Category Archives: Debt

no way we can go on like now with 56 trillion dollars of overall debt

Toxic Loans Around the World Weigh on Global Growth

Posted on March 11, 2020 by

Preface.  Obviously endless growth on a finite planet is impossible.  Clearly the main “benefit” of debt is being able to rape and pillage the planet immediately.  The accumulating debt can never be paid off, because energy is required to grow … Continue reading →

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Many signs of peak oil and decline

Posted on February 16, 2020 by

Preface.  Recently the IEA 2018 World Energy Outlook predicted an oil crunch could happen as soon as 2023.  Oil supermajors are expected to have 10 years of reserve life or more, Shell is down to just 8 years. Political shortages … Continue reading →

Posted in Debt, How Much Left, Peak Oil | Tagged , | 7 Comments

One of the biggest risks to the world’s financial system is the $3 trillion of debt owed by oil and gas firms

Posted on May 24, 2018 by

[ Yet another “crash coming soon” post, if it hasn’t happened already (I scheduled this article and others to appear a year or more later, since crashes always take longer to happen than you expect. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of … Continue reading →

Posted in Bond Market, Crash Coming Soon, Debt, Oil & Gas Fracked | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Steve St. Angelo: The global oil & gas industry is cannibalizing itself to stay alive

Posted on May 19, 2018 by

[ I heard Steve recently on a Peak prosperity podcast here.  I like St. Angelo because he is one of very few financial advisors who understand the role energy plays in the economy.  Though I don’t think that gold and … Continue reading →

Posted in Debt, Economic, Investing advice, Natural Gas, Oil | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

The real trouble with ‘Bizarro Capitalism’ by Porter Stansberry 7-22-2017

Posted on May 16, 2018 by

[ I sent out a newsletter to everyone I knew in 1999 about why dot.com companies were going to go bust, started warning people in 2002 that there was a housing bubble, and in 2005 that a financial crash was … Continue reading →

Posted in Crash Coming Soon, Debt | 4 Comments

Pensions face bankruptcy in the future

Posted on October 28, 2016 by

2016-4-10. US faces disastrous $3.4 trillion pension funding hole. Collective deficit of retirement plans is three times larger than official figures. Financial Times. The US public pension system has developed a $3.4 trillion funding hole that will pile pressure on … Continue reading →

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James Howard Kunstler posts

Posted on November 14, 2015 by

[ As I re-read Kunstler posts I will add more excerpts and/or links.  I encourage you to read these brilliant posts in their entirety at http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/ for their wonderful humor, language, and the full logical chain of discourse, which excerpts … Continue reading →

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Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar PV, Part 1

Posted on October 31, 2015 by

Book review by Alice Friedemann at energyskeptic of “Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution. The Energy Return on Investment”, by Pedro Prieto and Charles A.S. Hall. 2013. Springer. Conclusion: the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternative Energy, Alternative Energy Resources, Charles A. S. Hall, Debt, Electric Grid, Energy, EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Pedro Prieto, Photovoltaic Solar, Solar, Solar EROI | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Would Tesla, SolarCity or SpaceX exist without $4.9 billion in government subsidies?

Posted on June 5, 2015 by

[ Tesla has made no new battery breakthroughs. Batteries aren’t much better today than they were 200 years ago.  All Tesla did was build a better battery management system (BMS) by stringing tiny batteries together — thousands of them.  But … Continue reading →

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Gail Tverberg The oil glut and low prices reflect an affordability problem

Posted on March 12, 2015 by

Tverberg, G. March 9, 2015. The oil glut and low prices reflect an affordability problem. ourfiniteworld.com For a long time, there has been a belief that the decline in oil supply will come by way of high oil prices. Demand … Continue reading →

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