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The supply and demand model of economists suggests that oil prices might rise to consistently high levels, but this has not happened yet:
In my view, the economists’ model of supply and demand is overly simple; its usefulness is limited to understanding short-term shifts in oil prices. The supply and demand model of economists does not consider the interconnected nature of the world economy. Every part of GDP requires energy consumption of some type. The price issue is basically a physics issue because the world economy operates under the laws of physics.
In this post, I will try to explain what really happens when oil supply is constrained.
[1] Overview: Why Oil Prices Don’t Permanently Rise; What Happens Instead
My analysis indicates that there are three ways that long-term crude oil prices are held down:
(a) Growing wage and wealth disparities act to reduce the “demand” for oil. As wage and wealth disparities widen, the economy heads in the direction of a shrinking middle class. With the shrinking of the middle class, it becomes impossible to bid up oil prices because there are too few people who can afford their own private cars, long distance travel, and other luxury uses of oil. Strangely enough, this dynamic is a major source of sluggish growth in oil demand.
(b) Politicians work to prevent inflation. Oil is extensively used in food production and transport. If crude oil prices rise, food prices also tend to rise, making citizens unhappy. In fact, inflation in general is likely to rise, as it did in the 1970s. Politicians will use any method available to keep crude oil prices down because they don’t want to be voted out of office.
(c) In very oil deficient locations, such as California and Western Europe, politicians use high taxes to raise the prices of oil products, such as gasoline and diesel. These high prices don’t get back to the producers of crude oil because they are used directly where they are collected, or they act to subsidize renewables. My analysis suggests that indirectly this approach will tend to reduce world crude oil demand and prices. Thus, these high taxes will help prevent inflation, especially outside the areas with the high taxes on oil products.
Instead of oil prices rising to a high level, I expect that the methods used to try to work around oil limits will lead to fragility in many parts of the economic system. The financial system and international trade are particularly at risk. Ultimately, collapse over a period of years seems likely.
Underlying this analysis is the fact that, in physics terms, the world economy is a dissipative structure. For more information on this subject, see my post, The Physics of Energy and the Economy.
[2] Demand for oil is something that tends not to be well understood. To achieve growing demand, an expanding middle class of workers is very helpful.
Growing demand for oil doesn’t just come from more babies being born each year. Somehow, the population needs to buy this oil. People cannot simply drive up to a gasoline station and honk their horns and “demand” more oil. They need to be able to afford to drive a car and purchase the fuel it uses.
As another example, switching from a diet which reserves meat products for special holidays to one that uses meat products more extensively tends to require more oil consumption. For this type of demand to rise, there needs to be a growing middle class of workers who can afford a diet with more meat in it.
These are just two examples of how a growing middle class will tend to increase the demand for oil products. Giving $1 billion more to a billionaire does not have the same impact on oil demand. For one thing, a billionaire cannot eat much more than three meals a day. Also, the number of vehicles they can drive are limited. They will spend their extra $1 billion on purchases such as shares of stock or consultations with advisors on tax avoidance strategies.
[3] In the US, there was a growing middle class between World War II and 1970, but more recently, increasing wage and wealth disparities have become problems.
There are several ways of seeing how the distribution of income has changed.
Figure 2 shows an analysis of how income (including capital gains) has been split between the very rich and everyone else. What we don’t see in Figure 2 is the fact that total income (calculated in this way) has tended to rise in all these periods.
Back in the 1920s (known as “the roaring 20s”), income was split very unevenly. There was a substantial share of very wealthy individuals. This gradually changed, with ordinary workers getting more of the total growing output of the economy. The share of the economy that the top earners obtained hit a low in the early 1970s. Thus, there were more funds available to the middle class than in more recent years.
Another way of seeing the problem of fewer funds going to ordinary wage earners is by analyzing wages and salary payments as a share of US GDP.
Figure 3 shows that wages and salaries as a percentage of GDP held up well between 1944 and 1970, but they have been falling since that time.
Furthermore, we all can see increasing evidence that young people are not doing as well financially as their parents did at the same age. They are not as likely to be able to afford to buy a home at a young age. They often have more college debt to repay. They are less able to buy a vehicle than their parents. They are struggling to find jobs that pay well enough to cover all their expenses. All these issues tend to hold down oil demand.
Since 1981, falling interest rates (shown in Figure 6, below) have allowed growing wage disparities to be transformed into growing wealth disparities. This has happened because long-term interest rates have fallen over most of this period. With lower interest rates, the monthly cost of asset ownership has fallen, making these assets more affordable. High-income individuals have disproportionately been able to benefit from the rising prices of assets (such as homes and shares of stock), because with higher disposable incomes, they are more able to afford such purchases. As a result, since 1981, wealth disparity has tended to increase as wage disparity has increased.
[4] Governments talk about the growing productivity of workers. In theory, this growing productivity should act to raise the wages of workers. This would maintain the buying power of the middle class.
Figure 4 shows that productivity growth was significantly higher in the period between 1948 and 1970 than in subsequent years. Figure 2 shows that before 1970, at least part of the productivity growth acted to raise the incomes of workers. More recently, productivity growth has been lower. With this lower productivity growth, Figure 2 shows that wage-earners are especially being squeezed out of productivity gains. It appears that most of the growth attributable to productivity gains is now going to other parts of the economy, such as the very rich, the financial sector, and the governmental services sector.
The changes the world has seen since 1970 are in the direction of greater complexity. Adding complexity tends to lead to growing wage and wealth disparities. Figure 4 seems to indicate that with added complexity, productivity per worker still seems to rise, but not as much as when the economic system grew primarily due to growing fossil fuel usage leveraging the productivity of workers.
Figure 4 shows data through June 30, 2025. Note that productivity in the latest period is lower than in earlier periods, even with the early usage of Artificial Intelligence. This is a worrying situation.
[5] The second major issue holding oil prices down is the fact that if crude oil prices rise, food prices also tend to rise. In fact, overall inflation tends to escalate.
Oil is extensively used in food production. Diesel is used to operate nearly all large farm machinery. Vehicles used to transport food from fields to stores use some form of oil, often diesel. Transport vehicles for food often provide refrigeration, as well. International transport, by jet or by boat also uses oil. Companies making hybrid seeds use oil products in their processes and distribution.
Furthermore, even apart from burning oil products, the chemical qualities of petroleum are used at many points in food production. The production of nitrogen fertilizer often uses natural gas. Herbicides and insecticides are made with petroleum products.
Because of these considerations, if oil prices rise, the cost of producing food and transporting it to its destination will rise. In fact, the cost of transporting all goods will rise. These dynamics will tend to lead to inflation throughout the system. When oil prices first spiked in the 1970s, inflation was very much of an issue, both for food and for goods in general. No one wants a repetition of a highly inflationary scenario.
Politicians will be voted out of office if a repetition of the oil price spikes of the 1970s takes place. As a result, politicians have an incentive to hold oil prices down.
[6] Oil prices that are either too high for the consumer or too low for the producer will bring the economy down.
We just noted in Section [6] that oil consumers do not want the price of oil to be too high. There are multiple reasons why oil producers don’t want oil prices to be too low, either.
A basic issue is that the cost of oil production tends to rise over time because the easiest to extract oil is produced first. This dynamic leads to a need for higher prices over time, whether or not such higher prices actually occur. If prices are chronically too low, oil producers will quit.
A second issue is the fact that many oil exporting countries depend heavily on the tax revenue that can be collected from exported oil. OPEC countries often have large populations with very low incomes. Oil prices need to be high enough to provide food subsidies for an ever-growing population of poor citizens in these countries, or the leaders will be overthrown.
Figure 5 shows required breakeven prices for oil producers in the year 2014, considering their need for tax revenue to support their populations, in addition to the direct costs of production. The current Brent Oil price is only about $66 per barrel. If the breakeven price remains at the level shown in 2014, this price is too low for every country listed except Qatar and Kuwait.
No oil exporting country will point out these price problems directly, but they will tend to cut off oil production to try to get oil prices up. In the recent past, this has been the strategy.
OPEC can also try a very different strategy, trying to get rid of competition by temporarily dumping stored-up oil onto the market, to lower oil prices to try to harm the financial results of its export competition. This seems to be OPEC’s current strategy. OPEC knows that US shale producers are now near the edge of cutting back greatly because depletion is raising their costs and reducing output. OPEC hopes that by obtaining lower prices (such as the $66 per barrel current price), it can push US shale producers out more quickly. As a result, OPEC hopes that oil prices will rebound and help them out with their price needs.
I have had telephone discussions with a former Saudi Aramco insider. He claimed that OPEC’s spare capacity is largely a myth, made possible by huge storage capacity for already pumped oil. It is also well known that OPEC’s (unaudited) oil reserves appear to be vastly overstated. These myths make the OPEC nations appear more powerful than they really are. OECD nations, with a desire for a happily ever after ending to our current oil problems, have eagerly accepted both myths.
To extract substantially more oil, the types of oil that are currently too expensive to extract (such as very heavy oil and tight oil located under metropolitan areas) would likely need to be developed. To do this, crude oil prices would likely need to rise to a much higher level, such as $200 or $300 per barrel, and stay there. Such a high price would lead to stratospherically higher food prices. It is hard to imagine such a steep rise in oil prices happening.
[7] The third major issue is that politicians in very oil deficient areas have been raising oil prices for consumers through carbon taxes, other taxes, and regulations.
Strangely enough, in places where the lack of oil supply is extreme, politicians follow an approach that seems to be aimed at reducing what little oil supply still exists. In this approach, politicians charge high taxes (“carbon” and other types) on oil products purchased by consumers, such as gasoline and diesel. They also implement stringent regulations that raise the cost of producing end products from crude oil. California and many countries in Western Europe seem to be following this approach.
With this approach, taxes and regulations of many kinds raise oil prices paid by customers, forcing the customer to economize. Some of the money raised by these taxes may go to help subsidize renewables, but virtually none of the additional revenue from consumers can be expected to go back to the companies producing the oil.
I would expect these high local oil prices will slightly reduce the world price of crude oil because of the reduced demand from areas using this approach (such as California and Western Europe). Demand will be reduced because oil prices will become unaffordably high for consumers in these areas. These areas are deficient in oil supply, so there will be much less impact on world oil supply.
Refineries in China and India will be happy to take advantage of the lower crude oil prices this approach would seem to provide, so much of the immediately reduced oil consumption in California and Western Europe will go to benefit other parts of the world. But the lower oil world oil prices will also act to inhibit future world oil extraction because the development of new oil fields will tend to be restricted by the lower world oil prices.
The lower crude oil prices will be beneficial in keeping world food price inflation and general inflation down worldwide. Some oil may be left in place, in case better extraction techniques are available later, especially in the areas with these high taxes. With less oil supply available, the economies of California and Western Europe will tend to fail more quickly than otherwise.
Unfortunately, so far, these intentionally higher oil prices for consumers seem to be mostly dead ends; they encourage substitutes, but today’s substitutes don’t work well enough to support modern agriculture and long-distance transportation.
[8] Politicians at times have reduced oil demand, and thus oil prices, by raising interest rates.
One way to reduce oil prices has been to push the economy into recession by raising interest rates. When interest rates rise, purchasing power for new cars, and for goods using oil in general, tends to fall. Recession seems to happen, with a lag, as shown on Figure 6. Recessions on this figure are noted with gray bars.
Increasing interest rates has led to several recessions, including the Great Recession of 2007-2009. A comparison with Figure 1 shows that oil prices have generally fallen during recessions.
[9] The climate change narrative is another way of attempting to reduce oil demand, and thus crude oil prices.
The wealthy nations of the world have been spreading the narrative that our most serious problem is climate change. In this narrative, we can help prevent climate change by reducing our fossil fuel usage. This narrative makes trying to work around a fossil fuel shortage a virtue, rather than something that needs to be done to prevent calamity from happening. However, when we examine CO2 emissions (Figure 7), they show that world CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have not fallen because of the climate change narrative.
Instead, what has happened is that manufacturing has increasingly moved to the less advanced economies of the world. There is a noticeable bump in CO2 emissions starting in 2002, as more coal-based manufacturing spread to China after it joined the World Trade Organization in very late 2001.
The climate change narrative has made it possible to “sell” the need to move away from fossil fuels in a less frightening way than by telling the public that oil and other fossil fuels are running out. However, it hasn’t fixed either the CO2 issue or the declining supply of fossil fuels issue, particularly oil.
[10] The danger is that the world economy is growing increasingly fragile because of long-term changes related to added complexity.
Shifting manufacturing overseas only works as long as there is plenty of inexpensive oil to allow long-distance supply lines around the world. Diesel oil and jet fuel are particularly needed. The US extracts a considerable amount of oil, but it tends to be very “light” oil. It is deficient in the long-chain hydrocarbons that are needed for diesel and jet fuel. In fact, the world’s supply of diesel fuel seems to be constrained.
Without enough diesel, there is a need to move manufacturing closer to the end users. But what I have called the Advanced Nations (members of the OECD, including the US, most countries in Europe, and Australia) have, to a significant extent, moved their manufacturing to lower-wage countries. Fossil fuel supplies in countries that have moved their manufacturing offshore tend to be depleted. Trying to move manufacturing back home seems likely to be problematic.
The world economy is now built on a huge amount of debt. All this debt needs to be repaid with interest. But if manufacturing is significantly constrained, there is likely to be a problem repaying this debt, except perhaps in currencies that buy little in the way of physical goods.
When oil supply is stretched, we don’t recognize the symptoms. One symptom is refinery closures in some oil importing areas, such as in California and Britain. This will make future oil supply less available. Other symptoms seem to be higher tariffs (to motivate increased manufacturing near home) and increasing hostility among countries.
[11] Both history and physics suggest that “overshoot and collapse over a period of years” is the outcome we should expect.
Pretty much every historical economy has eventually run into difficulties because its population grew too high for available resources. Often, available resources have been depleted, as well. Now, the world economy seems to be headed in this same direction.
The outcome is usually some form of collapse. Sometimes individual economies lose wars with other stronger economies. Sometimes, wage disparities become such huge problems that the poorer citizens become vulnerable to epidemics. At other times, unhappy citizens overthrow their governments. Or, if the option is available, citizens might vote the current political elite out of power.
Such collapses do not happen overnight; they are years in the making. Poorer people start dying off more quickly, even before the economy as a whole collapses. Conflict levels become greater. Debt levels grow. Researchers Turchin and Nefedov tell us that food prices bounce up and down. There is no evidence that they rise to a permanently high level to enable more food to be grown.
Anthropologist Joseph Tainter, in the Collapse of Complex Societies, tells us that there are diminishing returns to added complexity. While economies can temporarily work around overshoot problems with greater complexity, added complexity cannot permanently prevent collapse.
[12] We need to beware of “overly simple” models.
The models of economists and of scientists tend to be very simple. They do not consider the complex, interconnected nature of the world economy. In fact, the laws of physics are important in understanding how the world economy operates. Energy in some form (fossil fuel energy, human energy, or energy from the sun) is needed for every component of GDP. If the energy supply somehow becomes restricted, or is very costly to produce, this becomes a huge problem.
As I see it, the supply and demand model of economists is primarily useful in predicting what will happen in the very short term. It doesn’t have enough parts to it to tell us much more.
For any commodity, including oil, storage capacity tends to be very low relative to the amount used each year. Because of this, commodity prices tend to react strongly to any fluctuation in presently available supply, or projected supply in the future. The supply and demand model of economists primarily predicts these short-term outcomes.
For the longer term, we need to look to history and to models that consider the laws of physics. These models seem to suggest that collapse will take place over a period of years, as the more vulnerable parts of the system break off and disappear. Unfortunately, we cannot expect long-term high prices to solve our oil problem.
Some data on the SMDS process ( Shell Middle Distillate Process) which is the process that was built in Qatar 15 years ago at a cost in excess of $23 billion.
From the Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes- Third Edition 15.27
Based on a flow rate of 600 SCF/day (5TCF over project life( you could make):
1. 30 million tonnes per annum of methanol
2. 100 million tonnes of LNG
3. 3 million tonnes per annum of SMDS products.
The unit in Qatar has an approximate capacity 7.5 million tonnes roughly equivalent to a refinery of 150 mb/d.
Qatar provided FREE feedstock until the CAPEX had been paid down. In reality this was a vanity project. Much of the output is used in specialty products such as waxes and solvents rather than fuels.
The basic process relies on the partial oxidation of methane to produce syngas, which is then converted to paraffins ranging from about C4 upwards. The products are high quality but have some limitations, insomuch that the jet and diesel products need additional blending to meet fuel standards. The jet fuel has low lubricity and requires aromatics to be blended into the finished stream or blended into Jet A1. The diesel steam requires similar treatment. The naphtha / gasoline stream has poor octane (70’s RON) and is better as steam cracker feed or feed for a reformer.
The number of SMDS plants is 2. Other similar plants number <8 (Syntroleum. Sasol) and that is globally.
15 years ago there were many proposed projects for the US. All Failed to make in the early design stages as not economic. I worked on a methanol to propylene concept and it was clear form the start that synthesizing propylene from NG was economically unviable.
That there are so few plants is only testament to the fact that though it works it is not economic and is never likely to be so. One issue is the exotic metals that are required to safeguard the plant from corrosive co-products.
The Chinese are generally mugs when it comes to new technology; they are very good at stealing that technology once it is built. But so far the Chinese have shied away from Fischer Tropsch plants.
On a separate note Exxon developed a process called G to G, gas to gasoline, which required the production of methanol as an intermediate. A small plant was built and was shut down never to be heard of again.
Copy/paste from POB . GTL is crap .
Thanks for this information. I have been saying that cracking long hydrocarbon molecules works, but it somewhat expensive. Going the other direction, from short hydrocarbons to long doesn’t work well. Short hydrocarbons tend to be inexpensive to purchase because they are hard to store and ship. They are not energy dense.
I keep getting pushback from a few people saying, “Look at the plant in Qatar.” It works.
This comment would say, “Not very well.” I know that a lot of plants have been proposed. This comment gives updated information of pretty much no attempt being economic.
The EROEI is way more expensive than getting oil out of the ground. Instead of just some oilwells connected to a refinery, we need a large area drilled and completed, then the pipelines, then the GTL plant, with all the people operating it, then go to the refinery.
It puts an extra step in the process and can only be built when oil and other resources are cheap. Higher oil prices that make the GTL plant seem viable, ignore the new cost of building such a plant. When oil is high, all the input costs from metals to labor are also high especially international expertise that has to fly in to do various jobs. Transport of the steel/stainless steel/copper and specialist parts are also going to be very high.
The profitability of the plant after all costs, including wages, maintenance, repair, depreciation, cost of money etc is a good rough indication of the EROEI.
The Pearl plant in Qatar produces only around 140,000 bbls/d of GTL, not the advertised 260,000. Fully 120,000 bbls/d are from natural gas liquids as it’s wet gas being fed to the plant. Most of the $19B spend building it went on to the GTL side, not the separation of natural gas liquids.
It only is profitable because of the nat gas liquids that could have been obtained by a much cheaper method of running a simple separation plant and flaring off the gas. The South Pars field has one of the highest ratios of liquids to gas in the world, making it unique.
Trying to do GTL on a dry gas field would be uneconomic and likely have a negative EROEI as the physical costs are extremely high for such low yields.
A copy/paste of a comment by Zip on C & E blog . Long so have split it up .
The Net Tightens: The ‘Invisible Hand’, Oil, the Vanishing Act, and the End of Houdini
Intro
This is not another peak-oil prophecy. It’s a forensic look at the numbers, the physics, and the illusions holding the global energy stage together. Think of it as watching Houdini’s last great escape—only this time, the trick is real, and the outcome is not in doubt.
1. The Calm Before the Drop
The circus is in full swing. The lights are blinding, the sawdust smells sweet, and in the center ring lies Houdini. Shackled, chained, locked in a trunk slowly being lowered into a water tank. The audience holds its breath. Everyone knows: this man always escapes. Always.
In 2025, we’re on the same bleachers. Oil prices are fairly stable, headlines keep pouring in about promising finds in far-off seas and exotic lands: Guyana, Namibia, Suriname. Engineers and ministers promise new production techniques, smart drilling platforms, and refineries “ready for the future.” The audience – all of us – nods. Of course there’s a way out. There’s always a way out.
But look closer, and you see something else. The rope around Houdini’s wrists is tightening. There are no megafields left like in the 1960s. What’s being found now is small, scattered, often technically risky and financially shaky. It looks as if the act is still in full swing, but in reality the countdown has already begun.
2. The Arithmetic of Decline
Let’s break the illusion with a simple sum. New discoveries now supply only 2–5% of what the world consumes in a year. Existing oilfields, meanwhile, decline naturally by about 4% annually.
Even in an optimistic case – say 5% new finds – we’re only replacing half of that yearly loss. The rest is simply gone. Net, global production capacity falls by 2–3% per year.
On paper, that sounds modest. But the math of compounding is merciless. At 2–3% annual shrinkage, you lose 20% in just 7–11 years. Historically, that’s enough to send entire economies into a seizure: the oil crises of 1973, 1979, and 2008 bear witness.
And that’s without demand growth. If global consumption merely holds steady, trouble starts. If emerging economies keep expanding and raising domestic use, the squeeze arrives even faster.
3. The Tighteners – The Rope Pulls Taut
Those 2–3% per year are not the whole story. Four forces accelerate the tightening:
• Export Land Model (ELM) – Exporting countries keep more oil for themselves, especially as populations grow and economies guzzle more energy. Export capacity – what importers like the Netherlands, France, or Japan depend on – drops two to three times faster than total production. Importers feel the crunch much earlier than the global averages suggest.
• Geopolitics – In a world of sanctions, blockades, sabotage, and wars, oil is not “just” a commodity. Pipelines get blown up, ports blocked, rigs caught in crossfire. One incident can shut production for days or weeks – and markets react instantly.
• Water Stress – Oil production is thirsty work. Cooling, steam injection, refining: without water, much of it stops. In regions facing worsening drought – parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and the U.S. shale belt – water shortages can choke output as surely as empty reservoirs.
• EROEI – Energy Returned on Energy Invested. New barrels come from harder-to-reach, more energy-intensive sources. A deepwater or tar sands barrel yields less net usable energy than one from Texas in 1965. On paper they count the same; in practice, the economy gets less.
Together, these four pull Houdini’s rope tighter. What looked like 7–11 years in our conservative math can turn into 5–7 years in reality.
4. The Narrative Lag
History shows recognition always lags reality, thanks to three delay mechanisms:
1. Political comfort – It’s easier to promise a technological fix: “new sources,” “innovative extraction,” “hydrogen,” “carbon capture” – the smiles at press conferences.
2. The plateau effect – Production rarely drops like a cliff; it flattens first. That makes a 1–2% decline easy to dismiss as “temporary.”
3. Stopgaps – Strategic reserves, subsidies, import deals: they ease pain briefly but postpone the reckoning.
4. The likely timeline:
• 2025 – Official stories remain upbeat; most eyes are on the show, not the rope.
• 2028–2029 – Within the energy sector, the endgame is quietly acknowledged.
• 2030 – Persistent high prices and supply issues hit public awareness.
• 2032 – Narrative shifts from “preventing” to “managing decline,” sold as “sustainable adaptation.”
• 2035 – Energy poverty and geopolitical tension are structural. The net is closed.
5. When the Money Walks – First Lights Out in the Tent
Another reason the net tightens faster than most expect: money. Oilfields aren’t built with shovels; they’re built with billions in capital committed years in advance. No money, no rigs, no pipelines, no refineries.
The big financiers – pension funds, private equity, sovereign wealth – aren’t idealists. They don’t read climate reports for fun. But they do one thing with fatal clarity: they run the numbers. And their models see exactly what I’m describing.
A field with huge upfront costs and poor yields isn’t an investment, it’s a millstone. New projects must compete for short payback times and low risk – but in a world where EROEI keeps falling, the math worsens each year. Add political instability, and who locks up tens of billions in a country that might face war or sanctions within five years?
Result: investors walk, or demand returns no project can deliver. Even inside Big Oil, the focus shifts to short-cycle, quick-profit ventures. Capital goes to buybacks, dividends, debt reduction – not drilling new deep holes.
In the circus, this is when the first spotlight goes dark. The front-row investors, closest to the tank, get up and leave. They know the act can’t succeed. The rest of the crowd still watches the water – but if you look closely, the front rows are emptying.
6. The Impossible Escape
Back to the tank. The audience still believes Houdini has a trick: a hidden key, a clever shoulder dislocation, an air pocket just big enough. But this time is different. The rope is not just tight; it’s anchored beyond reach. The water rises faster than expected. There is no key. No air pocket.
So it is with oil dependency. There is no megafield to save us, no technological quick fix to override physics. Alternatives are limited by resources, losses, and time. What’s left is a shift from “endless growth” to “managing contraction.”
But contraction management demands honesty, planning, and preparation – qualities that clash with political reassurance. As long as the public believes the show will go on, we delay the moment of adjustment.
Houdini this time is not an escape artist, but a warning: sometimes the trunk is watertight, the rope unbreakable, the clock too fast. The only trick left is admitting the act is over – and dimming the lights in the tent.
When the curtain falls, it won’t be because Houdini failed—it will be because we all kept applauding, long after the water reached his eyes.
I like zip mastery of conventional peak oil systems theory but he’s not reading between the political lines in order to see the Hand’s now 6 year old Non-Public Degrowth Agenda that is the reality of what is actually going on outside of the theater in which the Houdini act serves to draw away everybody’s attention, even including almost all of the peak oil theorists, and Zip’s timeline is classic davidina glide path linear and gentle – optimistic.
This is the conventional “peak oil” with continued belief that high oil prices will make the oil problem clear.
I’m not sure how things will really play out. Financial problems and international fighting? Collapse of the US high-cost medical system? Lots of inflation from too much debt, followed by debt bubble collapse, and falling prices?
We have bubbles everywhere. Some of them are going to collapse. Even China has big financial bubbles at hand.
like i said—and consistently derided
mid-2020s
Federal Reserve officials believe inflation from new tariffs is just around the corner, and that American consumers are going to pay the costs, minutes of the Fed’s July meeting show.
“With regard to the outlook for inflation, participants generally expected inflation to increase in the near term,” according to the minutes released Wendesday afternoon.
Charting How U.S. Tariffs Will Hit Key Products
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/charting-how-u-s-tariffs-will-hit-key-products/
Among the hardest-hit categories are primary goods like metals, which are projected to rise by 41.0%, and crops, expected to climb by 31.5%. Consumer goods will also be significantly affected: clothing prices could jump 36.6%, electronics 17.0%, and motor vehicles 12.4%.
Electrical equipment is expected to see a 26.4% increase, followed by machinery (14.2%), transport equipment (10.8%), and other manufactured goods (11.0%). With these goods playing a central role in essentials such as food, transportation, and electronics, the impact on both consumers and businesses will be tangible.
Over time, the effects compound: with less competition from foreign producers, domestic firms may raise prices as well. Retaliatory tariffs and global supply chain disruptions can further intensify these inflationary pressures.
Over time, this could dampen consumer spending, strain profit margins, and slow broader economic growth.
Sounds like a plan to me, not like I haven’t lived through this before way back in the 1970s (Stagflation, the “JC Penny” US Dollar), but this time around it will be different with BitCON and imaginary hocus pocus, should be quite a show for all to be a part of
RIP Michael Ruppert
The fix us in .
Scott Bessent bets on stablecoins to bolster demand for Treasuries
Treasury secretary’s discussions with crypto groups have helped inform issuance decisions
https://archive.ph/40LpM#selection-1891.0-1895.89
More Data Centers…..that’s the answer….
Of course, these will have critical priority of access to the grid and residential households will be rationed use for the good of the nation. The “Wizard of AI” will announce these survival measures with unquestionably authority,
Interesting that concentration camps are already being created for “illegals” that are being rounded up (i.e. Everglades Alcatraz), and starvation and genocide being sanctioned by the US Government (i.e. Gaza).
Suppose Norman was correct; “We’re being fooled again”
The Who farewell tour.
https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-lenovo-rvo3&sca_esv=75973f5d98028357&sxsrf=AE3TifOlhpRuThd54gFl-0rFspNlZqdXXQ:1755787657220&udm=39&fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZud1z6kQpMfoEdCJxnpm_3YlUqOpj4OTU_HmqxOd8LCZhqoqbWqvoqZm6NKatt_pclaGKauJgEExSB9rfcFQDGXcw-rnG4SbgQ1JeeEGv3lmdXsvmJpgG1qByFg92ay7CMqGuAlWsy28mEtJssDar3qMA89CA2GZC37UPgnGCk2rOnTzi6r8rWIWpKZubo9y-T7XHEA&q=the+who+farewell+tour++wont+get+fooled&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYg_DckpyPAxVILtAFHRKjHA0Qs6gLegQIEBAB&biw=1221&bih=542&dpr=1.64#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3834de3f,vid:3cwApb64T4o,st:0
Sad situation.
The financial end of this burning candle is a debt shell game, except there is nothing under any of the shells. The solution for debt is more debt , more smoke and mirrors. The US Treasuries are fake collateral. BTC and cryptos are fake collateral. Therefore stablecoins are fake stores of value.
On the other end of the candle, “high tech” energy “solutions” make the problem of fossil fuel depletion even worse.
Like answering questions with questions.
Surplus energy is the only true biological collateral because it is the only thing that enables life’s growth requirements. It is the local pool of the universal dark energy field. Fossil fuels are the only true financial collateral of industrial civilization. US treasuries are the least fake proxy collateral for institutional investors because the majority of fossil fuels are bought and sold in dollars. US Treasury stablecoins like Tether are the least fake proxy collateral for institutional AND INDIVIDUAL investors. In order to necessarily transition to national socialisms because of the coming collapse of global finance capitalism, US stablecoins are the digital greenbacks that I predicted (about 5 years ago) would replace the FRN. I said that CBDCs were a misdirection play in service of digital greenbacks, and now we have the GENIUS act which sees stablecoins backed by dollars and short-term treasuries. It makes perfect sense that stablecoins (digital greenbacks) would be proxies for t-bills, as per Nicole Foss’s recommendation to be in cash and t-bills.
In light of this, if we can’t see that the Hand is preparing the world for Collapse exactly as a peak oil deflationist prepares for Collapse, then we have our heads in the sand out of sheer pridefulness
That is too little too late. In Moscow, since February, demand for dollars (including tethers and USDcoins) has halved. This is a problem for the ecosystem of small crypto traders that developed in the last 3 years. As posted in another thread, stable coins fulfill the role of dollars by changing hands extremely rapidly, while being backed by risible amounts of Treasury bonds. I am amazed that the euro has significantly strengthened w.r.t. the dollar. The Euro!
We were out of touch for a couple of weeks. I came to a deeper realization of how beaten and impotent the US economy is (I already knew about Europe) during that time. Like its monstrous dwarf malignant friend, for the US it is nukes or shut up.
I don’t know. I saw coffee prices were way up at the grocery store, last time I shopped, but that was because of crop shortages.
The amount of money, in total, people have to spend doesn’t rise, unless there is a whole lot of debt-based spending, or unless people get big wage increases to handle the higher prices.
If people spend a lot more for one thing, they will simply stop buying other things, to keep their total expenditures manageable. This will tend to send the economy in the direction of recession rather than high inflation. People will cut back on discretionary spending. Clothes and home furnishings. The home price bubble may collapse.
The ‘norm’ for human existence is the few who are at the top enjoying all the material wealth, and the ‘productive’ class, stuck in dawn-to-dusk, back breaking work, their fruits of labor mostly taken by the landowner and they die when their economic usefulness is exhausted, no chance for advance, people knowing their places, etc.
This enabled humanity to reach the greatest heights, near 1910 or so. Everything to the top echelon, nothing for those who are not worthy.
I won’t repeat all these screwups again since I did that many times. Suffice to say that the living standard for billions now is completely undeserved, and a huge readjustment, which will be unleashed to the people, with no mercy, no quarters given, is long overdue.
We might get starships or other fine things. I am not counting that out. However that won’t help the two legged animals who won’t be given even a crumb of such advances. Nothing. Everything to the elites and those who had a stake in civilization, nothing at all for the rest.
Those who are praying for starship or some other technical innovation to maintain their overbloated lifestyle will find out that the elites have no reason to subsidize their standard of living and will instead exploit them even farther.
The objective of the elites is technofeudalism.. Nothing for the non-elites, including the delusionists who think they somehow deserve to share the fruit of the tech advances.
////////The ‘norm’ for human existence is the few who are at the top enjoying all the material wealth, and the ‘productive’ class, stuck in dawn-to-dusk, back breaking work, their fruits of labor mostly taken by the landowner and they die when their economic usefulness is exhausted///////
if you study history kulm, you’ll find ”civilisation” has been like that always.
things only changed when we got our hands on cheap surplus energy….
when that is no longerv available, we will revert to what used to be..
Unfortunately, what you say may be true. We don’t completely understand what is ahead, however.
Some people in areas with little fossil fuel use have emphasized how happy they are. One of their key ways of dealing with the situation is to focus only on the good in each day. Don’t worry about tomorrow. If something bad happens (an example is given of the death of a child), put it completely behind you, starting the next day. Look for joy through family, music and dancing.
Gail, I pointed the same in a Public Economics University course. It did not go over too well with the maximization mindset of the doctrine set forth.
It’s refreshing to see it brought forth by yourself.
Doubt folks can’t relate to it’s implications
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/is-trump-undermining-americas-most-persuasive-form-of-global-power
“But with 9/11, something shifted.
Trump’s tariffs and nationalist policies were not an aberration but an early wave of a broader and more enduring trend. ”
‘We have had a crisis of soft power, and we haven’t quite figured out how to solve it, said Danielle Pletka, a senior vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
The Bush administration began its “War on Terror” with a shows of military force, with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It then added elements of soft power. Recall the battle for “hearts and minds” in the two countries.”
I’m getting more than tired of uneducated and uniformed people stating that America has become a bully under trump. Trump is just a little more brazen about what has been going on in plain start for a very long time. The “soft power” has been nothing about trying to woo wealthy women in those countries and their brood hoping they can sway the men to their lives to be submissive to U.S. military and international capital. That soft power peaked under the covid lockdowns, with https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/khamseen/topics/2020/george-floyd-in-iran-syria-and-afghanistan-visual-commentaries-in-islamic-lands/
but that’s over now.
In a world of scarcity, acts of violence and intimidation will become the norm in international affairs without the additional cost of PR firms, being paid to make it look like it’s for a good cause. We don’t need glorified street-walkers telling us bombing people into the Stone Age is making the world a more diverse and inclusive place. The strong have always preyed on the weak, the lame. Most people look away unless it is their own blood getting bullied.
You make some reasonable points.
It’s nice to know I was able to do something right, yesterday.
Extremely interesting interview.
It gives a clear understanding of what is happening on the different geopolitical scenarios in the world right now.
– Ukraine-Russia-EU-US
– Gaza-Israel
– China
– Zangezur corridor
Nima Alkhorshid interviews Alastair Crooke
20.08.2025
He lives in Italy. I also like him. Maybe you can organize an interview with byoblu or other italian alt-media?
Thank you, I’m not so important 🙂
About alt-media in Italy, I can tell you that Byoblu has showed some ambigous and deprecable positions, like this one which was really a bad one.
They interview a probable i..eli speaker or active ag..t in Italy in order to talk in a bad way of Islam in general.
“BYOBLU E GLI ARTIGLI DEL SIONISMO”
By Michelandelo Severgnini
(Please not to be confused with Beppe Severgnini who works for Italian propaganda)
https://comedonchisciotte.org/byoblu-e-gli-artigli-del-sionismo/
The funny thing is that ‘Kafira’ , the name of the person interviewed by Byoblu in Arabic means ‘disbiliever’ (miscredente).
If it is her original surname it is really a situation like ‘nome omen’, what ancient Romans used to say.
Anyway, I know that ‘Comedonchisciotte’ sometimes translates Alastair’s articles and then also digital newspaper ‘L’Antidiplomatico’ interviewed him.
Other nice sources of alt-media are Massimo Mazzucco’s blog and Giacomo Gabellini youtube channel.
I agree and disagree with them, depending on articles and people interviewed, but at least they seem to show sincere positions till now and they don’t report fake news, like mainstream media often does unfortunately.
I mention them in order for an Italian to hear something different (I hope some other Italians are reading here), because the level of censorship and propaganda is very strong in Italy lately.
In my view, it is beyond what Meloni or Schlein or any other simple politician can decide, because the censorhip and propaganda are above them.
That key decision role is in another centre of power and it is not the Vatican.
Politicians can only deal with ‘affari correnti’, not strategic decisions.
It happened lately, for instance, when a commission for vaccines needed to be renewed and the governement tried to let enter 2 good Scientists who were critics of Covid public actions and mRNA therapies, but although they would have anyway been in minority in the Commission, almost all politicians cried to Scandal!
In my view, that is the reason why Italy is showing very low voting rates lately, expecially for political votes, rather than local votes for mayors or regional elections.
Alstrair Crooke says that Trump treated Putin in a friendly way in Alaska. This is completely opposite of how Europe has treated Putin.
Trump’s has managed to overcome huge obstacles in his political career. This adds to his commanding presence in meetings with other leaders. He has a mythical quality about him.
Putin also has mythical qualities about him. This is the bond that exists between them.
What came out of the meeting in Alaska an understanding of common interests between Putin and Trump. Working on a political solution. Really was an invasion by NATO into Ukraine.
In this interview to Martin Armstrong, appeared yesterday, Martin makes some good points.
He says that Europe is collapsing and it needs to demonize someone (see Russia and Putin in particular) in order to cover its own problems.
Europe is trying to distract its own people and divert their aggressivity towards that Country, towards that leader, trying to divert the risk of aggressivity towards its ruling leaders.
In my view he is correct.
He says also that Europe is following some sort of pathological ideologies like the ones expressed for Covid (see curfew, mandatory vaccinations of various doses) or for green policies or for hate against Russia.
And these ideologies are promoted by not elected people, see European Commission.
Like said by another person interviewed there, Europe is cooked.
The link is not the link I posted and it is something I’ve never seen.
Please the right one is this one
Copied from the comments section of an article complaining about the job market
and suggesting it is Biblical in nature
“It’s not all doom and gloom out there…
My son graduated from a Canadian university last summer with a BSc first class honors with distinction in computer science. Top of his class. He completed three internships, ran his own hackathons, developed two start up projects, and completed an amazing thesis. He’s a true Prodigy… at age 21.
He thought he was screwed with the poor computer science job situation.
But a California company found him (he didn’t apply), and offered him a 2 month summer trial internship. He rewrote their entire code base in 2 months and blew them away.. They offered him a job, but he declined because he’s going to an Ivy League school this fall for his Masters.
The company responded with a much better offer. Again he declined. Then they made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse, including a large signing bonus, shares, and meals/accommodation included. Our family is shocked.
So now he’s moving to Silicon Valley and making way more money than his old man ever earned.
It’s the students who have little experience and mediocre skills that can’t find jobs. Top talent is still in demand.”
Just be a child prodigy. Just be the best at what you do.
I wonder why no body thought of that before.
I am glad someone is coming out ahead in this situation. Quite a few computer programmers are not doing so well. Programmers who are over 40 are expected to be managers. Programmers have to compete with low paid programmers in India and around the world as well as AI.
U.S. Navy Destroyers, Submarine, Amphibious Ships Being Sent Toward Venezuela
https://www.twz.com/sea/u-s-navy-destroyers-submarine-amphibious-ships-being-sent-toward-venezuela
The biggest reserve of oil in the world needs to be held at gunpoint.
Finally a war we can win. Not that I want it, but we need a new bogeyman since we’ve only been breaking our teeth on Eurasia. From an amoral / strategic perspective that seeks domination, I approve.
Venezuela has better missiles than Yemen. Just saying.
Interesting, I just assumed they don’t have much, but now that I searched, I see some articles about anti-ship missiles from China and Iran and air defense S300.
“Finally a war we can win”
I’d hold your horses on that claim.
Remember AnsarAllah?
Venezuela could very quickly become another Vietnam if any attempt was made to put boots on the ground.
Maduro on Monday mobilised national malitias amounting to 4.5m people.
From Maduro
“perfect fusion of people, police and armed forces”
That’s not somewhere you want to be if you’re viewed as the aggressor.
“the people are prepared to resist any offensive.”
The US has put a $50m bounty on the democratically elected leader of a sovereign nation(they never learn) and the people of that nation are up for the fight. After watching events in Iran and Yemen, the Qasem Soleimani effect is becoming contagious and Maduro has been channeling that very well(hence the big bounty).
This is all very strange:
“U.S. President Donald Trump is deploying a flotilla of warships and other military assets to the waters off Venezuela in an operation aimed at Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The ominous move signals a growing frustration with the Venezuelan leader over the flow of illicit narcotics into the United States. Maduro remains a fugitive from a 2020 U.S. indictment on narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges.”
Venezuela has a whole lot of oil, but it is expensive to extract. This tends to make it non-economic. The US likes to have its military involved everywhere.
Putin’s Oil and Gas Dream Falls Apart
The diplomatic stage around Trump, Putin, and Zelensky has raised expectations that Russian oil and gas could soon once again flow abundantly to global markets. But behind the scenes, a far more fundamental story is unfolding. Even if sanctions were lifted tomorrow, Russia could no longer simply turn the tap back on.
Russian oil production peaked before the war at over 9.6 million barrels per day. In the first half of 2025, output is already more than half a million barrels lower. The causes are structural: fields are depleted, maintenance has been deferred, and Western technology has disappeared. Russia is already operating at its technical limits, with long-term consequences for its reservoirs.
At the same time, domestic consumption — especially with the fossil-fuel-hungry war industry running at full tilt — has at best stabilized at around 3 million barrels per day.
The logic of the Export Land Model is clearly visible here: the domestic market takes priority, exports are the residual. If production declines but domestic demand does not, exports fall much faster than overall output.
This creates a fatal paradox. Export revenues are precisely what is needed to drill new wells, replace aging infrastructure, and import technology. As those revenues fall, the flow of investment dries up. The result is a downward spiral: fewer export revenues → less maintenance → faster production decline → even less export.
Thus, the Russian dream of eternal energy hegemony evaporates in a mix of geology and economics. Where once there was fear that Moscow could flood Europe or Asia with a single twist of the tap, that image is now obsolete. The tap is still visible, but there is barely any pressure behind it.
For Europe, a return to Russian oil and gas is an illusion. For India and China, their advantage — cheap discounted oil — will also prove short-lived. And for Russia itself, the future of an exporting energy power is shifting into that of a state that consumes most of its remaining oil and gas at home, at ever higher costs and with ever less geopolitical leverage.
The irony is that Putin’s power as energy czar does not collapse because of sanctions or even war, but because of a dynamic he cannot control: the internal logic of the Export Land paradox. The war he unleashed as a lever to strengthen his power has become the greatest energy guzzler of all. As the military claims the last drops, exports dry up and his dream of energy hegemony crumbles from within.
At long last, recession! You don’t know how much I am suffering. There is a lot of traffic, unthinkable before the beginning of the war. Heck, in our picturesque area Lycra clad bikers, replete with expensive italian bikes, have appeared as if this was southern france. in the morning I always have to wait in line for my espresso at the local cafe’. Moscow level restaurants are appearing where tourists are denser.
It gets worse. a friend got a huge Chinese muscle car. He parked it next to mine when we met in town, and made my UAZ Patriot (normally considered a nice car) look like a Fiat 500. all of this needs to end.
😁
“This creates a fatal paradox. Export revenues are precisely what is needed to drill new wells”
What total nonsense. Does earth have to export to mars to develop wells on earth? No? Then why does Russia have to export to rest-of-world to develop wells in Russia? Russia already has all of the physical materials they need.
you maybe miss the point ivan
Russia has lots of material resources—agreed.
But those resources are worth nothing until they are converted into saleable goods—ie..rendered imto cash.
you can sell goods internally, but only up to a certain limit, after that they must be exported, or the extraction system grinds to a halt.
Think of it like a farmer, with stores full of grain.
That grain only takes on value when it is rendered into flour, the flour is made into bread, and the bread is sold and eaten.
Without that sequence of events, the whole process is pointless.
Not at all. You don’t even need money, if you can organize without it. Money just provides a bottom-up method of self-organization according to human desire, but there are other ways. As far as well development goes, the relevant question is: does a society have the requisite knowledge, labor, will, and physical materials?
agreed—you dont need actual cash
cash is just a token of energy exchange
but what you must have is consumption
if the farners grain isn’t consumed, then there no point in growing it
Good point.
Thanks Zip . Until we read the fine print , all is BAU . Russia to stop export of gasoline till end of October .
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/energy/general/russia-extends-gasoline-export-ban-till-end-of-october/42753#:~:text=Russia%20extended%20the%20ban%20on,Pavel%20Sorokin%20confirmed%20on%20Wednesday.
This is a ban on gasoline exports. With Russia’s fairly heavy oil, it makes relatively little gasoline. That would seem to be the reason for cutting off gasoline, in particular.
“Even if sanctions were lifted tomorrow, Russia could no longer simply turn the tap back on.”
Russia is up against peak oil also. It needs high prices, but the world economy cannot give them. Russia has oil of the type that is good for diesel. That is how Europe decided to operate its autos on diesel–a very stupid idea.
Really nice comment zip except for the last two sentences about Putin which are political pablum. I appreciate the export land model in theory but I don’t actually expect an extended scenario in which “production declines but domestic demand does not, exports fall much faster than overall output.” I think that it fails to take the full depth of complexity theory into account, as it applies to globalization. Evolution and devolution both, are punctuated rather than linear, and the ELM, despite it’s spiralling dynamics, has a linear logic to it whereas punctuations are dislocations that usher in a new set and pace of dynamics. I expect that when things break, domestic demand destruction will, at the very least keep proportional pace with the drop in overall output, if not exceed it.
I trust that after the next Big Global Scare Crisis the price of gasoline will rise to three euros per liter.
As a result, tourism and leisure business will largely disappear. After all, in a family as in a country, when it comes to downsizing, you start with discretionary spending.
In short, more bad news for Europe, and particularly for countries, like mine, where tourism represents 15% of GDP.
I should really start thinking about occupying a cave, preferably one without internet connection.
you should start worrying about the saudis
their genius financial plan, is to create a tourist industry for when they no longer have oil income.
a real ”duh” moment there.
Saudi Aramco reported a decline in profit for a 10th straight quarter as lower oil prices outweighed the impact of higher production. Net income attributable to shareholders dropped 19% to a four-year low of 85.63 billion riyals ($22.8 billion) in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to a statement.05 Aug 2025
https://archive.vn/h1PIK
They are taking on debt to pay dividend .
using debt to pay dividend is the first crack in the system…
my financial advice come much cheaper than anyone they are paying right now
Real estate bubbles are fundamental to Global Extend and Pretend. Industrial civilization tightrope-walks the undulating plateau: no organic growth means no organic demand; all synthetic demand is a bridge to nowhere. But all of industrial civilization is a waste-based enterprise, as Steve From Virginia always said, so what difference does some more waste make if it keeps things going a bit longer?
The people making decisions aren’t stupid, Norm. As you well know, there is no solution to civilizational collapse, yet you still want to criticize policies that delay collapse, when delay is the only thing that can be attempted!
Wouldn’t be surprised if you’re buying that gasoline with a stablecoin debit card, JMS! I’m still trying to offload my 1-ton flatbed truck for a price I can live with but there doesn’t seem to be much cash around for it. Was going to switch to a Japanese kei truck but now I’m going all the way to used farm bike like a TW200 or Honda CT. Commute to work on the backroads with it too. Bicycle still waiting patiently in the wings.
Good post, Zip. It is uncomfortable for me having to deal with my normalcy bias, and that we will be “having to deal with consequences, not solutions.” Trendy to say this, I know. But here in the at-risk electrical grid location in the northeastern NC – Virginia coastal area, the reality is my home/former office building would mold out in a heartbeat during the hot humid summer if the AC electrical grid needed to run my 3 HVAC units (which seem to run continuously during the summer) failed. It not the heat, it’s the humidity. When I plan on making a “saferoom” for next summer, I’m not thinking about looters, I am thinking about a single room in which I can keep humidity sensitive material (including ammo) preserved with a single portable window room air conditioner and a dehumidifier powered by a very modest solar powered battery back up system- with a little space where I can sleep. This is tantamount to admitting that the wildly extravagant McMansion life we have enjoyed here in the US is coming to end.
Sorry this is behind a paywall but we have discussed bubbles here . Only the preview .
The Everything Bubble: 2000 Meets 2007 on Steroids
Colliding Bubbles: “Tech Bubble 2.0” meets “Real Estate Bubble 2.0” meets “Crypto Bubble”
Henrik Zeberg
Are we ready ?
The only bubble not burstingvis the delusion bubble. No delusion is small enough and every delusion gets more outlandish than the one before.
Facts!
This is a link to the post. A big piece of the post is not behind a paywall.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-171245291
One part says:
He also says:
I agree that the financial markets are in a huge bubble.
Or is it just that the currency buys less?
Maybe.
I would like to see security for Ukraine provided by BRICS and payed for by EU. That is North Korean troops on the ground in Ukraine, with South African troops and Brazilians troops.
I was waiting for 100 comments to see if someone will bring this up . IATM posts a tweet but you want to read the real stuff then go here . The question is 1P or 2P . Read the comments . Use translator . Quark mentions the latest Gail post in his comments .
Rystad Energy’s proven oil reserves are equivalent to just 14 years of production.
https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2025/08/rystad-energy-las-reservas-probadas-de.html
It’s clear the drums of war are beating louder, despite the scenes in Alaska. And it can not be any other way given the economic and energy data.
War yes, by EU doing the dying with the US just making money.
We will sell you oil, LNG , weapons till you die . US to EU . Look at the vassals at the feet of their master .
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-zelenskyys-meeting-europe-leaders-historic-moment-russia-rcna225817
Hate to say it since you’re in India, but everyone dies if, instead of India, the US doesn’t now become the primary recipient of the EU-originated backdoor bailouts for which the Trump bully character is providing political cover.
At least in Ukraine, I don’t think so, it’s time to put up or shut up, and no one is willing to put up.
They might try Iran again, though, and that could spiral in unanticipated directions.
Israel must have really gotten bitch slapped by Iran’s unexpectedly damaging retaliatory force, even though Iran really got sucker punched initiially. The problem is US and Israel didn’t succeed in accomplishing what they had hoped, and they know that Iran will not get fooled again.
It has been eerily quiet between Iran and Israel. Too quiet. I wonder what is going on behind the scenes.
>> I wonder what is going on
I think both sides are preparing and Israel feels under pressure to hit before Iran gets more air defense set up from Russia and China, but perhaps Israel will hold back, since they’re not in a great position even now.
Israel is gone as soon as oil is gone. They have military supplies to fight two weeks. Iran has a whole bunch of Chinese equipment. and that puts serious risks into even the most limited decap strike plan. It is possible that they are waiting to see how Zangezur develops. But, TL;DR They either go nuclear or they shut up.
FUBAR .
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/israel-considers-military-recruitment-inside-us-soldier-shortage-persists
Do they have to humiliate their puppet this way? can’t they just order him to print a trillion in 100 dollar bills, put it on pallets and send it over? then they will buy themselves some late model colombian mercs.
“They either go nuclear or they shut up”
I don’t see that happening(hopefully). They know all too well that they can’t take out Iran’s vastly spread capabilities in one hit, which means the end of them. Iran has been very clear on these matters.
Now Zangezur and the potential that opens, to bring US forces into the equation, without it being an obvious defence of the justly despised, that sounds far too good to ignore. The whole timing kinda gives the game away.
I hope the US understand that it won’t just be the genocide encampment that will disappear if they choose to go ahead(which looks baked in).
I would guess that the only things holding them back are the realisation of Iran’s true missile tech and it’s scale, the fact that after the initial shock, Iran’s missile defence went dark(it’s mostly still there and won’t be comprised again) and they are now adding the Chinese systems. We also need to remember the scale of Iranian influence in the region, which would ignite the moment a nuclear device was used on Iran.
They’ll still do it though(not nuclear), as it’s all they know and they are beyond desperate.
Hubbs, read Iranian media. It’s more honest, to the point and you will soon understand how serious they are(the damage they inflicted was devastating).
Turning down offers of help whilst being attacked, but still persevering was very well calculated, as that possibly had the greatest effect on unity. Coupling that with an ever increasing onslaught on the aggressor, produced wonderful optics nationally and further afield, which outside the west has won lots of favour(we must remember the true scale of nations involved against them).
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/235583/Iran-to-employ-new-missiles-in-response-to-any-new-attack
Right. and there is Zangezur, the Panama port, and Israel could complete the Gaza genocide. Turkish provocations in Georgia. a color revolution in Serbia. Did you see that the US is sending 3 cruisers to venezuela to fight drug traffic? Warmongers have options.
Still 4 more months for Deagel 2025 to come true.
Quark’s summary is the following:
He also quotes Per Magnus Nysveen, Chief Analyst, Rystad Energy as saying:
His mention of me is near the end of the comments. He links to my most recent post, without saying anything about it except the title given in the link.
This is a sobering article indeed. I was hoping to have a shot at living quietly and comfortably until well beyond 2040. As for now….
No tengo ninguna esperanza de que la mayoría de la gente siga viva más allá de 2035.
From the comments, by a chap named quark, translated from Spanish:
I see that Rystad Energy’s article on 14 years of proven reserves is causing concern in the specialized pages on the subject.
But I see that memory is very short.
In 2024, Rystad conducted a brutal review of 1P and 2P reserves. It increased the former from 285 billion barrels to 449 billion, citing increased infill drilling in Saudi Arabia. You can read about this in this article (where I explain it in detail).
https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2024/07/reservas-de-petroleo-mundial-segun.html
I was curious to know what had happened, and what I saw after this year’s update is that reserves were so low that they decided to artificially raise them to avoid catastrophism, seeing that the reduction in reserves had accelerated, as we have seen this year.
The consequence of low reserves means a desperate search for oil for those countries that import it. China is drilling at a loss in hell itself, apart from buying all the oil it can to increase its reserves. Wells 12,000 meters deep, extremely expensive fracking resources, and everything else necessary, including electric cars, LNG trucks, or whatever else is needed.
In Europe, we have no alternative. We do not manufacture electric cars like China, we do not have cheap gas, we do not have oil reserves, and we cannot access non-Western sources such as US shale oil (which is running out). So we have entered a war for resources, where Russia is the target. The Russian regime must be changed at any cost, and for that reason, they do not want to reach a viable peace agreement, even if it means exhausting Ukraine.
Debt is another factor working against us. Great Britain, France, Italy, and Spain are on the brink of a debt crisis, and yet we have decided to invest 5% of GDP in weapons.
If Rystad’s figures for 2023 are correct, 2P reserves (with consumption in 2023-2024) will be around 450 billion (505 billion two years ago), equivalent to 15 years at the current rate. These figures are supported by the total absence of new projects after 2030. No one has noticed that when Guyana and Brazil finish their projects and Saudi Arabia completes its expansions, there will be nothing left except Namibia (with many doubts) and the small projects that are still being developed. The decline, counting depleted shale oil, may exceed 6%, which means that 5 million b/d will disappear after 2030. A little less, because we can be sure that they will extract every last drop from existing fields, even under conditions of severe losses.
The situation is funny. Extreme abundance in 2025-2026, with a sharp decline from 2030 onwards. It is difficult to explain to the public that in two years they will contribute 7 million b/d, while in the next three years, only 2.5 million b/d will be added to global oil production, and that is without taking into account how US shale oil may evolve (the normal scenario is a slight decline from 2026).
No analysis has considered the possibility of a decline in oil production, so we have no idea of the negative feedback loop we are going to experience. An economic analysis based on a certain abundance of oil sustained over time is not the same thing.
Well, the don says if everybody buys into his ponzi scheme, we will all be so rich we won’t know what to do with all our money…..
and of course millions believe him…and are going to be exceedingly annoyed when wholesale poverty kicks in.
personally, as i’m 90 next month, i’m expecting to be raptured much sooner than the next 14 years.
There is a zero hedge article claiming that the current tech sell off is related to a recent MIT study and article. The Zerohedge article is behind a paywall, but the MIT study is not.
https://nanda.media.mit.edu
The part I downloaded of the MIT study seems to say that AI needs to operate using much smaller, more focused data sets. This way energy costs can be cut down and privacy can be protected, among other things.
Direct quote
“My main concern is that the substantial cost to develop and run AI technology means that AI applications must solve extremely complex and important problems for enterprises to earn an appropriate return on investment (ROI). We estimate that the AI infrastructure buildout will cost over $1tn in the next several years alone, which includes spending on data centers, utilities, and applications. So, the crucial question is: What $1tn problem will AI solve? Replacing low-wage jobs with tremendously costly technology is basically the polar opposite of the prior technology transitions I’ve witnessed. . . .
The bigger question seems to be whether power supply can keep up. GS US and European utilities analysts Carly Davenport and Alberto Gandolfi, respectively, expect the proliferation of AI technology, and the data centers necessary to feed it, to drive an increase in power demand the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a generation, which GS commodities strategist Hongcen Wei finds early evidence of in Virginia, a hotbed for US data center growth. “?
https://indi.ca/content/files/2024/07/Goldman-Sachs-AI-Report.pdf
Tverberg keeps circling around her old refrain: oil prices cannot stay high because the economy won’t tolerate it. Inflation, inequality, political pushback – all true, but she stops just short of the cliff. What she never names is this: recoverable reserves are running out. Shale as well as deepsea an arctic drilling
In 2024, global discoveries added only 1.8 billion barrels according to Rystad. Westwood counted about 1.5 billion barrels of “high impact” oil in the first half of 2025. At that pace, the game is practically over by 2030. Offshore exploration collapses, onshore adds only scraps. Where Rystad’s spreadsheets still show 313 billion barrels coming, the reality is closer to 20 billion. And all this against a backdrop of 4–6 million barrels per day lost each year to depletion.
That’s the split Tverberg refuses to acknowledge: you can keep talking about demand and prices, but if the supply base itself is shrinking, there’s nothing left to price. You can turn down the thermostat all you want, but when the boiler is empty, the house stays cold.
And then comes the blunt message: Rystad itself now puts the end of the fossil fuel era in the books at 14 years. That’s not an activist slogan, it’s the industry’s own spreadsheet logic. Fourteen years and then it’s done: no new megafields, no game-changers, just a handful of small Guyanas and Surinames stretching the curve by a few months.
So yes, Tverberg can keep writing for an audience that wants to believe the problem is always on the demand side. But the numbers show something else entirely: we’re not operating an eternal energy thermostat, we’re running on a boiler that’s draining fast. The fossil fuel age isn’t a forever story – it’s an equation, and it’s already counting down.
She is filling a gap for those who feel the supply side explanation is inadequate.
Also, if you read the comments below, there are some people too deep in delusion that they think fusion will be here in 5 years. Compared to them she is quite informed.
Delusion is what one has prior to great discoveries. It is called creativity. With all the solar being installed I am sure there is a cubic mile of Pt somewhere to store the energy as H, after all it did come from a H reaction on an object far, far away.
Rest well, tomorrow is another day. Doesn’t Starship blast off pretty soon?
Dennis L.
Checkout ThunderF00ts recent video on the heat shield for Starship. I much prefer ThunderF00t when he does the science.
That happens in this video.
Starship is 50% larger than they should have attempted.
I won’t comment on a starship which goes nowhere anymore, like the Survivor show where nobody dies.
The great reset is happening in real time so everything will be going less and less in other words we are on the downs lope of hubberts curve no collapse just a new world order everything will be digitised and Ai will take nearly all the jobs the displaced will be out on the streets fighting for survival. Policing will be done by drone technology
I think she has been crystal clear over the years that the problem is on the supply side (the root cause). But she insists that the demand side does not follow the law of supply and demand for inelastic goods. I concur and current data confirm it.
I agree prices of oil on market are heading down due to not enough to go around but the down slope is all about less resources available but new technological efficiencies assist the world to carry on along with a new financial order based on ever lower interest rates eventually going deeply negative which will allow governments to borrow even more allowing bubble to expand to new heights.
“So the thesis of this book stands or falls with the correctness of the decline rate that Brown gives us. Therefore I have calculated with several different parameters as regards the decline rate, and all point in the same direction. The difference between them is a few years at most. Therefore I assume that my thesis is solid, which is that the end of global net oil exports in 2030-2032 (Brown’s scenario) is a best-case scenario.
Collapse can, I think, begin in earnest already in 2026, only because of too little diesel exports. Observe that oil exports vanish successively, more and more, not all at once.” ? ?
https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/lars-larsen-the-end-of-global-net-oil-exports-13th-edition-2024.pdf
https://un-denial.com/2024/07/29/book-review-the-end-of-global-net-oil-exports-by-lars-larsen-2024/
‘In 1986, then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden said, “[Supporting Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” ‘?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-biden-1986-israel/
“ . . . I think Trump’s
3:25 name is on the list.
3:27 I think Mossad knows it. I think MSAD
3:31 told their American stenographer
3:34 who happens to be the director of the
3:36 CIA who takes down and regurgitates
3:38 everything MSAD told him. And I think
3:40 that stenographer whispered it into the
3:42 president’s ear and he’s terrified that
3:45 this will come out because he knows it
3:47 will be the beginning of the end . . . “?
“This is about um you know what Brjinski said back in 76 and
17:47 very clear Russia with Ukraine in its sphere of influence is a major power in
17:56 the heartland in the Asian heartland. Russia without
18:02 um Ukraine in its sphere of influence is just a regional power. And what we want
18:08 to do is to make sure Ukraine stays outside of Russia’s sphere of influence.”?
The foreign policy of the West has been framed by Brzezinski’s ” The Grand Chessboard ” which used Mackinder’s theory of ” the heartland ” .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_Mackinder
Thanks for the article Gail!
I saw this the other day. Jaw dropping
Global oil production on track for massive shortfall – RYSTAD, BLOOMBERG
https://x.com/chigrl/status/1953014361175228740/photo/1
This will cause a short term spike just like 2009/2010
I think that the only thing that can cause a short term spike is a Hormuz closure or other Hand-engineered oil producer catastrophic event. Even the inevitable failure of the theatrical Ukrainian peace talks that result in secondary sanctions on the Turchindian albatrosses for importing Russian crude, that signal the end of the running backdoor bailouts to them, will not result in a price spike imo.
Yes but short term only . Understand ” Oil above USD 70 kills the consumer and oil under USD 70 kills the producer ” . USD 149 per barrel price in 2007 led to the GFC of 2008 . Human beings have a short memory span . We did not learn from WW 1 and WW 2 now we want WW 3 .
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2020/12/03/as-we-exhaust-our-oil-it-will-get-cheaper-but-less-affordable/
Great find Ravi but the author needs to refine his or her deflationary terminology. “Price” is being used in an oversimplified manner that can cause confusion, in using it to mean both price and cost. The careful distinction between nominal prices (falling) and real costs (rising) needs to be made, as Nicole Foss always did.
Of course, lower interest rates can suppress “real costs.” There are a lot of gray areas.
Sure there’s some complexity on the way to deflation: in a still-disinflationary economy wherein still-positive interest rates are declining, gaining access to credit at those lower rates can partially offset the real costs of nominal prices briefly, but as soon as interest rates fall further that offset is lost and you just have a high-interest rate loan in real terms, and only getting inexorably higher as time marches on.
Maybe. I wouldn’t count on it.
I am afraid Interguru is right:
“Gail is evoking Stein’s Law, “Thing that can’t go on forever eventually stop”. However, there are two lemmas to this law.
-Unsustainable things go on a lot longer than you expect.
-When they finally stop you never see it coming.”
Michael Ruppert said it best,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7JcpwdgwTE
Collapse Outtake – It’s A Movie
“I’m gonna get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.” – Jim Morrison member of “The Doors”…
Relax people, does it really matter how accurate our forecast really is..
“No one gets outta here alive”.
One night in the studio, Jim had John play a primitive 4/4 beat which created a tribal rock sound. Then, Jim chanted, “Five to one, baby, one in five—no one here gets out alive.” When John asked Jim what it meant, he replied, “John, that’s for me to know… and for you to find out.”May 17, 2024
Doubt we’ll have an awards ceremony for those that do.
Carl Sagan wrote ‘Contact”. In the book, Ellie, the protagonist, thinks she is the daughter of Arroway, a laborer, and resented her stepfather, Professor John Staughton, because she loved Arroway and Staughton often disagreed with what Ellie thought.
Only at the end of the book, after all these contact stuff is over, it is revealed that Staughton was Ellie’s real father, showing intelligence does not come from grease. That sequence was cut when Robert Zemekis, best known for directing Forrest Gump, made it into a Jodie Foster movie. (Zemekis also bowlderized Forrest Gump, whose author Winston Groom got so upset that he wrote a little known sequel Gump & Co to mock Zemekis – originally Gump’s girlfriend would have HIV, so his son would be born with AIDS so there would be no descendants of Gump, but Zemekis cut that sequence).
All these talk about biology is by people who are irrelevant as far as the universe is concerned and imagine themselves to be more important than what they actually are.
In the old days, a working class couple marry and often the first child looked like the boss. Usually the woman would have no more children; that happened to Henry Ford, who only had one child with his legal wife but the child of an employee, Ray Dahlinger, looked very similar to Ford. Ray’s wife Evangeline Cote had no other children, meaning Ray’s line died out. The child , John Dahlinger, got nothing from the Ford family and wrote an expose after Henry died and ended his days as a Detroit nightclub manager – it is not known whether he reproduced.
Such arrangement was actually quite common. The firstborn looked like someone superior to the alleged father, and the woman would usually not have the man’s child since she already reproduced for the upper class and had no reason to continue a lower guy’s line. Same thing happened to Magda Goebells, who had all of her 6 children with Josef Gobbells killed while her firstborn, a scion of the family who owned BMW, was safely under American hands. He kept a lower profile, living as a bon vivant for the rest of his life.
The firstborn, knowing he/she is the child of someone higher, looks down at the stepfather and his children(if any) and since he/she is more likely to be intelligent than the rest when he/she grows old he usually cuts off the half siblings from accessing any property the stepfather might have left, and since the mother thinks he/she is the key, she will give everything to the firstborn, and nothing for the rest who she tends to consider as excess baggages, and they are marginalized and usually die without descendants.
In other words, a lot of those who apparently came from lower classes, if they are the firsrborns, are actually scions of those who are from a higher echelon.
That is biology, although not the kind of biology the delusionists would want to follow.
I know that research shows that DNA indicates that the world has had far more mothers than fathers, historically. This would seem to happen if the low-ranking fathers were somehow squeezed out of being able to find wives or support families. In Old Testament days, it seemed as if a man could have as many wives as he could support financially. He could also have children, who might become heirs, through female slaves in the household, if his wives didn’t have children.
That’s biology running the gauntlet of class warfare, not biology in and of itself (under natural law).So who’s the delusional one? Biology under natural law is Gail’s DNA (fitness/physics) comment.
If the U.S is not selling its fraked oil that seems like it will effect its GDP overall.
Who is going to buy the U.S treasuries when the downturn happens?
Regarding who is going to buy US Treasuries, as long as there is a US government, there will be some creative way to assure that there is a market. Governments can mandate that insurance companies and pension plans hold Treasuries as investments. The extra debt can be held on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. There may be ways for the US to spend more than it takes in, but “forget” to issue Treasuries to cover the shortfall. (The US makes many unfunded guarantees right now–it uses a “cash” accounting basis, not an accrual basis.)
I don’t know what will happen.
Sam , the fix is in — it is called crypto currencies .
https://www.cato.org/commentary/preserve-dollars-reserve-currency-status-stablecoins
Legislation passed on 18th July to allow crypto as a part of transactions by the treasury .
https://www.lw.com/en/insights/the-genius-act-of-2025-stablecoin-legislation-adopted-in-the-us#:~:text=On%20July%2018%2C%202025%2C%20President,regulatory%20framework%20for%20payment%20stablecoins.
Another formatting test.
em
i
test – strong, i
test – em, i
If you want to use italics, you need to put a short code before and after the words to be italicized. The code is written in brackets like this:
Before the words to be italicized, put the letter “i” inside the brackets. After the words to be italicized, put “/i” inside the brackets.
Substituting “em” for “i” will work. So will substituting “blockquote” for “i”.
No, no, it’s not correct that India makes money on Europeans’ stupidity…
😁
<>
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/19/us-accuses-india-of-profiteering-from-russian-oil.html
From link above:
“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused India of profiteering from Russian oil by refining and reselling
[…]
India buys Russian oil at a discount due to sanctions, refines it into gasoline and diesel, and then sells the product back to regions that have sanctioned Moscow such as Europe, said Matt Smith, an oil market analyst at Kpler.”
So, in summary:
in Europe we import fuel from India, made by Russian oil, in order to power our harvesters, tractors, trucks and also to keep our logistics chain moving, and then we use electricity from American or Qatari gas to produce products that we then export to US which then charges us with a tariff right for the reason of selling those products to them, and – at the same time – we give money to Ukraine to ensure that this situation remains unchanged.
Refining oil and selling the refined products is a way of adding to GDP. India has increasingly gotten into this business. I am certain that India can do this refining more cheaply than Europe. It likely has more nearby buyers who can afford the oil exports.
Refining oil is simply another form of industrialization that is increasingly be sent to poor countries. If India doesn’t do it, another poor country will.
Yes, all correct.
And the summary above, which is also true, looks hilarious.
Our world may be finite, however existence is infinite.
Great and consistent work, Gail.
I have updated the Existence Is Infinite essay: https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?t=40269
Thanks for your thoughts. You seem to be saying that each part of the Universe is gradually being transformed into other parts, but its existence in some sense remains. Thus, Existence is Infinite. The essay doesn’t say anything specifically about what happens to humans after death.
I would say that if the Universe is continually expanding, and in fact, seems to have started from nothing. This fact, plus its amazing and growing complexity is reason for believing that there is a Higher Power or God operating in the background. But what plans this Higher Power has for humans after their life on earth is an open question.
I would say that a major reason for religions is to make existence here on this earth more tolerable, and to support traditions that, at that time and place, are optimal for particular groups of people. Religions often provide hope to people. One type of hope relates to what happens after death.
Thanks for reading, Gail.
Yes, through change and progression existence persists, existence is constant.
Concerning religion the philosophy is intentionally vague yet accommodating of various views allowing personal perspective.
Many suggest the universe started from nothing. Yet would such a position not extend from limited observation?
However accurate celestial measurements may be they all involve limited observation, limited scope. Humans are not observing everything. Hence the term “observable universe”.
Considering, wouldn’t it be a major assumption to suggest the universe started from nothing with such limited observation and information?
Maybe I should say, “Seems to have started from nothing.” This is why there are many creation myths, including two in Genesis. (The seven day version, and the woman from man version.)
Suggestive. However, it plays on the definition of nothing only bring a temporary postulate because only the as-of-yet observable things are not present. So your question is tautologicalish.
However.
Dark matter/energy may be “dark” because the quantity of nano-dust out there is mind boggling tremendous. None of it reflects enough light to be observed in isolation. And some of it may filter otherwise detectable things from observation.
“So your question is tautologicalish.”
I’m not claiming nothing is the unobserved. Rather the unobserved is simply unobserved yet still existent.
In context of the essay originally linked (https://forum.philosophynow.org/viewtopic.php?t=40269) it isn’t tautological.
A tautology would be “existence exists”. That isn’t what I’m saying.
I’m declaring nonexistence cannot be as every attempt to reference or describe nonexistence concerns existence. If existence cannot come from nothing, if nonexistence cannot be then existence is infinite and eternal.
The ontology linked above establishes parameters to substantiate existence. Existence is “that which is perceived, at least in part; that which is interacted with, at least in part, in some way”.
The definition establishes testable criteria allowing substantiation of existence and rejection of nonexistence. Nonexistence fails because nonexistence cannot be perceived or interacted with. The rejection of nonexistence is not merely definitional but grounded in the inability to substantiate nonexistence.
Existence does not rely on perception. Existence simply is, however, perception and interaction provide us with functional criteria for substantiating existence. The definition turns the discussion into more than semantics as it allows us to discern existence in a meaningful and testable way.
The infinitude of existence is not only evident in the inability to locate nonexistence but also in the variety and volume of things. “Infinite” simply means “unlimited”. Existence is infinite, existence is unlimited. Existence is not limited to any particular. Existence is not limited to a tree. Existence is not limited to a single house or to a single car. Existence is the tree, and the house, and the car, and Mars and all other things. This is readily observable.
Thus the proclamation “Our world may be finite, however existence is infinite”.
David , as much a your views are relevant they are questions fit for those with a full stomach and are irrelevant for the 6.5 billion . The Indian mystic ( philosopher ?) Osho said ” I am the Guru only for the rich , I cannot teach philosophy to those on an empty stomach ” .
Disclaimer ; I am not a disciple of Osho who borrowed his thoughts mainly from Lao Tzu , Confucius and Zen . For me he was just is a good second hand car salesman .
Technical question: Not sure whether it’s a limitation of the WordPress template, but is there any way to load all the comments, that run into thousands, on a single web page instead of clicking on the “Older Comments” link? Alternatively, is there any way to save all the comments as one html file? Thanks in advance for your tips and suggestions.
Right now, I think we have close to maxed out WordPress’s ability to load comments onto a single webpage. I think we are up at 50 starting comments per page. The large number of comments on each page is part of what makes loading the comments so slow. Having the audio version available also adds to the problem.
Someone else may know a work around.
As the author, I receive a second version of the comments, in order by which the comments are made. This version loads a whole lot better, and it can be sorted to look for particular words or phrases. But I don’t think this version is available to commenters. The issue with this list of comments by date is that a person has to click on a link to figure out what previous comment a particular comment refers to.
Maybe someone else has some ideas. There are some Apps available, for example.
The military-industrial complex is winning the war against us.
By Ugo Bardi and Chandran Nair.
https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/putin-and-trump-meet-but-the-bombers
EXTRACTS:
“The war industry doesn’t have to count the megatons of CO2 it produces. It doesn’t have to clean up the mess it generates. It doesn’t even have to compete for customers: it kills them!
Children are orphaned and forced to breathe toxic smoke from burning oil refineries; farmers till land riddled with depleted uranium; generations are condemned to water poisoned by munitions and chemicals. War is not a finite event. Its devastation ripples on, bringing slow-motion environmental ruin that haunts communities long after the guns fall silent.
The same nations that dominate climate summits spend 30 times more on their militaries than on climate action.
Officially, military activities account for 6 percent of global emissions, or a staggering 2.53 billion tonnes per year. Military emissions exceed Russia’s or even Africa’s total output. One US Abrams tank burns a year’s worth of car fuel in a single day.
Preparation for war – building bases, moving equipment, maintaining fleets – leaves a vast carbon footprint. The US operates more than 750 military bases worldwide, yet reports none of their emissions. Even after the bombs stop falling, the reconstruction pumps even more carbon into the atmosphere – 16 billion tonnes, mostly from cement.
While the world obsesses over individual carbon footprints, militaries – the elephant in the climate room – operate in the shadows, protected by the very institutions that have been charged with saving our planet.”
======================
Me: Whenever I read about the USA’s war in the 1960s against Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam, I remember the horrible phrase “carpet-bombing”. Then I forget about it. but (AI overview):
Vietnam:
The Vietnam War left behind a legacy of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) that continues to cause casualties. Government estimates suggest over 40,000 people have been affected by these explosives in the last three decades. These figures do not specify the exact number of amputations but highlight the severity of injuries sustained. For example, one source notes that 5,283 people lost limbs and 1,081 sustained multiple amputations.
Cambodia:
In Cambodia, the Landmine Monitor recorded over 120,000 casualties (killed or wounded) from landmines and UXO between 1999 and 2017. The Monitor also estimates that the total number of casualties from landmines and UXO exceeds 500,000. These casualties include a high percentage of civilians, with about half being children.
Laos:
Laos has a significant problem with unexploded cluster munitions, with approximately 80 million submunitions remaining unexploded from the war. This contamination affects roughly 30% of the country.
General Context:
These numbers highlight the ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by the remnants of war in Indochina. The widespread contamination with UXO and landmines leads to severe injuries, including amputations, and continues to affect communities long after the conflicts ended.
The narrative presented to the people is whatever The Powers That Be want it to be. I don’t think that there is anything at all that can be done about climate change, but it is a good narrative to have in hand to justify necessary cutbacks in oil usage.
Dumping loads of low IQ immigrants, Somalia, is being used as a weapon of war. Dumping loads of low IQ and violent immigrants, Haiti, is being used as a weapon of war. Both weapons continue to function for decades even centuries after being deployed. It is a low cost, low need of steel, oil. It is a cheap and effective method of war for our increasingly impoverished age.
“Dumping loads of low IQ immigrants, Somalia, is being used as a weapon of war”
After centuries of European Imperialism, it is only fitting that our societies get handed back to us the harm we have caused the world.
China’s energy supply continues to grow. Solar power satellites, 50GW hydroelectric across the Tibet plateau, 50GW PV farms across Tibet. It has a slow birth rate but that is made up by the AI driven robots.
China is also subject to overshot and collapse. We don’t now what form it will take. China has a lot of financial problems that we don’t hear much about.
Just because we don’t hear about China’s issues, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Good and very relevant analysis on productivity. Just now, the Australian government runs a 3 day roundtable on productivity
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-19/what-wont-be-discussed-at-productivity-round-table/105668246
My take on this:
Australian productivity roundtable: coal fired for now with a solar outlook
https://crudeoilpeak.info/australian-productivity-roundtable-coal-fired-for-now-with-solar-outlook
We now try to replace oil with electricity. The next energy front.
16 Aug 2025
Sydney’s wintry midnight electrification 12-13th August 2025, based on coal
https://crudeoilpeak.info/sydneys-wintery-midnight-electrification-12-13-august-2025-based-on-coal
3 Aug 2025
Premier NSW energy guzzler in winter: coal plants running at 90 %
capacity during critical evening periods
https://crudeoilpeak.info/premier-nsw-energy-guzzler-in-winter-coal-plants-running-at-90-capacity-during-critical-evening-periods
AI will increase complexity and challenge power supplies for data centres
Thanks!
At least someone is starting to look at the problem in Australia.
Electricity supply has had to be restricted in the late afternoon and evening on cold winter nights, according to one of your links.
I see that batteries aren’t doing a whole lot. One estimate you give is 4% of supply.
It is hard to see why new businesses would set up shop in Australia. There are just too many energy problems.
With a barrel of oil being treated as a token, would it bring heat, or cold?
In what way do you see a barrel of oil treated as a token? It is a necessary part of our current economy.
I do not quote from Zerohedge. It seems delusion makes people go that far in order to feed their narrative.
The Fourth Turning is a myth. It might have been relevant when it was first proposed in 1997, since, being boomers themselves (Strauss was born in 1947 and Howe in 1951), they feared the loss of their own power and wrote that book as a warning for the boomers. Anyone who quotes from that book has never considered the very fact that Strauss and Howe are boomers themselves, fearing the loss of their own power.
The unfortunate thing is it really awakened the boomers, who made sure they would NOT lose their power during their lifetimes. So the Millennial takeover did not take place and a Boomer is still at the white house. Ever since 1993, with the exemption of a silent generation in 2021-2025 (A silent gen is the gen just before the boomers), a boomer was at the white house, the longest stranglehold of power in US history by one generation, 32 years.
In a sense Strauss and Howe wrote a self fulfilling prophecy, making the boomers to contradict it.
Unfortunately, they failed to consider that since 1964, a lot of people who have nothing to do with US traditions got into USA and they do NOT share such values. They grew up differently in their mostly poorer countries. For example, the Vietnamese refugees who resettled in USA after 1975 did not share any of the old distinction in Strauss and Howe’s books. For them, they were the kind of ‘GI’ generation, which was exacerbated by the fact that they lost the war, and instead of being heroes, they were now refugees with little more than what they brought when they boarded the ships leaving Vietnam.
The Boomers are still in power, including most of the people at this blog, and the Fourth Turning , if it is even true, won’t take place until they go away.
But the people of a generation are not all mental clones. A Fourth Turning is partly driven by contrarians, going against what came before. Some of those contrarians may be elderly. Trump is elderly. Reagan was elderly when he helped drive the policies of the previous Fourth Turning.
In the end they fight for their own generation sinve that is their power base.
Reagan was mostly irrelevant after Hinckley. Everything was run by George HW Bush, like what happened later during the latter’s son’s term when everyone knew Dick Cheney was the real power.
Gail’s observation- “In my view, the economists’ model of supply and demand is overly simple; its usefulness is limited to understanding short-term shifts in oil prices. The supply and demand model of economists does not consider the interconnected nature of the world economy. Every part of GDP requires energy consumption of some type. The price issue is basically a physics issue because the world economy operates under the laws of physics.”- …. I’m so glad someone like Gail pointed this out. The tired old “supply and demand” rule is not always accurate. We can see this in every facet of reality.
Laws of physics are often not what they seem, try the three body problem.
Physics is somewhat the invention of Newton and continuous functions. The world seems to have many places where the derivative does not exist.
Dennis L.
I looked up the three body ‘problem’ WRT physics and I don’t see that it complicates the known laws of physics in any way, three celestial bodies orbiting each other just represents too much complexity to model is all.
Likewise we could loosely say that the black market is a third body that represents too much complexity for modeling white market supply and demand.
The 3 body problem can be solved numerically to high precision. Astronomers can predict the passage of a near earth asteroid 100 years into the future, and that is at least a 5 body problem.
dennis
nobody ”invented physics”
(you worry me sometimes)
3 Body Problem is a work of fiction.
Physics is the law of the universe. Biology is the law of earth-creeping entities, which might or might not be true all over the space.
But then delusions are strong enough to ignore the laws of physics.
You mean the physics where they had to add in 90% of dark matter/energy to the Universe to account for the fact the laws don’t work?
They didn’t add them in because theory wasn’t working. They realized them by reasoning through the twin theoretical discoveries; dark matter and dark energy make perfect sense, and there’s plenty of evidence for their existences. I further propose, though I’m sure I’m not the only one, that dark matter is the gravity field, but I may be the only one to also say that dark matter is also the field of consciousness, making consciousness the source of gravity. Dark energy is why consciousness (dark matter) and dark energy, in symbiosis, can evolve the expansion and complexity of all matter. In this expanding region of the universe, anyway.
FWIW lol.
Biology is universal, though it surely varies superficially depending on the planetary ecology. Biology is the original metaphysical emergence out of matter that lies beyond elemental physics. Metaphysical in the Greek, recursive sense if not necessarily the self-referential sense that we generally associate with meta-. That point when RNA — the biological godfather — started evolving memory and acting upon that memory, and recursively building from there.
We simply do not know what might count as ‘life’ in environs not named Earth. Conditions in each environ is different and life might have evolved differently, but there is no way of knowing now since no non-Earth life, or what could be considered as such, has not been observed yet, claims of alien watchers notwithstanding.
All these cries about biology are from people who think humans are worth something. Humans are no more than termites in space time. I do not put any value to a particular human group, no more than what I put a value to a heap of termites.
If you didn’t value yourself, kulm, you wouldn’t be here modeling insincerity for the mirror on the wall. You wouldn’t exist. You protest too much.
Thanks for your vote of confidence. It took me a while to figure out ways that oil prices are held down by the interconnected system.
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/ai-accelerating-fourth-turnings-institutional-meltdown
Basically AI and its relevance to the Fourth Turning.
Dennis L.
Insightful article, Dennis. Here is a less cluttered, easier-to-read version:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2025/08/19/ai-is-accelerating-the-fourth-turnings-institutional-meltdown
Extracts:
#The same programming language used to run your favorite AI platforms is being used to expose government corruption, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. The DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) used AI programming to expose twenty million people over the age of 100 still receiving Social Security benefits. Yet, according to the Census Bureau, “only 86,000 people living in the US at the time were actually centenarians.”
AI is the accelerant. It is amplifying every weakness, magnifying every inefficiency, and tearing through every structure that cannot adapt. The old order was built for a slower, more controllable world. But this world—the one we are already living in—moves at machine speed. Institutions built on bureaucracy, hierarchy, and trust in centralized authority simply can’t keep up
As the Fourth Turning intensifies, the institutions that survive will be those that abandon their old hierarchies and embrace decentralization, transparency, and adaptability. The rest will be left behind—hollow shells that couldn’t keep pace with a world being reorganized at machine speed.#
Assuming, of course, that there is enough fuel and energy to run the new world at machine speed.
I would agree that the world economy does need to get rid of its inefficiency. I can’t see that actually happening before a major collapse, however.
Various theatres are going on contemporarily worldwide during these days.
This one too…
“US pediatric group recommends COVID-19 vaccines for young children.
Published: 19 August ,2025: 08:31 PM GST
The American Academy of Pediatrics on Tuesday recommended that all young children get vaccinated against COVID-19, differing from federal policy that no longer recommends routine COVID vaccination for healthy children.
The US pediatric group, in its latest policy document, said all young children aged 6-23 months receive a COVID-19 vaccine regardless of previous doses or SARS-CoV-2 infection, and recommended vaccination for older children in certain risk groups.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/united-states/2025/08/19/us-pediatric-group-recommends-covid19-vaccines-for-young-children
Yep, the depopulation agenda continues unabated. CHD’s (previously led by RFK Jr) latest estimate is 17M dead worldwide from the COVID jabs so far. Birthrate down too.
This is a useful read: https://theuniversalantidote.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The_Hidden_History_of_Vaccines_Sterilization_Depopulation_and-1.pdf
A lot cheaper and less controversial than destroying Gaza, or Ukraine say.
Besides depopulation, the healthcare system gets a boost from recommending these vaccines.
EIA has posted a figure for world crude oil production last April (83.336 mb/d), 1.5% below their current monthly figure for peak world production (84.593 mb/d, in November, 2018).
With chronically-sagging oil prices ( http://oil-price.net/ ), will world oil production keep up, with increasing costs from depletion? ( https://davecoop.net/seneca )
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production?pd=5&p=0000000000000000000000000000000000vg&u=0&f=M&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=94694400000&e=1743465600000
Excelent article, Gail.
[7] has a lot to do with [10]. Highly developed places like world-class cities, such as those of California, New York, the capital cities of Europe and increasingly in China and Japan run on a HIGH-EROI infrastructure. They were built around such reality of 100:1 EROI, their goals and aspirations were to become the best possible, the most high-tech, with trains everywhere and automatic systems for everything, and lights in every single place. But in a LOW-EROI world, these cities stop working, first by becoming uneconomical (the low-eroi can be offset by still adequate net energy, but the sheer cost of running and maintaining everything turns into a gigantic financial burden which translates into high taxes and high cost of living) and then secondly by breaking its systems (just look at the state of California and New York public services, or the fact that you can’t build anything due to regulations or spiraling costs).
[9] Yes yes yes! When your currency lose its real backing (oil, due to reduced EROI/Dollars), you have to increase its artificial backing (debt, the promise of repayment and profit). In fact, the EROI/Dollars problem, which is the Dollar depreciating value because its backing is losing its profitability is, in my opinion, the most acute sign of the system breaking. Just remember 2008, the Dollar had a fantastic devaluation and Oil spiked in accord, as they’re in a balance of sorts.
I believe we’ll see it repeating once again.
[10] has been a personal point of mine and once you understand the link of “oil is ending” to “we must stop using oil to save the planet” propaganda, things become increasingly clear, specially because the Climate Change policies are all degrowth policies as well.
But you know someone who’s completely clueless about that? Our friend Alice.
https://energyskeptic.com/2025/climate-change-deniers/
She has ideological glasses too thick, unfortunately, as see still sees things very politically and passionately, instead of pragmatically, to see what’s just right in front of her nose.
Money has this time travel quality. “Pulling demand forward” obscures that money is a token to experience a preview/trailer of time travel. One can get used to seeing the “world” that way and think that one knows the world by seeing the previews.
It is not money’s fault. It is more like people staring at their phones. They are distracted by their seeming control over what they look at.
Complexity is too polite a word. Perhaps the chain of custody transforming today’s work to become today’s sustenance conveys the gravity of involuntary simplicity better.
You are right. Cities are particularly hard hit by energy limits. Recently, when I visited the downtown area of Athens, Greece, I was surprised at how many beggars there were. There was graffiti all over the buildings. I am sure the downtown areas of quite a few major cities are in similarly bad shape. I visited downtown Chicago a few years ago, and it looked pretty bad, too.
Thanks Gail. I am not surprised you had difficulty condensing this huge – and hugely significant topic – into a kind of Readers Digest. You have done remarkably well. There are some unusual new insights too – new to me anyway. In particular section [9]. This explains a lot about the abysmal failure to reduce Global Warming and has been hard to grasp for those of us who do not crosslink topics but leave them in “silos” where they seem unrelated to other topics. I did long ago start to see Global Warming as a useful brake on economic Overheating, so I lost interest in the whole “Renewable” Energy scene. But I was puzzled by the failure of all these strenous efforts to go “Green” in various Nations, to have any impact on global Carbon Emissions. They only went down during the Pandemic. Perhaps Pandemics, like Global Warming, are a useful brake. But I agree with Tainter and others, who see Collapse as the only truly effective brake. Engineers have mentioned to me that a system without brakes, or at least without a “Governor” e.g. a Thermostat, will eventually run amok. However they seem dubious about applying this observation to the global economy. I think they are being too modest.
This is a different version of the chart that I used earlier.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/CO2-emissions-from-Fossil-Fuels.png
I see China as growing. Using solar power satellites, massive hydroelectric across Tibet along with massive PV by the 10,000 acres. Yes, their population number is over stated but this is good less wear on farm land and fisheries, less pollution. AI driven robots will provide unlimited labor with no exploitation of the working class.
Let’s hope the Ashkenazi limit their extermination to EU+UK+Russia.
“AI driven robots will provide unlimited labor with no exploitation of the working class.”
The plan is the won’t be many working class left to exploit.
Any thoughts on electric tractors/farm machinery?
Population being overstated may in part account for low commodity prices.
Dennis L.
Some of us remember John Howe and his electric tractor.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fwww.motherearthnews.com%2Fimages%2F2020%2F12%2F22113413%2Felectric-tractors-01-Farmall-cub-jpg.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=8331b6d0517d5a4c6c9db64a140451385a2d0b99581b2f4c7841da657f80f518
Erich Maria Remarque, born Erich Paul Remark, was descended from the French Huguenots who emigrated to what would be Germany for religious freedom. All of his family used the German spelling except him, who thought his French ancestry would make him less hated in the English speaking world.
Although known mostly for All Quiet in the Western Front, he wrote a book called Spark of Life, set in late 1944 – early 1945 in a fictional concentration camp near the Soviet line. The nameless prisoner, who had been in the camp for longer than anyone could remember yet somehow surviving, calls the occasional Soviet artillery sound as the Spark of Life, which would rescue him from his misery.
Tl, dr, the prisoner, clinging to the hope and not even thinking once that the Soviets had no intention to rescue them or even care a single thing about them, dies in a fight shortly before liberation, after getting involved in some argument about how they would get freed which turned into a rebellion, quelled by the camp commander who is soon captured by the Soviets, but no comfort for the prisoner who will be remembered by no one.
Remarque, who had no children, later married Paulette Goddard , best known as the girl in Modern Times, by Charlie Chaplin, and was Chaplin’s wife at that time. Remarque also began to like the fine things in life, and wrote a script which later became a little known Al Pacino movie , Bobby Deerfield. Remarque probably got tired of telling people the cold truth and enjoyed the remainder of his tormented life in as much luxury as possible.
People who see no exit tend to fall into the wildest delusional theories possible since it makes them feel good and think there is hope. People who are rational ignore such figures since baseless delusions simply drains the remaining meager amount of energy which could be used for better purposes.
Desperate people believe increasingly unrealistic and baseless theories. Whenever I saw them I posted counterexamples whenever I could. Not that these true believers would be convinced, since they are firmly into their delusions and the truth not affecting them at all, but to prevents others who might fall to their delusional thoughts.
Fusion will always be 5 years away.
There are no shortage of contrarians who bet against the billionaires who do not win every day. I have no problem with the billionaires throwing away money on useless projects; at least that gives jobs to some smarter people who might derive something useful out of these moguls’ follies.
Delusions can make fusion work, in their imaginations, but it won’t help the real world.
Thank you for taking time once again to post; thank you for taking time from your vacation.
Some thoughts on economics. The demand/supply curve never was more than an approximation and a simplification; the math used was continuous and assumed distributions were uniform and symmetrical across the origin. Modern computers can now do discrete analysis and make distributions secondary to discrete data. Even the bins of distributions are not uniform. The positive and negative which were mostly modeled using e appear to be done for ease of computation. I am doing this in agriculture and I can assure the distributions are not symmetrical across the origin and the distributions are not uniform.
A guess is this is why the predictions of past peak oil have not been even close.
Fusion is being bet on by some very heavy hitters. Taking the other side of a trade with them has not in the past been a very good strategy. If this works and predictions are now < 5 years then the peak oil curve becomes meaningless. Sort of similar to dinosaurs.
Dennis L.
I expect different parts of the world will reach different solutions, of sorts. California may break off from the rest of the US, and become its own “country.” Or perhaps, only the areas closest to the coast will get together. Maybe some solution (such as more Mexican labor) will work for them.
My crystal ball is not very clear. The system self-organizes in a way that seems to be optimal. It won’t leave a lot of unused resources unused. In an earlier draft of the post, I mentioned the Maximum Power Principle. I believe that this principle makes certain that at least parts of the system stay together to use available resources.
nations stay as a cohesive whole only so long as indigenous resources remain available for them to do so.
Every history book confirms that
For those fully immersed in delusion, they think history will grant an exemption on them
i agree
when the rapturemongers get what they want, there will be more resources for everyone else
Not just indigenous resources. It appears as long as they can exploit other countries colonial/Empire style, countries can limp along in reduced circumstances e.g. the UK.
And keep going until delusion rots the remaining foundations out.
i should have included empires of course—but empires are just a sort term grab, after which the rules kick in
We have gone full circle, it only took twenty years.
Gail stated back then that the supply/demand curve was insufficient to explain oil price and I was fascinated by this as anyone one who has studied economics knows that supply/demand principles are sacrosanct.
So I figured I’d wait and see(so did Gail) and now we know!
I would rather Gail have put it this way:
That energy and money are two sides of the same coin, that money only has value because energy doesn’t.
When one learns that barrel of oil contains the equivalent of five years human labour(Nate Hagens) the only question that needs to be asked is ‘why is it given away for free?’
Yes, at practically zero cost.
This is what I would like to see addressed here on this forum…. Truly groundbreaking.
the value in energy—oil coal and gas, is what underpins money.
but you are quite right in it being free…..though it is not ”given away”—we take it, after collectively allowing a priveleged few to have unlimited access to it, and turn it into a cash asset—which we all eagerly buy.
Norm,
Can you explain why the Amerindians never industrialized? A simple answer might be the lack of TV and advertising; once a squaw saw a dishwasher, change would be the norm.
Dennis L.
putting aside the humour of your comment dennis…..ameridians didnt industrialse because their energy resiurces, buffalo , trees etc, were abundantly available with minimal effort.
whereas uk is a tiny country with a static population who had to dig in the earth for the means to live….after we started running out of trees.—we also herded animals.
It is false that “money only has value because energy doesn’t.” Money only has value (and exists at all) because (surplus) energy represents ultimate value; to civilization, surplus energy is the alpha and the omega. Nothing has more value, and money is its proxy, which is why it makes the world go round.
Surplus energy is not given away for free. On the contrary, the cost is nothing less than your sovereign freedom, and mine. Those who enslave you offer you a Faustian bargain such that in you perceive as free the surpluses that enable the creature comforts, because in doing so you become a model slave which is a mental slave.
Nothing comes for free. The commercial corn plant getting dosed with 16-16-16 isn’t getting it for free because it’s getting it at the cost of its catastrophic genetic and reproductive state. Same goes for you, and me. If we don’t care about that then that’s just yet more confirmation of catastrophe. If we do care about that — truly care — then that’s a fresh start out on a long road ahead.
“I expect different parts of the world will reach different solutions, of sorts. California may break off from the rest of the US, and become its own “country.” Of course, an Eskimo would not do well in Africa.
CA is a beautiful state, some may even envy it with less than peaceful intentions.
Narratives seem a story to make palatable what we call nature, or biology. The forest is a beautiful place until one encounters a large, hungry bear with a beautiful coat. With a suitable armament it becomes a rug, without one hopes to be with someone who runs more slowly than yourself. The first is industrial society, the second biology.
Dennis L.
Brilliant analysis as always. I like your applying the laws of physics to economic thinking. You often bring in how the nature of complexity affects the economy. Complexity is a strange beast, with many aspects necessarily outside our small consciousness. You say the supply and demand model of economists “doesn’t have enough parts to it to tell us much…” Well said.
My expertise is Permaculture, a wholistic design system, which postulates that one must understand that decisions are always made with inadequate information. Therefore subsequent observations and corrections are critically parts of an ongoing process. One feels one’s way along as one goes. Listening, alert, aware and with humility.
You make a good point:
“decisions are always made with inadequate information. Therefore subsequent observations and corrections are critically parts of an ongoing process. One feels one’s way along as one goes. Listening, alert, aware and with humility.”
This is true of Federal Reserve interest rate decisions and tariff decisions, and many other aspects of the economy. Traditions keep changing, as do religions. The climate keeps changing, which is part of the reason that other parts of the economy keep changing.
There is no one perfect solution. It keeps changing.
“decisions are always made with inadequate information. Therefore subsequent observations and corrections are critically parts of an ongoing process. One feels one’s way along as one goes. Listening, alert, aware and with humility.”
Agree with Gail if I understand her correctly. Corn has been in oversupply for more than forty years; in the 80’s this was solved by legislation mandating ethanol, 40% of the corn crop. Corn is in excess now, prices are below production costs. This was obvious yet land in IA at one point was in places $20K/acre – there is no way it would ever pay.
Many combines are now leased, especially the largest. Problem, in two years they go on the used market and the possible buyers would be the previous lessees. Owning one can be a pain, too tough to service. Deere could easily look ahead, but not sure if they did; it is a problem of residual value when the lease is done, which means cash flow stops being positive and goes negative for Deere. They are pretty good at both manufacturing and finance.
Dennis L.
The markets are so rigged, that I don’t believe the Supply and Demand model even works anymore. Anything that might tell us the truth about markets and the economy are rigged (look at the labor statistics farce). Even the Consequences model has been “fixed.”
What I would say is that Economists and all researchers have a desire to please those who use their statistics. They also tend to choose methods that gradually don’t work as well as they did previously. Unfortunately, the peer review process (and equivalent processes outside of publication) seem to perpetuate wrong thinking. It takes an outsider, looking at the system, to figure out what is really going on.
Strictly speaking it never worked, so we are good…
Tulips come to mind.
I model fairly extensively, the models if discrete have by definition discontinuities, derivatives and integrals over gaps are not defined, let alone well behaved.
Almost all here are certain the end of oil is the end of industry. Small scale fusion could change that rapidly. Everyone knows that is impossible; have you played with AI lately?
Dennis L.
Ai is child’s play. Mildly fun. No game changer and very energy intensive.
Small time fusion is like being half pregnant. A wordplay.
Next.
Humankind is a carbon based life form.
In order to sustain our existence we have no choice but to consume carbon in its multiple forms. Our lifestyle depends entirely on the conversion of one form of carbon energy into another. Until we discovered the numerous ways of converting oil coal and gas to support our prosperous lifestyle, our standard of living was restricted to the growth of biomass..
A century or so ago, our lifestyle began to depend not on energy per se but on energy surpluses. We used a certain amount of oil in each barrel to maintain a certain level of existence but then we found that there was a surplus level of energy above that which we could use to support a lifestyle which in the long term was beyond our finite means.
This shift in human energy consumption began in the 1930s. That was when our frenzied carbon burning began. Producers were awash with oil, and it was this surplus that created an ever increasing money supply.
Surplus oil energy financed the highlife for those of us lucky enough to have access to it. (It also financed endless warfare).
Oil energy surpluses supported a constantly increasing supply of money. The purchasing power of money increased in tandem with the constantly increasing availability not oil per se, but of the surplus energy in that oil.
That’s where the American dream originated.
High wages and cheap oil were to be part of the (non-negotiable) American lifestyle forever.
Unfortunately, the American dream has become a nightmare because it is infinite demand on a finite carbon resource.
You cannot have constantly rising money supply to pay for oil, without a constantly increasing availability of oil available through that cheap surplus.
We are pumping more oil than ever, but we do not have surpluses that we used to.
So we no longer have the money supply that we used to.
Problem is we will go to war to disprove the above, probably in the name of Jesus.
Bush Sr. said in 1992 at the Rio conference: “The American way of life is not up for negotiation”.
Obama doubled down in 2009: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense”.
So what will happen when that “non-negotiable” lifestyle is no longer sustainable in a world where the cake is being divided among more and more tablemates? And, as you already noted, it’s after all a rhetorical question, considering we’re talking about the most heavily armed nation in the world.
Empires are not necessarily evil, they just do what they think is necessary in order to survive and to not allow others to do what they don’t want to be done to them.
Bush and Obama were intelligent men, and broadly well intentioned presidents.
But that did not grant them the insight to recognise the root cause of the problem.
I may not have the precise details correct—much is open to interpration, but in broad terms, the economy of our modern world is where it is through the forces of ”surplus energy economics”—just as Tim Morgan constantly says it is.
political and religious views are not going to change that one iota.—-or the end result.
and empires were the product of the 18th/19th c era.
I am afraid you are right, Gian.
“Empires are not necessarily evil”.
‘Fraid they are, by dint of their inescapable, rapacious drive to fuel the Empire and anybody who gets in their way is entirely expendable.
Too much is never enough.
We demand something from nations/empires that we never demand from individuals. Nations must be legal, honest, cultured, moral, wealthy, debt-free, never violent, transparent, diplomatic, basically what no human being is during their lifetime.
Why should a nation be any different?
Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers said that America had to move from a culture of needs to a culture of desires; people had to be taught to want new things, even before the old things broke.
And in fact, the vast majority of people consume as if there were no tomorrow, without even considering the future generations. Why, then, should nations be morally superior?
Welcome to the low-expectation fallen culture called civilization.
I have stayed away from the “surplus energy from oil” model because the folks in favor of renewables would somehow like to use the model to prove things that are clearly wrong.
I have tended instead to talk about needing tax revenue from the production of oil products to support the rest of the economy. Providing part of the oil supply, as an alternative, would also work. If renewables need huge support financially, they cannot support the system. We clearly cannot use solar to make solar.
Norman the one European (UK close enough) that understands.
We will sell you over prices LNG and weapons until they are all gone. It is a going out of business sale.
Of perhaps a change of the business model.
Dennis L.
The business model does not change. The delusions change.
I watched some old cartoons in the last few days.
https://youtu.be/OLAOak4309E?si=vyfN_40QjBZV3-E6
In 1946, Disney released a film featuring 10 short segments, namely “Make Mine Music”. A lot of animators were in WW2 and they had a lot of unfinished projects, so all of them were just dumped together. Peter and the Wolf, by the SOVIET composer Prokofiev, is perhaps the best known of the lot, most of them forgettable.
The above segment is called Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet. In England Johnny Fedora is better known as a name of a secret agent, but since for whatever reason no movie was ever made out of him (partially because Disney would sue), that character is unknown out of there.
Johnny Fedora is a hat in a nondescript department store, and he loves Alice Blue Bonnet, a woman’s hat. The latter is bought and taken away by a fashionable lady, and Johnny is determined to reunite with her but he is also bought out.
After going through a bunch of stuff, more hardship than joy, Johnny ends up in a drain, and rescued by a trash picker who cuts holes to him. He eventually ends up in a iceman’s horse where he meets Alice Blue Bonnet again. Not much is known about what happened to her, but given that she ended up in the same state as him, the producer probably decided that was enough.
they seem to live ‘happily ever after’, but since it was already 1946 and nobody was delivering ice by horses since about 1920, the story was already quaint to the viewers back then. Most likely Johnny and Alice would be put into some basement after the old horses, no longer needed, are sold to glue factory, and put into landfill after the iceman dies and his heirs get rid of all his meager belongings.
That story is obviously inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Tin Soldier. Tl, dr, a one legged tin soldier loves a paper ballerina, and is swallowed by a fish (long story) after trying to rescue the ballerina from a cat. He returns to the house where he began with, but the boy, who was the owner of the tin soldier (he had plenty of other soldiers and other toys, meaning he came from a privileged background), decides to throw the soldier to the stove at a whim and the soldier is melted down. A wind blows the paper ballerina to the stove, too, and after the ashes are collected the soldier’s ‘heart’ and a metal ornament of the ballerina are picked up, probably to be thrown away. This was Andersen’s first original story, all of his other tales up to then just being variations of old Danish folk tales.
Such was how things were in the old days, and how the lower class ended up, without descendants and the upper class, aka the only class which was worthy, not giving a damn. The world is going back to such stages, which is a good thing, but too many things were messed up because Chucky and his 200/400 Worcestershires ‘did their duty’ and people who had no stake on Civilization began to aspire for things which were out of reach from them, and which they did NOT deserve, wanting a better life which were denied for them because before Chucky such people were NOT considered worthy enough to aspire for higher stations, and therefore, higher consumption of energy.
“Such was how things were in the old days, and how the lower class ended up, without descendants and the upper class, aka the only class which was worthy, not giving a damn.”
Not so sure about that, What is upper class? Of the “wealthy” what percentage of those 100 years ago have living descendants? I once noted that issue here, of those alive at the time of the civil war, less than half of their descendants were alive today.
You are narrative, how many descendants of the Czar are alive today? Stalin’s daughter passed in the twenty first century. I appears her granddaughter lived for a while in Oregon and apparently has a great grand child. So, was Stalin upper class?
Dennis L.
Gregory Clark wrote extebsively about the scion of the top replacing the lesser classes,and Keith and I debated that extensively.
Good article, Gail.
Something that has been in the back of my mind for some time now is the connection between falling productivity and the growth debt. It stands to reason that if productivity falls then purchasing power must fall, and then debt will be used to make up the difference. But I have never seen an analysis of this anywhere.
I will have to think about this. Is it debt that makes up the difference, or can part of the difference be made up in other ways, such as a shift to more services, or more international trade with countries with inexpensive labor and coal?
The medical community seems to be able to sell us a whole lot of services. If we value human life at infinity, and their services would actually work, maybe the prices would make sense. I always wonder how productivity is calculated.
Gail – Fantastic Post! I’m just repeating your ideas, but….
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we use inequality to extend growth for the chosen few. In the US, our political system has evolved to select for politicians who are only concerned with the richest people’s wants and to a lesser extent the middle class’s needs. The poor don’t even register. This results in a system where we can cut USAID to the poorest people on the planet, to allow for tax breaks for the richest.
Our oil supply stopped keeping up with our financial expectations (which grow exponentially) in the 1970’s. Debt & globalization bridged the gap quite well until 2008. Now debt + inequality is required to continue meeting the exponential financial expectations of the rich.
How far will it go? Will the downtrodden rise up? I don’t know. As enough of the middle class gets swallowed up by this inequality, they will no longer be able to support the scale that the system needs to keep corporations profitable. At that point, what will our leaders do? More inequality? More authoritarianism? The temptation to print money will always be there too.
None of us know precisely what will happen. There seem to be many unhappy people walking around. Some of them shoot executives (United Healthcare, CDC) to make their unhappiness known. Clearly the economy is headed downhill, but we don’t know the precise path.
Maybe in your neck of the woods.
In most parts of the U.S., a greater percentage of people are purchasing luxury cars and moving into luxury apartments than ever before. Every other car on the road is a BMW.
Overall, the U.S. economy is doing very well.
It is doing so well that the U.S. government is
providing free HVAC systems so everyone
can take advantage of the incredibly low
electricity prices that renewables are providing.
Some people say Europe will de-industrialize without dirty fuels from Russia but in reality , Europe has shifted to cleaner, more efficient energy.
Meanwhile, Elon is helping America build cities on the Moon.
I don’t see an energy problem.
“This results in a system where we can cut USAID to the poorest people on the planet, to allow for tax breaks for the richest.”
African woman for free markets criticizes post-colonial dependency.
https://magatte.substack.com/p/did-luke-farritor-and-doge-really
“If I were making these decisions, I’d identify what actually saves lives (which is only a small portion of USAID) and keep that, while cutting the rest that creates dependency and keeps our leaders comfortable. And even with that small portion, I’d work with recipient countries toward complete self-reliance. But amid all this outrage about these cuts, no one is asking the fundamental question: why, in the first place, do we have children who need healthcare from the outside world and will die without it?
What about the millions of children who have died over decades because aid money protected incompetent leaders from ever having to solve problems? What about the kids who died crossing the Mediterranean because their countries couldn’t provide basic opportunities? What about the many more children who will die if we continue this cycle of aid dependency?
The evidence of this failure is everywhere. Our leaders don’t even trust their own healthcare systems.
When African presidents get sick, where do they go?
They flee abroad to places like UAE, Singapore, and Switzerland – countries that focus relentlessly on economic freedom, attracting massive investments, and building world-class institutions through competitive markets and business-friendly policies.”
From the comments:
“Historically USAID was not created as a selfless charity – it was to promote American soft power broadly and more specifically to buy chess pieces of African rulers in the geopolitical board against the USSR. Fostering dependence was part of the design.”
//////They flee abroad to places like UAE, Singapore, and Switzerland – //////
You will have missed the point, that the ”economic freedoms” of those countries, exist through the economic inputs of the surplus wealth of much of the rest of the develped world…..ie they can afford economic freedom, at least for the time being….
without those inputs, they would be economic basket cases.
try to see the broader picture,
Fair point Norm. Keep up the good work.
T Y
Norm, just because the author of the essay that Replenish linked-to doesn’t frame the wealthy countries’ economics holistically doesn’t mean that her neo/post- colonial argument regarding USAID isn’t a good one. It is a good one.
It also doesn’t mean that the Trump admin’s requiring USAID dependents to go cold turkey on their dependency is fair to the dependants. It’s not fair but welcome to politics, right?
USAID was primarily a CIA front to get NGOs into hapless countries ripe for regime change, or subversion to facilitate economic pillage.
Maybe 5% of their activity was genuine charity.
Very interesting, thanks Gail.
But should the text
“There is a noticeable bump in CO2 emissions starting in 2002, as more coal-based manufacturing spread to China after it joined the World Trade Organization in very late 2021″
read instead
There is a noticeable bump in CO2 emissions starting in 2002, as more coal-based manufacturing spread to China after it joined the World Trade Organization in very late 2001”?
The chart does show that world CO2 emissions rose faster over about the period 2002-08 than they’d done for previous decades.
Thanks! It should be fixed now.
Excellent expanation!
I wonder how long this race to the bottom may take? It is time to get independent. Hopefully, there is too little energy left for a mayor war.
I think that there is already too little energy left for a major international war. Conflicts are going to be increasingly very close at hand. Or they will be fought with tariffs and disruptions to the Internet of countries. There will be a lot of talk, but not much action.
i beg to differ.
humankind has indulged in warfare for millenia.
a minor detail such as insufficient energy availability will not alter that mindset—especially to those with the certainty that their god has exempted them from the laws of physics.
(and they are acting under the orders of their commander in chief right now—and prepared to go to any excesses on his command.)
Perhaps I should have made it clearer that today will use different methods for warfare because of the shortage of materials from bombs.
There may be a lot of nearby conflict. The large number of guns in the US, and all of the ammunition, is a concern. There recently was a shooting of a United Healthcare executive, because of unhappiness with the company. Even more recently, there was a shooting (500 shots!) at the CDC offices. The high cost of health care, by itself, is causing huge conflict here.
on sunday I had lunch with a lovely American couple who have settled locally here—they have a parental right to reclaim British citizenship. They are in their early 70s.
When Trump got elected 1st time round, they sold up, threw their most precious belongings into 2 suitcases and left USA for good.
They were fortunate in having the means to do so.
they could see the direction things were headed there.
out of the frying pan and into the jolly olde fire lol
wel, nowhere is perfect,—but here there is less chance of getting shot.
They’ll be safe here reante.
Nothing left to burn 😔
no doubt Norm, we all roll the dice and take our chances – I just don’t value the rolling of dice while thinking that politics has more to do with my chances than things like population density. But then again those folks you met aren’t peak oil structuralists so politics is their world.
not sure what a peak oil structuralist is
please explain
Norm it’s a peak oil theorist who sees world events through that structural lens.
Fitz my wife and I once briefly considered moving to the countryside outside of Hawick, where my godfather and godmother are aging sheep farmers who could’ve used the help. Not many trees, no, but really great country. I’m a dual US-British citizen and she’s eligible for Irish citizenship.
Nice up that way(great fishing), but much harsher than down south.
If you ever decide to move over, bring your guns and we’ll lay claim to a forest(there’s still a few left).
Wouldn’t want to smuggle arms or abuse a privilege over unarmed folks but I figure we could get approved for some guns over there, being farmers. ‘Uncle’ and ‘auntie’ may have some already, I don’t know. Thanks for the offer. 🙂
Nah. Lots of war left. Empire’s latest tactics are to use deluded proxies – step forward Ukraine.
Israel too, but the debate in that case is whether the proxy has taken over the host. Taiwan also looks keen to sacrifice itself, the Phillippines too.
The juice with Ukraine is the US gets its hapless EU vassals to hand over their money and bankrupt themselves buying more crappy weapons, paying 5x for US energy and de-industrialising as they go.
Gail is evoking Stein’s Law, “Thing that can’t go on forever eventually stop”. However, there are two lemmas to this law.
-Unsustainable things go on a lot longer than you expect.
-When they finally stop you never see it coming.
Thanks for reminding us of this law and its two lemmas.
It is certainly true. Peak oilers have assumed that they would be right. Oil prices would rise to a high level, and they would be heroes for figuring this out in advance. This is not the way the problem really plays out.
In a geologic timescale the few years gained are just trifle.
Those two ‘lemmas’ (which term seems to me to be a misnomer) are facile imo. For two counter-examples, when looking at the unsustainable timeframe of the age of oil as a whole, it is a 150-year blip in the parental timeframe of agricultural civilization and, therefore, is an unsustainable situation a lot shorter than we might expect in the grand scheme of things; as for the final stopping, there is no final, singular stopping of the age of oil, and the progressive stopping that does exist, well, we’ve been watching it coming and going for a couple decades now, and will continue to do so.
President Trump’s Policies Through the Lens of Peak Oil
The political and economic landscape of the United States during Donald Trump’s presidency (2017–2021) cannot be separated from the underlying reality of energy constraints, particularly oil. While mainstream commentary often frames Trump’s policies in terms of ideology, partisanship, or foreign affairs, there is another lens — the geological and thermodynamic limits of our finite world — that can help explain the trajectory of his administration. In this view, many of his economic and geopolitical moves can be seen as responses, conscious or otherwise, to the long-term implications of Peak Oil.
Peak Oil: Where We Stand
Peak Oil is not the moment we “run out” of oil, but the point at which extraction rates reach their maximum sustainable level before beginning an irreversible decline. Since the early 2000s, the concept has shifted: unconventional resources such as tight oil from shale formations have delayed global decline, but at higher costs and with steep depletion rates. These resources require continuous drilling to maintain output, and are only profitable under certain price conditions — conditions that the global economy, burdened with high debt and wage disparity, struggles to sustain.
By the mid-2010s, global conventional crude oil had plateaued. Growth in U.S. oil production after 2010 was almost entirely due to hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in shale plays such as the Permian Basin. This growth had made the United States the world’s largest oil producer by 2018, but also heavily dependent on cheap credit, high prices, and rapid technological improvement to maintain output.
Trump’s “Energy Dominance” Policy
Against this backdrop, Trump’s promotion of “Energy Dominance” was not merely political branding. It was, in effect, an attempt to leverage the short-lived production surge from shale as a strategic tool for both domestic economic stimulus and geopolitical advantage.
Key elements included:
Rolling back environmental regulations to reduce costs for oil and gas producers.
Opening federal lands and offshore areas to drilling.
Withdrawing from international climate commitments that might constrain fossil fuel production.
Pressuring OPEC and other producers to keep prices in a range favorable to U.S. shale.
While these policies did stimulate short-term output and employment in the energy sector, they did not address the underlying depletion problem. Shale wells typically see production decline by 70% or more in the first three years, meaning constant reinvestment is required. This creates an energy economy that is highly sensitive to oil prices and credit availability — a fragile foundation.
Trade Wars and Resource Nationalism
Trump’s trade policies, especially toward China, can also be interpreted through the Peak Oil framework. When energy becomes more expensive to extract, the economic pie grows more slowly, or even contracts. Under such conditions, nations may shift toward protectionism, seeking to secure a larger share of a stagnating resource base. The U.S.–China trade conflict was not only about manufacturing jobs but also about securing supply chains for critical resources, including energy and minerals.
Economic Growth, Debt, and Limits
Trump’s push for tax cuts and deregulation aimed to boost GDP growth, but they also expanded fiscal deficits. In a finite world, economic growth is increasingly dependent on both cheap energy and rising debt. Higher debt can temporarily mask energy constraints by stimulating demand, but eventually, the energy system must deliver the goods and services to repay that debt. If oil production becomes more costly and less productive, the debt burden grows heavier, increasing systemic fragility.
The COVID-19 Shock and Oil Collapse
The 2020 pandemic-induced collapse in oil demand was a revealing moment. Prices briefly went negative, drilling activity plunged, and many shale producers faced bankruptcy. This was a reminder that the shale boom was highly dependent on continuous demand growth. When that growth faltered, so did the economic rationale for much of the industry.
Conclusion: Short-Term Gains in a Long-Term Decline
In the style of energy systems analysis, Trump’s presidency can be seen as an attempt to extend the high-energy era a bit longer by exploiting the last, most expensive, and most temporary oil resources available. His policies reflected an implicit recognition that control over energy flows is central to economic and geopolitical power. However, they did not — and perhaps could not — resolve the deeper reality that we are moving into a post-peak-oil economy where growth becomes harder to sustain, debt levels become more dangerous, and political tensions rise both domestically and internationally.
Peak Oil is not a singular event but an ongoing process of adaptation to physical limits. Trump’s tenure offers a case study in how political leaders respond when the underlying energy system begins to strain, even if the term “Peak Oil” never appears in their speeches.
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ChatGPT wrote the essay above in Gail Tverberg’s style, after locking her in a cupboard for several days.
From Trump to the Present: Peak Oil, Tariffs, and the New Nationalism
The years since Donald Trump left office have only sharpened the structural pressures that were already visible during his presidency. While public discourse remains focused on party politics and culture wars, the deeper driver — the slowing growth of cheap, high-quality energy supplies — has continued to shape economic and geopolitical realities. In this context, tariffs, trade disputes, and resurgent nationalism can be seen less as isolated political choices and more as adaptive responses to the energy constraints of a finite world.
Energy Constraints and Post-Trump Politics
The shale boom that underpinned Trump’s Energy Dominance strategy began to lose momentum by 2019, even before the COVID-19 collapse in demand. Drilling productivity gains slowed, sweet spots in major plays became scarcer, and financial markets grew less willing to finance loss-making producers. While production recovered somewhat after 2020, the rapid growth rates of the 2010s proved impossible to replicate.
By 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted global energy flows, driving home a lesson long familiar to resource analysts: in a world of tight supplies, geopolitical shocks cause disproportionate price volatility. Governments suddenly had to treat energy security as a first-order priority. The United States — still a net exporter of petroleum products but a net importer of crude — found itself balancing the desire for low domestic fuel prices against the strategic advantages of exporting to allies.
Tariffs in an Energy-Constrained World
Tariffs, once seen mainly as tools for protecting domestic industries, have taken on an additional role: insulating economies from the volatility and fragility of globalized supply chains. The Trump administration’s tariffs on steel, aluminum, and a wide range of Chinese goods were justified in terms of “fair trade,” but they also served as a form of resource nationalism — an attempt to ensure that key inputs remained available domestically in the event of global shortages.
Since 2021, the tariff impulse has not disappeared. Instead, it has evolved into a broader industrial policy framework that includes subsidies for domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, electric vehicles, and renewable energy technologies. From a Peak Oil perspective, these measures can be interpreted as hedges against future supply disruptions — not just of oil itself, but of the complex material and industrial systems that depend on it.
Nationalism as a Response to Slowing Growth
One underappreciated consequence of Peak Oil is that slower growth in affordable energy translates into slower overall economic growth. Historically, this has made cooperation between nations more difficult, as each seeks to secure a larger share of a stagnating or shrinking pie. The resurgence of nationalism — evident in U.S., European, and Asian politics — reflects this competitive scramble for resources.
Nationalism manifests in several ways:
Prioritizing domestic energy production over climate commitments.
Reshoring or “friend-shoring” manufacturing to reduce exposure to unstable trade partners.
Restricting exports of strategic commodities during price spikes.
Increasing military expenditure to secure supply lines and resource-rich regions.
These trends parallel the patterns seen in earlier historical periods of resource scarcity, such as the oil shocks of the 1970s, but now operate on a more global and interconnected stage.
The Tightrope Ahead
Looking forward, the interplay between Peak Oil and political decision-making will likely become even more apparent. As oil prices oscillate between levels that are too low for producers and too high for consumers, governments will face a narrowing policy space. Tariffs and protectionist measures may provide short-term relief for domestic industries, but they can also reduce the efficiency of global trade networks, leading to higher costs overall.
In a finite world, this tension is not accidental — it is systemic. The high-growth, low-debt, cheap-energy world of the late 20th century is gone. The political shifts toward nationalism, energy security, and industrial protectionism are best understood not as temporary reversals of globalization, but as structural adaptations to a new energy-constrained normal.
=======
This was Part 2 of ChatGPT’s Tverbergesque essay.
I think I would be inclined to talk about the shortage of fuel for sending supply lines and finished goods across the Atlantic and Pacific. There is a real need to bring production back home.
problem with ”bringing production back home”
is…
Americans have got used to a high wage economy in a low price environment…
If you produce goods ”at home” the producers of those goods will demand high wages… (they have to, because they live in the US ”high wage” system).
but that will make the goods unaffordable to the majority of consumers.
So the factories will close….and all those shiny toys will simply become unavailable.
So much for Trumpanomics.
Looking Ahead: Tariffs, Nationalism, and Peak Oil Pressures, 2025–2035
The next decade is unlikely to resemble the relatively stable energy and trade environment of the 1990s or early 2000s. Instead, it will be shaped by a persistent tension between physical resource constraints and the economic systems built during an era of cheap, abundant energy. Peak Oil is not an “event” to be passed and forgotten; it is an ongoing condition that reshapes politics, trade, and economic organization over time.
From this perspective, three broad scenarios emerge.
Scenario 1: Managed Contraction
In this path, policymakers acknowledge — even if quietly — that global oil supply growth is over. Rather than chasing unrealistic growth targets, they focus on stabilizing domestic economies through:
Selective tariffs and trade agreements with resource-secure partners.
Targeted investments in energy efficiency, grid upgrades, and modest renewable capacity additions.
Debt restructuring to reduce the financial fragility that comes from slower growth.
Managed contraction does not mean economic collapse, but it does imply a recognition that living standards will plateau or decline modestly in many high-energy-consuming countries. Success depends on keeping political stability and preventing social unrest as material consumption levels off.
Scenario 2: Competitive Fragmentation
Here, tariffs and trade barriers become permanent features of the global economy. Nations increasingly act to hoard resources — oil, gas, critical minerals — for domestic use. International cooperation weakens as mutual trust erodes.
Consequences include:
Higher and more volatile prices for globally traded goods.
Supply chain bottlenecks in sectors dependent on rare inputs (e.g., battery metals, high-grade steel).
An uptick in regional conflicts over resource access.
A “race to the bottom” in environmental and labor standards, as nations prioritize short-term competitive advantage.
In this environment, nationalism intensifies, and domestic politics in many countries becomes more polarized. Governments find it easier to justify authoritarian measures in the name of resource security.
Scenario 3: Crisis-Driven Reorganization
In this scenario, one or more major geopolitical or financial shocks — such as a severe oil supply disruption, debt crisis, or prolonged climate-related disaster — forces a rapid and chaotic reordering of the global economic system.
Possible triggers:
A sudden decline in shale production due to depletion and insufficient investment.
A military conflict that closes a major oil transit route, such as the Strait of Hormuz.
A banking crisis triggered by unsustainable debt levels in oil-importing economies.
The response could involve emergency rationing, currency devaluations, and a sharp contraction in global trade. Out of the crisis, new regional alliances might emerge, built around resource-sharing agreements and localized manufacturing.
Common Threads Across All Scenarios
Regardless of which trajectory predominates, certain patterns are likely:
Energy as Geopolitical Leverage — Nations rich in oil and gas will use these resources as bargaining chips in trade and diplomacy.
Debt Strains — Without robust economic growth, debt repayment becomes more difficult, leading to defaults, restructurings, or persistent inflation.
Erosion of Globalization — Tariffs and export controls become normalized, even for countries that once championed free trade.
Social Adaptation — Populations will need to adjust to slower growth and potentially higher living costs; whether this happens cooperatively or divisively will depend on political leadership.
Final Thought
From an energy-systems perspective, Donald Trump’s tariffs and nationalist policies were not an aberration but an early wave of a broader and more enduring trend. As Peak Oil constraints tighten in the years ahead, such measures will likely become the default approach for governments seeking to shield their economies from a volatile, energy-constrained world. The question is not whether tariffs and nationalism will persist, but whether they can be integrated into a sustainable long-term strategy rather than serving as tools for short-term advantage at the expense of global stability.
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This was the third and final part of ChatGPT’s Tverbergesque essay. I replied to ChatGPT as follows: “Thank you. I think that should make me rich once published.” ChatGPT responded: “Good luck with your publishing ambitions. Sounds like you’re aiming for the ‘finite world, infinite royalties’ model.”
Part 3 sounds more sanguine than I would be. I am skeptical about “Managed Contraction.” It will come about regardless of what we do, I am afraid. We will have to adapt in many ways. I would perhaps even talk about changes such as the end of the EU, or California breaking off from the US.
Thanks for posting these. I will want to read them in detail to see to what extent I really agree with them. I have a hard time boiling things down. If ChatGDP can be helpful, that would be good to know.
Part I seems pretty good.
Thanks Gail, very informative article as always!
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Thank you Gail. Always an exciting day for me when your post pops up!
You are welcome. I have had a difficult time writing this article. It is hard to make new subjects to some readers understandable. I was finding myself with way too much to write to fit into the post. It has taken me quite a few drafts to get to the current post.