Re: The Coming Islamic Superpowers? | The Cosmic Tap

Harry DuBois — Tue, 02 May 2006 18:15:33 -0000

Interesting thoughts, Chris, but you are missing the point a bit. I'll remediate for you so as not to confuse you any more. The point is that The American Way of Life is completely dependent on oil. Not dependent in the "I Love My SUV and My Central Air Conditioning", but dependent in that dollars are oil, and dollars are what allow America to exist as it does. No Petrodollars and America looks likes Mexico, except really cold in the winter.

As I said, we are on a crumbling ledge, and unless some really smart people come up with a really new idea, and leaders with really strong character drive it through, America is going down. We only function because China, Japan, and other foreign countries buy up our Treasury bonds to give us debt to finance our system. They stop buying, we stop functioning. If the world stops needing oil, or stops needing dollars to buy oil, the world stops lending us money, and our system grinds to a halt quick.

There is no methadone for the energy changeover. It's going to hurt. If we stay on petroleum, we get a century of oil wars then the ecosystem collapses and a lot of the world becomes unlivable, then the dollar along with everything else collapses. If we get off petroleum and go to renewables, nobody needs dollars to buy oil, the currency collapses, our economy crumbles, our military starves, and America becomes a poor debtor nation nobody fears. The bright side of the latter option is that maybe then the ecosystem doesn't collapse and you can at least go work as a garbage man in a rich Arab country or perhaps a maid in China.

You don't like this? Want to know what to do? Get off the sinking ship. Diversify yourself globally. Get your assets in Euros. And for God's sake, get out of the US housing market. That's going to be a disaster before your kids finish college (that's another primer in basic economics - perhaps some other day). Once you've done that, work for a move to renewables even if it does tank America - at least you won't be going down with it, and you might still have a pleasant planet to enjoy your retirement on.

As for Petroleum Oil An Organic Renewable Resource, yes Chris, it is. It just takes millions of years to renew itself, and it's your bones it will make itself from, so it's not much of a solution for this century.

The ecosystem's falling apart - everyone who's not illiterate or delusional now recognizes that. And America's at the precipice with no one yet sure of how to back away from the edge - everyone with a bit of economic understanding beyond the undergrad level recognizes that. We might be able to battle on for a few more decades before our borrowed Petrodollar-dependent system collapses, but I wouldn't go buying my retirement home in the US, and I wouldn't buy it a low-lying coastal area.

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Re: The Coming Islamic Superpowers? | The Cosmic Tap