[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Peak Money and the Shambles from Peak Oil

[Bill Totten]

by Jan Lundberg

Culture Change Letter (December 12 2008)

We've outgrown ourselves and we can't crawl back inside. The shell
shatters inward as our economy and aggressive culture implodes.

After the peak, it's all down hill from here. Back in the summer, with
record oil prices that meant some people somewhere were making a whole
lotta money, one might have suspected the peak of funny-money and
paper/electronic wealth would happen sometime. Turns out it was weeks away.

Now what? There's confusion about what's going on and what will happen,
especially for those who trusted corporate media. After all, who could
wrap their minds around a corporate bailout of a trillion dollars that,
despite its absurd size, didn't even approach the size of the loss in
derivatives' value of over $500 trillion on Wall Street?

As peaks go, such as with crude oil extraction of 86 million barrels a
day globally, physical limits can be anticipated from a scientific
basis. But money - what we love even more than petroleum products - was
seemingly limitless and had become abstract in its infiniteness.

The former supplies of cheaply produced, abundant energy played a major
role in inflating wealth over the years. Thus, peak oil brought about
peak wealth and peak money. It is no coincidence that we find ourselves
at post-peak money and see lower oil prices attained through demand
destruction.

Astronomical figures for dollars that were exponentially expanded by
modern digital finance are beyond comprehension. The unreality of
trillions of dollars, that no one gets to see and that aren't used for
the benefit of real people, has been an unspoken factor in eroded
consumer confidence. So the fabulous wealth in the US since the
housing-market bubble, enjoyed by the one percent of the population that
possesses 38% of the wealth, has destroyed itself. No matter how much
was shared with the average Joe, the greed has eaten itself. A new era
is dawning, featuring cultural change much more than technological change.

Housing bubble boom for assphalt sprawl

The speculative investment on the housing boom fueled the recent wealth,
but the housing boom could not have happened without cheap oil to build
and maintain the urban sprawl constructed with "unlimited" asphalt for
car-based living. As part of the petroleum feast, agricultural
production through cheap petroleum fed suburbanites and almost everyone
else.

With that under their noses, the major corporate media and even
"progressive" media still disassociate energy from the house-of-cards
economy. Although, if anyone stops to think, it's clear that higher
prices for energy might have taken a huge toll on consumer demand. It's
the failure to spend enough (through debt? Fine!) that economists and
politicians blame for our troubles such as massive layoffs.

Now the Golden Goose of purchasing power has been cooked, over the coals
of fossil fuels. Why not celebrate the end of the consumer economy? Eat
the goose before it rots, however you choose, such as to get out of
Dodge. Let us fortify ourselves for the awesome task of reorienting our
lives for the "new" local-based survival strategy.

Really, no more money?

Living the future now means not relying on money. Not easy, but as
people see their dollar wealth evaporating and the slave-labor option
denied, people are already looking at local gardening, bartering, and more.

When and where is someone with no money respected as much as anyone
else? I've witnessed it in Earth First! and other collectives. Young
people are especially likely to value experiencing life and adventure
rather than count future money. It's time we all compared notes, having
turned off the television.

The demise of the economy is being treated as so tragic, when the far
greater concern should be for Earth's changing climate. In fact, when we
consider the economy's slowdown in shipping, manufacturing and travel,
the only responsible stance is to want more economic collapse so that
greenhouse gases continue to be slashed.

Some of the positive implications of a depression include a return to
the most basic, hands-on economic reality. Until we actually get our
hands in the soil, for example, the experience of barely surviving helps
one to question the fantasy world of artificial plenty. A middle-class
or very rich person might cling to the myth of ever-rising material
prosperity only for the moment, as collapse unfolds.

References:

Radical times have arrived: "Obama’s 'Secretary of Food'?" by Nicholas
Kristof, New York Times (December 10, 2008)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/opinion/11kristof.html?th&emc=th

The market is worth more than $516 trillion, (GBP 303 trillion), roughly
ten times the value of the entire world's output: it's been called the
"ticking time-bomb". By Margareta Pagano and Simon Evans, The
Independent (October 12 2008)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/a-163516-trillion-derivatives-timebomb-958699.html

Note:

Before finalizing this posting, I decided to check whether "peak money"
had already been used online. Voila, my friend Jim Kunstler had done so
a month ago! I'd been thinking of peak money for a little while, but
must confess I've been failing to check out the popular and fun
Clusterfuck Nation column that Jim produces weekly. Check out "Peak
Money" (November 12 2007), and I'll do the same:
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/11/peak-money.html


http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=261&Itemid=1


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