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Recent Posts
- Why Oil Shortages May Bring Lower Prices–and Recession
- China and US Trade Talks: A Solution for Oil Shortages?
- Losing the Iran War May Be the Best Outcome for the World
- A New Explanation for Tariffs and Bombings
- Understanding Deglobalization: The Role of Diesel and Jet Fuel
- 2026: Expect a very uneven world economic downturn
- Too many promises; too few future physical goods
- A lack of very cheap oil is leading to debt problems
- What has gone wrong with the economy? Can it be fixed?
- Sierra Club talk that may be of interest
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Category Archives: Financial Implications
Too many promises; too few future physical goods
The world is filled with financial promises, including loans, pensions, and even the market value of stocks. So far, the system seems to be working, but in a finite world, it is hard to believe that the system will work indefinitely. Governments can create money simply by adding more promises, but they cannot create goods and services in a similar fashion. Continue reading
A lack of very cheap oil is leading to debt problems
The economy needs a strong middle class to maintain the buying power needed to purchase goods such as vehicles, motorcycles, and new homes, to keep the price of oil up. Prices must be both high enough for producers and low enough for consumers. Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications, Introductory Post, PDFs Available
Tagged EROEI, EROI, limits to growth, low oil prices, wage disparity
1,521 Comments
What has gone wrong with the economy? Can it be fixed?
I don’t believe that the situation is hopeless. At the end, I discuss where we are now, relative to historical patterns, and some reasons to be optimistic about the future. Continue reading
Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications, oil shortages
Tagged economic collapse, limits to growth, oil prices, peak oil
1,621 Comments
Why oil prices don’t rise to consistently high levels
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Energy policy, Financial Implications
Tagged oil demand, peak oil, physics of the economy
1,589 Comments
Worrying indications in recently updated world energy data
The Energy Institute recently published its updated energy report, the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, showing data through the year 2024. In this post, I identify trends in the new data that I consider worrying. These trends help explain the strange behaviors that we have been seeing from governments recently. Continue reading
Posted in Alternatives to Oil, Energy policy, Financial Implications
Tagged copper, diesel shortage, nuclear energy
1,300 Comments
