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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The future is here
  • Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 08:52:24 EDT



> It is kind of amusing (in a grim sort of way) to see 'peak oil'
> suddenly popping up everywhere, and increasingly in mainstream media
> after seeing the idea laughed at and dismissed for so long.

------------------------

Yes, indeed. It is amazing, is it not, the numger of warnings that have
appeared on the horizion years before the fact and have been dismissed as nut
case, lunatic fringe conspiracies and then suddenly everyone looks around,
slaps
their forehead and cries "Who could have seen this coming?"

Two things are required, says I, 1) pay attention to these "theories" and 2)
research the premise behind them to see if there is anything to them.

The Y2K debacle was all hype. I was in the industry at the time and I, and
every informed IT person I knew (and I knew plenty) all said it was hype. It
was. Anyone looking very deeply into the problem found no substance behind
it.

About the same time many started warning about the tech stock bubble and the
math behind those warnings was sound. Even while their life savings were
evaporating into oblivion, so many people I knew were in denial ... you know,
there have been dips in stock sectors before, ho-hum, this is just like all
the
others, it will go right back up ... after all, techie-thingies are the
future
... right? right??

Today, eight years later, the value of those (few) stocks that didn't belly
up completely are only about half what they were back then. The warning was
real, the math was sound, the logic held.

Then we have the case of the housing bubble. I read warnings of a coming
housing bubble in 2001. The logic seemed sound, the math checked out. What
was
offered as a counter point to this math was "real estate always goes up",
"it's just a cycle", "now is a great time to buy!!" From the inkling of
the
warnings to the peak in real estate "values" was four years, and yet, the
inevitable happened and happened in spades.

Same song, next verse, even yesterday I had to pat my foot impatiently while
I listened to a relative explain to me that it's all speculation, it's the
oil
companies figuring out how to jack up prices, "oh, I'm not saying it's ALL
speculative profit, I'll be gas is still $2 a gallon even after the gas
bubble
bursts." Instead of preparing for a world where gas is NEVER going down that
low in pirce again, and in fact will likely double over its current price,
the
world is abuzz with "lots of oil left, it they'd only let them drill in
ANWR",
"oil companies have bought up the patent on a car that runs on moonlight",
"all we have to do is put French fry oil in our cars" ... etc.

It's like watching someone on a sinking boat trying to bail it out with a
teaspoon. Those same bits of blather came up when gas was $2 a gallon, and
$2.50, and surely $3 was the limit ,... now we are bidding fair for $4 gas,
then
........

Two says ago when the price shot up in one day, someone called the local talk
radio show saying the problem was easily solved, the French had developed a
car that runs on compressed air. Sooooo ... isn't all we have to do is to
hook
the car battery to an air compressor and run the car from that?

The notion that the fuel problem will be fixed by solar energy, wind, or
drilling in ANWR is like the person bailing out the sinking boat with the
teaspoon
suddenly discovering that they have a tablespoon with which to bail. The
boat sinks none the less.

A few years ago may analysts said that when world oil supply reached a
physical peak, when oil could not be extracted at a continuing higher rate,
then
1) gas and other fuel would go sharply higher (check) 2) this would cause
food and fertilizer prices to go up just as steeply (check) 3) suburbia
would
become increasingly infeasible and real estate values there would plummet
(check)

Yes indeed, the future is here.


James </HTML>




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