Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

[jk]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

EJ's permanently high real energy costs acknowledged are sparking innovation in energy research, and Finster's arguments are that real energy prices have gone nowhere in 30 years. But can we have both being valid at the same time?

in a word, yes. ej's high real cost of energy is relative to incomes; it takes a larger share of income to commute, heat and/or air condition the house, run the lights, and so on. finster's charts show that energy hasn't risen faster than other commodities, not that they haven't risen against incomes. so just as it takes an increased share of income to buy energy, it simultaneously also takes an increased share of income to buy food, and so on. material necessities are increasingly expensive; only toys are increasingly cheap.

[Guest]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

material necessities are increasingly expensive; only toys are increasingly cheap.

A whole range of "material necessities" are now increasingly "expensive"? We are lost in a hall of mirrors here in terms of claiming that no "real" prices have risen for oil then.

According to your explanation, some categories of goods have gained in "real" (means comparative) value, with oil among them. I thought Finster's argument was that oil has not gained in "real" value? What you are saying is that "other" goods have gained in "real" value right along with oil, not that oil has not gained any value.

Acknowledging oil having gained in real value has some functional merits in the eyeballs on the ground sense, because it theoretically accomodates ever larger sums of money being spent on exploration, accomodates the financial impetus into alt energy, partly accomodates inflating commodities, and most notably accomodates the massive real wealth gains accrued to oil producers, etc.

Oil gained in "real" value is the thesis which concords with myriad signals on the ground.

The semantic mincing here is what has me stymied. Which is it to be? Oil, and a bunch of other essential commodities have gained real value, or oil, and a bunch of essential commodities (which move in lockstep with it apparently) have not gained in real value?

EJ's talented engineers need to be paid more relative to other sectors today, than they were paid two decades ago, relative to other CPI indexed salaries in that period. This is required for a "new enhanced motivation" factor to exist. You are affirming that's so, because all essential raw other goods have gained a larger share of relative value along with oil?

But then Finster's assertion that oil has not gained any relative value does not hold. He says this is "100% inflation", which is quite a "high percentage".

The thesis still leaks. The co-existence of high real "relative" oil prices with the "no net real oil price gain" explained by Finster is a problem for the macro-thesis. It is a strained logical accomodation to the reconci8liation of what "real prices" have or have not done. Either the oil price has risen relative to other CPI items, or it has not.

Whether other baskets of goods rose right along with it or did not, it cannot coexist with the "engineer's paid premium to discover new alt-energy solutions" which EJ describes, unless oil is indeed commanding higher real prices relative to 25 years ago.

This is an example where the reconciliation of contradictions gets turned into "sausage" to reconcile a macroeconomic armature. Contradictions or muddy corollaries are required to fold and disappear, to permit the macro thesis to remain clear, streamlined and uncompromised.

A much more organic accomodation would be to acknowledge simply that oil's price relative to other goods and services had risen in relative value. "100% inflationary" thesis does not accomodate this wthout some "strenuous rhetorical exertions".

[jk]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

finster showed that oil did not go up RELATIVE TO OTHER COMMODITIES. that is all he showed. if you wish to call "real" prices deflated by a commodities index, you can do so. i don't know what "real" means anymore, since it implies a stable and absolute measure of value. so i am content to look at RELATIVE values. oil isn't more expensive relative to other commodities. it is more expensive relative to incomes. it is no more expensive than other commodities relative to incomes. does that cover it?

[Guest]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

finster showed that oil did not go up RELATIVE TO OTHER COMMODITIES. that is all he showed. if you wish to call "real" prices deflated by a commodities index, you can do so. i don't know what "real" means anymore, since it implies a stable and absolute measure of value. so i am content to look at RELATIVE values. oil isn't more expensive relative to other commodities. it is more expensive relative to incomes. it is no more expensive than other commodities relative to incomes. does that cover it?

You are broadening Finster's own definitions here as you go along. Finster offered no such clarifications. The assertion has been reiterated, simple in extend and exclusive. "Oil has not risen in real price, period". Why can't you guys concede even the smallest correction to the original assertion without going back and rewriting the assertion now?

"Oil has not gone anywhere in real price". This has been the repeated, crystal clear, unequivocal assertion, and I agree with your original point, it should indeed be clearly qualified as "relative to a basket of other goods". But it should NOT be asserted as "relative to everything". Yeesh. We could be in a pre-law class here getting technical on the "verbiage".

[GRG55]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

GRG55 - It would be much appreciated if you were to refrain from this type of cloyingly arch ascription to "doomsayers" and "Lukester" as being synonymous, or I shall feel entitled to employ cloyingly arch caricatures of your own positions, which as yet I do not. You certainly don't wish to have me representing your own views in caricature, do you? Caricature does not advance the synthesis of any new ideas here. I have not anywhere directly endorsed "Kunstler's Outcome" as you suggest. Please post a reference to that or leave off it.

Lukester: You may not have employed any "cloyingly arch caricatures" of my position [in respect to energy and peak oil], but you have completely failed to understand it.

With respect to your writings compared to Kunstler's I acknowledge there are numerous material differences (historically your writings are infinitely more considered, thought provoking and useful than his), but lately the similarities are growing. Particularly unfortunate and most disappointing is your increasingly frequent adoption of Kunstler's infantile technique of repeated disparagment and derogation of his fellow citizens, and his own reading audience. You now routinely apply the same technique to us.


From Kunstler:

"...Go anywhere in America, among any class of people -- from the Nascar morons to the Ivy League -- and one expectation is pretty universal: that technology will only bring us more wonders and miracles, and it will certainly save-the-day where our energy problems are concerned. This would seem natural for people living in an age when a simple cassette SONY Walkman is superceded by an 80-gigabyte iPod in one generation. But what if this assumption is off? What if peak technology occurs roughly in the same wave as peak energy?...(July 23, 2007)

"...The portrait of the young American male in 2007, therefore, is of an impotent, infantalized being lost in grandiose fantasies of power and importance. It's a picture of men without real confidence, and no idea how to achieve it, who wish to project a transcendently ferocious image complete with odds-and-ends of manner taken from comic books and movies based on comic books, in order to be taken seriously..."(July 2, 2007)

From Lukester (first post, top of this thread):

Lots of posturing and easy jibes - and "doomertainer" has a nice sardonuic ring to it - very jaunty indeed - while no-one in this little community seems to have a clue that the replacement of all that petroleum by ANY energy - let alone URANIUM - is even assured in this short span of time. Read this brief excerpt from The Oil Drum and then cast your eyes on the pathetic response to Stephen Leeb's expression of vivid concern - which is being most rashly disparaged by people who have utterly failed to offer any detailed alternative more specific than an arm wave towards "human ingenuity". iTulipers come off looking uninformed, opinionated, reactive, even mildly spiteful in a petty fashion, towards any observer having the temerity to speak up on these issues.

Altogether a pathetic, misinformed display here - read even just this cursory overview of the gaping open questions about energy - what will or can step in to provide that 50% of current global annual petroleum consumption in a scant 25 years as 3 billion people inexorably industrialize - whether there is even sufficient Uranium to power the Jetsons future you imagine all rational people must normally envision as "just around the corner". It's easy to see from just skimming through this one article, how utterly inappropriate the smirks here have been regarding Stephen Leeb's own reference to the seriousness of these issues. Doomertainment indeed. Doubtless a real intellectual high point among all the debates on this website.

My apologies if I offended you with the comparison, but the effectiveness of what you have to say is partly a function of how you say it. I've tried to point this out to you first diplomatically and then with an injection of humour. Without success, apparently.

[Finster]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

in a word, yes. ej's high real cost of energy is relative to incomes; it takes a larger share of income to commute, heat and/or air condition the house, run the lights, and so on. finster's charts show that energy hasn't risen faster than other commodities, not that they haven't risen against incomes. so just as it takes an increased share of income to buy energy, it simultaneously also takes an increased share of income to buy food, and so on. material necessities are increasingly expensive; only toys are increasingly cheap.

This is certainly true from the perspective of an American. To the average Chinese, the real cost of energy - in terms of share of income - might have been flat or falling. Millions, for example, can now afford to drive cars where they couldn't before.

One might hypothesize that the American perception might be in large part a product of the global labor arbitrage that has been taking place in recent years ... that the real income of Americans has been falling, and that sufficient inflation has been generated to keep it from being obvious in nominal incomes. Only when we try to spend it on stuff do we notice.

[metalman]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

This is certainly true from the perspective of an American. To the average Chinese, the real cost of energy - in terms of share of income - might have been flat or falling. Millions, for example, can now afford to drive cars where they couldn't before.

One might hypothesize that the American perception might be in large part a product of the global labor arbitrage that has been taking place in recent years ... that the real income of Americans has been falling, and that sufficient inflation has been generated to keep it from being obvious in nominal incomes. Only when we try to spend it on stuff do we notice.

from itulip charts and graphs...



this is what jk is saying.

[bart]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

And here's a broader view of Personal income minus expenditures showing actual, CPI adjusted and CPI+lies adjusted... and even a chart of the same data, except log scaled.

[jk]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

And here's a broader view of Personal income minus expenditures showing actual, CPI adjusted and CPI+lies adjusted... and even a chart of the same data, except log scaled.

bart, i had to laugh, seeing your log chart. have you gotten the log religion, or is the fact that the chart hardly looks different at all a sly jibe at the log rollers?

[bart]

Re: Searching For Wisdom Among The "Doomertainer" Jokers

bart, i had to laugh, seeing your log chart. have you gotten the log religion, or is the fact that the chart hardly looks different at all a sly jibe at the log rollers?

No jibe intended. Perhaps I should have made the log chart zero based like the linear chart so it would be more obvious.

I still have the same opinions about linear vs. log charts, but I've just had too many requests and complaints from folk who don't want to read a linear chart and/or didn't grow up with and understand them.