Author Archives: Gail Tverberg

About Gail Tverberg

My name is Gail Tverberg. I am an actuary interested in finite world issues - oil depletion, natural gas depletion, water shortages, and climate change. Oil limits look very different from what most expect, with high prices leading to recession, and low prices leading to financial problems for oil producers and for oil exporting countries. We are really dealing with a physics problem that affects many parts of the economy at once, including wages and the financial system. I try to look at the overall problem.

Oil shortages lead to hidden conflicts–even war

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Gail Tverberg

Governments may want to reduce long-term interest rates, but they cannot do so without having the market for these loans disappear. In this part of the economic cycle, it appears that high interest rates, indirectly due to inadequate inexpensive-to-extract crude oil supplies, act as a brake on the economy instead of high oil prices. Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Implications | Tagged , | 1,561 Comments

Crude oil extraction may be well past peak

Posted on September 11, 2024 by Gail Tverberg

The situation is far more complex than the models of economists make it seem. World crude oil supply seems to be past peak now; it may be headed down significantly in the next few years. Central banks have been working hard to keep oil prices within an acceptable range for both producers and consumers, but this is becoming increasingly impossible. Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Implications | Tagged , | 1,883 Comments

Today’s economy is like that of the late 1920s

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Gail Tverberg

Today, there is great wage and wealth disparity, just as there was in the late 1920s. Recent energy consumption growth has been low, just as it was in the 1920s. A significant difference today is that the debt level of the US government is already at an extraordinarily high level. Adding more debt now is fraught with peril. Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Implications | Tagged , , , | 1,968 Comments

How Does the Economy Really Work?

Posted on July 22, 2024 by Gail Tverberg

The world economy is an amazingly complex, physics-based, self-organizing system. The three major elements are extracted resources including energy resources, human population, and demand coming through the financial system. All three of these elements tend to increase over time, but both population and extracted resources tend to hit limits because the world is finite. Continue reading →

Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications, Introductory Post | Tagged , , , | 1,844 Comments

The Advanced Economies are headed for a downfall

Posted on June 22, 2024 by Gail Tverberg

Figure 1 shows that, for the Advanced Economies, GDP has been trending downward since the early 1960s; this is concerning. It makes it look as if within only a few years, the Advanced Economies might be in permanent shrinkage. In 2022, the expected annual GDP growth rate for the group of Advanced Economies seems to be only 1%. Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Implications | Tagged , , , | 1,532 Comments