Category Archives: 1) Decline

Decline will be death by a thousand cuts as too many problems occur and overwhelm societies ability to fix them (i.e. Tainter’s “complexity”). Already our infrastructure (oil and gas pipelines, electric grid, roads, bridges, etc) has a Report Card of D from the American Society of Civil Engineers. All 18 components of essential infrastructure, from the electric grid to the financial system are vulnerable to cyber-attack, The end of growth means bankruptcy for cities, pensions, families, and businesses, and no credit for energy companies to borrow for new projects to obtain oil, coal, and natural gas, the real drivers of the economy (just try putting dollar bills in your gas tank)

A financial crash would stop new oil production, sending us over the net energy cliff with a 10% decline rate per year

Posted on March 5, 2014 by

Gail Tverberg’s March 4, 2014 “Reasons for our Energy Predicament – an overview” gave me this sudden insight: There is the potential for a sudden drop of 10 to 30% in oil production.  That magnitude of world-wide oil shocks would … Continue reading →

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Experts who aren’t worried about Inflation

Posted on March 3, 2014 by

Paul Krugman: The Inflation Obsession. March 2, 2014. New York Times. [modified: both paraphrased and cut] Recently the Federal Reserve released transcripts of its monetary policy meetings during the fateful year of 2008. And, boy, are they discouraging reading because … Continue reading →

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Why cash is better than gold

Posted on March 1, 2014 by

Why people buy gold To protect against inflation That’s a good reason, but the next crash will be deflationary like the 2008 crash, when stocks, homes, oil, gold, and everything else plummeted in value. Trillions of dollars vanished overnight.  The … Continue reading →

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Wall Street Journal FDIC Faces Balancing Act in Replenishing Its Coffers

Posted on February 27, 2014 by

FDIC Faces Balancing Act in Replenishing Its Coffers August 21, 2008.  Wall Street Journal. As financial institutions continue to fail, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is under pressure to decide how to replenish the fund that insures consumer deposits. The … Continue reading →

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Your Money is not Safe in an FDIC Insured Bank Account

Posted on February 27, 2014 by

Below are 3 articles about why the FDIC can’t actually protect your money at banks Ellen Brown. July 5, 2013 Think Your Money is Safe in an Insured Bank Account? Think Again. A trend to shift responsibility for bank losses … Continue reading →

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Deflation : The meltdown was far more like the crash of 1873 than the 1929 Great Depression

Posted on February 27, 2014 by

The Real Great Depression. The depression of 1929 is the wrong model for the current economic crisis. 10-17-2008. Scott Nelson.   The Chronicle of Higher Education. As a historian who works on the 19th century, I have been reading my newspaper … Continue reading →

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Nuclear Winter in China: Chinese Smog will lower food supplies

Posted on February 27, 2014 by

Scientists liken Chinese smog to ‘nuclear winter’ February 27, 2014.  by Kim Kyung-Hoon. Reuters. Air pollution in parts of China is now so extreme it could lead to conditions similar to a “nuclear winter,” scientists say. The smog that covers … Continue reading →

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Ashvin Pandurangi: A Probabilistic Assessment Of Short-Term Inflation, Deflation, Hyperinflation And Serious Deflation

Posted on February 7, 2014 by

A Probabilistic Assessment Of Short-Term Inflation, Deflation, Hyperinflation And Serious Deflation. Nov 3, 2010. Ashvin Pandurangi.   The blogosphere has been rife with debates over whether the U.S. economy will experience inflation or deflation over the next year or two. Typically, … Continue reading →

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Nicole Foss: Notes from videos, radio shows, newsletters

Posted on February 7, 2014 by

FSN Top Interviews 2010: Nicole Foss & Richard Russell at Financial Sense. Rural areas will be the first to lose access to electricity,with  less priority than cities in a deflation, plus there’s no money to build up the grid, which … Continue reading →

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Pesticides & Parkinson’s in California’s Central Valley

Posted on November 30, 2013 by

Horowitz, J. 2012. Parkinson’s Alley.  Recent studies have found statistical links between pesticide use and an outbreak of Parkinson’s disease in California farm towns. Researchers even know which chemicals are the likely culprits. What’s the government doing about it? Not … Continue reading →

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