absolute certainty

ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY

I don't know what but something has gone wrong with the gadget that links Amazon products to this blog. Until it is fixed, I've added a daily links page to my web page. I'll give you the link and when you are ready to buy from Amazon please go through that page first. Just like if you'd gone through a link in this article, I'll get credit for your purchase. You pay no extra, I get paid from commission to keep writing. Here's today's link:


www.bisonpress.com/dailylink030711.html

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I’m still inspired on a regular basis by reading American Energy Crisis. Here’s someone doing the hard work pretty much as a public service. Me, I’m just a selfish bastard. I write because that is what I enjoy. And, even though my apprenticeship was a very long ten plus years, now I’m making money at it.

http://americanenergycrisis.blogspot.com/2011/03/were-here.html#links

The above article was today’s inspiration. People are taking into account NOTHING about Peak Oil, what the absolute certainty of it means. Here at the Bison Compound, the focus tends to be on inspiring panic. If you can’t get the motivation to give up on yesterday’s wealth paradigm, you will stay on the Business As Usual boat as it is washed over the falls. But once you buy into Peak Oil, where do you go from there? A stockpile of food and ammo is great. That insulates you from sudden collapse. But you should also think about the journey between here and the last of the affordable oil.

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The switch from agriculture to manufacturing was by no means painless. But as a general rule we moved into an easier existence by going from solar to petroleum power ( for simplicities sake, coal is lumped into the petroleum age and it is understood that wood and water was part of the solar even if we did tend to strip the forests rather than husband that resource ). How we made our food isn’t that important however. The fundamental issue is that we grew a continent wide civilization, then empire, based on growth. That is the basic problem we have to contend with. Almost four hundred years of ( Mostly ) White American civilization has used growth as the model. We stripped an un-mined continent of its resources. It was a big continent, so it lasted awhile. We added Alaska and the Gulf Of Mexico, we added in global economic colonialism. We added into the mix one of the globes largest reserves of oil. And it is now all gone. Not the resource part. We won’t ever cut down the last tree or use up the last drop of oil. But we’ve rushed past the point where there was enough to constantly fuel growth. There is your key right there. Growth is impossible. Growth was what made us wealthy. Growth, 400 years old, that is no longer possible.

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Even in 1971 when we peaked out in petroleum production ( and the lower 48 is the worlds most intensively explored areas for oil- if it is there we’ve already found it ), we were still able to continue growth. It was no longer a growth based on eating our seed corn as much as it was a cancerous growth. We have essentially lived off the rest of the world for forty years. Five years ago that started to unravel. Okay, it might have started unraveling longer than that. But that was when the huge sign “end of the road” was placed at the cliff edge. That was when our oil imports started to decline. Let me say this again, in case there was any confusion. Oil Down is Growth Down is Game Over. The last thirty plus years might have been imported oil fueled growth with stimulated population growth through deliberate policy to goose a derivative economy. That is a pathetic unsustainable growth. But at least it was some kind of growth. It kept our ass out of the fire. That is over and done with. No growth is a proven, rear view mirror observed phenomenon. Oil imports have declined for five years through good times and bad. Through economic stimulus of all kinds. Through a war time economy. Through cheap oil prices and dear oil prices. Imports will continue to decline. Which means growth will not return.

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Growth is everything to Americans. It is employment. It is the welfare state. It is warmth in the winter, a car to drive, a way to educate your children. To care for your sick aged parents. Every aspect of our being is based on a model of growth. You don’t undo four centuries of gradually laying the infrastructure of an economy based on growth. Every position of power or wealth, and the reason that every citizen even survives, is based on growth. Have you thought that through? There is no saving such things as state pensions and Social Security. They needed a growth of jobs to fund retirees. There will be no more industrialized food production. Growth in demand allowed companies to sell cheaply. The demand growth paid the loans that bought the land and equipment. There will be no more corporations. Population and wealth growth allowed more people to buy shares that funded them. There will be no more bank growth. In and of itself, not a bad thing. But since the entire economy is controlled by banks, that is a bad thing. Without banks, trade credit is gone. And without credit no one does business. Government growth is dead. So everything you depend on the government for, such as defense, eventually can’t be supported. We are seeing the embryo of all these problems. But because we take growth for granted we assume it is a temporary lull on the way up. A slight stall on the upwards path of growth. If future growth is impossible, all the institutions keeping us not just wealthy, but alive, start to perish.

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I understand no one wants to take this path to its logical conclusion. It is scary as crap to think about living in a true brutish life, as opposed to living in an entertainment fantasy world we can close the cover on or flick the off switch to. It isn’t that we can’t enjoy a more traditional life, one without growth. We will still marry ( a lot earlier ), still have mini-me’s ( a lot of them without condoms or The Pill ). We’ll still party on the same kinds of cool narcotics ( hell, it might be easier to do so later ). True existence, family and friends, as opposed to a hollow life of accumulating worthless paper, will be just as sweet. The basic problem will be that your life expectancy will suffer a huge blow. Life will become a lot cheaper and a lot shorter. Being uncomfortable will be the new normal. Not what any of us are used to. But we are on our way there. Accept reality or it will, literally, bury you.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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