Westexas, I've come to the same conclusion a couple of years ago about cutting back. I've sold my apartment building in a rapidly appreciating area in Chicago - which is now slowing down, cut back on my hours at work , and bought a ten acre farmette two hundred miles south of the city. I've always wanted a small farm as I'm a life long gardener and avid outdoorsman. I’m a cabinetmaker/carpenter so I have skills that are very useful in a less energy intensive society. As luck would have it I might have oil on my property. The geologists were out Saturday placing orange flags where they are going to take seismic readings later this month.

Bruce from Chicago

"As I have said about a 1,000 times, if I am wrong, so what?"

Pascal's Wager in the real world.

Today there was apparently a big meeting of the minds in NYC regarding Manhattan's declining role in the world of high finance... Senator Schumer, Gov. Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg were discussing how NYC could regain some of what it has lost the past few years, with Schumer lamenting the fact that if current trends continue, NYC will fall from the title of global financial center to merely just another "regional" center.

I just caught a quick report on this via the radio but the thing that struck me was when the reporter noted that the financial world accounts for $60 billion and 1 of every 9 jobs in NYC. I'd say that's roughly one million jobs in the NY metro area that involve moving alot of money around but produce nothing.

WT writes

"Instead of going to Vegas, you could just mail them a check for $5,000, and it would have the same economic impact."

LOL...

For those of you on a budget - open your car window, throw out a quarter and pull the gear shift lever.

I think that was an unfair anecdote. I don't know about that particular company but it is the nature of the business that most start ups fail some last for quite a while and once in a great while you get a spectacular winner like Google or Amazon.

There is so much churn in our economy it is difficult to get a real handle on it. So many products last just a few years (floppy disks) then disappear to be replaced by something else. Coffee shops and quick oil change businesses came out of nowhere.

Correction: IIRC Freddy Hutter put the peak of CONVENTIONAL crude in May 2005

Nice of you to ignore the multitude of other posts I've made about PO in the past and instead proclaim to all that I don't believe in PO! Bravo on being todays biggest spin master!! :laughs:

The pyramid scam I was referring to was the fact that Deffeyes is using his influence to sell books to the masses and 'scare' the market via influencing hedge funds to buy oil options to drive the price up. The only reason Deffeyes can have to moan about the drop in energy stocks is if he had invested in them. Thanks to his books and the stream of revenue you guys are constantly getting him, hes quietly investing and making a killing!

Oh how neat a package this is!

Talk about Peak Oil -> Write book about Peak Oil -> Make Money -> Perfectly time your prediction for a peak to occur in the same quarter your new book is to be released -> Make more money -> Invest in energy stocks as the price of oil skyrockets -> Make more money -> Repeat cycle.

Trust me when I say this: Deffeyes is laughing all the way to the bank! Don't believe me? Check out his end of 2006 post! :laughs:

And BTW, trying to evoke an emotional defense of a scientific subject only shows that you lack anything more then a conceptual grasp of the subject.

Hello Aniya,

Thank you for at least having an open mind! His 'rant' can be found here:

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html

Some quotes of interest:

I enjoy talking with financial firms about the oil problem. It is gratifying that many in the financial community took an early interest in the consequences of a downturn in world oil production. One of the nicest compliments that I received was in Tokyo. A fellow told me that he read Hubbert's Peak five years ago, believed it, and told me that he "made a hell of a lot of money." I wasn't quick enough to ask how many zeros were in a "hell of a lot of money," but he heads the largest hedge fund in Asia.

Yes, I'm sure congratulations are in order to Prof. Deffeyes, as he has probably made a LOT of hedge funds in Asia AND the US make 'a hell of a lot of money." Not only that, he practically ADMITS that he makes the rounds to various financial firms 'informing' them of the peak oil problem! Yet people here at TOD seem to completely miss the implications of this!!!

I'm not in the business of recommending individual stocks. That requires far too much homework; I don't have the patience. Recognition is growing slowly that the world oil situation is approaching a crisis. But whenever the price of gasoline goes down, a lot of people think that the problem has disappeared.

Notice how we are all capable of 'grasping' the concept of peak oil and its ramifications, yet we can not possibly understand his recommendations for individual stock picks?

Over the last few months, oil prices have dropped from $70 per barrel to $50. Most people learned in Econ 101 that a low price is a symptom of an abundance of supply. About five years ago Wired magazine tried to arrange a $1000 public wager between S. Fred Singer and me about oil prices on two consecutive years. It looked to me like a sucker bet. When supply and demand are closely matched, tiny changes cause enormous swings in price. We could have as well flipped a coin for $1000. I could, and did, arrange my own non-sucker bet by investing in several oil and natural gas stocks on a scale larger than $1000. It worked out quite well, thank you, although I have to grit my teeth during the downswings in price: Grit, grind, crunch.

This dribble should speak for itself :laughs:

From April 2005 onward, crude oil prices have been above $50 per barrel. For several months during 2006, oil prices rose above $70. At those price levels, virtually all producers pumped every possible barrel. With that kind of cash flow, any well operator who suspected one morning that his Blakenship #7 well did not produce its usual share last night will have Halliburton out there in the afternoon trying to fix it.

Yeah, Halliburton did such an awesome job with the 200,000+ bpd that was shut down at Prudhoe bay for the better part of 3 months.