oil down economics

OIL DOWN ECONOMICS


I know that you all tune in every day not just for my groundbreaking pearls of wisdom as I faithfully regurgitate the same handful of core ideas over and over again, not only for the vast entertainment value of my caustic whit, but also because you idolize me and want to be just like me. You protest at the silliness of my primitive lifestyle, living in a barely insulated tin box in the high desert ( High Desert: A Journey of Survival and Hope ), purposefully ignoring my grand strategy of avoiding the vast sewage pond of humanity by hiding in the Great Basin center, but secretly, deep down, you are insanely jealous that I’ve found peace and contentment in my semi-solitude and my success at minimizing my desire for money. So, when I throw you a bone by describing my latest seemingly mundane activity, you clandestinely cheer and blush with envy. Don’t worry, your shameful obsession is safe with me. Here it is- I’ve just ordered two doomer fiction books. “One” by C. Williams ( One ) and “American Apocalypse II” ( American Apocalypse II - Refuge ). Once received and quickly read, I shall review them for you, my loyal minions. AAII is quite expensive at $15, a normally shamefully exploitive high price for a paperback. But I loved the first one even if it was Militia porn rather than doomer escapism, so I am more than ready to take a chance laying down that kind of coin. All so you may safeguard your hard earned money as you await my verdict. I don’t know about the other one, but it looked pretty interesting.

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Why all the noise and flash about the WikiLinks Afghan War documents? I thought I heard they were all non-Top Secret. You can be sure there is a story behind the story. Distracting us from the nuclear Iran attack, shifting attention from the continual Gulf oil leak, something. Pay no attention to the squawking. Noise makers, so you don’t hear the assassin creeping up behind you.

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You should go over to

http://americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com/

and read Monday’s article. We don’t agree on the collapse, but what he says here makes a lot of sense. In effect, slow collapse. At least until 2020 at which point the oil decline might be too deep to make an accurate prediction. He isn’t calling for an indefinite slow collapse, but does distrust all our doomer talk about a sudden “wake up the next morning to a Mad Max ( The Road Warrior / Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Double Feature) ) world”. Which really should be an amusement park. Mad Max World. See Max eat dog food. See gay bike riders slay innocent civilians. See evil hockey mask dude act like the new Genghis. Anyway, his article got me thinking perhaps I should elaborate on my sudden collapse thoughts. Again. As one minion stated, it is a slow collapse. Until it isn’t. My analogy is not the staircase down but the gentle river sloping down until the sudden waterfall. Not because I like the idea of a sudden collapse ( part of me does, conflicted between wanna-be warrior lust and the desire for luxury ) or because I’ve read too much doomer fiction ( I have ), but because no other explanation makes sense as to why every other civilization collapse ( David Eagleman: Six Easy Steps to Avert the Collapse of Civilization ) in history has left no solid records. I contend that the collapse was so bad that everything was destroyed except myths. I would love to be wrong, but I certainly ain’t going to bet my life on it.

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Now, as important as it is to know whether the collapse will be sudden or slow is- your strategy of incremental stockpiling and a thirty year mortgage would be useless in a sudden collapse and selling the wife and kids to move out into the wilderness fully stockpiled would be silly in a slow collapse- to some degree it might not matter too much. If we have another ten years of 7/10ths of a percent oil import decrease a month ahead of us ( as has been the case for the last three plus years ), it follows that the economic pain ahead of us will make the last few years look like the height of the Internet Bubble ( The Internet Bubble: Inside the Overvalued World of High-Tech Stocks--And What You Need to Know to Avoid the Coming Shakeout ). You lose your job, your home, your paper wealth. Everyone still eats, which is only accomplished by a combination of home gardening, ballooning Food Stamp use and cutting off food exports ( plus rationing petroleum to give fuel to the ag sector ). But everything else is going to hell. In real terms, Social Security buys less and less every month. Socialized medicine is rationed to give time for the terminals to die off without wasting resources. Hyper-inflation ( 1923 GERMANY HYPER INFLATION 100.000.000 / 100 Millions Mark very fine ) at Zimbabwe levels means food is given to the poor in pounds per coupon rather than dollar amounts. One non-critical industry after another ( airlines, travel ) is bankrupt. Local government services such as road repair and parks are abandoned. Civil servants are fired before retirement. Retired civil servants see the same worthless checks as old people. One after another overseas military installations are recalled/mouthballed. And that is all just if our oil keeps declining.

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If the derivatives ( All About Derivatives (All About Series) ) bubble explodes ( and why wouldn’t it, with a quadrillion dollars of Monopoly money? ), that pain is global. If anyone can cushion ( not prevent, just cushion ) the impact it might be China, since they can pretty much override free markets at whim. They will have the infrastructure to actually garrison Asia and strip resources to the homeland. I’m sure there are easily other black swans, from sunspot hyperactivity to tipping point in the weather or exploding incidences of plant disease. So, no, none of this is the collapse ( Collapse ). Yet. But your ability to stay in the money economy is ended. You will, if we are all lucky, still get the Roman bread and circuses to keep you alive and distracted. Free channels of digital TV ( will rooftop antennas be the next government giveaway as legions can no longer afford cable? ) and government cheese ( American cheese, with plenty of Frankenfood soy oil- and apropos to nothing, did you know Henry Ford was a big fan of soy beans substituting for dairy and such? ). You can’t decide where you live. Where to work, if you still work. Will you be forced into government concentration camps if you are homeless? How will you be able to continue to prep if you have no job or house?

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My point is that even if the collapse of civilization might be ten years away, your economic ability to prepare for it will very quickly be erased as the economic collapse ( HOMEWARD surviving the global economic collapse ) readjusts your life. Even if the collapse isn’t sudden, your shopping will cease soon. Be prepared now, with Less Than The Best. Wheat, bolt guns, junk land. A $25 corn grinder rather than a $300 super deluxe unit. Surplus guns rather than wiz bang semi’s ( also apropos to little, the local ads are selling “self loading” guns in order, one imagines, to avoid the “semi-auto” evil stigma ). You already know the drill. Prep now with Better Than Nothing rather than waiting for the best that never becomes affordable or available.
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