101 comments on In a shortage, businesses lose gas before homes
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
101 comments on In a shortage, businesses lose gas before homes
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Support The Oil Drum
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Campfire
TOD:Europe
- Peak Gold, Easier to Model than Peak Oil? - Part I
- Carbon Capture and Storage
- Oilwatch Monthly November 2009
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
TOD:Australia/NZ
- International Energy Agency calls 'Peak' on OECD Oil Demand
- Australian Senate: Peak Oil motion defeated 31:6
- The Bullroarer - Friday 20th November 2009
TOD:Net Energy
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- Early Warning
- The Energy Blog
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- Health After Oil
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Calculated Risk
- The Crash Course
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
Peak Oil Primers
Beware email scams!
Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.
“This order [i.e. capitalism] is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with the economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.”
—Max Weber, 1905
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Nate Hagens, Gail the Actuary, Prof. Goose
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Heading Out, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Sam Foucher, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Campfire: Glenn, Jason Bradford
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Emeritus: Stuart Staniford
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
==AC
I guess that won't be long...
Zimbabwe: living in a lunatic asylum
By Eddie Cross
Last updated: 10/05/2005 22:18:12
http://tinyurl.com/aw8df
THIS week, we broke a milestone of sorts - the Zimbabwe dollar collapsed to 100 000 to 1 against the US dollar. Just three months ago it was about 25 000 to 1. A businessman in Harare told me that in his business, inflation had been 600 per cent in six months. There is no sign of any stop to this slide - if anything it is accelerating
Activists claim McDonald's toys made with child labor
Hong Kong labor rights activists say these photos show a sweatshop across the border in China, bottom, and teenagers who work 16 to 20 hours a day making toys
September 6, 2000
Web posted at: 8:24 a.m. HKT (0024 GMT
http://tinyurl.com/cpdgc
Nike Just Doesn't Do It
by Carl Mayer
http://tinyurl.com/9rovj
In one of its most highly charged cases, the Supreme Court will soon rule on whether the First Amendment to the United States Constitution - the one that protects the free speech of living, breathing humans - allows multinational sneaker giant Nike corporation to deceive customers about working conditions in the company's global factories. These factories allegedly employ children under the age of sixteen, impose twelve-hour workdays, pay illegal poverty wages and expose workers to life-threatening environmental toxins.
The man who brought the lawsuit, Mark Kasky, is a runner who used to lace on Nike sneakers. But when Kasky found out that Nike - contrary to its own PR campaign - produces sneakers in factories that resemble 19th century London sweatshops depicted by Charles Dickens, he got mad. Kasky sued Nike under a California consumer protection law that requires companies to truthfully disclose how products are made.
http://tinyurl.com/a2ymb
Multinational Corporations Reap Profits from Child Labor in India's Cottonseed Farms
by Suhasini
NEW DELHI - A new report says an estimated 12,375 children continue to work under terrible conditions on cottonseed farms in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh which supply their produce to multinational corporations (MNCs) like Bayer and Monsanto, in defiance of last year's promises to eradicate child labor.
I have a major facility in China. We don't emlpoy child labor. If the Chinese government chooses to enslave their own population, yes, that is a problem. As it is in NK.
But what are the labor laws in China? Can you tell me? Does China allow what we in the West would consider children (<16) to work?
And thanks for those "Major News Source" links. All from the same site. Not buying it.
But what are the labor laws in China? Can you tell me? Does China allow what we in the West would consider children (<16) to work?
Great argument. Ya there are countries where it is legal to sleep with 12 year old children too. Does that mean its ok in your book? Should you do it because that opportunity is available?? "Well the law says I can work a 14 year old child 40+ hours a week for 2$US an hour". Then it's OK? Why not open "Your major facility" in the US?? It's much cheaper i.e. PROFITABLE to pay people that eat a bowl of rice a day and peddle a bike to work. You are part of the problem...
==AC
BTW
I think you missed the point about the CORPORATE OWNED media outlets....
Nice sleight of hand there. I have a factory in a foreign country so of course we all sleep with 12 year olds. Come on. Is that the best you have? If so, it's sad.
We have major facilities in the US. It costs us a lot of money to keep these facilities open. But our quality control is phenomenal. And we have yet to recreate that overseas (yes, we are trying).
The China facility is a joint venture. And it is paying off handsomely for both parties. Unfortunately child labor doesn't quite meet our standards. It is the same with a large chunk of Chinese labor. Yes there is a lot of it. A lot of it skilled, no. And that's what I need.
Ah, the bowl of rice argument. See that one a lot. Ok Mr. AC (easier to type). If the prevailing wage in timbuktustan is $1 a day and Mr. Evil corporate guy comes in and pays $5 a day, tell me how that is wrong. Please.
At our facilities in Africa, there are near riots when someone is either fired or a new position becomes available. Why? We pay way above standard wages. Y'all anti-corporatists have forced us into it. It causes huge problems in those countries.
Whoever works for us is considered rich (seriously). And it is true.
As an analogy, median (family) income in the US is roughly $40K. Now imagine Mr. Evil capitalist comes to the US and opens a factory. And he is paying $200k for basic labor. What would happen in this country if that happened? Gold rush? Damn straight. That is the reality of the global marketplace.
Touché . You know that wasn't the crux of my argument.
"The China facility is a joint venture. And it is paying off handsomely for both parties. Unfortunately child labor doesn't quite meet our standards. It is the same with a large chunk of Chinese labor."
You are you kidding when you say "Unfortunately", right?
"Ah, the bowl of rice argument. See that one a lot. Ok Mr. AC (easier to type). If the prevailing wage in timbuktustan is $1 a day and Mr. Evil corporate guy comes in and pays $5 a day, tell me how that is wrong. Please."
No I guess it's great for the poverty stricken worker in timbuktustan. But what does that mean for the US? What is to become of the US when all the manufacturing and production jobs or shipped away? It's not you MO, it's the system. The US is going to be timbuktustan soon enough the way we are being dismantled. If there is profit to be made after the US becomes a "timbuktustan", GREAT.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE US??
I'm sorry I stirred up TOD. I'll cease and desist..
==AC
And my competitors set the project back 6 months because they were in under the heads? You're getting in to the hundreds of millions of dollars lost. Over a million dollars worth of equipment.
That's why I will always have a base of US manufacturing. Despite the efforts of the EPA (that's a story for another day)
I'm going to assume you have kids. I don't have any basis for that assumption, it just feels right.
Here's the litmus test: Would you allow your child to work in your factory?
No?
Then screw you.
Skilled labor Descolada. Not a lot of 12 year old machinists out there. Or foundry workers. Or engineers. Jeez.
Litmus test? I've worked since I was 10. Since I did it by choice, I guess I exploited myself for child labor. And my kids will work. Best way to learn about the real world is to enter it.
Do you have children? Do you want them to grow up into irrational hot heads? No? Then Screw You! </joke>
In the posts leading up to this (and thus you should have read them before posting this (I won't use posts elsewhere in different threads, as I can't claim that you have to have read all comments in all stories before you're allowed to comment, but ettiquete demands that you have read the posts in the history of the conversation you are jumping into)), madoilman has said that he hires skilled labor, and it sounds like he pays above average wages (and exacts above average prices for the great product). It sounds in no way like he's looking to make a horrible work/slave environment.
Even more to the point, you don't even seem to give him any credit, there's no, "If not, then..." it's just that you assume that he wouldn't, and then tell him to screw himself. He's been polite in trying to continue this part of the thread while he could have just walked away.
<fighting_words> Last time I looked, this wasn't slashdot. </fighting_words>
Madoilman, you have my apologies for the treatment you're received for trying to contribute here.
I'm a big boy. And they are only words. From someone anonymous at that. My email address is part of my profile. As well as a boring and rarley posted to website. I don't have anything to hide.
And my views will necessarily clash with some members of this forum. It's to be expected on a topic that elicits such, er, passions.
From a general moral standpoint it is reasonable to assume that one human life is worth the same regardless if it is a Timbuktistani or an American.
So if runaway global capitalism makes a lot of Timbuktistani happier and able to live longer lives and fewer Americans unhappier and more short lived the world do overall become a better place.
But people do not work that way, faily, close friends, distant friends, local community, country is more important then distant people. (I care more about close friends then distant people. )
I think globalism or whatever you call it are making the fortunes more evenly distributed around the world. Distributed is the wrong word since it is not a fixed ammount of production capacity etc. It grows and gives among other things the imminent peak oil threath and a toolbox of capacities that can be used to mitigate that problem or used to make it worse.
This is an important viewpoint and I might return to that later. I have as far reached the conclusion that the energy efficiency has not improved as much as has been commonly believed. And much of the improvement is just been a result of energy-intensive investments, not primarily of technology.
This is an important viewpoint and I might return to that later. I have as far reached the conclusion that the energy efficiency has not improved as much as has been commonly believed. And much of the improvement is just been a result of energy-intensive investments, not primarily of technology"
Duncan points out below energy per capita has increased at an average rate of 1.34%year from 1979 to 1999 but the population increased faster than the increase in energy per capita. So per capita, net energy has been declining for some time. Is Duncan incorrect or am I reading it wrong? The poor have just been getting poorer; those with the largest military budgets get richer.
==AC
http://tinyurl.com/dw3jb
"Bottom Line: Although world energy production (E) from 1979 to 1999 increased at an average rate of 1.34%/year, world population (Pop) grew even faster. Thus world energy production per capita (ê) declined at an average rate of 0.33%/year during these same 20 years (Figure 3). See White's Law, top of this section.
Acknowledgments: As far as I know, credit goes to Robert Romer (1985) for being first to publish the peak-period data for world energy production per capita (ê) from 1900 to 1983. He put the peak (correctly!) in 1979, followed by a sharp decline through 1983, the last year of his data. Credit is also due to John Gibbons, et al. (1989) for publishing a graph of ê from 1950 to 1985. Gibbons, et al. put the peak in 1973. But curiously, neither of the above studies made any mention whatever about the importance of the peak and decline of world energy production per capita.
The 1979 peak and decline of world energy production per capita (ê) is shown on page 40 of BP Amoco (2000), www.bpamoco.com/worldenergy
. Have a look."(1) The amount of energy produced every year increased.
(2) The growth RATE (the derivative) of the amount of energy produced is positive. If it declined, the rate would be negative.
(3) Population has increased every year.
(4) Per capita means per person, so you literally divide a number by the population to make it "per capita."
(5) So, divide the energy production rate of increase by the population at each year to get your energy production rate per capita.
(6) As you can see, the energy production rate of increase per capita has decreased over time.
This happens whenever the rate of energy production increase is less than the rate of population increase. Even if the growth rate of energy production were constant, IE peak oil never happens, the per capita production increase would decrease over time if the population grew at a faster rate.
Does that make sense? Did I even answer the question I thought you were asking?
==AC
"It is not true that net energy per capita of the world has been dropping since 1978. I checked the BP energy statistics and world population statistics and got the result that the world energy consumption per capita has risen about 8% since the '70s."
Which if he is correct would in essence disprove the Olduvai Theory...
==AC
http://www.oilcrisis.com/duncan/olduvai2000.htm
http://www.oilcrisis.com/duncan/Olduvai.htm
If you can disprove his thesis I would be amazed!!
==AC
Figure 3. World Energy Production per Capita: 1920-1999
Notes: (1) World average energy production per capita (ê) grew significantly from 1920 to its all-time peak in 1979. (2) Then from its peak in 1979 to 1999, ê declined at an average rate of 0.33%year. This downward trend is the "Olduvai slope", discussed later. (3) The tiny cartoons emphasize that the delivery of electricity to end-users is the sin quo non of the 'modern way of life'. Not hydrocarbons.
Observe the variability of ê in Figure 3. In detail: From 1920 to 1945 ê grew moderately at an average of 0.69%/year. Then from 1945 to 1973 it grew at the torrid pace of 3.45%/year. Next, from 1973 to the all-time peak in 1979, growth slowed to 0.64%/year. But then suddenly - and for the first time in history - ê began a long-term decline extending from 1979 to 1999. This 20-year period is named the "Olduvai slope," the first of the three downside intervals in the "Olduvai schema."
Bottom Line: Although world energy production (E) from 1979 to 1999 increased at an average rate of 1.34%/year, world population (Pop) grew even faster. Thus world energy production per capita (ê) declined at an average rate of 0.33%/year during these same 20 years (Figure 3). See White's Law, top of this section.
Acknowledgments: As far as I know, credit goes to Robert Romer (1985) for being first to publish the peak-period data for world energy production per capita (ê) from 1900 to 1983. He put the peak (correctly!) in 1979, followed by a sharp decline through 1983, the last year of his data. Credit is also due to John Gibbons, et al. (1989) for publishing a graph of ê from 1950 to 1985. Gibbons, et al. put the peak in 1973. But curiously, neither of the above studies made any mention whatever about the importance of the peak and decline of world energy production per capita.
The 1979 peak and decline of world energy production per capita (ê) is shown on page 40 of BP Amoco (2000), www.bpamoco.com/worldenergy. Have a look.
....
Although all primary sources of energy are important, the Olduvai theory postulates that electricity is the quintessence of Industrial Civilization. World energy production per capita increased strongly from 1945 to its all-time peak in 1979. Then from 1979 to 1999 - for the first time in history - it decreased from 1979 to 1999 at a rate of 0.33%/year (the Olduvai 'slope', Figure 4). Next from 2000 to 2011, according to the Olduvai schema, world energy production per capita will decrease by about 0.70%/year (the 'slide'). Then around year 2012 there will be a rash of permanent electrical blackouts - worldwide. These blackouts, along with other factors, will cause energy production per capita by 2030 to fall to 3.32 b/year, the same value it had in 1930. The rate of decline from 2012 to 2030 is 5.44%/year (the Olduvai 'cliff'). Thus, by definition, the duration of Industrial Civilization is less than or equal to 100 years.
==AC
Combine decreasing net energy with White's Law and you can see were we are headed. We can only slow it down for the US by exporting production jobs and stealing resources militarily....
==AC
- Energy being cheap to drive machines.
- People being valuable to control machines.
But recently, these factors have been splitting apart: we've had more machines, but they've been increasingly automated.Do Enlightenment values come from the first factor, or the second? I suspect it's the second. (What did the cotton gin do for Enlightenment values in the U.S. South? It made agricultural labor valuable...)
In which case, regardless of peak oil, the rapid improvement in computers may be taking culture in a direction we won't like.
==AC
Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951" - Federal Documents
By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael
from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003
After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.
http://tinyurl.com/ukdq
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Profits über Alles! American Corporations and Hitlers
by Jacques R. Pauwels
http://www.historycooperative.org/
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PAW406A.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN THE UNITED STATES, World War II is generally known as "the good war." In contrast to some of America's admittedly bad wars, such as the near-genocidal Indian Wars and the vicious conflict in Vietnam, World War II is widely celebrated as a "crusade" in which the US fought unreservedly on the side of democracy, freedom, and justice against dictatorship. No wonder President George W. Bush likes to compare his ongoing "war against terrorism" with World War II, suggesting that America is once again involved on the right side in an apocalyptic conflict between good and evil. Wars, however, are never quite as black-and-white as Mr. Bush would have us believe, and this also applies to World War II. America certainly deserves credit for its important contribution to the hard-fought victory that was ultimately achieved by the Allies. But the role of corporate America in the war is hardly synthesized by President Roosevelt's claim that the US was the "arsenal of democracy." When Americans landed in Normandy in June 1944 and captured their first German trucks, they discovered that these vehicles were powered by engines produced by American firms such as Ford and General Motors. 1 Corporate America, it turned out, had also been serving as the arsenal of Nazism.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The IBM Link to Auschwitz
Researchers Uncover Records of the Company's Work at Death-Camp Complex
http://tinyurl.com/84mdv
by Edwin Black
October 9th, 2002 4:30 PM
The infamous Auschwitz tattoo began as an IBM number. And now it's been revealed that IBM machines were actually based at the infamous concentration-camp complex.
IBM's extensive technological support for Hitler's conquest of Europe and genocide against the Jews was extensively documented in my book IBM and the Holocaust, published in February 2001. Last March, the Voice broke exclusive new details of a special wartime subsidiary set up in Poland by IBM's New York headquarters, shortly after Hitler's 1939 invasion, to help Germany automate the rape of Poland.
Profits über Alles! American Corporations and Hitlers
by Jacques R. Pauwels
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PAU406A.html
==AC
Just about everything you have to say makes so much sense, I am inclined to withdraw my comment based only on your disagreement.
However, I do seem to recall a comment by Ianqui or Peakguy that they were finding lots of people at Petrocollapse who didn't know about TOD. Then immediately the comments lurched into a range of topics that seems to match Petrocollapse pretty well. I made a connection, which could well be wrong. With your statistical skills, I am sure you could see if there was any corelation, but I doubt it is worthwhile.
Foe the record, I think you are all doing the right thing in including a range of views and not censoring comments. However, I do think that TOD has built up a great deal of credibility in a fairly broad range of media - which no other peak oil website has. I think this accomplishment should be recognized and valued. There are dozens of loony sites and only one TOD.
I think TOD is uniquely positioned to reach out and convince people who would tune out Die Off or the other "you are f***ed" type sites. I think this accomplishment is based on a lot of hard work and good analysis by the founders and frequent posters. Perhaps I am overly concerned that a few loony comments could damage this reputation. I am always pleased when I see Econbrowser, Kevin Drum or others link to your site and worry that the first thing they will see is the WTC theories.
For the record, you are all doing a great job and have a much better idea than I do on how to handle the dialogue. I did feel compelled to speak up on behalf of what I guess are hundreds of readers who depend on this site for good analysis and recommend it to others.
When you have a website with nearly 1000 members (as we do), it's hard to ensure that the level of dialogue stays high all of the time. The best thing to do is try to steer it back to relevant topics without being a jerk.
I spend a lot of hours working on Peak Oil because the prospect of collapse scares the shit out of me. I do believe that it's a real possiblity, and the probability that I assign to it goes up and down day by day. Some people out there who know nothing of this issue hear just the mention of collapse from me and put me in the apocalypticon camp (without knowing the word, of course).
At TOD, the level of discourse is usually higher, and I would like to expect that it's always higher among the Contributors. However, the use of labels like sheeple and apocalypticon causes me to take writers less seriously. I imagine that I'm not the only who feels this way, so if that's the reaction you want, Ianqui, then "apocalypticon" away.
Maybe because dying Empires operate from these dark corners. To deny what peak oil has done to the US foreign policy since the 70's and deny what a dying Empire will do to control natural resources and its citizens is denying reality.
==AC
appreciate the concerns and viewpoint
raised by AC. I certainly don't see his
concerns as any sort of "lunatic fringe". Can
anyone deny that harsh economic exploitation
is not a fact of life in the world?
That said, it appears the exchange
between AC and Mad Oilman has gotten
inappropriately personal. In particular,
Mad Oilman's involvement in China seems
definitely not an example of exploitation.
Hoping for continued inclusive and peaceful growth in this
forum....
Roy
My point is that TOD should focus on the the quality analysis that it does so well and leave the lunatic fringe stuff to the thousands of others sites where anyone who wants to find it easily can. My suggestion would be not to leave business cards at fringe events and limit posts on them. It seems pretty clear to me there is causality there.
I dispute your point that I am being aggressive. I think I post about one tenth a soften as you do. I would have have even posted this time if you hadn't addressed me aggressively.
I find it odd that you accuse of of censorship in one post then want to stop posting and retract something in the next.
I agree with some of your frequent posts and disagree with others. I still think overall you are a positive part of the dialogue. I don't want to censor you or make you retract anything. Why are you so hostile to me?
for more info on what you can do to change things (instead of hand wringing), i reccommend:
RECLAIM DEMOCRACY!
also, reducing your corporate consumption is a good place to start. buy less, buy local.