Category Archives: 2) Overshoot

The polycrisis/overshoot, collapse of the financial system, breakdown of supply chains, blackouts, end of being able to make computer chips, and so on are symptoms of the underlying cause: peak energy and peak everything, especially peak diesel since trucks, rail, and ships make this one-time only fossil fueled civilization possible. Wind, solar, nuclear, and so on also need fossil fuels for every single step of their life cycle, so that is a dead end. It is back to before the 15th century — wood world. Whether the house of cards collapses from chokepoints in the middle east such as the Suez canal, the financial shock of a natural disaster or from debt and corruption, Export Land Model, or nuclear war — there is certain to be a series of dislocations that ultimately bring population down to 400 million (population before fossil fuels) or less (due to overshoot factors such as top soil erosion, pollution, etc) Let’s hope there are some islands of sanity and that you are living on one of them!

Global Bond Frenzy Raises Concerns

Global Bond Frenzy Raises Concerns By LANDON THOMAS Jr. FEB. 19, 2014 New York Times. Prospecting for oil in Brazil, manufacturing steel in Russia, erecting skyscrapers in China: Global bond investors have financed some of the grandest investment projects taken … Continue reading

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Student loan crisis widens gap between rich and the rest

Student loan crisis widens gap between rich and the rest. Bill Zimmerman.   February 21, 2014.  San Francisco Chronicle. Growing concern about wealth and income inequality overlooks a principal cause: the student loan crisis, which is much deeper than the $1.1 … Continue reading

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Financial system brought down by next oil shock

Erik Townsend. 6 January 2013. Why Peak Oil Threatens the International Monetary System. ASPO-USA The U.S. Treasury bond market will most likely crash, and borrowing costs will skyrocket. Those increased borrowing costs will further exacerbate the fiscal deficit. Can you … Continue reading

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Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

University of Cambridge: Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk Some of Britain’s finest minds are drawing up a “doomsday list” of catastrophic events that could devastate the world, pose a threat to civilization and might even lead to … Continue reading

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The end of insurance: Ports and Hurricanes, Storm Surges, & Rising Sea Levels

  The world is about to be shaken by many storms besides cyclones and hurricanes — declining energy & natural resources and the social unrest generated by ever larger numbers of the 7+ billion people getting poorer and hungrier. Since … Continue reading

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Why Banks and Wall St will go broke if interest rates ever go up

Dumb Money Day 1 by Charles Marohn, Strong Towns   Jun 10, 2013 This week I want to write about one very technical finance subject and the implications for the housing market and, by extension, for cities and the great reset … Continue reading

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External costs of coal: probably over $500 billion per year in USA

Paul R. Epstein, et al. 2011. Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal in “Ecological Economics Reviews.” Robert Costanza, Karin Limburg & Ida Kubiszewski, Eds. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1219: 73–98. This paper tabulates a wide range of … Continue reading

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Chinese Economy Hits the Wall

June 10, 2012 The Macroeconomics of Chinese kleptocracy by John at Bronte Capital China is a kleptocracy of a scale never seen before in human history. This post aims to explain how  this wave of theft is financed, what makes … Continue reading

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Homer-Dixon Key findings on resources and war / violence

The Project on Environmental Scarcities, State Capacity, and Civil Violence Key Findings Abot 50 experts from 5 countries, developed a detailed set of conceptual tools for thinking about environmental scarcity and state capacity. Environmental scarcity has 3 sources: reduced resource … Continue reading

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How Companies Plunder and Profit From the Nest Eggs of American Work

Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit From the Nest Eggs of American Workers By Ellen E. Schultz    Portfolio/Penguin 2011 216 pages, in hardcover and paperback August 20, 2012. UE News – Summer 2012 issue We already knew that employers … Continue reading

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