tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8850795848027608997.post4540168732218892016..comments2023-11-05T02:15:15.513-08:00Comments on Majia's Blog: Evidence that the Recovery was an ILLUSION Created by Poorly Targeted Fed Spending, Media Manipulation and Statstical LiesMajia's Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04941091700194936591noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8850795848027608997.post-86705493297567112392011-05-22T16:57:57.069-07:002011-05-22T16:57:57.069-07:00To characterize this as any kind of Depression imp...To characterize this as any kind of Depression implies it is cyclical, and will end. There is a much better explanation.<br /><br />In the USA, discoveries of petroleum peaked in the 1930s and thereafter started a relentless decline. Since peak discoveries, every year after we've found less than the year before. USA *production* of petroleum peaked 40 years later -- in 1970 -- and has declined, year by year, ever since. One curve follows the other -- you discover less, and eventually you produce less.<br /><br />*Worldwide* discoveries of oil peaked in the 1960s. Each year we find less than the year before, and much less than we use, which rises every year. That means production of petroleum MUST decline -- and, in fact, the decline is already beginning. Most oil provinces have long been on the downside of production; now the world as a whole is in decline. We'll find more -- but each year less than the year before, and less than we use -- so says 150 years of oil history.<br /><br />Less oil means less energy per-capita. It also means less food per acre. The "green" revolution of the 1930s meant the same acre could produce 5x (or more) as much food as before, thanks to fertilizer, insecticide and the energy used by farm machinery -- and all of it from petroleum and natural gas. Less petroleum = less food.<br /><br />Peak oil was a theory when M.K. Hubbert predicted in 1956 that USA oil production would peak in 1970; since then it has been a fact. The Peak Oil crowd predicted the crash of the the stock market and the bankruptcy of General Motors and the burst of the real estate bubble. The gap between real oil production and what would be needed for continuous growth has been temporarily made up with credit -- propping up the consensus trance, and the myth that the human story is the story of perpetual growth and advancement.<br /><br />This isn't "Depression 2.0" -- it's a turning point in history. From 1850 until 2008, the world story was increasing energy per capita.<br />Human nature being what it is, a lot of that energy went into blowing each other up. Now the next 150 years will be the story of the decline in energy per capita, and all that makes inevitable. Solar and wind turbines are all very grand, and all totally inadequate to let life as we live it today continue. There is no "alternate" energy in the sense of being a substitute for how we live now.<br /><br />Time to buy a bicycle. <br /><br />CKThe Sound Blue Flames Makehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13758451407227586727noreply@blogger.com