[pf] Re: [pf] 'even if oil reaches $500/bbl, it wouldn't make. sense to

There is some real truth to the argument, I think.   I'm going to mull it
over for a few.  It ties in and seems to draw some of its threads from
Michael Parenti's work (Democracy For the Few and Sword and the Dollar) who
brought up a number of the same points, but not with specific regard to oil
useage.


Namaste-

Matthew

----- Original Message -----
From: David MacClement <d1v9d@bigfoot.com>
To: Positive Futures <positive-futures@igc.org>
Sent: Friday, October 01, 1999 9:30 PM
Subject: [pf] 'even if oil reaches $500/bbl, it wouldn't make. sense to look
for new oil.'


**  I know many of you would rather I didn't do this, but here is a
competing vision of the world economy in the near future, introduced by a
revisionist (?) view of the US political system. My point is the timing is
clear, and close.

[a quote: ]
. one trend in the decades following World War II progressed in a straight
and rapidly ascending line -- the consumption of oil. . it was oil that now
powered its human population, both. as fuel and in the proliferation of
new. products.  Oil emerged triumphant, the undisputed King, a monarch
garbed in a dazzling array of plastics.  He was generous to his loyal
subjects, sharing his wealth to, and even beyond, the point of waste.  His
reign was a time of confidence, of growth, of expansion, of astonishing
economic performance.  His largesse transformed his kingdom, ushering in a
new drive-in civilization.  It was the Age of Hydrocarbon Man.
-- Daniel Yergin, 1992. [1]

The genius of our so-called democracy lies in its stability and
predictability.  James Madison (1751-1836) is known as "the father of the
U.S. Constitution". [3]   Madison's primary political concern centered on
the maintenance of social stability by the political and social control of
competing factions; control by government itself was a secondary
consideration.  With those objectives in mind, the framers crafted an
elaborate political system:

·  Where "first object of government" . was "the faculties" of acquiring
property. [4]

·  Where the struggle of classes and passions . was replaced with the
struggle of interests in the economic sphere.

·  Where the political system was extremely resistant to change.

·  Where political power was reserved for a white male minority while
projecting the illusion of self-government to the majority.

Madison scholar Richard K. Matthews explains:
    "By consciously denying virtually all but a handful of citizens any
role in a governmental structure that, by design, was to be run by an elite
of superior ability (who nonetheless would have to check and balance each
other), Madison left [economic struggle] as the prime avenue for humanity
to search for meaning." [5]

    Nowadays, the terms "democracy" and "market economy" are often used
interchangeably.  Political decisions in a market economy are stunningly
simple: one dollar, one vote.  In short, the market economy serves as a
stealth political system to foster rational thought, universal values based
on calculation, and world peace based on self-interest.  The market economy
succeeds because it satisfies our hunter/gatherer genetic drives for
dominance, sex, food, and material possessions.

    One hundred years ago, fundamentally defective economic theories led to
two world wars with millions killed.  Today, the same defective economic
theories are taught to students all over the world and are leading to a new
generation of world wars with billions killed.

[another quote: ]
What if . the 19 Muslim petroleum-exporting countries . proposed an
entirely new organization called the "Alliance of Muslim Petroleum
Exporting Nations" -- "AMPEC" for short?
-- Richard Duncan, 1997 letter to President Clinton. [2]

    America will soon lose the stability the framers worked so hard to
create because it is becoming wholly dependent upon inherently unstable
(authoritarian) oil-producing Muslim nations like Indonesia.  It happened
twenty-five years ago when OPEC quadrupled world oil prices and plunged
America into "stagflation".  Fortunately, the non-OPEC producers still had
a HUGE unexploited oil cushion to fall back on and simply pumped central
bankers out of their economic crisis.

    But that was 1973 and this is 1999 -- twenty-five years later the oil
cushion is gone.  Muslim nations will soon control virtually all of the
world's oil exports.  Since neither capital nor labor can create energy,
the next round of energy-shortage-induced stagflation will leave central
bankers helpless and they will seek military solutions to their economic
problems.

    It's the best-kept secret in Washington, Whitehall, Brussels, and
Jerusalem, but it's just a matter of time.

ENERGY SOURCES

By definition, energy "sources" must produce more energy than they consume,
otherwise they are called "sinks".

The market economy burns energy to make money -- there is no substitute for
energy.  Although the economy treats energy just like any other resource,
it's not like any other resource.  Available energy is the precondition for
all resources -- including energy resources.

The key to understanding energy issues is to look at the "energy price" of
energy.  Energy "sources" that consume more energy than they produce are
called "sinks" and are worthless as sources of energy.  This thermodynamic
law applies no matter how high the "money price" of energy goes.

The market economy receives almost 80 percent of its energy subsidies from
nonrenewable fossil sources: oil, gas, and coal. .

In the 1950s, oil producers discovered about fifty barrels of oil for every
barrel invested in drilling and pumping.  Today, the figure is only about
five for one.  Sometime [between] 2005 [and 2020; see below], that figure
will become one for one.  In other words, even if the price of oil reaches
$500 a barrel, it wouldn't make energy sense to look for new oil in the US
after 2005 [& other countries, other years] because it would consume more
energy than it would recover.

The increasing energy cost of oil sets up a positive feedback loop: since
oil is used directly or indirectly in everything, as the energy costs of
oil increase, the energy costs of everything else increase too -- including
other forms of energy.  For example, oil provides about 50% of the fuel
used in coal extraction.[6]

Immutable energy laws tell us that a growing economy must eventually
consume more energy than it can buy.  When America spends more-than-one
unit of energy to produce enough goods and services to buy one unit of
energy, it will be physically impossible to cover the overhead (money is
irrelevant).  At that point, America's economic machine is "out of gas".
Forever!
 ...
 [ This and the rest can be read at:  http://dieoff.com/page173.htm  ]

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The peak of world oil production, by the most recent studies is now
projected to occur sometime between 2003 (Campbell, 1998) and 2020
(Edwards, 1997). Of special interest is that in March, 1998, the
International Energy Agency, for the first time forecast a possible date of
the peak of world oil production stating: "... a peaking of conventional
oil production could occur between years 2010 and 2020" (International
Energy Agency, 1998). In more detail, a study has just been completed
projecting the peak of oil production in 42 countries (Duncan & Youngquist,
1998). The largely oil-dependent countries and their estimated peak years
are Kuwait, 2018; Oman, 2002; Syria, 1999; United Arab Emirates, 2017;
Yemen, 2002; Saudi Arabia, 2011; Venezuela, 2005. Qatar, Bahrain, Iran,
Libya, and Brunei have already passed their peaks. Qatar's oil decline is
cushioned by huge gas deposits now being developed. Both Bahrain and Iran
have seen increasing unrest as the decline in oil income has undermined the
standard of living. Iran passed its peak of oil production in 1973. With
the population now increasing much beyond what the declining oil revenues
can support, Iran will be the first oil-rich Gulf nation that within 10
years will be poorer than it was twenty years ago.
 [ From:
        The Post-Petroleum Paradigm -- and Population
 by: Walter Youngquist, Consulting Geologist
  in:
Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Vol. 20,
Number 4, March 1999; © 1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc. Also at:
http://dieoff.com/page171.htm  ]

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sent by David.
(David MacClement) d1v9d @ bigfoot.com (remove spaces)
http://www.emucities.com.au/member/davd/index.html#top
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