Wall Street Journal
"Energy Watchdog Warns of Oil-Production Crunch"
May 22, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121139527250011387.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
It's a rare day that I succumb to using vulgur language -- but this is straight-in-your-face bullshit. Honestly, the hairs on my neck are standing.
I understand the critical need for carefully measured words when facing a crisis of this proportion. I'll even support it to a degree.
However, to say that the IEA has warned us is akin to some guy telling you to beware of his dog... as it's knawing-off your left ass cheek, having already shredded both of your arms.
But hey, at least you were warned, right?
Now, imagine laying in a pool of your own blood, and a few other "concerned folks" pass by and tell you to "be cautious around that guy's dog."
Who are these other "concerned folks?"
CERA - Cambridge Energy Research Associates
USGS - United States Geological Survey
EIA - Energy Information Administration (not IEA)
DOE - Department of Energy
AND all your major government/corporate mass media.
From this point forward, we'll watch a parade of excuses and lies spew from these agencies' PR departments. In various forms, they will say that "oil reserves are essentially unknowable and any estimate of actual reserves is, at best, simple guesswork based upon the good-faith proclamations of our friends at OPEC." Hint: they are going to say "who could've known?" and then shift blame.
Blaming OPEC, however, will not be sufficient to recover their credibility. Anyone with internet access and half a will to learn the truth can easily expose a long history of lies, snobberies, and attacks.
Remember, it's one thing to say that you don't know. I can live with that. But that is NOT what they did. Instead, they offered up their scholarly assessments while lifting and shifting their noses as to avoid the stench of any who would disagree with them.
Ever since 1956 - when Shell geologist, M. King Hubbert, first warned us that world-wide production will peak somewhere around the year 2,000 - these agencies have dubbed as wackos anyone who said anything incongruent with the "oil, therefore growth, is limitless" chant. They have thrown a lot of good people under the bus.
There have been plenty of good neighbors attempting to warn you that there is a vicious dog in the neighborhood. However, the local authorities chose to muzzle a long list of guys with names like Hubbert, Deffeyes, Campbell, Hirsch, Simmons, Heinberg, and countless others. It didn't matter that these guys basically dropped their life to learn the facts and sound the alarm. They were to be classified as crazy doomers while the party-line prevailed: buy yourself an SUV.
If you wait around for organiziations like those listed above to give you ample warning... you're not going to make it.
Sorry.
On another note: Congress is considering suing OPEC! Oh, good idea guys. That'll do it.
I've got an even better idea. Why don't "we the people" just sue all of you (Congress and all of your respected agencies) for having put our republic to sleep on this issue for the past 35 years.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Hirsch & Pickens, CNBC, 5-20-08
Two of the worlds's foremost oil experts say Peak Oil has arrived on CNBC Squawk Box.
Robert Hirsch - thought by many to be too conservative on issues regarding peak oil - is predicting gas prices to hit $12-$15 soon.
Boone Pickens - often called the Oracle of Oil - says that we have reached maximum world wide production at 85 mil bbl/day.
See videos.
Robert Hirsch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IWGsnW_NnxE
Boone Pickens: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jngHfYFs9L8
I can't think of two more credible voices in this debate.
Robert Hirsch - thought by many to be too conservative on issues regarding peak oil - is predicting gas prices to hit $12-$15 soon.
Boone Pickens - often called the Oracle of Oil - says that we have reached maximum world wide production at 85 mil bbl/day.
See videos.
Robert Hirsch: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IWGsnW_NnxE
Boone Pickens: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jngHfYFs9L8
I can't think of two more credible voices in this debate.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Bush's Body Language
Did you see it?
Did you see the newsreel showing our President sitting down with the Saudi King?
Body language tells a great deal. It was clearly evident who held the power and who was subordinate. The King sat relaxed, upright, and regal. The President shifted nervously in his seat, looking like a junior high school science fair participant who was trying to win-over a judge.
It didn't work. He went pleading for an increase in oil production, but he left with no such thing.
Or..., maybe the meeting was a huge success.
Put yourself in the Saudi throne. If you held the lifeblood of a foreign country in your hand that sold for $125/bbl. today, would you ramp up, sell more, and deplete faster? Or, would you consider cutting production, sell it at $200/bbl., and stretch supply into the future where you can fetch $500/bbl.?
Simple logic (plus a little understanding of the economic hornets' nest under the throne) indicates that the U.S. still holds considerable sway. But the brown-nosing routine shows that our power is fading fast.
Read: http://energybulletin.net/44316.html
As you read, ask yourself two questions:
1) Why would the U.S. pledge to help Saudi Arabia develop a nuclear energy program?
2) Why would Saudi Arabia refuse production increases when the world's mightiest military surrounds them?
If you need help with the answer... it's because they are pumping crude at or near capacity now, and face steep production declines in the near future. The much dreaded "Twilight in the Desert" has arrived.
Did you see the newsreel showing our President sitting down with the Saudi King?
Body language tells a great deal. It was clearly evident who held the power and who was subordinate. The King sat relaxed, upright, and regal. The President shifted nervously in his seat, looking like a junior high school science fair participant who was trying to win-over a judge.
It didn't work. He went pleading for an increase in oil production, but he left with no such thing.
Or..., maybe the meeting was a huge success.
Put yourself in the Saudi throne. If you held the lifeblood of a foreign country in your hand that sold for $125/bbl. today, would you ramp up, sell more, and deplete faster? Or, would you consider cutting production, sell it at $200/bbl., and stretch supply into the future where you can fetch $500/bbl.?
Simple logic (plus a little understanding of the economic hornets' nest under the throne) indicates that the U.S. still holds considerable sway. But the brown-nosing routine shows that our power is fading fast.
Read: http://energybulletin.net/44316.html
As you read, ask yourself two questions:
1) Why would the U.S. pledge to help Saudi Arabia develop a nuclear energy program?
2) Why would Saudi Arabia refuse production increases when the world's mightiest military surrounds them?
If you need help with the answer... it's because they are pumping crude at or near capacity now, and face steep production declines in the near future. The much dreaded "Twilight in the Desert" has arrived.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Ex-Fed Chief Issues Dire Euphamism
New York Times
May 15, 2008
Paul Volcker, Fed Chief under Carter and Reagan, has issued a dire warning: U.S. faces 70's style inflation.
His imposing shadow (Ex-Fed Chief, founding member of Trilateral Commission, current seat in the Group of Thirty..., not to mention that he stands closer to seven feet than to six), with one foot in NYC and the other in DC, stretches clear around the globe. Not many who have walked this earth have had more access to money, power and influence than Volcker. This all to say, "When this guy speaks, you better listen."
Here's the scary part. The Chair (past or current) of the Federal Reserve is NOT allowed to speak so frankly. They are supposed to say that an "all-hell-is-breaking-loose-right-now crisis" is "a matter of some concern that must be monitored over the forseeable future."
After reading the article from the New York Times, I went back to re-read a piece from shadowstats.com with a new level of interest. After combining the two articles, it dawned on me that Mr. Volcker's skill in the use of euphamism is firmly intact.
I doubt I will be able to sleep tonight.
NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/business/15joint.html?ref=patrick.net
ShadowStats.com article: http://www.shadowstats.com/article/292
May 15, 2008
Paul Volcker, Fed Chief under Carter and Reagan, has issued a dire warning: U.S. faces 70's style inflation.
His imposing shadow (Ex-Fed Chief, founding member of Trilateral Commission, current seat in the Group of Thirty..., not to mention that he stands closer to seven feet than to six), with one foot in NYC and the other in DC, stretches clear around the globe. Not many who have walked this earth have had more access to money, power and influence than Volcker. This all to say, "When this guy speaks, you better listen."
Here's the scary part. The Chair (past or current) of the Federal Reserve is NOT allowed to speak so frankly. They are supposed to say that an "all-hell-is-breaking-loose-right-now crisis" is "a matter of some concern that must be monitored over the forseeable future."
After reading the article from the New York Times, I went back to re-read a piece from shadowstats.com with a new level of interest. After combining the two articles, it dawned on me that Mr. Volcker's skill in the use of euphamism is firmly intact.
I doubt I will be able to sleep tonight.
NYTimes article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/business/15joint.html?ref=patrick.net
ShadowStats.com article: http://www.shadowstats.com/article/292
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Donald Trump, Boone Pickens on U.S. Economy
May 15, 2008
CNBC Squawk Box
Donald Trump, interviewed on this morning's Squawk Box, indicated that he was bullish on the world economy as a whole, but bearish on the U.S. economy. "With oil at $50 a barrel, we are headed for recession, at prices much higher than that we're heading for a depression, and we've got oil at $125/bbl.," he warned.
Billionaire oil magnate Boone Pickens, also interviewed this morning, announced that he was purchasing 667 wind turbines from General Electric at a cost of $2 Billion for his Texas based Mesa Power. These turbines will cover 400,000 acres in the Texas panhandle and provide enough power to serve 300,000 average homes. By 2015, Mesa Power expects to have 2,500 turbines on-line. "Oil is phasing out and renewables are coming in," he said. "And I want to be a part of it."
Pickens also weighed in on today's crude oil landscape. "Of the 85 million barrels of oil produced each day, OPEC provides about 31 million barrels. World demand is 87 million barrels per day, and the world is only capable of producing 85 million barrels (per day). If your capped off at 85, now 85 won't cover 87, so the only way this work's out is price has to kill demand. We've been down this trail before, but it's becoming more and more obvious what the world is up against."
He continues, "What we've done here in the U.S. is go deeper and deeper in the hole. We're spending $600 Billion per year on imported oil. We've more or less said 'keep sending us more oil, never mind the cost. That's where we are now, we are in a trap."
CNBC Squawk Box
Donald Trump, interviewed on this morning's Squawk Box, indicated that he was bullish on the world economy as a whole, but bearish on the U.S. economy. "With oil at $50 a barrel, we are headed for recession, at prices much higher than that we're heading for a depression, and we've got oil at $125/bbl.," he warned.
Billionaire oil magnate Boone Pickens, also interviewed this morning, announced that he was purchasing 667 wind turbines from General Electric at a cost of $2 Billion for his Texas based Mesa Power. These turbines will cover 400,000 acres in the Texas panhandle and provide enough power to serve 300,000 average homes. By 2015, Mesa Power expects to have 2,500 turbines on-line. "Oil is phasing out and renewables are coming in," he said. "And I want to be a part of it."
Pickens also weighed in on today's crude oil landscape. "Of the 85 million barrels of oil produced each day, OPEC provides about 31 million barrels. World demand is 87 million barrels per day, and the world is only capable of producing 85 million barrels (per day). If your capped off at 85, now 85 won't cover 87, so the only way this work's out is price has to kill demand. We've been down this trail before, but it's becoming more and more obvious what the world is up against."
He continues, "What we've done here in the U.S. is go deeper and deeper in the hole. We're spending $600 Billion per year on imported oil. We've more or less said 'keep sending us more oil, never mind the cost. That's where we are now, we are in a trap."
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
James Howard Kunstler Interviewed by Glenn Beck
May 13, 2008
Glenn Beck, CNN
James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency" and "World Made by Hand," appeared on CNN's Glenn Beck last night.
Kunstler's books paint a pretty stark future for all of us. Personally, I find his books to be fascinating, insightful, and prophetic. However, many see him as an angry fellow, long hoping for civilization's demise.
There is one thing that cannot be argued though: He will soon be a household name as the "Peak Oil" debate begins to supplant "Global Warming" as the most critical issue facing our world.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/05/14/beck.life.oil.cnn?iref=videosearch
See video (endure 15 sec. advertisement).
Glenn Beck, CNN
James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency" and "World Made by Hand," appeared on CNN's Glenn Beck last night.
Kunstler's books paint a pretty stark future for all of us. Personally, I find his books to be fascinating, insightful, and prophetic. However, many see him as an angry fellow, long hoping for civilization's demise.
There is one thing that cannot be argued though: He will soon be a household name as the "Peak Oil" debate begins to supplant "Global Warming" as the most critical issue facing our world.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/05/14/beck.life.oil.cnn?iref=videosearch
See video (endure 15 sec. advertisement).
Friday, May 9, 2008
Orlando Housing Outlook Bleek
CNNMoney.com
May 8, 2008
Orlando housing market to fall 21% within the next 12 months according to CNN Money. The only two U.S. cities to be hit harder are Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.
If gas prices continue to escalate, the tourism industry will suffer. Orlando, with an economy greatly dependent on inflows of travelers, could face even more trouble than the study suggests.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/06/real_estate/100_forecast.moneymag/index.htm
Article takes several seconds to fully load.
May 8, 2008
Orlando housing market to fall 21% within the next 12 months according to CNN Money. The only two U.S. cities to be hit harder are Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.
If gas prices continue to escalate, the tourism industry will suffer. Orlando, with an economy greatly dependent on inflows of travelers, could face even more trouble than the study suggests.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/06/real_estate/100_forecast.moneymag/index.htm
Article takes several seconds to fully load.
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