Very nice.

__________________
"He taught by example that part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views."

--Melissa Lane, The Guardian; obituary for philosopher of science Peter Lipton.

Farewell Eddy Arnold...Make the World Go Away...

MAGIC THEATER
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
FOR MADMEN ONLY!

Hey my LCD HDTV uses less juice then my old one....even my PC monitor uses 1/2 an amp less.

As far as SUV's go....I still drive mine...its not one of those HUGE Tahoes like my neighbor who has 4 cars (another topic)...but it gets me around.

How many of you guys stockpile food? Im talking more then 72 hours plus water?

__________________
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. ~John F. Kennedy

Everone suffers in the short term. It's like the adage that we don't know happiness until we experience pain. As these are habits, we don't expect them to change overnight - we have to curb the behavior and those who suffer will be forced to change. The long term net effect will be positive on many levels.

As stated in other threads, the QOL of our poor is higher than any other. It will take something like this to realize that.

__________________
"He taught by example that part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views."

--Melissa Lane, The Guardian; obituary for philosopher of science Peter Lipton.

Farewell Eddy Arnold...Make the World Go Away...

MAGIC THEATER
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
FOR MADMEN ONLY!

Yeah it is painful, but Americans seem to learn how to change their habits through pain.

Like politics. When lots of Americans are jobless, party politics, AND affiliation starts to matter a lot, lot less.

BTW, the Populism movement started thanks to massive joblessness and destitution. Things aren't bad right now... they're just mere "annoyances."

Bad isn't when you've spent your paycheck and there are still 2 more days left at the end of the month. Bad is when your paycheck is spent before you even get it and there's no money for weeks.

Really bad is when you're not getting a paycheck at all. Worse is when the government can't give you anything for your unemployment insurance you were paying for.

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Buh-bye.

I give it a few more months, and Washington is going to look more and more like France (protests all the time, every day, over nothing).

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Buh-bye.

the price of every commodity is in bull market.

Iron ore shot up 100% + in a year.
Coking coal shot up more than 100% in the same time.
Gold is almost doubled up in price.
Steel is already selling for more than $1000/ton for hot rolled and more than $1100 for cold rolled coils
Fertilizer, specially potash has quadrulpled in price.
Corn, wheat, soybeans, and other such crops have skyrocketed in value.

Why now?
Because the Fed has been cutting interest rates to try and keep the growth going so that Bush doesn't get blamed for the recession and so that another Republican can get elected. Lower dollar-denominated interest rates means lower value for the dollar, and it means all the commodities rise in value because they hold intrinsic value, unlike the dollar. And it is also because unlike the U.S., major parts of the world are booming. The BRIC nations are booming and are jacking up the demand for all those items, and are willing to pay up in order to secure limited resources. And that's just it.

All these are limited resources. Once you run out of coal in a mine, that's it. It's not going to produce any more. We're staring at not just peak oil, but pretty much peak everything. How many humans can the planet Earth sustain at a reasonable living standard, that's an interesting topic. Technology improvements can change the horizon of that peak on a commodity, but any amount of technology isn't going to change the limited nature of these resources. You can extract more oil from various places that weren't economical earlier and are now so because of higher prices, but even those pools of oil have a limit.

So, all this is very interesting. Unless the whole world goes into a recession, I would bet on oil staying at or close to $100/bbl for a while now.

__________________
New term of the day 1/24:
Electile Dysfunction: The inability to become aroused over any of the choices for President put forth by either of only parties in the 2008 election year.
http://www.votenader.org/index.html


5/22, because i'm feeling punny:
As the great Jedi English teacher was quoted in saying, "metaphors be with you."

I don't think this recent rise to $120 is really peak oil (not that I don't believe in peak oil - I do), it's just some panic about minor events that will subside
that's why yesterday I bought some MACROshares Oil Down Tradeable Shares (DCR), basically an ETF that invests in oil puts. In the near term I expect oil to fall into the double digits, but that is just my wager.

What do you expect to improve that might warrant such a decrease? Do you think the entire increase is due to panic and not market conditions?

__________________
"He taught by example that part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views."

--Melissa Lane, The Guardian; obituary for philosopher of science Peter Lipton.

Farewell Eddy Arnold...Make the World Go Away...

MAGIC THEATER
ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY
FOR MADMEN ONLY!

I suppose some of it is due to panic, some of it due to a weakened dollar, and some of it is due to speculation. Of course some of it is due to supply and demand but oil consumption has not risen enough to justify $120 barrel oil. I am not saying we won't see $200 oil soon, but I am just saying it will fall in the near term (like the next two months). (fwiw I bought DCR at 3.52)

I wonder how long it will take for the huge alternative fuel deposits to ramp up production, or how quickly they can.

The Albertan Tar Sands are estimated to have 1,750 billion barrels of heavy crude with about 10% recoverable with current technologies.

The Green River formation of oil shale under Colorado and Utah has the equivalent of an estimated 1,500 billion barrels of shale oil and gas, with roughly a quarter to a third of that estimated to be recoverable.

For comparison's sake, the Ghawar oil field in Saudia Arabia has produced about 70 billion barrels of oil so far.

Another possible technology is biodiesel from algae, which is probably a few years further away than either of the other two but is not limited by the amount of reserves in the ground and can be grown anywhere there is sufficient sun and water. Considerably more oil can be extracted from algae grown in an acre than any other type of plant life though to maximize density requires more capital outlay for infrastructure as well. Unlike corn-ethanol it also has enough of a positive EROI (energy return on investment) to be worthwhile in the long term.

It'll be interesting to see when (if?) those technologies are able to scale up enough to make a dent in oil prices.