biodiversity loss, climate change and peak oil -related threats

[Tarrel]

(6 May 2013, 16:50)Jonas Wrote: [quote='Tarrel' pid='55884' dateline='1367845635']

Quote:The Falklands would never have happened

Quote:ROFLMFAO!. What on earth do you think it was about, if not oil?!

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Great theory, but then The Falkland War was in 1982. The possibility of offshore oil deposits there wasn't even known until 2003 or so. The Falkland War was triggered by an invasion ordered by the Argentine government, a group of generals who had mounted a coup, then collapsed the economy (though the Argentine economy wouldn't finally go "tango-uniform" until 2001). The ruling military junta decided to take the peoples' minds off the governmental shortcomings by retaking the disputed Falkland Islands. I was still in the service at the time and read the intel briefs.

Quote:It's almost certainly peak oil that is behind our current economic problems. The experts are scratching their heads trying to figure out why economic growth won't return. There's talk of "double-dip recessions", "triple-dip recessions". What's next; "quadruple-dip recession"?, "quintuple-dip recession"? The problem is most economic models don't factor in the importance of energy, and just assume it will always be there in infinite quantities. This is because most modern economics was developed during the age of abundant fossil fuels.

Actually the responsibility for the world's current economic problems has little or nothing to do with so-called "peak oil". Rather, the responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the central bankers, technocrats, and politicians who have allowed the printing of massive amounts of paper fiat currency backed by nothing more than vast quantities of paper and ink. Without going into a discussion of leveraged banking and the existence of over one quadrillion dollars in "financial derivatives", ($1,000,000,000,000,000.00 for those who want to see it visually), I highly recommend regular reading of the website Zero Hedge (http://www.zerohedge.com) for professional information on the state of world economies and markets, and Adam Fergusson's book "When Money Dies", an extremely in-depth look at the collapse of the Weimar Republic after WWI.

History does repeat itself, and correct information is definitely our friend. Conversely, ignorance is definitely NOT bliss, and can be extremely harmful to your economic health.

I bow to your insider knowledge, but I'm not sure I agree that oil wasn't at least partly a factor. There were political considerations this end as well; we've just been going over this ground quite a bit in the UK with the departure of Baroness Thatcher. I don't think there's much doubt that she used the Falklands situation to her advantage politically. However, the conflict came at the end of several decades of British Empire retrenchment, in which many overseas interests and colonies were "let go". Why should the Falklands be any different unless there was an ulterior motive? And there have been mutterings about oil under the South Atlantic for many years.

With regard to finance, yes I agree that debt and financial speculation are both critical reasons why the current set-up cannot continue. However I believe peak oil has brought the situation much more sharply into focus, and brought forward any potential day of reckoning. Without peak oil it may have been possible to maintain growth for a few more years and "kick the can down the road" until the debt burden overtook even the most productive economies.

The more precarious the economic situation becomes, the easier it is for a small energy price or supply shock to destabilise it. look at 2008; rising petroleum and food prices were just enough to push millions of already stretched mortgage-holders into default, with the domino-effect that followed. The latest edition of the KunstlerCast has an interview with Steve Ludlum of the Economic Undertow. He points to a historical trend over the past few decades, in which the size of energy price-spike needed to cause economic chaos seems to be coming down over time.

Yes, I read ZeroHedge. Also Chris Martenson, Nicole Foss and FinancialSense.com. All useful reading.