Re: Crisis at the peak

[DMS <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here we are again, with a script out of Hollywood, for the end of the world
as we know it--  actually being short of of original material (as if original
material and Hollywood aren't an oxymoron), the script is a redo of our
Australian friend's  Road Warrior series where the precious juice has
run out and all that are left are stripper wells defended by those hardy
pioneer types.  Things get worse of course, and next week I'm sure the
LA Times will have us shovelling pig shit in Bartertown.

The Hubbert Peak, like the Kondratieff long wave, has particular appeal
to and for those who think something is going wrong but would rather not
have Marx, or Marxists, explain it.

Since we have been over this material before let me go right to the heart of
the matter.  Q:  Proven reserves, geological limit or economic category?
A: Economic Category.  An proven reserve is a defined quantity of petroleum
that can be extracted in a given time frame (usually no more than 20 years)
with the current technology, at...drum roll, please... a sufficient level of PROFIT.
You can look it up.

When the bourgeoisie start biting their nails and whining about scarcity you can
be absolutely certain that the real problem is oveproduction.  Iraqi oil production
has recently return to pre-war highs of app. 2.6 mill b/day with about 1.5 mill
destined for export.  In the countersense world of capital, the result has been
to push spot prices past $37/barrel.  This is NO DIFFERENT than the over-
valuation of telecom stocks when and because the tremendous overproduction
of fiber optic networks, switches, routers, etc. was leading to dramatic and
drastic devalutaion.

Another example of scarcity countersense is the whining about US utilities
power generating capacity.  Power companies are in the process of handing
back assets to the banks at 50cents on the dollar to cover defaulted loans.
This, after and because, of the overinvestment in power generating equipment,
with app. 200,000 MW of gas fired generating equipment all dressed up with
no place to go.

Peaks?  You want to see peaks?  Look at the economy, this is it right as we
head down into the second dip on the double dip.

dms