132 comments on DrumBeat: September 30, 2007
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132 comments on DrumBeat: September 30, 2007
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Everyone is using the "Wiley Coyote" metaphor. He goes out over the cliff but doesn't drop right away.
I think that visual is perfect. AND it explains why some of us can't believe it has taken this long, (we thought he should fall right away cause of gravity, but we didn't realize we were living in Cartoon financial reality).
Here's the timetable I put together using the scenes in the Road Runner "Over the cliff" joke as phases.
----
He went out over the cliff about 4-x years ago.
18-24 months ago he stopped.
12-18 months ago he looked down
6-12 months ago he looked at the camera
Now -6 months ago he puts up a sign or waves with a sad look
and his feet start dropping down. (this was bears stearns moment)
Soon - 6mos (by 1st qtr 2008) the body and head will disappear.
6-24 months from now the camera follows his fall.
THAT IS WHERE WE'RE AT
I agree with the basic image, but I think it may go a lot slower than that. It's a big system, and there's a heck of a lot of inertia.
I'm not ruling out an imminent crash, but I wouldn't be surprised if it took a decade or decades to play out fully. Nobody wants a financial collapse, so they'll all be doing their best to avert it or at least slow it.
Another image is Wiley facing a speeding train, a bullet, a bomb etc. We are right now facing competition as far as what will be the key overshoot condition that causes our economies to crumble. GW,Peak Oil etc etc.
Whats amazing to me is that its fairly easy to access all these issues and become concerned that we are facing potentially dire situations in the near future.
Yet the world seems hell bent on ignoring all this and its party on. And to me the real tragedy is how our elected officials are handling this. One thing that is now missed is that part of being a leader is making unpopular decisions that are the right thing to do. This concept has been completely abandoned and I think its one of the key reasons why we will not recognize or problems until its too late.
Both our political and our economic systems are very short-sighted. One of the most depressing articles I've come across is the one where a survey of CEOs showed that they are all very worried about high energy costs and climate change, but they aren't doing anything about it. Basically, they are hoping that it won't happen on their watch. The politicians are doubtless doing the same thing: just hoping it will hold off until it's someone else's problem.
And why not? It's always worked before. As the cornucopian types like to point out, people have been warning that we'll run out of resources since Malthus, and about climate change for 30 or 40 years. But business as usual has gone on, more or less as usual.
That does not mean it will go on forever, but it does give people reasonable hope that when TSHTF, it will be someone else's problem.
It may be that politicians, even if they are PO aware will be reluctant to speak out. When confronted with an unusual challenge or novel threat, the most common response of administrators is to ignore it. Errors of commission are seen to be worse than errors of omission. In business and public administration it is always good to be correct, but if one has to be wrong, it is best to be wrong at the same time as everyone else and if you don't do anything you can't do anthing wrong! From their point of view it is a no-brainer.
Tom Whipple put it this way:
Maybe W will announce peak oil as a parting gift to his successor. That could set up a chance for Republican victories in 2010 and 2012, because of the economic downturn that would likely result.
I can see how governmental members might not want to publicize PO or threats of economic collapse. However, they should be making quiet preparations. For example, we could have heavily funded NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) for the last decade or more. Just like Kennedy set a goal of putting a man on the moon we could have set a goal of XX% of electric power generated by the sun. We could have been building a series of 1GW solar power plants as experiments. We could have been slowly ratcheting up CAFE standards. None of this has to be related to a public sense of panic or fear.
On a side note, this administration has had no qualms about scaring the public with threats of terror, mushroom clouds over American cities, etc. Recall the advice to go out and buy duct tape and plastic sheeting?
When you get right down to it someone is going to have to do without. Without energy, food, medicine, something, and this will cause death. This holds horror to most peoples sense of decency, so avoiding it makes a lot of sense to me.
Publicly and privately we do not want to play god and choose by conscience thought who gets to live and who gets to die. There are exceptions to this - usually people who have not witnessed war vs vets such as the ones on Ken Burns latest special on WW ll.
I just finished the book called "The Road". Fiction about post nuke war. Most chilling was the actions between the groups of survivors. Kill or be killed, hide, steal, all rules leave, as the search for food was paramount.
Nature will choose for us who lives and dies, I guess she always has.
PO, GW, etc. is getting more mainstream press notably in National Geographic. The last two years of articles are dealing more and more with the problems we face.
The last issue deals directly with biofuels. There is no bio anything that will save our current auto life style here in the US. The powers that be are trying to hang on, I fear that common sense will be the least common sense in the future and we will suffer more than necessary. I would not want to be a Hispanic in the US today. I think they will become the scapegoat of the coming collapse.
As so many are keen to point out we can build a new future. Sustainable buildings (high thermal mass, airtight construction and heat recovery ventilation) We can design communities intelligently and avoid the need to consume as much energy in the first place. Things are looking bad now but 5 - 10 years down the line they could very easily be infinatly worse, thats why its so important to make this a big issue. We need a way to reform our economies that takes into account energy, emissions, health and hapiness. The bigggest health issue in the 'civilised' world is obesity. With a better diet and excercise many health benefits would come. This issues ties up so many others and gives us an oppotunity to work out so many things in hopefully a short space of time. Video conferencing, teleworking and web 2.0 allow ideas to spread so fast to so many people.
Does 'waking up' (to use the matrix analogy) more people actually speed us towards economic problems as they no longer take part in the race? As good as the ELP plan is would it cause problems if implemented by many people on a short time scale. Low skilled local jobs are going to be a big area, I see large groups of volunteers tending to farm land, renivating large housing into multi person housing, teaching and caring for children as jobs and travel are likely to be harder to come by. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we can build strong local economies where everyone plays a part especially the pub land lord :)
Population decline could be managed without a lot of excess deaths, if we lived in a rational world and could employ a little foresight.
Those people are out-bred---and eventually that means their resources appropriated---by religious fanatics with none.
...and never, ever (according to Don Sailorman) discount the FED's ability to defy gravity. I'm not saying I place a lot of faith in this ability to avoid the inevitable, but it is amazing to me what they have been able to prevent. Of course, with omniscient abilities to do whatever they want to "fix" the market playing field, how would anyone really fail?
I can't believe Don Sailorman ever said anything like that - although I have not been able to keep up on TOD posts for quite awhile now, so I might be mistaken.
He did not say that verbatim. He said the FED has many tools at their disposal to keep the economey humming and they will use them. Sorry if my interpretation sounds different, but there it is.
If you like, I can go search the TOD archives to pull out relevant Sailorman posts.
What I said was that the Fed and other central banks have the power to prevent deflation. But we can have plenty of other economic problems in the absence of deflation that the Fed can't do anything about--such as Peak oil.
Kudos to you, Don, and welcome back. I recently reread No Deflation! Lots of Disinflation then Inflation over at ITulip.com. I had read this over a year ago but forgot all about it until recently. It seems to capture better my concerns about deflating assets while the Fed is ensuring that we don't deflate universally. Janszen opted to call this "disinflation" - deflation in some aspects of the economy while inflation roars ahead in others. The full idea is nicknamed the "Ka-Poom" Theory and actually has been reasonably accurate since it was first put forth in March of 2006. This idea better captures (for me, at least) the notion that some parts of the economy may become essentially worthless (moving to near zero value) while other parts explode in price as inflation goes through the roof. Have you read Janzsen's position on this? If so, what do you think?
Also, my father-in-law, who experienced the Great Depression, has asserted the same thing - to wit, that the Fed will do anything, even destroying the dollar via hyperinflation rather than let a deflationary depression set in. Because of his background he is still not convinced the Fed can accomplish total avoidance of a deflationary collapse but I understand why he worries about that, having lived through it once before.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone
so they didn't realize that if they put the plug in the drain the sink would fill to over flow?
also
they don't have a clue what might happen when they pull the plug?
BS
I understand that this is simplistic but all the armchair analysis of economics is mental masturbation on par with the sports enthusiast Monday morning QBing. (which is encouraged by TPTB as well as espn).
I am so disappointed in seeing otherwise top notch posters entering into the “inflation/deflation” bs.
It’s like saying “ oh! KSA didn’t know what advanced tech ( econ equilivent of new forms of Collateralized Debt Obligations and Structured Finance ) might do to oil reserve estimates.
Yeah, I buy that. (not)
Look I understand ya’ all are raking it in on your “investments” but surely you understand this is sucking out of the system without reasonable productive value?
I read (sorry no links right now) that less than 30% of stock market transactions actually benifit business finance/capital liquidity for productive society. Over 70% is just money juggling between entities and sucking or draining of profit/future profit of real time business activity.
I would argue that this is the #1 reason for Americas demise.
That you can be so pedantic about PO, GW, and economic collapse, and choose to ignore this the biggest real time manifistation of what is the problem just floors me.
Oh right, "thats the structure under which we are currently operating and how we will operate in the future so work with it”.
BS
TODers get down on folks for wanting a better world but being unable to release the drive everywhere, SUV thing.
Well, you can’t expect fundamental systemic change and at the same time be able to CASH IN on it. CAPICE?
I am really not even sure what you are saying, souperman2. Care to elaborate, perhaps in clearer language?
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone
Sorry, I just listened to round table talk on the dollar over at financialsense and what is happening just pisses me off to no end yet nothing will ever be done about it as long as there is money to be made.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html
Antal Fekete's Can we Have Inflation and Deflation All at the Same Time? article is a fascinating one. In it he points out the distinction and disconnect between electronic money/credit creation and the real physical stuff/FR notes/T-bills. The ongoing crunch in the ABCP realm is one such manifestation we are witnessing of this sort.
Now I'm not smart enough to know exactly how or which way this whole financial house of cards will fall, but I do think Fekete's analysis is illuminating as to how we can have both in the ongoing fiscal crisis.
I'm of the opinion that despite the Fed's best efforts to inflate, all this loose electronic credit will eventually sputter to a stall. For the beleaguered populous, who are already stressed out in debt (on higher energy, food, medicine and educational costs, versus falling home equity, recessionary job & wage pressures) lessoning one's debt, not taking on more in the uncertain times ahead will be a huge influence. As will the increased premium that lenders will request despite the open flood gates of credit from the Fed.
In short, we will likely have a fair share of both inflation and deflation (iTulip's "disinflation") so long as the powers that be can keep this mess of global financial imbalances in relative check. Probably through the next year, but not much longer after is my 2¢ bet.
It is sort of the way I was thinking it might go.
Some of his points go right over my head as I'm more of a "street economist" :>), but the basic underlying reasoning seems sound on a gut level.
The basic underlying problem is the insolvency of the consumer as shown in the rapid increase of credit card debt without a equivalent increase in sales.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/09/bank-balance-sheets-a...
IMO the only thing Fekete is missing is that he assumes the FED will act within the law.
If they are, and I'm not holding my breath, then the lower rates and $ devaluation would be a bluff designed to suck physical FR notes into the economy.
The 64K$ question is "would you bet your own money that they will act within the law?"
Hey Don...wondered if you were lurking around or back on the boat for awhile. Good to have you back. So what is your assessment of things since last you were here...Northern Rock, Bernanke cut, NetBank, etc?
I'm trying to read the leaves for the 4th QTR this year and even though things have not fallen through the floor, there is still plenty of nervousness.
Yes, Don Sailorman was right on in his analysis of what was going to happen. Much more accurate than others on this site. He didn't downplay the seriousness of the situation but said that the Benny and the Feds would do whatever it takes to avoid a crash. The only option is to inflate our way out of this if at all possible.
I wish he was around to tell me what's next.
-Don
I don't think anyone is right yet. It's only just beginning. I think the jury is still out on whether the power of the Fed can do anything against the economic forces rolling toward us. They'll try, certainly. Whether it will work is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
Yes, Yes...this is the correct answer!
Less than 6 weeks since the initial subprime/ABCP SHTF...FED "PANICS"...yes, panics...and starts buying MORTGAGES and still is in mass...to the tune of 22 BILLION on Friday alone.
This isn't over barely getting started. But, of course, everyone and anyone will do ANYTHING to stop this house of cards from collapsing.
But one thing is obvious from analysts, the confidence is NOT back yet. And, confidence is key.
Flushing the USD doesn't inspire confidence.
And good 'ol Benny is definitely flushing it...USD Index closed 77.69 on Friday. CAD is nearly 1.01(1.007).
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/usdollar-index/
Next support level appears to be 77. That doesn't inspire confidence either.
But, yes, they will try anything to keep the economy floating...just barely...recession is Guaranteed!
That link just blew my "firefox" completely out of the water. had to start all over, and as a concequince lost all the new post tags.
old hermit
"you can cure ignorance, but you can't educate stupitidy"
It is either Java or Dhtml/activex that loads thier graphs.
Java and some big byte commercial stuff, takes a fast connection.
Thanks Leanan, a rational voice among the cornucopian multitude. The game has not begun. The national anthem is being played. The Fed has cut interest rates, pounding the dollar, prior to the start of the real financial hell to come. Dont count your chickens before they hatch! A bird in the hand is worth two in the shrub! The Messiah is returning to save us all from our own stupidity. Thank you Don! Lead us from this financial wilderness, into the promised land of stable petro dollars based on...nothing? Oh Well, no matter that its just worthless paper...Ben will find a way. I loaded up on Bell Helicopter stock...Ben has ordered a shit load of them! Bell, not Ben or Don, will save me from this melt down.
Have we forgotten what happened to the Japanese ecomony not so many years ago? It was stagflation...And you can bet your bippy that the Fed is going to try to avoid it at all costs. Helicopter Ben is going to push on a financial string and all will be well...And Santa will probably get stuck in my chimney come Xmas.
River,
Thanks for that rational analysis.
-Don
Since Bernanke seems to be in the driver's seat, I went looking for some insight into how he thinks, by reading old speeches and publications.
The man really seems to thing that inflation will solve all our problems.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3438
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021108/default.htm
http://www.federalreserve.gov/BoardDocs/speeches/2002/20021015/default.htm
He even quotes Friedman about the great depression:
“Germany had been insulated by her hyperinflation and associated floating exchange rate."
At the same time the people happy about a strong dollar (like the Chinese) are going to get really shrill in their dislike of his policies. After all, pegging your currency against the dollar, is now the same thing as tying an anchor around your neck and jumping overboard.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/24/content_6425467.htm
Of course, we all are forgetting(omitting) the other freight trains headed our way at the same time.
But if we just focus on the strength of the US economy...we should be very afraid of ANYONE who thinks that HYPERINFLATION would be a good thing and save us.
HYPERINFLATION will guarantee the dissolution of the USA.
Most incomes have not kept up with "government" inflation numbers since 1980, and those are not even the real inflation figures.
Let's see how long before total anarchy sets in when we inflate the price of a loaf of bread 5x (let alone 1000x in the HYPER case).
That scenario is more frightening than some of the PO doom scenarios.
Now, close your eyes, and imagine the other freight trains headed straight at us. The BIG PICTURE should scare the crap out of you.
"Let's see how long before total anarchy sets in when we inflate the price of a loaf of bread 5x (let alone 1000x in the HYPER case)."
That might actually push people to do what would be common sense to do now on many levels... ignore Federal Reserve notes and start bartering
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Barter what?
The great majority of service and financial people in major cities have no skills whatsoever in producing non discretionary goods.
The only situations in which bartering is used are those of hunter/gatherers, or people so poor they don't have any currency, as happened in some places during the 30's depression. Barter is such a poor way of exchanges that any fiat money will be used instead if possilbe
-
James Gervais
Without wage pressure we can't have hyperinflation attempts to inflate will just slow the economy further leading to a depression regardless of the value of the currency. I think this is the way we are heading. Wages cannot go up cost of production is increasing and monetary inflation is in force.
Note that inflation without wage increases means deflation the value of fixed assets such homes cars etc. The profit margin will quickly go to zero for these goods.
Unless we see wage inflation attempts at inflation will simply make matters worse. And I cannot see any sort of real wage inflation since to many jobs will still be shipped overseas.
To get down to the level of China your talking a average income closer to 7-10 thousand dollars a year. This is like making the dollar 5 times weaker than it is today.
You can see that monetary inflation could go for a long time before we would see pressure on wages. And without wage increases inflation attempts just weaken the economy faster.
I can't argue that...I don't believe they can create a hyperinflationary situation without COLLAPSE first/simulataneously.
See Greyzone's post above on disinflation...deflation of some things...inflation of others.
I too agree this is what is happening NOW/ALREADY.
Once again, Friedman shows his ignoring of reality. The reason that Hitler was elected was a promise to cure Germany's economic ills.
True, no one wants a financial collapse (caused by the world becoming aware that oil supplies must now decline...forever). So they are denying that peak oil will take place anytime in the next 30 years. And everyone is sure that by that time science will have developed "some other form of energy".
And they are doing absolutely nothing to avert it because they are in total denial. They don't believe declining oil supplies will make any difference whatsoever so it's "party on dude."
Ron Patterson
I don't know?
I look at this chart by GliderGuider
if we are down another 2.5 mbpd of exported oil in about 6 months as this curve shows then we may have problems??
But looking at the EIA import data thru May 2007 the OECD has been getting about the same amount of oil for the last year. At about 27,000 mbpd (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t34.xls)
So the 2.5 mbpd drop in exports so far has not hit the first world as of then!
I do hope that someone will start pumping an extra 5-10 mbpd in the next year but I don't see where it's going to come from.
Edit:to fix graph
Ed
Off Grid, Off Mainland, current profession:Beach Bum
Exactly. Someone will have problems, but it may not be us.
I think many peak oilers expected there would be more problems than there are. But so far, we able to win the bidding war for oil, and not change our lifestyles much. This may go on for quite awhile longer. Even though we're buying the oil on credit.
My concern is that the monetarty situation puts China, who is not really our friend, in the drivers seat, as to when they pull the plug. The OECD can not start to go down in stages without it impacting the US economy directly. A fall in Japan's economy means they can no longer continue to fund our debt at the same rate. Without the outside funding of our debt, the house of cards falls. This is the plug China could pull which would eventually result in conflict.
Yes. I think China has signaled that they want a soft landing, but also that they won't be left holding the bag.
China can't pull the plug without causing a lot of pain for themselves. But I think they are willing to do it if they see it as necessary. Far more willing than a democratic country would be.
Still, I think they'll avoid it as long as possible. Meaning the party could go on for quite awhile longer.
In 1956, during the Suez Canal incident, the US told Britain to back off or else. Britain asked "Else what?" and Eisenhower replied that we would (a) cut oil exports to Britain (we were the swing producer of that era) and that (b) we would dump British debt that we held. Britain initially reacted with amusement and claimed that for us to do that would hurt the US rather badly. Eisenhower's response was yes, it will hurt us, but it will destroy you. Britain looked at the cards they were dealt and then folded, withdrawing from the Suez Canal and forcing France and Israel out as well.
Ref: Wikipedia: The Suez Crisis
It would be rather foolish to assume that someone else might not be willing to make the very same threat that we made, no matter how difficult the results might be.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone
Top World Oil Net Importers, 2006
Rank Country Net Imports
1 United States 12,220
2 Japan 5,097
3 China 3,438
4 Germany 2,483
5 Korea, South 2,150
6 France 1,893
7 India 1,687
8 Italy 1,558
9 Spain 1,555
10 Taiwan 942
11 Netherlands 936
12 Singapore 787
13 Thailand 606
14 Turkey 576
15 Belgium 546
Total 36,474
*Oil production includes crude oil, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, other liquids, and refinery gain.
These countries consititute 91% of the total. The USA is 30.5% and has slowly been increasing over the time period.
The question is who's been getting it in the shorts for the last 2 years?
Someone around here began to keep a blog of all the news stories of nations experiencing fuel crises in varying degrees. I checked that blog a few times but forgot to bookmark it. That would be one way to see how is "getting it in the shorts" these last few years.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone
Also if you think about it demand is seasonal for the most part so we have spikes and valleys so at least until now what may have been happening oil exports are now more steady over the last two years in the past with buying constant and reserves rising and falling. Their is enough slop in a sense in the global oil economy that we probably won't really feel the pinch till we are down about 4mbpd or so. And of course the poorer countries have almost constant stories now about oil issues.
Another concept I have is right now we may be experiencing a rolling shortage some country runs low then makes panic purchases this sends another country into problems. This seems to be happening if you watch the stories since it will be a different country every few weeks to a month with fuel problems. This again limits the effects of shortages for any given region but world wide some country is now always in a state of crisis because of oil.
Needless to say none of this is stable in the least and we won't need much more of a drop in production before these mechanisms are no longer effective and some place will experience a persistent shortage.
My concern right now however is this concept of a double export land model where oil is exported to countries with excess refining capacity and the finished products re-xported the US is a major beneficiary of this. One would expect just like the oil export land model that finished products will drop the fastest. So I expect of to see problems as early as next summer with importing gasoline into the US. God knows what the third world will be like with the US trying to suck in all gasoline exports.
The really big problem for us in having a bunch of poor countries absorb the shortfall is that when they reach rock bottom, the rate of decline will be much greater than it is now. That means we could be met with something like a hammer-blow, rather than a slow squeeze.
I am familiar with the figures for the UK and USA for imports as a percentage of their consumption eg: ~0% for UK and ~60% for USA ... but what are the figures for these other major importers?
The graph in the thread above for net exports has a 'business as usual' best fit line falling away very fast ... so, this isn't 'business as usual' at all ... it looks to be the recession from hell ... it's a 'depression with knobs on for importing' countries!
Initially I thought the net export line, going forward in time, was likely to be a major exageration! But, having seen exports from real world countries such as the UK
fall away to zero in a handfull of years (and quicker than ELM theory would suggest!) now I'm not so sure.
Please can somebody allay my fears?
Xeroid.
Of course, there are other cartoon images that fit the current circumstances.
For example, the image of the cartoon character standing on 2 small boxes (one on top of the other). The cartoon character then grabs the lower box and quickly places it on top of the higher box and stands on it. Then, grabs the lower box again. This repeats very quickly to carry the cartoon character high into the air, thereby defying gravity.
This could be a much more accurate representation of the current circumstances. And everyone will be helping to keep this gravity-defying animation going for as long as possible.
I became aware that global warming was going to whack us but good about ten years ago ... its taken ever so long for the effects in that system to really start showing up such that everyone can see.
The Great Depression started in October of 1929 ... but the bottom came in 1934. Assuming the credit market freeze of two months ago was the Black Thursday of this bubble we've got a while to go before it fully ripens. We'll see "direct kills" over the next year as those ARMs hatch out, then we'll go into a period where most companies are grimly hanging on, hoping their competitors drop the week before they do.
Cow Tipper, IMHO the Great Depression started in 1926, when a hurricane popped the Florida real estate bubble.
Perhaps the evolution of our economic system will be by punctuated equilibrium; a Black Swan creates a shock, the system then re-equilibrates at some lower level until the next shock, rinse and repeat.
I am agreeing with you that the unwinding of the petrodollar/debt party will occur by fits and starts over a period of years. And I believe that Leanan is correct that almost everyone in the world now has something to lose if our present system unravels and so will cooperate to keep it limping along as long as possible.
PLAN, PLANt, PLANet
Errol in Miami
Yep...that's globalization. Financial systems of various different countries are integrally tied together. This is why it is much harder to have any one of them fail, but when things do go south, they go south for all the players tied to the global system.
I believe that for any country right now to pull their support for the US economy means they have to pull out from being a global player and become more isolationist.
It is a game of chicken and no one wants to be the one that brought down the entire house of cards, so they stay at the table and deal.
But sooner or later someone will decide to go ALL-IN and hope to end up with the winning?? hand.
And some player may be beginning think that being the first player to go all-in may be better then being the second.
Ed
Off Grid, Off Mainland, current profession:Beach Bum
The Prisoner's Dilemma.
If everyone keeps playing the game the same way, they all don't do too badly. The first party to spill the beans, so to speak, gains a huge advantage, and screws the other players.
Who has the most to lose, would also have the most to gain. The US? China? India? A small cadre of multinational corporations?
Fascinating.
Hehe...makes me want to get out photoshop and edit in a nice little sign...like "Oops...Peak Oil" or "Peak Everything"
Nice visual...those canyons were always so deep when he fell.
A more MTV-nation appropiate way of saying "1-minute to midnite"
Epilogue:
Camera pans to a little tiny speck far far away in a dusty canyon.
Camera zooms in on a furiously speeding Road Runner in a huge cloud of dust.
Road Runner screeches to a halt looks into the camera, morphs into Woody Wood Pecker, gives Woody's hall mark laugh, morphs back into Road Runner and disappears into the sunset as you hear the staccato Woody Wood Pecker laugh fading away in the distance!
That's all folks!
Samsara, could you add one more dimension to your projection?
If you could, add geography - a map for a country or the world, showing changes over time and place in population and standards of living (stds of living based on hours of electricity, sewer and water availability, food availability, crime rates, housing market, etc, whatever).
The map could show changes in grey scales or symbols or whatever. We could see certain cities and regions succumb gradually with others relatively unscathed... and then over time the whole map gradually becoming "3rd World" with maybe a few first world-islands or pockets left here and there .
Something like that?
Or something like that Map Of Europe during the middle ages showing the spread of The Plague each year and including regions that were relatively unaffected.
Something like this might help get people to stop thinking in terms of The Transition as a simple, global and simultanious "Civilization-to-Stoneage" and begin seeing the range of likely possibilities.
We could see certain cities and regions succumb gradually with others relatively unscathed...
Yes, exactly.
The best cliche that I've seen describing this was:
The Future is Already Here, It's Just Not Uniformly Distributed Yet.
Or George Carlin's
I'm not afraid of All Hell Breaking Lose,
I'm More Afraid of Only a Part of It Breaking Lose and Nobody Noticing
The Coyote time table was for the Financial Markets from what I have been reading.
John
I keep seeing a game of musical chairs every where I go now. Specifically a game I remember playing in at about five years old in the basement of my preschool. I think it was the first time I had ever played and was quite alarmed by the panic when there were about 5 players and 4 chairs left. I had been out of the game for a while but was still facinated watching. Some things never change.
Recipient of AA, Alberta Advantage
Pan Down....
There's a group of people down there who are rigging a safety net and a ladder back up.
Will they get it together in time?
That's the real question.
Or "Are you doing your share of net/ladder building?"
Perhaps that's the most important question....
No there is not. There is a group hanging on the edge of the cliff grabbing change out of peoples pockets as they fall. There is another group at the bottom of the cliff waiting to pull gold teeth from the corpses after they hit.
That is about it.
Some of us plan on using the corpses as compost.