Dear Candidate: What if growth was over?

[loosecannon]

During the Great Depression we had unemployment 3 times what it is now.

not! If unemployment was calculated the same way today as it was in 1933 we would have unemployment 2/3 as severe as then.

Economic growth was almost nonexistent for years. Capping it off we had a war that makes the current military actions look like a cakewalk. Our national debt was twice as bad as it is today. Yet we came out it with an economy that became the envy of the whole world.

Because we were the world's greatest creditor nation, escaped the war with 60% of the world's gold and parlayed that advantage into world reserve currency status which allowed us to dictate the terms of reorganization and run a double deficit, while our allies who bore the brunt of the burden of the war

A) became our new enemies
B) surrendered their empires to us
C) became subordinate to us

It had nothing to do with perpetual and inexhaustible cycles of boom and bust.

It had to do with one of special circumstances.

On the other hand we could have exited the war surrendering our sovereignty and learning German.

 

[loosecannon]

The chart below shows new production capacity is outpacing actual production. Demand cannot keep pace with the new supplies of fuels added to capacity.

that is because new reserves include those that we can't safely drill from 30-40,000 ft deep.

And it doesn't matter how much oil is discovered, it matters how much of it is cheap and how much of that can be extracted cost effectively in this marketplace.

Once a well passes it's current cost efficiency threshold it is shut down and may never be reopened despite changes in the equation. Start up costs and diminishing returns prohibit it.

And no matter how much oil is available cheap, humans will be capable of consuming all of it.

The world capacity for consumption of oil is already 20 times as high as current production and could be scaled up if excess cheap oil was available for consumption.

 

[loosecannon]

Strong contractions in the economy eventually lead too strong growth. As housing prices fall, profits, and employment plummet, we slowly work out the excesses in the economy. Marginal workers are laid off. Bloated home prices fall to reasonable levels. Less profitable products are dropped. Banks become more responsible lenders. Workers with jobs work harder to keep them. The result is productivity rises. Business becomes lean and mean. Eventually the economy starts moving up. First slowly, then it gains steam and before long we have a major expansion to be followed eventually by another contraction. This process has been repeating itself over and over for hundreds of years and there is no reason to think that this is end.

nobody said it was the end. What people said is that expansion can not continue forever based on exploding population and limited resources.

Even the sun will exhaust itself, as will the universe.

So will the Earth if we consume all of it.

 

[Oddball]

You wish, dildo.

And there has been no example yet of ".When coupled with the increased efficiencies better technology provides, a net lower demand on resources, for a given unit of production, results. " Quite the opposite.

and most of the world hasn't yet figured out the lower birth rate you speak of.

But lastly and mostly you treat the earth as if it was fully expendable simply for the purpose of maxing out human population.

Foolishly immune to the prospect that billions of years of genetic evolution is being irreparably damaged beyond what we and our technology could ever repair.

And this isn't an eco system, it is our life support system.

You act as if we can merely simulate another one if EVERY current trend reverses: population growth, unsustainable consumption, birth rate, technology surpassing instead of always lagging our insatiable demand and lack of discipline.


But then again you are clearly crazy as a LOON.

Once the cheap oil is gone and the cheap nat gas is gone, lights out. Deal with it.

Not only are you dumb as a bag of hammers, you're also exhibiting all three of the classic neuroses of the manic depressive (helplessness, hopelessness, and lack of deservingness) running in overdrive.

Probably best if you keep taking your Paxil and stockpiling canned goods, ammunition and other survival gear in your basement, for the impending doom of modern society.

iow you can't hang.

Noted.

I can "hang" just fine.

As I pointed out several pages ago, the prophets of Malthusian catastrophe have been wrong every time...You're not the first doom-n-gloom loon and you won't be the last.

Oh...And when you leap from the ledge of that tall building, please make sure you don't fall on any innocent bystanders.

 

[8537]

As I pointed out several pages ago, the prophets of Malthusian catastrophe have been wrong every time...

...But you can't seem to get any of those prophets right, tossing Galbraith and Ehrlich in a Malthusian pool where they anyone who has read them knows they don't belong.

And Malthus, for all the scorn the right heaps upon him, was right about a very many things.

 

[KissMy]

Urban windmills harm the environment

A small windmill on your roof or in the garden is an attractive idea. Unfortunately, micro wind turbines deliver hardly enough energy to power a light bulb. Their financial payback time is much longer than their life expectancy and in urban areas they will not even deliver as much energy as was needed to produce them. Sad, but true.

 

[JiggsCasey]

Repeating an idiotic question over and over and over and over again doesn't make them any less idiotic by mere numbers of repetition.

You really don't know jack squat how entrepreneurs think and operate, do you?

Why would anyone with any business sense spend all their money chasing after something that they know isn't there?

In other words, you can't find it, and your entire premise is based on assumption and hope. ... That's what I thought, chumpy.

 

[Oddball]

And your entire premise is based upon despondency and doom....Better you than me.

Given history, I like my chances far better than yours.

 

[JiggsCasey]

And your entire premise is based upon despondency and doom....Better you than me.

Wrong again, limited poster. My premise is based on nothing more than geological data, and the conclusions of the International Energy Agency, the U.S. Dept. of Energy, the Joint Chiefs, the German military, Lloyds of London, Oxford University, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, Total Oil of France, and the simultaneous and systematic failure of the world economy.

Where's the oil? Oh that's right, you gave up.

Given history, I like my chances far better than yours.

LOL.... Yeah, that was Barry Switzer's approach when he kept bringing No. 1 teams to Miami and getting his ass kicked in the 1980s. Lou Holtz too. Given history, he liked his chances of running the ball on 3rd-and-10 over and over again. Tool.

 

[Oddball]

No, your premise is based upon the same old doom and despondency that Malthusian declinists have been peddling for centuries.

Guys like you are the corollary about the old joke about the optimistic boy digging through all the horse shit, exclaiming that there has to be a pony in the barn somewhere...For every thoroughbred race horse, a gloomy Gus like you can see nothing but a 10-story warehouse filled with horse shit.

In fact, you're not even so optimistic to be a glass-half-empty guy....You're the kind of doomsaying misanthrope who worries that even having a glass to fill probably upsets the whole balance of nature, by depleting the world's precious stockpiles of sand.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Great Moments in Progressive Prognostication.

1,000,000 BC: At this rate, we'll run completely out of pointy sticks in 10 years!

100,000BC: At this rate, we'll run out of inhabitable caves in 10 years!

10,000BC: At this rate, we'll run out of fresh water in 10 years!

1BC: At this rate, we'll run out of hemp to make out loin cloths in 10 years!

1870: At this rate, we'll run our of steel in 10 years!

1890: At this rate, we'll run our of oil in 10 years!

1900: At this rate, we'll run our of coal in 10 years!

1920: At this rate, we'll run our of cars in 10 years!

1930: At this rate, we'll run our of steel, oil and coal and fresh water in 10 years!

1970: At this rate, we'll all be dead from Global Cooling in 10 years!

2010: At this rate, we'll all be dead from Global Warming in 10 years! And we're running out of steel, oil and coal and fresh water in 10 years!

 

[JiggsCasey]

No, your premise is based upon the same old doom and despondency that Malthusian declinists have been peddling for centuries.

It's gotten so bad for you, and you're such a coward in the face of direct challenges, you punt to personal insinuation and hyperbole based on nothingness.

Could you BE more of an empty, frustrated poster?

You won't try and counter the conclusions of those entities, because you can't.
You won't try and show where the new significant discoveries of oil actually are, because you can't.

Run along now, limited "hope-based" poster. This topic is far above your capacity. We've officially reached Peak Oddball.

 

[Oddball]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ5ob9B9yD4]YouTube - Gloom despair and agony on me[/ame]

 

[JiggsCasey]

Oops, wrong again, debate chicken. ... I don't look at it as gloom and despair.... I look at it as an opportunity to adapt and adjust to warning signs that science and technology have blessed us with.

People like you are going to be feeling the gloom and despair, make no mistake about it. Those stuck in the denial and anger stages of grief.

We'll be over here, at acceptance, waiting for you to get over it.

Once again, just to review:

You can't dispute those entities...
You can't show where the oil is...

Your argument is bankrupt, and you are really awful at this. But you keep right on embracing that hatred. Works wonders for you, angry con man.

 

[loosecannon]

As I pointed out several pages ago, the prophets of Malthusian catastrophe have been wrong every time..

...so far. But if population growth and the deterioration of the Earth's bounty continues we will reach a Malthusian impasse. The math doesn't lie.

If we haven't already. 1/3 of the earth's people live on a few dollars a day, a billion of those are malnourished and 50,000 of those die of malnutrition every day.

People have been saying nuclear weapons threatened the survival of our species too, and for as many decades, are they just shit for brains liberal alarmists as well?

 

[8537]

Oops, wrong again, debate chicken. ... I don't look at it as gloom and despair.... I look at it as an opportunity to adapt and adjust to warning signs that science and technology have blessed us with.

People like you are going to be feeling the gloom and despair, make no mistake about it. Those stuck in the denial and anger stages of grief.

We'll be over here, at acceptance, waiting for you to get over it.

Once again, just to review:

You can't dispute those entities...
You can't show where the oil is...

Your argument is bankrupt, and you are really awful at this. But you keep right on embracing that hatred. Works wonders for you, angry con man.

Galt's motor will save us all.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

As I pointed out several pages ago, the prophets of Malthusian catastrophe have been wrong every time..

...so far. But if population growth and the deterioration of the Earth's bounty continues we will reach a Malthusian impasse. The math doesn't lie.

If we haven't already. 1/3 of the earth's people live on a few dollars a day, a billion of those are malnourished and 50,000 of those die of malnutrition every day.

People have been saying nuclear weapons threatened the survival of our species too, and for as many decades, are they just shit for brains liberal alarmists as well?

You're worried about stuff you can't possibly control and shouldn't worry about anyway.

It seems to me that the Earth has been shaking off human population for a while now.

We were nearly wiped out totally about 80,000 years ago. We were reduced again about 15,000 years ago and I strongly suspect about 4,000 years ago as well.

Don't about the inevitable.

 

[Flopper]

Strong contractions in the economy eventually lead too strong growth. As housing prices fall, profits, and employment plummet, we slowly work out the excesses in the economy. Marginal workers are laid off. Bloated home prices fall to reasonable levels. Less profitable products are dropped. Banks become more responsible lenders. Workers with jobs work harder to keep them. The result is productivity rises. Business becomes lean and mean. Eventually the economy starts moving up. First slowly, then it gains steam and before long we have a major expansion to be followed eventually by another contraction. This process has been repeating itself over and over for hundreds of years and there is no reason to think that this is end.

nobody said it was the end. What people said is that expansion can not continue forever based on exploding population and limited resources.

Even the sun will exhaust itself, as will the universe.

So will the Earth if we consume all of it.

Actually they did. The post that kicked off the thread said "However, have you ever considered that economic growth might actually not return?" To say growth will not return means growth has reached the an end, but I'm not going to argue semantics. I understand your point.

I agree that there will come a time when population can not grow, resources will be depleted and the earth will cease to exist. In a hundred years or so we will probable hit zero population growth and we see depletion of some resources, and in 6 or 7 billion years the earth will be no more. But as the man said, "What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?" These factors will have only a minor influence on economic growth in the 21st century.

 

[loosecannon]

You're worried about stuff you can't possibly control and shouldn't worry about anyway.

It seems to me that the Earth has been shaking off human population for a while now.

We were nearly wiped out totally about 80,000 years ago. We were reduced again about 15,000 years ago and I strongly suspect about 4,000 years ago as well.

Don't about the inevitable.

LOL, I am not worried at all. Simply arguing with a tard who thinks that diminishing resources and increasing population won't result in a negative living standards and/or population curve.

 

[loosecannon]

Strong contractions in the economy eventually lead too strong growth. As housing prices fall, profits, and employment plummet, we slowly work out the excesses in the economy. Marginal workers are laid off. Bloated home prices fall to reasonable levels. Less profitable products are dropped. Banks become more responsible lenders. Workers with jobs work harder to keep them. The result is productivity rises. Business becomes lean and mean. Eventually the economy starts moving up. First slowly, then it gains steam and before long we have a major expansion to be followed eventually by another contraction. This process has been repeating itself over and over for hundreds of years and there is no reason to think that this is end.

nobody said it was the end. What people said is that expansion can not continue forever based on exploding population and limited resources.

Even the sun will exhaust itself, as will the universe.

So will the Earth if we consume all of it.

Actually they did. The post that kicked off the thread said "However, have you ever considered that economic growth might actually not return?" To say growth will not return means growth has reached the an end, but I'm not going to argue semantics. I understand your point.

I agree that there will come a time when population can not grow, resources will be depleted and the earth will cease to exist. In a hundred years or so we will probable hit zero population growth and we see depletion of some resources, and in 6 or 7 billion years the earth will be no more. But as the man said, "What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?" These factors will have only a minor influence on economic growth in the 21st century.

That poster was speaking about a hypothetical question posed to a US political candidate.

For the US, growth like we knew it in the 90's is gone forever, never to return.

For the world, well growth is pretty damned robust right now for almost half of it's people. WHAT recession?

A generation from now growth may resume for the US, after we reach a new normal and the baby boom passes on.