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I know this may be a silly time to think about it right now, but I do. It is the price of oil that makes me wonder. It is holding up extremely well especially if the near global depression is factored in. To put today's nearly $50 oil price into perspective, it averaged under $20 a barrel during the booming 1990s.
May 23, 2007
Earth's natural wealth: an audit
These may sound like drastic solutions, but as Graedel points out in a paper published last year (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 1209), "Virgin stocks of several metals appear inadequate to sustain the modern 'developed world' quality of life for all of Earth's people under contemporary technology." And when resources run short, conflict is often not far behind. It is widely acknowledged that one of the key motives for civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1998 and 2002 was the riches to be had from the country's mineral resources, including tantalum mines - the biggest in Africa. The war coincided with a surge in the price of the metal caused by the increasing popularity of mobile phones (New Scientist, 7 April 2001, p 46).
I remain a stagflationist long-term, but I could be wrong. We did come up with one solution that seems to be working so far though.
So what can be done?
Permanent global depression?
Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: Existing-Home Sales Increased to
4.15 million SAAR in November
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At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:
[image: Existing Home Sales]*Click on graph for larger image.*
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increase...
16 hours ago
3 comments:
The foundation of my economic outlook is based on a simple fact.
The USA (5% of the global population)
produces %30 of the Global GDP
using up almost %45 of the planets natural resources.
Run the numbers out and only about 1 billion people can live the "good life" on this planet (AKA the American Way of Life, that, by the way Obama won't apologize for.)
So the US has two choices. Erase 5 billion people from the face of the earth. (Lucky we have 6000 nukes) or we continue to suppress the other 5 billion with violence and financial weapons of mass destruction.
Anyone else think option 2 is not working out so well?
I forgot to mention that WIRED had an article that only gave us 9 more years of Helium in the USA.
I'm Not POTUS,
Anyone else think option 2 is not working out so well?
We're going to need a third option. We won't get a third option of course, but we certainly need one.
I continue to see us as locusts. We needed to grow and couldn't, so we looked to China to create some more locusts to keep the swarm alive. Not quite sure how that actually helps us long-term though.
Perhaps we just need to discover a country bigger than China to keep the growth model from imploding. Any ideas? Have we explored the entire world yet? Maybe there is an underground civilization with 10 billion people that we simply haven't found yet.
I forgot to mention that WIRED had an article that only gave us 9 more years of Helium in the USA.
That's sure to pop a few balloons.
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