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Alan: To a certain extent. China consumes 24% more coal than the USA. The USA consumes 217% more oil than China. The USA economy is 28% larger (PPP).
Shouldn't that be 280% larger?
Last time I checked the Chinese GDP wasn't 10 trillion.
That being the case, do explain how 1 billion Chinese (and their PPP), who make less than 3000 USD on average, can be expected to outbid those that make 15 times as much on average?
Numbers alone wont matter (IF) there is mass starvation.
Party: Don't complain to me-complain to the CIA Factbook-your taxes pay to keep it updated, not mine.
I'm just pointing out how silly we at TOD can be sometimes.
TOD is great in that it attracts a myriad of people with different ides that all share some common ground 'peak oil'. It's really entertaining to see the various opinions (expressed as facts) that get thrown around. Yet the common denominator of all the 'doomerbation' talks centers on one thing: The USA will be screwed.
Yet magically, places like China will succeed.
The last time I checked, China can not even feed their own population anymore. One of the most common 'facts' expressed here is that in a PO world, the world will not be able to feed its people and 4+ billion will die. Yet this magically won't affect any of those countries that we deem 'better' than the USA.
The same goes for various economies. China and the USA are dependent upon each other. If one goes down, so does the other, as there isn't a consumer bloc large enough to 'absorb' the loss of 300 million happy consumers. Chinas own population doesn't make enough for them to sustain their current production, much less thrive. This also ignores the fact that we repeatedly state that economic growth is directly tied to oil consumption (this trend has vanished in the past 30 years), yet these same countries are expected to outperform the fat old USA, despite this dwindling resource.
Now this isn't an attack on you, BrianT. I'm merely expressing my bemusement at the whole doomer-train.
Excellent right on post PG. Plus china will need to use a significant amount of money to buy imported food (which would be much more expensive in this scenario.
I don't think any "doomer" think China will "succeed."
Beating us in a short-term bidding war for oil is does not mean they will avoid dieoff and other unpleasantness.
But there is a significant group that seems to think that the rich will take the main hit and therefore maybe a powerdown is not such a bad thing. Whereas a more realistic assessment is that the rich will be the least effected and the poor will go to hell.
Maybe so, but they ain't doomers.
To paraphrase from Fight Club, "the rich" need "the poor" to cook their meals, haul their trash, connect their calls, drive their ambulances, and guard them while they sleep.
"The rich" will feel this just as much as anyone else. It will just take longer for the effects to kick in.
By which time the poor will have starved to death after trashing what remained of their natural environments.
Removed
PartyGuy, you draw so much fire here because you keep misrepresenting what people say. "The doomers" have not said that "China will succeed." They say that all oil-dependent countries are screwed. If they tend to focus on the USA being screwed, it's because they're American.
To put it short: they're saying "Oh no, EVEN America is screwed!" not "Oh no, ONLY America is screwed!"
Party: Don't know why you label me a "doomer". I don't have a horse in this race-the numbers are what they are. If the numbers favor the USA, that is just as good. Reality doesn't care what you want or what I want. Flag waving only makes you money when you are selling something.
China can't feed its own population, nitwit??
China's growth in per capita meat, fish, fruit consumption has been greater than anywhere else in the history of the world. Check out historical stats at fao.org.
And think before you open your mouth in future.
10.21 trillion at purchasing power parity ("PPP"), which is of course an estimate. But oil is priced in actual currency, so China doesn't (yet) outbid others for oil, which may be why they use so much coal. However, a huge number of poor people can conceivably outbid a smaller number of richer people up to a point, because some uses for resources are of very high value, while others are not. For example, even fairly poor people will pay, in effect, several dollars per kWH to get their cell phone charged by the guy in their village who owns a couple of solar panels and a rack with some wires and plugs. You'd have to be quite rich to afford that rate for the far larger quantity of electricity required to air-condition the typical incompetently designed American or European building that's still a stifling hotbox even when it's only 65F/18C and cloudy outside.
PG--
I think if you look at per capita oil usage, it might explain why they will be able to outbid us. High cost oil doesn't affect individuals there nearly as much as it does here so a 5:1 income ratio may be insignificant if their per capita oil usage is 10:1 (merely numbers I am inventing--hey, I should work for the government or CERA). I would guess most of their oil usage goes into industry (at least until they become the car economy they are trying to achieve). They also have a tremendous number of dollars to use to buy oil right now (and into the foreseeable future) and can use those to outbid us. We, on the other hand, have a tremendous amount of debt which, when we stop getting access to additional debt, will make it very difficult to buy oil products.
I think if you look at per capita oil usage, it might explain why they will be able to outbid us.
Does any of this matter considering the fact that by 2020 not much oil will be exported anyway (according to WT's ELM)?
Yes, because it means we crash more quickly.
And 700 million Chinese that die form starvation wont matter at all.
just my opinion,, FWIW
The 700,000,000 Chinese will not sit idly as their children die from starvation
they may be killed as they invade neighboring countries seeking food and resources,,but I don't think they will starve to death
I don't know. They are quite used to it.
Being starved that is.
I wonder if the american is used to it.
One thing lacking in the equation is that it is not the singular chinese that will buy the oil, but china as a whole communist country.