existence lies in embracing and to some extent living the Michael C. Ruppert that abides in all of us.
FROM THE WILDERNESS TO THE END OF CIVILIZATION,
Carolyn Baker Reviews "Collapse"
Why would someone go to a movie that is essentially an interview of someone else? Don't we go to movies to be entertained or watch documentaries in order to be inundated with voluminous information and breath-taking cinematography? What would compel anyone to sit for 82 minutes watching some guy chain smoking while he's being interviewed about the collapse of industrial civilization in a room that looks like a bunker?
If incessant adrenalin rushes enhanced by stupefying special effects are what you desire, seeing "Collapse" should be postponed until you are ready to hear, see, and feel how Director Chris Smith's uncanny discernment is brilliantly conveyed in one of the most poignant, but inspiring movies of this decade.
When was the last time you saw a movie that opened with a plea for revolution-no, not the kind with bullets and bombs, but the kind Thomas Jefferson said should happen every twenty years-a revolution in our thinking? In fact, the kind of revolution Mike Ruppert calls for in the opening scenes is one that takes place inside us. In fact, that kind of revolution is one he's lived since he was a political science major at UCLA in the seventies. Whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, you cannot argue that every word that comes out of his mouth in "Collapse", issues from bone-marrow experience-the kind none of us would ever welcome, the kind some of us would have long since committed suicide over, the kind most of us would gladly walk away from. Yet, Mike Ruppert is still alive, still speaking his truth, and amazingly, still able to laugh and play music.
From this point forward in this review, I will refer to Mike Ruppert as simply "Mike." That's because despite the fact that we've had our disagreements in the past and not a few "come to Jesus" moments, this guy named Mike--"Ruppert", "MCR", the LAPD narc, the investigative journalist, and "batshit insane conspiracy theorist" as he has been derisively labeled, is still my friend, and has been for almost a decade.
So what kind of movie opens with the main character coming in, sitting down, lighting a cigarette, and being asked, "So who are you?" Shortly, the viewer may be thinking, "Wish they hadn't asked that question because I really don't want to know." That means that by the time you've heard three minutes of Mike's personal story, you are already appalled and prepared to plug your ears and do anything but hear more. Your first response may be, "That can't be true", yet his story is fully documented in writing and by verified numerous eyewitnesses. In summary, his was no ordinary childhood and certainly no ordinary law enforcement career. All roads led to that career as a highly decorated Los Angeles Police Department detective, and everything after has been impacted by it. For as Mike very clearly states in the movie, that clean, dedicated, twenty-seven year-old cop is still alive in him and has always wanted some answers-and yes, some justice.
But to the same extent the conscientious cop lives within him, so does the cartographer, the map maker, whose life depended on finding out how the world really works as opposed to how we've been told it works. I would say that at least 80% of his work has evolved out of an attempt to save his own life. That brings it down from ivory tower speculation to a cellular, soul level.
PEAK OIL
So if you're still hanging out with doubts about the validity of Peak Oil, you won't be after you watch this movie's second segment. I've heard and read volumes on Peak Oil, but Mike's explanation always rings in my ears more loudly than that of any other because of its clarity and simplicity. However, he admittedly stands on the shoulders of numerous Peak Oil researching giants such as Dale Allen Pfeiffer and what he calls "The Three Wise Men": Colin Campbell, Matt Simmons, and Richard Heinberg.
Mike explains that it requires the mind of a cop to understand how Peak Oil fits into the rest of the map of events in terms of motive, means, and opportunity. It is now the fundamental underpinning of foreign policy-not only that of the United States, but of all industrial nations. Institutionalized denial of Peak Oil or the refusal by our government to tell the truth about it is nothing less than criminal, according to Mike, because it means that we are building our future as if Peak Oil doesn't exist-sacrificing the lives of future generations so that we can live comfortable lives based on a lie. As for "alternative energy options", I've yet to hear anyone surpass Mike's explanations of how futile and farcical this notion is in terms of sparing us from a global energy crisis. On a small, local scale, renewable energy is necessary and useful, but it is an untenable solution for the long-term, big picture reality of the end of the age of oil.
THE DEADLY ACCURATE MAP
About the same time that Mike's newsletter, From The Wilderness began publishing stories about Peak Oil, he started connecting the dots between a number of other issues, and several articles published on the website at that time by Catherine Austin Fitts and by Mike, revealed the likelihood of a massive housing and debt bubble that would inevitably burst and result in a global economic meltdown. In his numerous articles and lectures, Mike began admonishing people to get out of debt, buy gold, pay off credit cards, and learn to grow their own food. It is illumining to return to the From The Wilderness website from time to time and revisit the economic forecasts made there which predicted the current crisis superbly. Some aspects of timing and minor details may have fallen short of accuracy, but for the most part, the forecasts were spot-on in terms of the larger picture.
Others, including myself, read, wrote for, and published aspects of the From The Wilderness map which at the time resulted in being scorned and called crazy. Those years from 2001 to the beginning of the economic crash in September, 2008 were especially tough for many of us in terms of being labeled inveterate doom and gloomers. Some of my close friends who got it were calling me "Cassandra Baker" and with good reason.
But neither Mike nor I have broken out the champagne to celebrate how right on target we were during those years because the collapse of civilization and all of its attendant horrors is not something to celebrate. However, we are both buoyed by the number of people who paid attention and acted accordingly and are still doing so today. Likewise, we are inspired and encouraged by the people who have awakened more recently and all those who are just now connecting the dots and experiencing in their bones, the same revolution to which Mike refers in the opening moments of "Collapse."
Fiat Currency, Fractional Reserve Banking, and Compound Interest-these are the only three things you need to know, says Mike, about money. These three inherently comprise a pyramid scheme; in fact, the entire global economy is a pyramid scheme. It is based on the infinite growth paradigm which has now collided with something much more powerful. Our economy is collapsing, but many other countries in the world are collapsing much more rapidly. In summary, the people who have been running the planet are now losing control.
POPULATION
Anyone who has been researching the collapse of industrial civilization understands, as Mike clearly reminds us, that a global population explosion occurred almost simultaneously with the discovery of oil as the 19th century moved into the 20th . Population has steadily increased as the availability of oil has increased, and it is axiomatic that as access to oil decreases, so must the population.
A question that naturally arises from these disturbing realities is whether or not the human race can understand them and change its behavior in time to avert catastrophe. At this point, Mike reminds us of three types of responses to a Titanic-like situation. One is the deer-in-the-headlights response in which one is frozen with fear and surprise and begins to ask, "What does this mean? What do I do?" Another kind of response is, "We know this is happening, we know we're all going to die unless we build lifeboats, so let's get busy doing it." Another group says, "This is the Titanic; it's unsinkable."
Everything is going to break down differently in different places, according to Mike. Currently, we are seeing the bumpy plateau of energy prices which fluctuate wildly. The critical, lethal point of the plateau for the human race is when oil prices spike again, and no one can afford to buy the oil, at which point, everything will shut down.
THE TRANSITION PHASE
What is critical now is for us to begin to put new structures in place before the old infrastructure completely crumbles. That phase could last between 20 years (which would be incredibly fast) to 50 or 100 years. What is crucial is that we don't panic but rather analyze our own local situation to see what structures must be put in place there. Shortages will occur, but most likely, gradually as opposed to abruptly. Specific shortages will happen in specific places for a specific period. Thus, what is important is not to prepare for the end result of collapse, but to prepare for the transition.
When asked if a collapse be "prevented" by human ingenuity, Mike pensively responds with, "No amount of technology, no amount of human ingenuity can overturn the laws of physics and the laws of the universe." Humankind's greatest peril, he asserts, is to believe that it can overturn the law of the universe and "become God."
He very directly admonishes us to: Buy gold, insulate your house, restore the soil around you and grow food in the restored soil; get organic seeds and store them; get a land line and realize that your cell phone will not be available as the system's collapse exacerbates. Local food production is the most fundamental key to human survival in the collapse of industrial civilization.
For example, when the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea and Cuba were desperately dependent on Soviet oil. The two nations adapted to the loss differently. North Korea maintained its rigid communist system, and millions starved. The Cuban government, however, adapted by growing organic food almost everywhere, abandoning the agribusiness model. The idea was to grow food where people were going to eat food, and the result was remarkable resilience-and survival. The phenomenon to which Mike is referring in this section of "Collapse" is extremely well documented in the 2006 film, "The Power of Community". In summary, in the new human paradigm, everything will be local, and as all animals species know, survival must occur in community, not in isolation.
Director Chris Smith has succeeded in capturing the essence of Mike Ruppert, and one aspect of that essence is the monumental load of grief he carries regarding having spent three decades crying "from the wilderness" to humanity to awaken and embrace the new paradigm. Yet even as the grief is poignantly revealed to us through Mike's tears, so is the balance he maintains through savoring love, fun, play, and making people smile-all of which are very instructive to those of us who are consciously preparing for collapse.
Mike reminds us of Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief and comments that currently, our society appears to be caught in the Anger stage. Ironically, the day I began this review was the same day in which the Ft. Hood massacre occurred, followed by another terrifying shooting rampage in Orlando, Florida. The protracted debate on healthcare over the course of 2009 has been punctuated with numerous violent outbursts at town meetings and insane rages against "socialism" by thousands of hurting middle class Americans. Caustic vitriol pervades our crumbling culture, and that chilling reality is exacerbated by mainstream media's massive lies, distortions, and omissions. How we get through this phase, according to Mike, is critical, and unfortunately, we have little in the culture to assist us in moving through it. However, once we do, and once we begin experiencing acceptance, we are then able to discover like-minded "passengers" on the Titanic with whom we can ally to build lifeboats.
I was recently asked if I thought it was possible that I could be "wrong" about Peak Oil and climate change. My response is that it's possible to be wrong about anything. But as Mike so powerfully comments in "Collapse", there is no longer anything to debate. Engaging in debate on these issues is very much like debating whether the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Peak Oil and climate change are happening; what's to debate?
For those who expend energy with political solutions, Mike points out that capitalism, socialism, and communism are terms "that need to be put in the trash can immediately." The only thing the human race will be concerned with in the future is survival, and ideologies and political parties are showing us less than nothing about how to do this. Engaging in large-scale political processes is not only futile, but deprives us of the energy we need to be investing in survival. All these ideologies were created on the premise of infinite resources, and none offer a balance with the planet's resources and other species.
Yes, we have a sincere, likeable guy in the White House, but, says Mike: He's a prisoner-a prisoner of the government, of politics, of the Federal Reserve, of a system that's archaic. Don't make success or failure rest on his shoulders. The only thing any of us can possible change is our minds.
Stop running from your fear, Mike admonishes us, and starting moving toward embracing your fear because therein lies our ability to survive. This will be, he optimistically reminds us, the greatest evolution in human thinking our species has ever known. Do not run away from your fear, your love, or any emotion because that is the life experience. In those emotions we find the richness of art, music, poetry, and all human creations. Our greater work, he says, is to pull that richness out of the rubbish of civilization's paradigm--a comment which bears uncanny resemblance to what I have written in Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse.
Asked if he would ever "walk away" from three decades of work, Mike asks: If there was a German in 1932-33 who had the foresight to look ahead and see what the end result of the Third Reich would be, could they have in good conscience turned around and walked away? We are collectively as a species responsible for what may be the greatest holocaust in human history-our own suicide.
While I have no negative comments regarding "Collapse", I do have concerns about two issues which could be interpreted as contradictions. One is Mike's statement in the movie that during the Bush administration, he believes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were paying very close attention to his work. The viewer is left to wonder about his rationale for this bold statement, especially as he concludes the comment with, "that's all I care to say." Three decades of persecution by the powers that be does not, in itself, indicate that any two members of those powers were intensely interested in Mike and his work. So I'm left wondering what he knows that we don't.
Those of us who have been close associates of Mike in the past witnessed his dramatic exodus from Los Angeles to Ashland, Oregon in 2006, based as he said at the time on what a horrible place he believed L.A. would turn out to be in collapse. Yet it is precisely to that city that he returned in 2008. One may be tempted to accuse him of hypocrisy, but only if one does not understand that Mike spent most of his life in L.A., and it is for him "home" in every sense of the word. Some people preparing for collapse choose to relocate to exotic locations; some choose what is familiar and comforting.
The movie draws to a close with Mike's recounting in detail the Hundredth Monkey story. For all its poignancy and sad moments, "Collapse" leaves us with great optimism, joy, possibility, and inspiration. While the logistical focus of the movie is on Mike Ruppert, the ultimate focus is on each of us-on that part of us that knows in every cell of our bodies that we are now in the throes of collapse and that our survival and the meaning of our very existence lies in embracing and to some extent living the Michael C. Ruppert that abides in all of us.
SC98-8
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11371755.htm
Cuba orders extreme measures to cut energy use
Cuba has ordered all state enterprises to adopt "extreme measures" to cut energy usage through the end of the year in hopes of avoiding the dreaded blackouts that plagued the country following the 1991 collapse of its then-top ally, the Soviet Union.
In documents seen by Reuters, government officials have been warned that the island is facing a "critical" energy shortage that requires the closing of non-essential factories and workshops and the shutting down of air conditioners and refrigerators not needed to preserve food and medicine.
Cuba has cut government spending and slashed imports after being hit hard by the global financial crisis and the cost of recovering from three hurricanes that struck last year.
"The energy situation we face is critical and if we do not adopt extreme measures we will have to revert to planned blackouts affecting the population," said a recently circulated message from the Council of Ministers.
"Company directors will analyze the activities that will be stopped and others reduced, leaving only those that guarantee exports, substitution of imports and basic services for the population," according to another distributed by the light industry sector.
President Raul Castro is said to be intent on not repeating the experience of the 1990s, when the demise of the Soviet Union and the loss of its steady oil supply caused frequent electricity blackouts and hardship for the Cuban public.
The directives follow government warnings in the summer that too much energy was being used and blackouts would follow if consumption was not reduced.
All provincial governments and most state-run offices and factories, which encompasses 90 percent of Cuba's economic activity, were ordered in June to reduce energy use by a minimum of 12 percent or face mandatory electricity cuts.
The measures appeared to resolve the crisis as state-run press published stories about the amount of energy that had been saved and the dire warnings died down. The only explanation given for the earlier warnings was that Cuba was consuming more fuel than the government had money to pay for.
The situation is not as dire as in the 1990s because Cuba receives 93,000 barrels per day of crude oil, almost two-thirds of what it consumes, from Venezuela. It pays for the oil by providing its energy-rich ally with medical personnel and other professionals.
Cuba has been grappling with the global economic downturn, which has slashed revenues from key exports, dried up credit and reduced foreign investment.
The communist-run Caribbean nation also faces stiff U.S. sanctions that include cutting access to international lending institutions, and it is still rebuilding from last year's trio of hurricanes that caused an estimated $10 billion in damages.
In response, the government has cut spending, slashed imports, suspended many debt payments and frozen bank accounts of foreign businesses. It reported last week that trade was down 36 percent so far this year due mainly to a more than 30 percent reduction in imports.
Cuba orders extreme measures to cut energy use
Cuba has ordered all state enterprises to adopt "extreme measures" to cut energy usage through the end of the year in hopes of avoiding the dreaded blackouts that plagued the country following the 1991 collapse of its then-top ally, the Soviet Union.
In documents seen by Reuters, government officials have been warned that the island is facing a "critical" energy shortage that requires the closing of non-essential factories and workshops and the shutting down of air conditioners and refrigerators not needed to preserve food and medicine.
Cuba has cut government spending and slashed imports after being hit hard by the global financial crisis and the cost of recovering from three hurricanes that struck last year.
"The energy situation we face is critical and if we do not adopt extreme measures we will have to revert to planned blackouts affecting the population," said a recently circulated message from the Council of Ministers.
"Company directors will analyze the activities that will be stopped and others reduced, leaving only those that guarantee exports, substitution of imports and basic services for the population," according to another distributed by the light industry sector.
President Raul Castro is said to be intent on not repeating the experience of the 1990s, when the demise of the Soviet Union and the loss of its steady oil supply caused frequent electricity blackouts and hardship for the Cuban public.
The directives follow government warnings in the summer that too much energy was being used and blackouts would follow if consumption was not reduced.
All provincial governments and most state-run offices and factories, which encompasses 90 percent of Cuba's economic activity, were ordered in June to reduce energy use by a minimum of 12 percent or face mandatory electricity cuts.
The measures appeared to resolve the crisis as state-run press published stories about the amount of energy that had been saved and the dire warnings died down. The only explanation given for the earlier warnings was that Cuba was consuming more fuel than the government had money to pay for.
The situation is not as dire as in the 1990s because Cuba receives 93,000 barrels per day of crude oil, almost two-thirds of what it consumes, from Venezuela. It pays for the oil by providing its energy-rich ally with medical personnel and other professionals.
Cuba has been grappling with the global economic downturn, which has slashed revenues from key exports, dried up credit and reduced foreign investment.
The communist-run Caribbean nation also faces stiff U.S. sanctions that include cutting access to international lending institutions, and it is still rebuilding from last year's trio of hurricanes that caused an estimated $10 billion in damages.
In response, the government has cut spending, slashed imports, suspended many debt payments and frozen bank accounts of foreign businesses. It reported last week that trade was down 36 percent so far this year due mainly to a more than 30 percent reduction in imports.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
SC98-7
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency
Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
Exclusive: Watchdog's estimates of reserves inflated says top official
The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.
The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.
'There's suspicion the IEA has been influenced by the US' Link to this audio In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.
Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.
"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.
A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.
The IEA acknowledges the importance of its own figures, boasting on its website: "The IEA governments and industry from all across the globe have come to rely on the World Energy Outlook to provide a consistent basis on which they can formulate policies and design business plans."
The British government, among others, always uses the IEA statistics rather than any of its own to argue that there is little threat to long-term oil supplies.
The IEA said tonight that peak oil critics had often wrongly questioned the accuracy of its figures. A spokesman said it was unable to comment ahead of the 2009 report being released tomorrow.
John Hemming, the MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on peak oil and gas, said the revelations confirmed his suspicions that the IEA underplayed how quickly the world was running out and this had profound implications for British government energy policy.
He said he had also been contacted by some IEA officials unhappy with its lack of independent scepticism over predictions. "Reliance on IEA reports has been used to justify claims that oil and gas supplies will not peak before 2030. It is clear now that this will not be the case and the IEA figures cannot be relied on," said Hemming.
"This all gives an importance to the Copenhagen [climate change] talks and an urgent need for the UK to move faster towards a more sustainable [lower carbon] economy if it is to avoid severe economic dislocation," he added.
The IEA was established in 1974 after the oil crisis in an attempt to try to safeguard energy supplies to the west. The World Energy Outlook is produced annually under the control of the IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, who has defended the projections from earlier outside attack. Peak oil critics have often questioned the IEA figures.
But now IEA sources who have contacted the Guardian say that Birol has increasingly been facing questions about the figures inside the organisation.
Matt Simmons, a respected oil industry expert, has long questioned the decline rates and oil statistics provided by Saudi Arabia on its own fields. He has raised questions about whether peak oil is much closer than many have accepted.
A report by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) last month said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could "peak" and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk. Steve Sorrell, chief author of the report, said forecasts suggesting oil production will not peak before 2030 were "at best optimistic and at worst implausible".
But as far back as 2004 there have been people making similar warnings. Colin Campbell, a former executive with Total of France told a conference: "If the real [oil reserve] figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets … in the end that would suit no one."
Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
Exclusive: Watchdog's estimates of reserves inflated says top official
The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.
The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.
'There's suspicion the IEA has been influenced by the US' Link to this audio In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.
Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.
"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.
A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.
The IEA acknowledges the importance of its own figures, boasting on its website: "The IEA governments and industry from all across the globe have come to rely on the World Energy Outlook to provide a consistent basis on which they can formulate policies and design business plans."
The British government, among others, always uses the IEA statistics rather than any of its own to argue that there is little threat to long-term oil supplies.
The IEA said tonight that peak oil critics had often wrongly questioned the accuracy of its figures. A spokesman said it was unable to comment ahead of the 2009 report being released tomorrow.
John Hemming, the MP who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on peak oil and gas, said the revelations confirmed his suspicions that the IEA underplayed how quickly the world was running out and this had profound implications for British government energy policy.
He said he had also been contacted by some IEA officials unhappy with its lack of independent scepticism over predictions. "Reliance on IEA reports has been used to justify claims that oil and gas supplies will not peak before 2030. It is clear now that this will not be the case and the IEA figures cannot be relied on," said Hemming.
"This all gives an importance to the Copenhagen [climate change] talks and an urgent need for the UK to move faster towards a more sustainable [lower carbon] economy if it is to avoid severe economic dislocation," he added.
The IEA was established in 1974 after the oil crisis in an attempt to try to safeguard energy supplies to the west. The World Energy Outlook is produced annually under the control of the IEA's chief economist, Fatih Birol, who has defended the projections from earlier outside attack. Peak oil critics have often questioned the IEA figures.
But now IEA sources who have contacted the Guardian say that Birol has increasingly been facing questions about the figures inside the organisation.
Matt Simmons, a respected oil industry expert, has long questioned the decline rates and oil statistics provided by Saudi Arabia on its own fields. He has raised questions about whether peak oil is much closer than many have accepted.
A report by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) last month said worldwide production of conventionally extracted oil could "peak" and go into terminal decline before 2020 – but that the government was not facing up to the risk. Steve Sorrell, chief author of the report, said forecasts suggesting oil production will not peak before 2030 were "at best optimistic and at worst implausible".
But as far back as 2004 there have been people making similar warnings. Colin Campbell, a former executive with Total of France told a conference: "If the real [oil reserve] figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets … in the end that would suit no one."
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