Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies'
Source: Guardian UK
A former British Petroleum (BP) geologist has warned that the age of cheap oil is long gone, bringing with it the danger of "continuous recession" and increased risk of conflict and hunger.
At a lecture on 'Geohazards' earlier this month as part of the postgraduate Natural Hazards for Insurers course at University College London (UCL), Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008.
Dr. Miller critiqued the official industry line that global reserves will last 53 years at current rates of consumption, pointing out that "peaking is the result of declining production rates, not declining reserves." Despite new discoveries and increasing reliance on unconventional oil and gas, 37 countries are already post-peak, and global oil production is declining at about 4.1% per year, or 3.5 million barrels a day (b/d) per year:
"We need new production equal to a new Saudi Arabia every 3 to 4 years to maintain and grow supply... New discoveries have not matched consumption since 1986. We are drawing down on our reserves, even though reserves are apparently climbing every year. Reserves are growing due to better technology in old fields, raising the amount we can recover – but production is still falling at 4.1% p.a. [per annum]."
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/23/british-petroleum-geologist-peak-oil-break-economy-recession
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hueymahl
(2,497 posts)And it has yet come to pass. And his facts are dead wrong. Production dipped recently, but that was not a result of "Peak Oil", but directly related to the economy. And leading to permanent recession? Sounds like industry talking points for drilling in protected areas.
Don't get me wrong, we need peak oil to arrive so it can hasten the transition to renewable resources by driving up the cost of oil, thus making alternatives more economic relatively speaking. What we don't need is more sky-is-falling rhetoric. That hurts the environmental cause.
Auggie
(31,173 posts)hueymahl
(2,497 posts)See http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/more_highlights.cfm
More information than you could possibly want on the topic. Projected demand is increasing and so is production for the next 40 years. Demand is increasing faster than projected production, so we will see much higher prices, which in the long run is very good. But we are nowhere near "peak oil".
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)Higher prices mean more profits for oil companies who will do all in their power to suppress green tech and defeat anti-carbon laws.
New oil supplies coming online are WAY more environmentally destructive than the supplies the are replacing.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)That is why it will cause recessions and economic problems around the world. Oil may be available but it will be much harder to recover, to refine and to get to market. Let's really push for alternative energy.
The sun in the Southwest has powerhouse potential that we have not begun to use.
Every building in the southwestern United States that is not completely shaded should have solar panels. The sun here is, take your pick, brutal or untapped wealth. We need to put teams of scientists to work to figure out how we can make the most of this unused resource in the way we did when we worked toward developing an atom bomb.
This work needs to be done while we still have oil. There is only so much oil in the ground. It will peak. Whether mankind perishes due to climate change and environmental destruction or whether we start to use that sunshine (and other alternative energy resources in other parts of the world) before we reach a serious crisis is up to us.
We need to refocus on this issue now.
I worked for an oil company in the 1970s. We knew then that peak oil was inevitable. It is past time to leave out denial behind us and start developing the alternative energy sources with much more zeal.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)was the 1970s. That time is gone and it is now too late.
U.S. oil companies have LOTS of slack in their profits since the U.S. has never taxed oil on par with its environmental damage (as the EU does), thus American oil, WAY undertaxed, will still be half the price or better than EU oil, meaning the U.S. party has another 10 years or so to go before the real pain starts for the oligarchs.
"Cheap" U.S. oil will be exported for the higher prices it will command overseas, while the rest of us will wallow and die in the toxic wasteland left behind from the extraction.
Auggie
(31,173 posts)
markpkessinger
(8,401 posts). . . good luck getting them to curb demand.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)They've already hit a wall on how much they can burn, for atmospheric pollutants.
That's the price of burning this shit. Fortunately our use is declining, but worldwide, still a problem.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)What we "need" is for our leadership to take actions now that will help us deal with peak oil once the negative effects really begin to kick in. I understand many think it will take a crisis to motivate them but I dearly hope it doesnt have to go that far because if it does we are most likely doomed anyway.
Cosmocat
(14,565 posts)how this does not get addressed.
The most simple move, to increase gas mileage on vehicles took three decades ...
This has LONG needed an Apollo space program type national push.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)but it seems it got put on the back burner.
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DCBob
(24,689 posts)good grief.
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BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)DCBob
(24,689 posts)ppr'd
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)Cheers.
Cosmocat
(14,565 posts)it would have been addressed more significantly, but the Rs effectively shut down DC past 2010 ...
He did get legislation passed to force increases in gas mileage.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)Peak oil is about the process that begins once the easiest to find and cheapest to extract supplies are depleted. This has pretty much already happened. We are now having to spend more time and money to find oil supplies to replace declining fields. The more we increase production, the more oil fields we have to find to sustain that production. Production will continue to increase for a bit, thanks to the global economic meltdown that we still haven't recovered from (and many never recover from since very little reform has taken place and various bubbles are being re-inflated). But every year, the oil is harder to find, and the oil that is found is harder and more expensive to extract (not to mention far, far dirtier).
Think fracking is the answer? Aside from the obvious problems, the production life of fracking wells is VERY short.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale-oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power
Peak oil is here and so is global climate change. It is just a question of which will kill us first: The economic implosion from the lack of cheap energy or the destruction of a biosphere capable of sustaining human life.
The best analogy I can make is that we are trying to increase food production, but the new food we are growing is poisonous. The more we grow, the more we eat, and the more we eat, the faster we die.
Sorry, but the sky has fallen and the we are simply circling the drain pretending all is fine.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)before the shit hits the fan. The question is what we do with this time to deal with the problem.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)there just is not the political will to fix this problem and the sane people don't have the money to fight the oligarchs who own the politicians. Even if we came up with a magic power source tomorrow, the Extraction Industry would fight tooth and nail to keep it off the market and would probably mange to do so for a decade or more.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)Optimism has its place, but not at the expense of reality. Humanity is now in stage 4 of terminal cancer trying to jolly itself along that a miracle cure is just around the corner. And since science will come through (or an invisible sky fairy), there is really no need to change.
How different would the world be if we had listened to Jimmy Carter's truth about oil instead of Ronald Reagan's lies?
That was when we had a chance. Instead of listening to Carter we jumped off the Empire State Building convinced that we would have time to knit a parachute or that "somebody" would have built a big air mattress by the time we hit ground.
Well, the ground is now an inch away and neither parachute nor air mattress can revoke the cold equation of physics.
Please don't take this as a jab at you. These holidays are the blackest time of year for me.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Thanks for your posts.
Here in California, it hardly rains. We have so much sun that we hardly know what to do with it. It is absurd for us to use any source other than the sunshine itself for our energy. It is a question of learning how to store solar energy. Should not be an impossible problem. Think what has happened with other areas of technology in recent years. It's just a matter of focus and investment.
And besides sunny California, we have sunny Arizona, parts of Texas and portions of other states.
That's at least a fifth of the nation there. Then there is the energy of the tides and of the wind. Wind turbines are rather primitive (as are solar panels) but with a real effort, we can solve our energy problems.
We need to solve these problems no. No procrastination. This will take united social will.
At this time, solar panels are too expensive to put on most houses. Our family's electricity bill is not half enough to justify the cost of solar panels. We need a social commitment to pay households or businesses for the extra energy that their solar panels produce. It's the economics of new energy sources that need to be rethought and reworked.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)which should have started 20+ years ago.
1) Declare a national security emergency
2) Immediately divert 15% of the Pentagon's budget to alternate energy research. Establish a Manhattan Project for RENEWABLE energy and battery technology.
3) Transition from incandescent to CFL and LED bulbs (the thing we have just now done in the last decade)
4) Alter building codes to require that starting in, say 1995, ALL new buildings provide 5% of their own power via renewable sources. That would increase 1% per year for fifteen years, then 2% a year every five years thereafter.
5) Starting in 1995 (again, for example), 0.5% of all car sales would have to be electric with ranges greater than 100 miles. (this requirement would increase 0.1% a year until 2000, then 1% a year thereafter. EV ranges would have to increase 5% per year starting in 2000 until they matched ICE average (say 300 miles).
6) Tax credits for renewable upgrades to existing buildings.
7) Increase property tax and licensing fees for older inefficient vehicles.
8) New roads must be mass transit/bike friendly.
9) Side walks!!!!
10) Change zoning laws to curb urban sprawl.
What would have been the end result of this project?
- Massive jobs
- Clean air
- Clean water
- We could tell the Saudis to go fuck themselves (i.e. enhanced national security, possibly no 9/11).
This what we needed to have done 20+ years ago to insure our survival into the 21st century. But, we waited and chose to believe the happy talk. God/Santa/Technology/The Free Market would save us, so why worry?
When your space ship is running out of oxygen in 5 minutes, sprinting around the ship screaming at the plants to work harder is a counterproductive endeavor. You don't have enough plants. There isn't time to plant more, and all the running and screaming is just making you suffocate faster.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)I would add another step early on to promote and convert gas engines to natural gas to give us some time to transition to renewable alternate energy sources.
XRubicon
(2,212 posts)If it is solar, the increased demand for panels and market expansion will cause prices to drop.
We just need oil to cross the magic price, I think the oil companies know this and will drain us for every last nickel they can. The reason we all use oil is because it is cheap - for now.
Response to XRubicon (Reply #40)
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XRubicon
(2,212 posts)24% is for the stuff you are freaked out about. The world somehow got by before plastics and materials that are expensive now will become economical when oil is too expensive to make Tupperware.
I think we will have a combination of solar and hydrogen energy.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/energy-overview/petroleum-oil/
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XRubicon
(2,212 posts)Do you know why your television is made of plastic and not gold? Hint: cost.
Do you know why shale oil is just now being extracted and wasn't before? Hint: cost.
Do you know why solar will become viable over oil? No hint this time...
Response to JDPriestly (Reply #22)
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Delphinus
(11,831 posts)Sorry that this season is rough on you - be as kind to yourself as possible.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)Last edited Thu Dec 26, 2013, 07:43 PM - Edit history (1)
which helps cheer me up.
Showed them the "Turkey Give Away" episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, which is complete new to them. They now want to see more episodes of WKRP.
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Response to Kelvin Mace (Reply #20)
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NickB79
(19,253 posts)Anyone who thinks we haven't passed, or are close to passing, Peak Oil has to ask themselves: why are oil companies risking multi-billion dollar drilling rigs on otherwise foolish endevours like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/business/energy-environment/shell-oil-rig-runs-aground-in-alaska.html?_r=0
Or this: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/may/08/shell-deepest-offshore-oil-well
The move is being viewed in the oil industry as a demonstration of Shell's confidence that its technology can deliver returns on expensive and risky offshore projects, despite a recent downturn in oil prices.
As the easy oil wells that could be pumped profitably at $25/barrel run dry, we're replacing them with wells that are incapable of operating at oil prices below $75-$150/barrel. Wonder why fuel prices stay stubbornly high even as oil production in the US increases? That's why.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)and they are spending $1 billion a year to make sure they can burn EVERY drop of the oil/coal/gas they dredge up regardless of the consequences, because they seem to believe they and their descendants will be living on another planet when the environmental bill comes due.
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/23/the_campaign_to_fight_action_on_climate_change_is_backed_by_1_billion_a_year_in_covert_donations/
Actually, fuck their children and grandchildren! What matters is that they have money NOW.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)which should be able to find ways, through clear honest communication, to be far more genuinely democratic than at present, is necessary.
The current deeply perverted 'money NOW (and concentrated in the hands of the few)' laissez-faire system must yield.
markpkessinger
(8,401 posts). . . what, then, do we do about the many other uses (besides fuel) for which petroleum is required? Just trying to think of how we could replace plastics alone boggles the mind!
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)are even more critical since rising prices in that market get translated straight to the table.
hunter
(38,317 posts)Bigger than the Empire State Building
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/12/05/249003294/the-worlds-largest-vessel-enters-the-water-in-south-korea
There are plans for even larger vessels.
This is a "floating island" that will process natural gas.
Natural gas is replacing oil for many purposes. It's also being used to make synthetic fuels.
Peak oil is years behind us. Most of the easy oil is gone.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)raccoon
(31,111 posts)
MADem
(135,425 posts)At least not at anywhere near "capacity." And that's down to broken equipment. The Iranians, too--they're in a sanctions situation as well as a broken equipment one.
They've discovered oil off the coast of Brazil, Cuba, and other places--so we're not running out of the stuff.
And of course, if the poles keep melting, who knows what's under there?
We'll be pumping oil for way longer than 53 years ... unless we get to the point where alternatives are just so much easier, and we start to finally appreciate CLEAN air (for a change).
Now watch--pointing out these facts, someone will come to the erroneous conclusion that I somehow support the "Drill Baby Drill" team, when in fact, my preference is for renewables.
NickB79
(19,253 posts)Hint: once you're past the peak, we'll still be pumping oil. That is a central tenet of Peak Oil, not a refutation of it.
Peak Oil isn't about "running out of the stuff."
MADem
(135,425 posts)YEEEEEARS!!!!!!!!" the goalposts keep getting pushed back ten, then twenty, then fifty, then a hundred years....and they're assuming no one is going to find any more of the crap.
They're finding enormous amounts of the stinking crap since the first time I heard wailing about this topic over a decade ago here on DU--it's just not in the "usual places" over in the Middle East. You can't judge what's out there by looking at OPEC's production downturns; they're the Old Men in the equation. Recently--just this year-- they found hundreds of billions of barrels in Australia. Brazil is sitting on a gold mine of oil, to mix metaphors. Africa could be massive players if they could beat back the corruption and outright theft, and get their act together technologically.
I don't think the Peak Oil argument is a good one, anyway, because it IS about "running out of the stuff" but it's the next generation that will have to eat it, not us--it's rather a "Sky is falling" construct, and selfish people just won't give a crap because they'll be long dead.
I think the better argument for getting off the oil is the sweet smell of clean, fresh air. When I go to NYC or LA, I get physically ill from the stinking, nasty air pollution--it's disgusting. When I go to northern Maine, the air is so clear and clean that it's like a drug. Get kids out of the cities and into the fresh air on holidays; it will give them a perspective they wouldn't have on why renewables are important to their future.
Response to MADem (Reply #35)
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MADem
(135,425 posts)I don't think it's behind us yet, and I don't think it will be for some time.
Using SA as a paradigm of how oil production "should" be, though, is not realistic or accurate. SA oil is "light sweet crude" and it requires virtually no refining. It wasn't discovered trapped in hard, rocky soil, it was discovered in easily accessed soil covered by a sea of sand. It's an unusual oil in an unusual location. It is not typical at all, it is champagne in a world of beer.
If the Saudis had initially realized what they had, they would have charged more for it and given fewer concessions and hung on to their product for as long as possible, taking their economic expansion in more measured fashion--they'd probably have been better off because they'd be making more dough on the back end.
Now, VZ oil is heavy and sour; it will never "bubble out of the ground" simply because it is so heavy and gunky--it requires a lot more refining and is cheaper to buy outta the ground because of that fact. It also requires pumping because it's so damn heavy, not because it's more hidden, necessarily. But there's a shitload of it.
By the time we start running out of oil, the generation AFTER mine will be long dead--at a minimum. That's why it's difficult to persuade people to give a shit. I think incentivizing renewables is the way to go, but we're not at that point yet, at least not in a really serious way. The profiteers are still profiting, and people have no compelling motive to switch to "better" forms of energy.
But "peak oil?" We're not even at base camp.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)we need to recognize that the supply of fossil fuels is limited. There are only so many of those dinosaurs and vegetation that have been compressed within the earth to create oil and natural gas. That is a fact.
So far we have identified some options to fossil fuels for energy such as solar, wind and water. We should be aggressively developing those alternative energy sources.
We are far from developing replacements for fossil fuels in a whole variety of other products including plastics, fertilizers, etc.
We absolutely need leaders that will push back on fossil fuels (and nuclear because it is NOT safe) and drive the adoption and expansion of renewables.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)not going to happen.
$1 billion a year is being spent to deny global climate change. We cannot compete with that kind of money, and since money is speech, we had our vocal chords cut a long time ago.
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)I’ve written so much on the subject of peak oil, and some of it so recently, {http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-19/peak-oil-demand-peak-oil} that it would be redundant to go into much detail here on that score. Suffice it to say that world conventional crude oil production has been flat-to-declining for eight years now. Declines of the world’s supergiant oilfields will steepen in the years ahead. Petroleum is essential to the world economy and there is no ready and sufficient substitute. The potential consequences of peak oil include prolonged economic crisis and resource wars.
Producers of unconventional liquid fuels—tar sands, tight oil, and deepwater oil—are playing the role of Dutch boy in the energy world, though their motives may not be quite so altruistic. With unconventional sources included in the total, world petroleum production has grown somewhat in recent years, but oil prices are hovering at near-record levels (that’s because unconventionals are expensive to produce). The oil industry has successfully used this meager success as a public relations tool, arguing that it can continue pulling rabbits out of hats for as long as needed and that policy makers therefore need do nothing to prepare society for a peak-oil future. In fact, world oil markets are depending almost entirely on continued increasing production from the US—all of which must come from fracked, horizontally drilled wells that decline rapidly—to keep supplies steady. (FYI, the link that Heinberg gives here: {http://peakoilbarrel.com/shocker-world-depending-usa-save-peak-oil doesn't work; instead I found this one at the same web site: http://peakoilbarrel.com/will-us-light-tight-oil-save-world/} /JC)
Even the US Energy Information Administration recognizes that the US tight oil boom will be history by the end of the current decade—though the official forecast shows production levels gently drifting thereafter when in all likelihood they will plummet, given the spectacular per-well decline rates of the Bakken and Eagle Ford formations. {http://www.postcarbon.org/drill-baby-drill/} Is there another Dutch boy waiting, finger ready? Tight oil deposits in other countries will take longer to develop and will present more technical challenges. Other unconventionals, like extra-heavy oil in Venezuela and kerogen deposits in the American West, will be even slower and more expensive to produce—if they’re ever tapped to any significant extent (Shell just abandoned its kerogen research operations without any prospect of eventual profitability). {http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/shell-abandons-oil-shale_n_3991716.html}
Bottom line: the recent, ongoing “new normal” of high but stable oil prices may last another few years; after that, oil supplies will become much more problematic, and prices are anybody’s guess. The dam is weakening. Have your hip boots and waders ready.
http://peakoil.com/consumption/richard-heinberg-fingers-in-the-dike/comment-page-1
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)We were at a conference together for a few days, staying in the same hotel, had lots of opportunities to chat.
Great man, great efforts.
Thanks for this valuable reply with links.
mitty14u2
(1,015 posts)Peak Oil
Peak Oil: the truth & the lies - part 1
Peak Oil: the truth & the lies - part 2
Oil prices gain on US economic optimism after Fed move POSTED: 20 Dec 2013
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/oil-prices-gain-on-us/928708.html
Oil prices are no longer Price and Demand but Dictated by Greed, a War is the ultimate Greed Feedbag, that’s why Republican Neocons want a war with Iran, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan brought Monstrous Wealth, raising oil prices making Wall Street giddy, its sickning, they are grabbing more power by the minute, buying Politicians like candy, we are all doomed if these people are not stopped just like Standard Oil break Up back When.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil
olddad56
(5,732 posts)But who really cares anymore. It is just the way it is.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)appear to take this, cough, little factor into account. Thanks.
MADem
(135,425 posts)4dsc
(5,787 posts)Lets face the facts here. Peak oil is here and there is nothing we can do to change a future that will exist with less oil. A lot less oil. Non-conventional sources will peak in about 6-7 years and then all bets are off.
But 99% of Americans will sleep right though the peak and wonder what hit them when TSHTF.
RKP5637
(67,111 posts)the future, rather driven by propaganda, opportunists and greed.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)and everything is 'renewable' powered by the free sunshine 
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)True though. There's oceans of the nasty stuff. Another NeoCon meme discredited long ago but trust the Guardian to revive it. They'd resurrect Malthus if they could.
neverforget
(9,436 posts)expensive stuff. Hardly some NeoCon conspiracy from the Guardian.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Anything at all? Can you explain the concept of fractional flow to the class, perhaps? No? Well then, sit back down and let the grownups continue with their conversation.
Kids these days...
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)The fears of economic collapse & mass starvation really are *quite* overblown. Yes, there would be problems in the short term, at least for nations that didn't, or couldn't, prepare. But just as catastrophic global warming isn't at all likely in the short term, neither is total economic collapse or mass famine from the end of oil, either.
chungking34
(51 posts)We really should have started investing in greener, more fuel efficient technology much earlier. That way, we'd be able to greatly reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.
4dsc
(5,787 posts)that's the problem most folks don't understand when they talk about alternative fuels. They are all dependent upon oil to produce or manufacture and transport. That is why future generations are going to rely upon using far less oil and have few choices for so called alternatives.
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)All we have to do is wait a few million years and they will be restored.
It will take some sacrifice while we wait but it will be worth it because when the wait is over we will see wonderful profits again that will last for several decades.
JohnyCanuck
(9,922 posts)Growth is Obsolete
Society needs to realize growth does not equal prosperity
by James H. Kunstler
snip
We are in the third act of the industrial melodrama now where the dire sub-plot of peak oil has taken stage. Despite the wishful thinking and happy-talk propaganda lighting up the media-space, we have arrived at the problematic point of the story: the end of cheap oil. This is poorly understood by the public and, apparently, by leaders in business, politics, and the media, too. They misunderstand because they insist on thinking that peak oil was simply about running out of oil. It’s not. It’s about running out of the ability to extract it from the earth in a way that makes economic sense — that is, at a price we can afford in terms of available capital and energy invested (and also ecological destruction). That dynamic is now exerting a powerful influence on modern civilizations. We ignore it -- even at the highest levels of intellectual endeavor -- because we have made no alternate plans for running the complex operations of everyday life, and because the early manifestations of the dynamic present themselves in the realm of finance, which is dominated by academic viziers and money-grubbing opportunists who benefit from obfuscating reality.
The sad, stark fact is that oil is now too expensive to permit further expansion of economies and populations. Expensive oil upsets the cost structure of virtually every system we need to run modern life: transportation, commerce, food production, governance, to name a few. In particular expensive oil destroys the cost structures of banking and finance because not enough new wealth can be generated to repay previously accumulated debt, and new credit cannot be extended without a reasonable expectation that more new wealth will be generated to repay it. Through the industrial age, our money has become an increasingly abstract and complex product of debt creation. As Chris Martenson has put it so succinctly in The Crash Course, money is loaned into existence. Thus, the growth of debt (allowing the growth of money) has played a crucial role at the heart of our banking operations, and the very word “growth” has become shorthand for this process in the lingo of current economic discourse.
It is quite clear that the banking system has been thrown into great disarray as the price of oil levitated from $11-a-barrel in 1999 to the great spike of $140 in 2008, and then settled into a range between $75 and $110 since 2010. Most of this disarray is a result of attempts to offset the failure to create new real wealth with fake wealth generated by accounting fraud, "innovative" swindling, insider chicanery, high frequency front-running, naked shorting of securities, and the construction of a vast untested network of derivative counterparty wagers that give every sign of being booby-trapped. All this private monkey business has been abetted by public mischief in central bank interventions and market manipulations, fiscal irresponsibility, political payoffs for favorable legislation, statistical misreporting, and the failure to apply the rule of law in cases of blatant misconduct (e.g., the MF Global confiscation of segregated client accounts; the Goldman Sachs “Timberwolf” CDO scam… the list is very long).
In short, a society with deeply impaired capital formation has turned to crime, corruption, fakery, and subterfuge in order to pretend that “growth” — i.e. expansion of capital — is still happening. The consequences are many and profound. The chief one is that the manufacture of fake wealth is such an alluring activity that some of the smartest people in society have devoted their waking hours to making a profit off it. It absorbs all their energies and they are simply not available for other work, such as figuring out a sane and practical way to run civilization in the absence of cheap energy. Added to this is the administrative effort and the work-arounds needed to support all this corruption and dishonesty, which occupy the hours of another class of smart people who work in government, academia, public relations, and the media. The sustenance of these parasitical cohorts more and more continues at the expense of everybody else in society, who cannot find work, or cannot make enough money to pay their living expenses, and who have become deeply discouraged, disappointed, demoralized, and disengaged in their losing struggle to thrive. Hence there is little public vigor to even mount a discussion of these vexing problems and the final result is the greater wholesale failure to construct a coherent consensus about what is happening to us and what we might do about it.
http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/83221/growth-obsolete