From the Wilderness' Peak Oil Blog

Friday, December 12, 2008

“If anybody could have predicted this economic crisis, I would have
liked to have met them.”
-- Ellen Weiss, NPR's senior vice president for news
PBS News Hour December 11, 2008

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
-- George W. Bush, September 1, 2005

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would
take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another
one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an
airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."
-- Condoleeza Rice, May 16, 2002=

23 comments:

A peon said...: I take Ellen was NOT an FTW subscriber.; 3:30 PM
mczilla said...: “If anybody could have predicted this economic crisis, I would have liked to have met them.”

No Problem Radio

Weiss is either disingenuous or she has a very limited acquaintanceship. Either way, she joins the ranks of the Astounded Insiders. Yes, the pattern is obvious.; 3:39 PM
businessman said...: "Groups with guitars are on the way out."

Dick Rowe, Decca Records

Said in January of 1962 when turning the Beatles down for a recording contract after hearing their audition.; 3:50 PM
Bigelow said...: Was glad to see your link to TheAutomaticEarth, speaking of spot on financial prediction.; 3:58 PM
Byzantine said...: These quoteable luminaries all happen to be in positions where they are conveniently insulated from the effects of their prognostications.

While Dick Rowe's misread of musical taste is also humorous, it's hardly a crime.

The quotes are practically admissions of criminal negligence.; 4:18 PM
Anonymous said...: I am a world history teacher and I am showing the movie, the End of Suburbia to my 10th graders. It was made in 2003 and features Mike Ruppert. There are many wild predictions in that movie, such as $4 dollar oil, $7 trillion wiped out from the stock market, and millions of jobs lost. Who would have thought those things would have come true?

Anyways, it's wonderful to have Ruppert in the classroom and back on the web.; 4:27 PM
Dana said...: Hi, did you not receive my last comment or did you decide not to post them anymore since they contradict your message?
I just would like to know if it was a computer mess-up or unsecurity issues on your side?
I thought this was an honest blog, oh well...; 5:15 PM
Dana said...: Hi, did you not receive my last comment or did you decide not to post them anymore since they contradict your message?
I just would like to know if it was a computer mess-up or unsecurity issues on your side?
I thought this was an honest blog, oh well...; 5:40 PM
Jenna Orkin said...: dana, it's posted. you must have sent it to another thread; 5:40 PM
Dana said...: Hi, did you not receive my last comment or did you decide not to post them anymore since they contradict your message?
I just would like to know if it was a computer mess-up or unsecurity issues on your side?
I thought this was an honest blog, oh well...; 5:40 PM
Jenna Orkin said...: dana, see my response to the last identical comment you sent; 5:41 PM
gildone84 said...: Dana:

Your comment was posted in the comments section of the Dec. 5 post titled: NOW HERE'S AN HONEST QUOTE!, and it received several responses.; 7:29 PM
wxdude714 said...: If anyone paid attention and did a little research into the reported car sales decline of 2.8% by the US Govt, one would find that figure completely bogus. Even month over month it's completely bogus. The economy is tanking and the lies by this government are getting pretty bold. Year over year from 11/08 to 11/07 car sales are down around 35%. Month over month (10/08 to 11/08) they are down about 12%. Where this 2.8% magic number the US Govt pulled out of it's hat is yet to be seen.
Things are getting deparate!; 8:58 PM
ATL said...: "I have never used steroids. Period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never”

Rafael Palmeiro

yada yada yada

it's always someone; 9:30 PM
earthbound3 said...: I wish I was a little more intelligent concerning economics on the macro scale but I am wondering as to the logic employed as to buying real physical gold as opposed to paper, ETF, or via mutual funds? Is it because the whole financial system is about to implode? If so, would it make liquidating even real physical gold possible when this financial catastrophe comes down upon us? Will our existing monetary system be completely irrelevant in a decade making this all beside the point?

I was looking at TD (in Canada) precious metal mutual funds and it has tanked in the last year by a huge amount! Essentially lost half its value in the course of the year.

http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/mutualfunds/perforFrame.jsp

This seems counterintuitive to me. What is the reason for this?

Are all countries like Canada, US, Japan etc going to experience Weimar like hyperinflation soon?

And where can a Newbie like myself start learning how the global financial system really works? I'm tired of not understanding! Thanks all and great site! I've been following Mike Ruppert for a long time concerning his 9/11 and peak oil activism but now need to understand how our modern banking system functions (or doesn't function).

Peace,

Devin; 10:20 PM
Unknown said...: why nobody talks about eugenics?
please don't censor it; 4:00 AM
Unknown said...: Dana,

I read your comments on the Dec 5th thread, and I agree on the fact that technology has come a long way since the 1950/60's, so maybe we didn't have the technology to drill offshore back then. But, let me pose a question for you...

I didn't research actual costs, but it should be quite obvious that building an offshore oil rig and the expenses involved (ie, like the underwater pipelines from Gulf platforms to the 'mainland' to feed the oil to the refineries, etc) by the nature of the 'environment' (ie, at sea) is by its nature more expensive than on-land drilling... agreed?

So just to toss some numbers out (again, not presuming any accuracy), lets say it costs $10mil to setup an "onshore" (land) based oil well... and $100mil for an "offshore" oil platform. So that would make offshore drilling 10x more expensive than onshore.

Why on earth, then, if "we weren't running out" (Texas is now full of dry wells, and produces orders of magnitude less than it did in the 50's), would one pursue offshore drilling at 10x the cost unless you couldn't find enough on land?

If you could buy an ear of corn from your local farmer down the street at $1/ear, would you drive 100 miles in your car (say 20mpg at $1/gal gas = $10 round trip) to get the same ear of corn for $1/ear? Of course not, any reasonably intelligent person would think that pretty insane...

... however, if there was no corn available in your area, at any price (say a 10 year drought), you might drive that distance to get corn if you needed it to survive, right?

The fact that offshore drilling exists at all says that we've been willing to invest a vast amount more money to find the oil we need to "survive". We wouldn't be spending 10x more to go offshore, if we didn't "need" it, would we?

What happens when those start declining? The size of oil discoveries has declined for 50 years, if Ghawar (Saudi) is in decline, it would take 50+ new fields at the size we're finding now to replace it. It takes years to find/drill for oil - even ANWAR at best wouldn't be "up to speed" for probably 10 years if we started now... if the Saudi's are in decline, how do we replace what we need *now*? Maybe Mars has oil from the dead decaying Martians, at only 100x the offshore discovery price (1000x land drilling) to get to? How long and how much would it take to find that, and how do we get there with oil (rocket fuel) already declining?

Unlike the corn analogy, Oil is not renewable, its finite - once a field goes into decline its over for that field, we can't "grow" more, we can only discover what is already "buried" there from millions of years ago. It takes energy to drill for oil, where does that energy come from if oil (our primary source of energy) is already in decline and you (and millions of others) still want to drive to Walmart weekly (using oil), to buy products built/shipped with oil, to pay for them with the piece of oil (CC) in your wallet, or the check you sign with oil (the pen in your purse), to go home and cook dinner on the stove (manufactured with energy from oil), and turn on the TV (all compliments of oil for the case, the flatscreen, the components) to watch Star-Search and what the lastest new is on Brittany... are you willing to sacrifice *any* of these things *now* for the sake of coming generations?

If OPEC is in decline - trust me, thats *not* an optional question.; 12:16 PM
gaelicgirl said...: Jena,
I'm finding that about every other post I send in does not get posted. I'm quite sure that there's no reason you would censor them....the last one was a jokey one about Ellen's comment, similar to many others here. I think there's 3 or 4 lately that haven't been posted. I've checked other threads to see if they are on another one than I thought, but can't find them. Do you know what could be happening? After I post I get the message that says "will be posted after approval", so I think I'm posting them correctly....; 2:01 PM
Jenna Orkin said...: gaelic girl
you're right they haven't been censored. maybe i haven't got to them yet.

but sometimes i'm told there are hundreds of comments awaiting approval, yet i never received them

blogger software is not completely consistent.; 2:44 PM
Jenna Orkin said...: devin
follow links on ftw. and on economics, start with dailyreckoning.com; 2:46 PM
Dana said...: Pete, i would like to answer to your post but apparently my messages do not go through. I'm not sure why, it may be a computer glich, i see one message got posted twice but the last 2 - which actually contained something - did not get posted at all.
Anyway, it's a waste of time to write a message that gets lost so...; 4:30 PM
businessman said...: Once again, for those who think their comments that don't appear in the Blog are being censored, it's because sometimes Jenna doesn't receive our posts from the system.

This is what happened with my following post, and I'm resubmitting it again. And as a result, I've made a habit of saving any of my new posts in a text file until I see that they've been posted to the Blog. And if they don't get posted I just resubmit them again.

Out of all the Peak Oil DVDs I've seen, I think that "The End of Suburbia" is the best one to show to people who are just now beginning to learn about Peak Oil. The movie does a great job of explaining the history of the rise of the use of petroleum in our society, and the coming ramifications of Peak Oil on different areas of our lives.; 5:42 PM
Dana said...: Hi, Pete:

First, drilling offshore or the Russian tundra or through a mile of hard rock is indeed far more expensive than sticking a nail in the Saudi desert and get flowing oil.
But, as accessible oil deposits get depleted, it becomes profitable to go after those less accessible deposits because oil is such vital part of our lives. As those bountiful oil fields become depleted, it makes economical sense to go and look and drill for oil in inaccessible places and, as long as we find enough oil in those places we’re ok. Even if it’s more expensive, it is profitable for both producers and buyers.

Oil is not renewable and this is why many feel confident that the peak oil is here. The trouble with the peak oil theory (which by the way, I think makes perfect sense otherwise) is that one needs to know exactly how much oil is left out there and it does not take into account technology.
As early as October ’08 Cuba announced a major discovery. Yes, it is offshore and deep beneath the ocean floor but if needed, we will go and extract that oil.
And don’t disregard the exploration of oil in the Arctic: “90 Billion Barrels of Oil and 1,670 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas Assessed in the Arctic” per US Geological Survey.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7675234.stm
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1980

Also, even if we were to reach a peak-oil (which I do not believe we will yet), it does not necessarily have to be a sharp spear shaped peak, it may very well be a plateau that can last decades.

Now, let me ask you a question: if you had a commodity the world is absolutely dependent on (oil) and you knew the (finite) supply is declining, would you lower the selling price or raise it?
I hope you said “raise it”.
So why on earth would oil prices be going down if the supply is shrinking & about to collapse?

I am a lot more concerned about the “peak dollar” than the peak-oil: if the Washington keeps throwing our money at a bunch of bankrupt companies, the problem may be that oil on the market will be plentiful but we will not have what to buy it with…; 12:56 AM

From the Wilderness' Peak Oil Blog

Friday, December 12, 2008

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