World economy

Bugz

Fledgling Freddie
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I highly doubt the world economy is going to self-destruct as you think.

The British economy for one is simply in the downturn of the trade cycle, made worse because the last so and so years of amazing growth will constitute a drop in the cycle of the same caliber.

Peak oil; high food prices etc. all constitute problems but they don't flatten economies. They are simply an obstacle that the economy takes into consideration and flattens out.

The world as a whole experienced very strong growth throughout the end of the 20th century and to an extent, the beginning of the 21st. It is accepted economic understanding that what goes up, must come down.

The housing market for example constitutes, in my opinion, nothing more than an imperfection in capital vs. consumer, something that is inevitable; but also this simply means that temporary unemployment switches from one industry to another (not 100% efficiency of course but substantial enough). Just because people aren't buying houses, doesn't mean our economy is going to develop into a post-stone-age development.

Sure, we have problems ahead of us, but then we've always had problems ahead of it - it's how the world works. After the world wars, people had problems for more than 10-15 years - an absurd downturn length - but the economy simply bounced back, bringing the consumerisation (is that a word? it sure sounds fancy) of the 60's.

All in all - no the economy won't blow up, although we do have some tough times ahead of us to pull through.
 

old.Tohtori

FH is my second home
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Oh so thats the reason. Because i made a joke about lamp? :m00:


Bye bye.

No. Because you start calling people names, and judge their posts straight off the bat even if you think it's REASONABLE to YOU of all things.

The day you discuss something with less of a stick up your self-righteous butt, i'll start answering you with more thought.

Atleast i know i sometimes annoy people and have very argumentative views...
 

Gorbachioo

Fledgling Freddie
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I highly doubt the world economy is going to self-destruct as you think.

The British economy for one is simply in the downturn of the trade cycle, made worse because the last so and so years of amazing growth will constitute a drop in the cycle of the same caliber.

Peak oil; high food prices etc. all constitute problems but they don't flatten economies. They are simply an obstacle that the economy takes into consideration and flattens out.

The world as a whole experienced very strong growth throughout the end of the 20th century and to an extent, the beginning of the 21st. It is accepted economic understanding that what goes up, must come down.

The housing market for example constitutes, in my opinion, nothing more than an imperfection in capital vs. consumer, something that is inevitable; but also this simply means that temporary unemployment switches from one industry to another (not 100% efficiency of course but substantial enough). Just because people aren't buying houses, doesn't mean our economy is going to develop into a post-stone-age development.

Sure, we have problems ahead of us, but then we've always had problems ahead of it - it's how the world works. After the world wars, people had problems for more than 10-15 years - an absurd downturn length - but the economy simply bounced back, bringing the consumerisation (is that a word? it sure sounds fancy) of the 60's.

All in all - no the economy won't blow up, although we do have some tough times ahead of us to pull through.

Peak oil isnt "just an obstacle". Its the foundation of our economy being taken away from us. Neither of us is qualified to say what the effects of it are because nothing like this has ever happened before. And you're not even considering the fact that politics might get in the way aswell. Before 9/11 i would have shared your optimism. Too many things have gone wrong for me to be an optimist at this stage.

The thing is, those with oil will rule things. And those who rule things now, dont have oil. See the problem here?
 

Bugz

Fledgling Freddie
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I do agree with you that oil is the foundations of our economy at the moment, but I hold optimism that humanity will simply build and develop past it.

It is a theory that has stood the test of time (the Boserup theory if anyone is interested) and I can't see how such a prosperous century will not bring new inventions.

Humanity only really develops out of problems, when it has to. At the moment, although oil will eventually run out (still debates on whether we've reached peak oil status I believe), we still have a comparatively ready supply. Some of the price inceeases of the past so and so have been due to problems other than oil shortages; petrol prices for example have reduced somewhat lately.

So, yes, while I do agree that oil is a fundamental; the same could be applied to many products in the past, although not as globalised obviously.
 

Gorbachioo

Fledgling Freddie
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I do agree with you that oil is the foundations of our economy at the moment, but I hold optimism that humanity will simply build and develop past it.

It is a theory that has stood the test of time (the Boserup theory if anyone is interested) and I can't see how such a prosperous century will not bring new inventions.

Humanity only really develops out of problems, when it has to. At the moment, although oil will eventually run out (still debates on whether we've reached peak oil status I believe), we still have a comparatively ready supply. Some of the price inceeases of the past so and so have been due to problems other than oil shortages; petrol prices for example have reduced somewhat lately.

So, yes, while I do agree that oil is a fundamental; the same could be applied to many products in the past, although not as globalised obviously.

Ofcourse we will eventually replace it with something. Im not saying we're going back to stone age. But its starting to look like we wont be able to do so in time. Also, many argue that the lifestyle we live wont even be possible with other energy sources. I dont know whether thats true though.

Anyway, its the politics that im more afraid of.
 

Thorwyn

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Sorry to interrupt your armageddon-theories but...
We know that we´re running out of oil since 1970something, so where does the surprise part come in? We have dumped billions and billions of dollars into alternative energy sources and so far, I´d say we have done quite a good job. (We as in "the world").
 

Gorbachioo

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Thorwyn

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Indeed we do!

Considering the fact that
a. we´re not running out of oil for the next couple of years and
b. the ratio of the energy sources are constantly changing (away from oil)

Once again:
When I was in school, they were constantly telling us that we´re running out of oil and that the next WW is about to come. Hell... the government even introduced a car-free sunday. Back in the 70ies! And nothing happened. We´re still merrily cruising with our cabriolets, switch on the heater when temperatures drop below 20 degree (Celsius) and plastic bags still go for 8 cent/piece. I´m not saying the situation is cool and the future is bright, but there´s no need to go into panic mode yet.

Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.
 

Gorbachioo

Fledgling Freddie
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Indeed we do!

Considering the fact that
a. we´re not running out of oil for the next couple of years and
b. the ratio of the energy sources are constantly changing (away from oil)

Once again:
When I was in school, they were constantly telling us that we´re running out of oil and that the next WW is about to come. Hell... the government even introduced a car-free sunday. Back in the 70ies! And nothing happened. We´re still merrily cruising with our cabriolets, switch on the heater when temperatures drop below 20 degree (Celsius) and plastic bags still go for 8 cent/piece. I´m not saying the situation is cool and the future is bright, but there´s no need to go into panic mode yet.

Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.

So because they were wrong then they are ofcourse wrong now? :p

a) We won run out in decades. But you know very well that that isnt what this is about.

b) It is. But we have reached the peak and its still ridiculously small. Hardly anything to be optimistic about?
 

Golena

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The problem with graphs like that is the way these things work.

You don't invent a new way of producing power, go "look it doesn't use oil" then build thousands of them because that's way too expensive and your left with hundreds of first-gen machines pumping out inneficient energy.
You build some prototypes, you set them running, you improve on them and make them better.

Then just before you actually run out of oil you build lots of them and switch to using them. That way you have lots of the newest most cost effective solution, instead of having to constantly upgrade your early designs over and over again at massive cost when they wern't cheaper than using oil in the first place.

What would you rather do.. spend a few million building a wind farm then improving it, or spend several billion building 100's of them only to find out you need to tear it down because someone came up with a way of making it twice as efficient a year later. Now if you need the power then you do the second option and you get a nice graph. If there's still plenty of cheap oil about, you don't and you stick with the first option.
 

Hawkwind

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Have this image in my head of Gordon Brown running north of the border shouting, "it mite ah takan 250 years but we got ya English Bastards back in the end!"

Would have been nice to know that labour were funding all their tax breaks with World bank money. UK in the top 5 owing money to world bank again is a disagrace and the same shit they pulled in the 70's.
 

Lamp

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Someone I know from Lehman Brothers called me. He was told to stop trading when he got into work, pack up his things, and go home. He reckons 5000 people will lose their jobs in Canary Wharf. There's probably going to be thousands more job losses at Merrill Lynch (they got taken over by BoA), and who knows what's going to happen at AIG.
 

Gorbachioo

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The problem with graphs like that is the way these things work.

You don't invent a new way of producing power, go "look it doesn't use oil" then build thousands of them because that's way too expensive and your left with hundreds of first-gen machines pumping out inneficient energy.
You build some prototypes, you set them running, you improve on them and make them better.

Then just before you actually run out of oil you build lots of them and switch to using them. That way you have lots of the newest most cost effective solution, instead of having to constantly upgrade your early designs over and over again at massive cost when they wern't cheaper than using oil in the first place.

What would you rather do.. spend a few million building a wind farm then improving it, or spend several billion building 100's of them only to find out you need to tear it down because someone came up with a way of making it twice as efficient a year later. Now if you need the power then you do the second option and you get a nice graph. If there's still plenty of cheap oil about, you don't and you stick with the first option.

Yeees i do agree to an extent. However, you dont just build the equivalent of 85 million barrels of oil of windpower just like that. The capacity isnt there. Whos going to build those windfarms?

The second problem is that peak oil is not exactly an energy crisis. Its a liquid fuel crisis. We dont have electric cars on the roads. We dont have heavy machinery running on electricity. We dont have tractors running on electricity. Everything is oil. EVERYTHING. To survive peak oil we'll have to change the way we do everything.
 

Golena

Fledgling Freddie
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Yeees i do agree to an extent. However, you dont just build the equivalent of 85 million barrels of oil of windpower just like that. The capacity isnt there. Whos going to build those windfarms?

The second problem is that peak oil is not exactly an energy crisis. Its a liquid fuel crisis. We dont have electric cars on the roads. We dont have heavy machinery running on electricity. We dont have tractors running on electricity. Everything is oil. EVERYTHING. To survive peak oil we'll have to change the way we do everything.

See that's what makes me think the mass panic that is going on at the moment has got the scale of the problem incorrect.
You don't see people building huge wind-farms at a vast rate, or producing lots of electric cars. It's all being done at a fairly slow rate.

Now i'm going to assume that someone knows the correct state of he oil reserves. I'm quite happy to believe that we the public don't get the correct facts, but someone up there in charge knows the actual truth. I fail to believe that every car company is going to wake up on a monday morning sometimes soon and go crap, we have no more oil. If only we had built an electric car.

All I can really deduce from that is that the problem isn't quite as iminent as some people might believe. The real question is given the right motivation how fast can that graph go to one that doesn't use oil. If the motivation is right i'd imagine it's quite alot faster than you might expect. It's not going to happen in a weekend sure, but then we're not going to completely run out of oil in the next week.
 

Gorbachioo

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See that's what makes me think the mass panic that is going on at the moment has got the scale of the problem incorrect.
You don't see people building huge wind-farms at a vast rate, or producing lots of electric cars. It's all being done at a fairly slow rate.

Now i'm going to assume that someone knows the correct state of he oil reserves. I'm quite happy to believe that we the public don't get the correct facts, but someone up there in charge knows the actual truth. I fail to believe that every car company is going to wake up on a monday morning sometimes soon and go crap, we have no more oil. If only we had built an electric car.

All I can really deduce from that is that the problem isn't quite as iminent as some people might believe. The real question is given the right motivation how fast can that graph go to one that doesn't use oil. If the motivation is right i'd imagine it's quite alot faster than you might expect. It's not going to happen in a weekend sure, but then we're not going to completely run out of oil in the next week.

You would think that major companies like GM would know better. But do they? GM for one is on the brink of banktrupcy. What does that tell you?
 

Bugz

Fledgling Freddie
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You would think that major companies like GM would know better. But do they? GM for one is on the brink of banktrupcy. What does that tell you?

The situation with GM, which has stretched over quite a few years now, is not simply a result of the lack of diversification they placed on their cars.

It has simply become a tough industry for them, especially when they have HUGE employee liabilities.
 

tierk

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I have heard you talking about peak oil before and as i explained to you on the last big thread about high oil prices, it has nothig to do with peak oil and everything to do with speculators and the loss of value of the Dollar. I think at the time of that thread oil was in the $150 range, today it is at below $100so what changed ? Did they discover a 100 billion barrels of oil reserves since June? Nope, the $ regained a little value and oversupply in the market has reduced the price of oil.

As for heading to a serious depression, i think on this one you are right. We are headed towards one of the worst down turns we have ever seen and it wont be pretty. The current situation is only the beginning.
 

old.Tohtori

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1929 women were easier, easier to control and didn't know about all this "my rights" molarky.

Bring it on! :D
 

cHodAX

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You have seen nothing yet, if AIG fall then the shit really hits the fan. Word is that other leading investment banks are on the edge just as Lehmanns were, we are looking at a full on stock market crash if another big player goes to the wall. It will be 1929 all over again.

Great Depression - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 

Mey

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I plan on growing alot of my own food this year, so if the shit hits the fan you can all come round my house for stew..
 

Vasconcelos

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If McCain wins, they might decide that what the country needs to recover from a depression (or to avoid it), is another war to revitalize the US industry (metal industry, weapons, techonology and other side-industries related with all the needings and preparations for a war)....

Dont be surprised if we behold another Corea or Vietnam in the years to come... :(
 

Gorbachioo

Fledgling Freddie
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I have heard you talking about peak oil before and as i explained to you on the last big thread about high oil prices, it has nothig to do with peak oil and everything to do with speculators and the loss of value of the Dollar. I think at the time of that thread oil was in the $150 range, today it is at below $100so what changed ? Did they discover a 100 billion barrels of oil reserves since June? Nope, the $ regained a little value and oversupply in the market has reduced the price of oil.

As for heading to a serious depression, i think on this one you are right. We are headed towards one of the worst down turns we have ever seen and it wont be pretty. The current situation is only the beginning.

Such logic. Demand has been going down fast. And probably a part of that 150 was speculation, but not much. Oil still is is 10 times as expensive as it was 8 years ago. You seem to forget that. The only way we'll go below 70 is a major recession. Oversupply... :m00:
 

Gorbachioo

Fledgling Freddie
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If McCain wins, they might decide that what the country needs to recover from a depression (or to avoid it), is another war to revitalize the US industry (metal industry, weapons, techonology and other side-industries related with all the needings and preparations for a war)....

Dont be surprised if we behold another Corea or Vietnam in the years to come... :(

Iran? :p
 

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