Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> 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>