The $ rockets?

[FRED]

Re: The $ rockets?

I don't know about anyone else, but I've got my diapers securely strapped on JK. I'm ready to rumble.

Luke, surprised to hear you wear diapers, but encouraged that you are willing to share them with JK.

This is where we all learned this stuff. He's referring to this:

http://www.itulip.com/gold_dow_inflation.htm

[metalman]

Re: The $ rockets?

Luke, surprised to hear you wear diapers, but encouraged that you are willing to share them with JK.

This is where we all learned this stuff. He's referring to this:

http://www.itulip.com/gold_dow_inflation.htm

i remember this. took patience to make money on gold the first few years. now newbees are thinking gold is pets.com circa 1999. well, get ready for gold to go down then do nothing for years and years. then rocket limit up and none around. markets are war. this ain't for wusses.

[GRG55]

Re: The $ rockets?

been watching since 2001. at each dollar rally ask yourself...

• has the usa fiscal position improved?
• entitlements liability covered?
• wars over?
• oil gushing out of the ground in oklahoma?
• national saving rate reversed?
• current account deficit reversed?
• congress and the corrupt political system that brought us the housing bubble, mortgage crisis, and gse bailouts in violation of the constitution? all fixed up, are they?
• corrupt fed that opened the discount window to wall street firms? reformed yet?
• inflation tackled by brave fed with rate hikes in the face of credit crunch and debt deflation?

...

Sounds just like Paul Volcker who used slightly fewer words :

"Until policies are adopted that have an historical ability to be able to move deficits towards surpluses, the Dollar will continue to decline."

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: The $ rockets?

http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm...f.8Ud9HSYA.asf

Marc Faber, phone interview 5:18min, global economy in recession already.

US will outperform. USD to 147 against EUR. With gun to head would buy in US for next 3-6 months. Commodities can easily drop 50% as some have already done, but they will resume at some point upward.

He is not buying US stocks (I presume because no gun is to his head), is long the US$, and then is cut off for likely commercial bullshit to bombard viewers.

[Guest]

Re: The $ rockets?

Luke, surprised to hear you wear diapers, but encouraged that you are willing to share them with JK. This is where we all learned this stuff. He's referring to this: http://www.itulip.com/gold_dow_inflation.htm

Yes FRED, I'm sufficiently up to speed with a "gut assessment" of the length and depth of potential retrenchment. JK has had a bearish streak a mile wide on the PM's ever since I've been reading here. He was one of the last on board with the idea that somewhere along the line iTulip's much discussed KA sort of faded out of the picture. What now? It's suddenly back because people are startled by the savagery of a typical major commodities correction? Do we remember how "end of days" last August's retrenchment was as well? I don't think the snap back rally in the PM's will be as vigorous as last fall's, because we are not coming off of a one and a half year base as we were then. But frankly I place less stock in the constant comparisons to the "last big correction in the last major PM bull market - it may be, or it may not be. Who's got the faintest clue as to the odds of history repeating? The parallel is called up again and again as a sort of "blind man's invocation" of the past, looking for some guidance on risk. But take a closer look: how many real similarities are there to the 1970's bull market in these metals?

Global currency order on the brink of collapse? YES (not in the 1970's)

*Real* Peak Oil as opposed to Political Embargo? YES (not in the 1970's)

Probability that petroleum's price is instead going to resemble a runaway train within 3-4 years? YES (was not a one-way trend in the 1970's)

US in a trap of unfunded liabilities and unpayable levels of debt a' la' Williams Hyperinflationary scenario? YES (was NOT the case in the 1970's)

Closing in on 1 quadrillion notional derivatives? YES (was not even anyone's bad dream in 1970's)

NONE of these things was remotely similar in the 1973-1974 massive gold price correction. Is anyone thinking this through rather than leaning fearfully on those superficial parallels?

And the post below illustrates another point (from TOM SZABO at the SILVERAXIS website). There is a multi-century sea-change occurring right now to the previous secular decline-trend in commodities prices. Think about it - is this something you want to argue is an incorrect assumption, that commodities from here going forwards with Peak Cheap Oil will be a game comparable to their action in the 1970's? Don't spot the gaping dissimilarities in fundamentals? The notion that we have well and truly arrived at a juncture where commodities prices are breaking into a new secular uptrend is startling, subversive to all conventional wisdom, (risky to one's reputation!) and ultimately ... highly PLAUSIBLE.

iTulip was LATE to this thesis, which finds it's core, but by no means it's entirety in the "Peak Cheap Oil" discovery.iTulip is still "digesting" the implications of it as they percolate into the entire commodities complex. But it is a game changer because the prior paradigm was that after all financial abuse periods in monetary history are over, the commodities return to their long term secular downtrend.

Mr. Szabo in the brief review below, is putting his finger on the innocent, unobtrusive little point that iTulip has only recently and hesitantly incorporated into it's thinking / forecasting - that the commodities boom this time has some very large non-financial components underpinned by factors having nothing to do with fiat money (as did the 1970's commodities boom, which was in fact much closer to being a bubble, due to fiat money being the sole real driver!). The notion that commodities resume their multi-century natural downtrend bias after the "financial disturbance" is over is now arguably a dangerous assumption. We can look around at the petroleum vs. demand predicament in the world and I think anyone wishing to argue the contrary in 2008 is taking on an unenviable task.

Therefore JK's implicit assumption, that the precious metals as barometer of the entire commodities complex, can and must eventually emulate a grinding correction similar to that of 1973-1975 is based wittingly or unwittingly, on comfortable assumptions about the same old commodities secular downwards bias taking over whenever blistering inflationary push slackens off temporarily. In the context of some of the data which people like Rajiv have in fact posted to these pages, evidencing critical global average ore grade declines, coupled with terminal changes in the net petroleum energy costs, the implications were quite clear, but not adequately picked up here. The assumption that the commodities markets have the leeway (led by petroleum!) to collapse as they did in the 1973 correction, employs some rather imprecise and uncritical analogies.

Nothing is certain, but there is a real potential here that this analogy is reading the 1970's past for a guidebook to the future, mesmerized by "chart similarities", and the too-easy prop for guidance of "history rhyming", etc., while ignoring the fundamental shift hinted at in Mr. Szabo's fleeting mention below.

The article he's reviewing isn't the interesting point, it's the fleeting mention he makes within the short comment below, to the plausibility of an multi-secular trend change in base commodity prices, from centuries down, to centuries up! :

<< getting close today to reaching per capita production peaks for many natural resources with the net result being that commodity prices have reversed a centuries long decline and will most likely now start a centuries long advance >>

Are we all sufficiently up to speed on that story today (after hashing out the reality and implications of commodities depletion here for the past 18 months) to grasp it's startling present day plausibility? How do we spell "game changer"? And are we rousing ourselves from comfortably entrenched patterns of thinking about the "bias" in commodities prices during 21st Century monetary deflations, sufficient to understand that the past does not any longer too plausibly predict the future? Going on the assumptions implicit in your comment above, (you imply at some point the past will likely resemble the future on this count, and "the wise" will recognize this) does not hold up well to a scrutiny of the (superficial) similarities to that decade's gold bull market.

Instead, the progression of commodities going forwards strongly hints at

A) a major, secular departure from their multi-century downwards bias, and beginning a multi decade or in fact quite plausibly, multi-century upwards bias (ask Rajiv for some ore grade data to substantiate the point, the resulting rational data driven conclusions from that, and the major emerging new trend described by that data - and then dust off your "outside-the-box" thinking caps!), and

B) The progression of commodities prices going forward, if they are truly breaking in fundamental trend out of a multi-century downwards bias (getting always cheaper in secular terms has now quite plausibly ended or is approaching end, as a secular trend) suggests that it can be equally treacherous after witnessing the world population double since the last gold bull market, and now going parabolic, to rely sleepily on the last politically derived (as opposed to now, terminally geologically derived) oil and commodities price crisis.

In the 1970's this was a political embargo driven inflation. What earthly similarity does that have, other than in the most superficial symptoms, to the current END GAME emerging in petroleum prices, and via petroleum input costs, in the cost (and ore grade quality) of ALL mineral commodities going forwards? To "extrapolate" the likelihood of a "rhyming" correction to the 1970's, in the PM's, as not just money barometers, but also commodity barometers, would appear to be a superficial examination of what is really comparable..

What do you suggest here FRED, that I get a hold of Jim Nickerson's tail (he's selling all his metals in a panic, just like he churns all his positions five times a year anyway) for guidance and hang on blindly while I follow the pack who are all looking fearfully at the 1970's because it gives them comfort they've got some signposts for our future this time around? I think Mr. Szabo below is using his own head, and putting two and two together. The notion that commodities have a "secular downwards bias" which they return to any time money growth cycles down is an idea that's been around for so long it appears even iTulip are adopting it as an "axiom". I see "comfortable assumption" written all over that point. This is an example of where iTulip has "adopted" Peak Cheap Oil, but has only grafted it on to their thinking superficially as yet. Just my two cents, but if Peak Cheap Oil s bringing $200 oil in three to four years time, anyone piling out of their inflation hedges now while looking fearfully at 1973's political embargo driven commodity market hiccups is employing some sloppy analysis.

A while back Rajiv contributed some data / charts vividly illustrating collapsing ore grades in all sorts of minerals. Anyone want to argue with Rajiv on whether that data is substantive? Now then - add the one-way bet in energy prices expressed as a 3-5 year moving average going forwards (and sharply upwards), which will overwhelmingly steer not only the CPI sharply upwards (regardless of anyone's pipe dreams of "austere" monetary policy), but also steer, into an end-game of hopeless unaffordability all commodities laboriously dug out of the ground or farmed, fueling industrial and demographic growth? Anyone want to argue that we won't hit the cusp of about 30 different analysts estimations of global oil production in less than 5 years time? Put it all together then, and draw a few inferences that are a little more supple than merely glancing fearfully at 1973! If iTulip still thinks 1973 is a useful analogy and commodities will dance this time primarily to fiat money's tune in my view they are not on the ball here - not thinking through the implications of just how little slack there is left for oil and directly consequent to the oil price, for the entire commodities complex to fall back ...

I might as well read FORBES magazine for some insights on the near term future direction of the oil price. How many readers are turning to FORBES for guidance here? :rolleyes:

Seven Reasons To Avoid Gold - And Why You Should Ignore Them |

Aug 7 2008 | Tim Iacono | PM COMMENT

® Excellent piece Tim! Although you are generalizing in a few places (the gold price in dollars will always change by an equal amount as the price of the dollar changes, although this is often masked by changes in the gold price for other reasons), the comments are pretty much spot on. Perhaps one important point you missed is that unlike the 1970's, the current inflationary environment is much more commodity driven with virtually no labor component due to rapid globalization. In addition, we are actually getting close today to reaching per capita production peaks for many natural resources with the net result being that commodity prices have reversed a centuries long decline and will most likely now start a centuries long advance. This is merely the first upward blip. In the near term, solving the credit mess worldwide will take an order of magnitude upward adjustment in the amount of fiat currencies in circulation. I'm not talking about M3 but rather the kind of money with which one can actually service debt (M2 and below). In effect, it's inflate or die. Gold does well under both options. [Tom Szabo] [8-8-08]

[Guest]

Re: The $ rockets?

Trade Silver bullion for B0nars to "outwit the markets" here? How clever.

USA unfunded liabilities according to the US comptroller general are roughly the size of the "world GDP" column in the charts below (rthe tallest first column).

The "total silver mined" column refers to all silver mined throughout history, and that column is carried forward from the first chart to the second, to illustrate the tiny sliver that is world investment demand for it, in the larger scheme of things.

That's the near invisible little smudge of green at the far right hand edge of the second chart.

We have a world approaching monetary convulsions (quadrillion in notional derivatives) and people feel "comforted" by owning some of the b0nars instead? :rolleyes: It's called "going to cash" and it's supposed to be the safe harbor investment. Beh. To each his own.

____________________

Estimated World GDP: $54 trillion, $54,000,000,000,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_GDP_(nominal)

Estimated Size of the world stock market: $51 trillion, $51,000,000,000,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market

Estimated Size of the world bond market: $45 trillion, $45,000,000,000,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_market

U.S. GDP (Gross Domestic Product): $13.8 trillion, $13,800,000,000,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._GDP

U.S. Total Public Debt: $9.57 trillion: $9,571,432,990,910
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPD...application=np

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

China GDP $7 trillion, $7,000,000,000,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy...ublic_of_China

Estimated Total Gold Mined and Produced in the History of the World: 155,000 tonnes, at 32,151 oz/tonne at $855/oz.: $4.2 trillion, $4,260,811,275,000
http://www.gold.org/

Estimated World Oil Production 2005 est: 78.9 million barrels/day at $115/barrel at 365 days/year: $3.3 trillion, $3,300,000,000,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_oil_production

U.S. Proposed Annual Budget for 2008: $3.1 trillion, $3,100,000,000,000
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb...ion/na-budget5

Estimated Total Silver Mined and Produced in the History of the World: 43 billion ounces, at $855/oz.: $656 billion, $656,610,000,000
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials...ler110799.html

http://www.gpmgroup.com (2008 annual yearbook)

U.S. Official Treasury-Owned gold: 261,498,899 ounces at $855/oz.: $223 billion, $223,581,558,645
http://fms.treas.gov/gold/current.html

Estimated Annual World Gold Demand for 2007: 3516 tonnes at 32,151 oz/tonne, at $855/oz.: $96 billion, $96,651,693,180
http://www.research.gold.org/supply_demand/

Estimated Annual World Silver Mine Production for 2007: 670.6 million ounces, at $15.27/oz.: $10 billion, $10,240,062,000
http://www.silverinstitute.org/supply/index.php

Estimated Total Silver in Known Depositories, ETFs, Funds, Exchanges: 430 million ounces, at $15.27/oz.: $6 billion, $6,566,100,000
http://www.sharelynx.com/gold/TransETFs02.php (members only)

Estimated Annual World Net Silver Investment Demand for 2006: 60 million ounces, at $15.27/oz.: $916 million, $916,200,000
http://cpmgroup.com/new_presentations/CPM_Silver_Yearbook_2007_Release_May_2007.pdf
p. 13

Estimated Annual World Net Silver Investment Demand for 2007: 25.8 million ounces, at $15.27/oz.: $393 million, $393,966,000
http://www.silverinstitute.org/supply/index.php

COMPARATIVE ASSET CLASS SIZES - CHART 01.jpg

COMPARATIVE ASSET CLASS SIZES - CHART 02.jpg

[Rajiv]

Re: The $ rockets?

The two posts I had on this topic are linked below

On Uranium/Thorium ores
Re: The Innovation Fallacy

On Peak Soil
Re: Groundhog day, every day, in the housing market

Further links on Peak Minerals: Peak Ore

Also useful to think about this is Heinberg's "Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines"

Also his Newsletter #185

Note: This issue is an edited version of the Introduction to Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines.

During the past few years the phrase Peak Oil has entered the global lexicon. It refers to the moment in time when the world will achieve its maximum possible rate of oil extraction; from then on, for reasons having mostly to do with geology, the amount of petroleum available to society on a daily or yearly basis will begin to dwindle. Most informed analysts agree that this will happen during the next two or three decades; an increasing number believe that it is happening now - that conventional oil production peaked in 2005–2006 and that the flow to market of all hydrocarbon liquids taken together will start to diminish around 2010.¹ The consequences, as they begin to accumulate, are likely to be severe: the world is overwhelmingly dependent on oil for transportation, agriculture, plastics, and chemicals; thus a lengthy process of adjustment will be required. According to one recent U.S. government-sponsored study, if the peak does occur soon replacements are unlikely to appear quickly enough and in sufficient quantity to avert what it calls "unprecedented" social, political, and economic impacts.²

This book is not an introduction to the subject of Peak Oil; several existing volumes serve that function (including my own The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies).³ Instead it addresses the social and historical context in which the event is occurring, and explores how we can reorganize our thinking and action in several critical areas in order to better navigate this perilous time.

Our socio-historical context takes some time and perspective to appreciate. Upon first encountering Peak Oil, most people tend to assume it is merely a single isolated problem to which there is a simple solution - whether of an eco-friendly nature (more renewable energy) or otherwise (more coal). But prolonged reflection and study tend to eat away at the viability of such "solutions"; meanwhile, as one contemplates how we humans have so quickly become so deeply dependent on the cheap, concentrated energy of oil and other fossil fuels, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have caught ourselves on the horns of the Universal Ecological Dilemma, consisting of the interlinked elements of population pressure, resource depletion, and habitat destruction - and on a scale unprecedented in history.

Also Six Videos

Part-1

Part-2

Part-3

Part-4

Part-5

Part-6

Also useful in integrating this all together is "The Crash Course"

The logical implication of this is that growth will no longer be possible -- which in turn implies that the current financial system that at its very core relies on growth will have to be replaced.

[Rajiv]

Re: The $ rockets?

Also Add to this an article by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich
Too Many People,
Too Much Consumption - Some incisive comments as well

Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and — most importantly — language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we’ve increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth — in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its biodiversity — as if there were no tomorrow.

The point, all too often ignored, is that this trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it cannot be long continued without risking a collapse of our now-global civilization. Too many people — and especially too many politicians and business executives — are under the delusion that such a disastrous end to the modern human enterprise can be avoided by technological fixes that will allow the population and the economy to grow forever. But if we fail to bring population growth and over-consumption under control — the number of people on Earth is expected to grow from 6.5 billion today to 9 billion by the second half of the 21st century — then we will inhabit a planet where life becomes increasingly untenable because of two looming crises: global heating, and the degradation of the natural systems on which we all depend.

Our species’ negative impact on our own life-support systems can be approximated by the equation I=PAT. In that equation, the size of the population (P) is multiplied by the average affluence or consumption per individual (A), and that in turn is multiplied by some measure of the technology (T) that services and drives the consumption. Thus commuting in automobiles powered by subsidized fossil fuels on proliferating freeways creates a much greater T factor than commuting on bikes using simple paths or working at home on a computer network. The product of P, A, and T is Impact (I), a rough estimate of how much humanity is degrading the ecosystem services it depends upon.

The equation is not rocket science. Two billion people, all else being equal, put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than one billion people. Two billion rich people disrupt the climate more than two billion poor people. Three hundred million Americans consume more petroleum than 1.3 billion Chinese. And driving an SUV is using a far more environmentally malign transportation technology than riding mass transit.

[Rajiv]

Re: The $ rockets?

From Earth's natural wealth: an audit

[c1ue]

Re: The $ rockets?

The track record of the Malthusians has not been very good - oh-fer since 1798.

[Guest]

Re: The $ rockets?

C1ue -

For a guy with little visible sense of humor, who therefore relies strictly on logic to communicate, you are leaning heavily on a dried out twig of a walkingstick logic here. The "logic" is at risk of bankruptcy, because it's implication is that "Malthusianism" has no more relevance today in a world of 6.5 billion industrialised human locusts on the planet, and mineral resources which have been thoroughly picked over by a couple of generations of 3-6 billion human locusts who preceded us - than it did in a world of less than 1 billion, non industrialised locusts in the prior century you refer to as a relevant benchmark.

I strain to understand what it is that so effectively insulates you from any concern about "ephemeral, silly Malthusian notions" such as "resources are finite", and "the world's carrying capacity is not infinite". Rajiv has posted the relevant data right under your nose, but you talk with nose upturned, and dubious logic, right past it, about "Malthusianism" being discredited due to not having produced any shortages for two centuries. Even without all these corrolaries, this hardly constitututes a sound predictive argument about any future.

A couple of days ago you asked for "proof" that gold has "maintained it's value through the millennia". This could be compared almost to asking someone for the time at a railway station platform, and when they've informed you of the time, asking them to "prove it". It's rhetorical, and redundant, more than anything else. The point is not to approach these topics like a doubtful bookkeeeper or an actuary, but rather to grasp the broad outlines of the point.

The track record of the Malthusians has not been very good - oh-fer since 1798.

Did you bother to skim through any of the referenced articles Rajiv provided? The socio-political calisthenics exercise here, is to firmly put aside any antipathy for perceived socio-political bandwagons ( are they on my bandwagon or not, and if not, why should I ever read these guys? ) and get a general sense, even if only in broad outline, whether the bulk of the notes posted on readily observed (in some materials now approaching critical) resource depletion constitute just enough of a credible reference that one has to incorporate their warnings into one's outlook - even if only just marginally ...

_____________

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119794315443735689.html

The Wall Street Journal - December 18, 2007

Mining Firms Bulk Up, Echoing Big Oil Mergers - By PATRICK BARTA and ROBERT GUY MATTHEWS

"As with oil, most of the world's easy, high-grade mineral deposits have been tapped, leaving resources that are lower-grade, harder to reach or in politically challenging locations. By merging, miners hope to tackle the complex projects that remain."

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Letters.html

Bronze Age was possible only because copper ores available then assayed 30-50% metal and were therefore processable by the primitive firing technologies of the day. Today's world best copper mines average less than 0.8% copper, hence requiring enormous amount of both energy and material scaffolding to render the ore into useable metal. This gives true meaning to the statement that "every new technology comes into existence only in order to resolve the shortcomings of the existing technology."

www.monash.edu.au/news/newsline/story/1231
Warning: The mining boom is fading fast
30 October 2007

A Monash University environmental engineer has warned in a new report that mineral resources are running out, excavation costs are escalating and the environmental costs of mining are devastating.

The world-first report, The Sustainability of Mining in Australia: Key Trends and Their Environmental Implications for the Future, was authored by Monash researcher and lecturer Dr Gavin Mudd in conjunction with the independent Mineral Policy Institute.
Dr Mudd said the statistics were alarming. "On average, 27 tonnes of greenhouse emissions are created to mine a tonne of uranium. That's equivalent to the annual emissions of nine family cars. To mine one kilogram of gold it takes 691,000 litres of water, and it takes 141 kilograms of cyanide to produce a single kilogram of gold. ...

"It takes a minimum of two million tonnes of solid waste to produce asingle kilogram of gold. Copper produces around 250 tonnes of solid waste per tonne of copper while uranium produces about 2,400 tonnes of low-level radioactive waste per tonne of uranium oxide."
The landmark report reveals critical trends in the mining industry:

• A decline in mineral and ore grades
• A dramatic increase in waste rock and tailings -- now at several billions of tonnes annually, much of it posing a long-term risk to the environment
• Incomplete sustainability reporting -- many companies refuse to accurately report relevant data, including waste rock, tailings, energy, cyanide or water consumption

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3086

Peak Minerals - Posted by Chris Vernon on October 15, 2007 - 1:00pm

This is a guest post from Ugo Bardi and Marco Pagani. Ugo Bardi teaches chemistry at the University of Florence, Italy. He is the president of the Italian section of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) (www.aspoitalia.net). Marco Pagani is a physicist presently teaching and physics in secondary schools. He is a member of ASPO-Italy, a social and environmental activist, and the blogger of ecoalfabeta. (ecoalfabeta.blogosfere.it)
Abstract: We examined the world production of 57 minerals reported in the database of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Of these, we found 11 cases where production has clearly peaked and is now declining. Several more may be peaking or be close to peaking. Fitting the production curve with a logistic function we see that, in most cases, the ultimate amount extrapolated from the fitting corresponds well to the amount obtained summing the cumulative production so far and the reserves estimated by the USGS. These results are a clear indication that the Hubbert model is valid for the worldwide production of minerals and not just for regional cases.

It strongly supports the concept that “Peak oil” is just one of several cases of worldwide peaking and decline of a depletable resource. Many more mineral resources may peak worldwide and start their decline in the near future.

-- Sir Fred Hoyle, Of Men and Galaxies, 1964

<< It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only. >>

[c1ue]

Re: The $ rockets?

I don't know about you, but I HAVE studied the literature published in Malthus' day, as well as the more recent Ehrlich/Club of Rome crap.

All very nice and entertaining and plausible, but all equally dependent on linear extrapolations of present trends.

Exactly as your above pile 'o links.

And all very very wrong before.

Not saying that the Malthusians - apparently including you - won't eventually be right, but that's right up there with the broken clock being right once a day. Or the bubble caller eventually being right.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: The $ rockets?

I don't know about you, but I HAVE studied the literature published in Malthus' day, as well as the more recent Ehrlich/Club of Rome crap.

All very nice and entertaining and plausible, but all equally dependent on linear extrapolations of present trends.

Exactly as your above pile 'o links.

And all very very wrong before.

Not saying that the Malthusians - apparently including you - won't eventually be right, but that's right up there with the broken clock being right once a day. Or the bubble caller eventually being right.

It seems to me that you support the notion that Earth can support an endless number of humans.

Do you think that, or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?

[c1ue]

Re: The $ rockets?

I don't believe the Earth can support an endless amount of humans.

But I do believe that 1) there is still plenty of capacity and 2) there are plenty of other problems which will occur.

Overall growth rate of humanity is slowing down; I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Nothing like works like women working (for salaries) for keeping reproduction low.

[Guest]

Re: The $ rockets?

I don't know about you, but I HAVE studied the literature published in Malthus' day, as well as the more recent Ehrlich/Club of Rome crap. All very nice and entertaining and plausible ... And all very very wrong before. ... Not saying that the Malthusians - apparently including you - won't eventually be right, but that's right up there with the broken clock being right once a day.

C1ue - you can't seem bring yourself to acknowledge that resource depletion is even real. This is the first thing that came to hand, but it may serve the point. Here is a world bank report, (completely unrelated to this discussion), that mentions 'RESOURCE DEPLETION'? What the heck is that? Resource Depletion?

What are these bobble-heads talking about? It's a discussion about nations who "trade their store of resources for cash streams, but fail to invest those cash streams to industrialise, grow wealthier, and the implication is, wean themselves from depending solely on the sale of resources and gain a more diversified, more robust economy.

Are you finding something relevant to "Malthusianism" here? Resources run out, and they don't run out in endlessly long, multi-century terms, in a modern, industrialised world with high demand levels, they can and do run out, country by country, in the space of one or two generations.

This is why development agencies even bother to write such analyses - because if those resources were endless the notion of them selling their resources for rich cash streams without taking any other development action would not even be an issue.

Take your skepticism on the reality of "Malthusian resource depletion red herrings" up with the World Bank maybe? We are reinventing yet another wheel here C1ue. A very laborious route to accepting some quite commonplace ideas, which have been accepted currency for a good long while!

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Home > Data & Research > Document Search > Report Details Capital accumulation and RESOURCES DEPLETION - a Hartwick rule counterfactual Author: Hamilton, Kirk; Ruta, Giovanni; Tajibaeva, Liaila; Collection Title: Policy, Research working paper ; no. WPS 3480 Country: World; Date Stored: 2005/02/10 Document Date: 2005/01/01 Document Type: Policy Research Working Paper Language: English Region: The World Region Report Number: WPS3480 SubTopics: Environmental Economics & Policies; International Terrorism & Counterterrorism; Economic Theory & Research; Banks & Banking Reform; Capital Markets and Capital Flows; Economic Growth; Fiscal & Monetary Policy; Decentralization Volume No: 1 of 1 Summary: How rich would resource-abundant countries be if they had actually followed the Hartwick Rule (invest resource rents in other assets) over the past 30 years? THE AUTHORS USE TIME SERIES DATA ON INVESTMENTS AND RENTS ON EXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCE EXTRACTION FOR 70 COUNTRIES TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION. The results are striking: Gabon, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela would all be as wealthy as the Republic of Korea, while Nigeria would be five times as well off as it is currently. The authors also derive a more general rule for sustainability-maintain positive constant genuine investment-and use this to draw further empirical results. File Type Description File Size (mb) PDF 16 pages Official version* 0.29 Text Text version** * The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official, archived version including all signatures, charts, etc. _________________ ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL.jpg