|
If
you want to understand why the government and the oligarchs do
what they do, sometimes you have to look beneath the surface
of what is called common knowledge.
The
reason it’s difficult for most people to understand what
I’m about to say is that it flies in the face of almost
anything they hear or see in the popular culture or in the
main stream media. The problem is that the main stream
media is corporate media and it is not media from which one
might expect the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. I’m not sure if the media was ever expected to
live up to that standard, and yet on the other hand, why
shouldn’t we expect professional journalists to try?
Instead,
popular media outlets appear to do the bidding of the
government and oligarchs embarked on what Noam
Chomsky and Edward S. Herman refer to as the manufacturing of consent – i.e., the
managing of public opinion and the molding of popular culture
to meet the illegitimate objectives (or, more accurately, to
hide the illegitimate objectives) of an elite few. But we now live in
a culture that has been and is seen by this observer, at
least, to be constantly manipulated by the government and
private interests unbeknownst to a generally unconscious
public.
In
any event, I’m going to tell you what I believe is now
happening to our culture and our economy:
It’s
my belief that peak oil has been achieved and its arrival
explains what is happening to markets and to our society.
To understand more fully what peak oil is and what its
consequences are I suggest you review this
set of videos and also this
one. Essentially peak oil is that point in
time when enough oil has been extracted from the earth’s
crust, such that the amount of oil that can be extracted in
any given year has reached its maximum output and from that
point forward will be in continual decline. It doesn’t
mean we are running out of oil anytime soon, but only that the amount we can
extract in any given year will continue to decline over time,
even as the cost of extraction continues to increase, until it
eventually will no longer be economical to extract what
remains.
The
reason this is important is that as economies and populations
grow, the demand for oil increases. While in the past oil
production has always been able to meet demand at reasonable
cost, it now no longer will. Now when economies try to
grow, the production of oil will not be able to meet demand at
historical prices. Instead, the relative scarcity of oil
in the face of increasing demand will tend to force the price
up which in turn will force economic activity to contract.
So
what we will see from now on is an economy (ours and everyone
else’s) that is highly volatile and also consistently unable
to break through to the upside over any significant time
period. As economic activity shrinks, the relative
scarcity of oil will abate; the price of oil will temporarily
decline and prospects for growth will begin to look good
again. But when the economy begins to pick up, demand
for oil will again increase, shortness of supply will again
inflate the price, and economic activity will again be
constrained. The overall trend will look like a roller
coaster but one that has an overall downward trajectory as the maximum
production of oil in any given year will tend to decline as
world reserves continue to be depleted. This process
could go on for quite a few decades.
If
you research this further you will find that attempts to
increase supply by finding new sources of oil or by improving
extraction technologies, will only produce temporary spikes in
production but it will not solve the problem. Right now
we have nothing in the pipeline that can replace oil.
And yet those who make money from oil continue to do
everything in their power to make more money from oil,
including petitioning congress to divert national resources
into finding more of it, and selling as much oil as they
possibly can while they can, particularly as the price spikes
when shortages occur. All this while the US is without
any long term energy policy that addresses the future needs of ordinary people.
Under
these conditions the economy cannot recover. Oil is the
lifeblood of the economy. And less oil means diminishing
life and increasing lethargy for most, if not all, economies.
Complicating
the problem, is that if we try to use other fossil fuels, such
as gas and/or coal to replace oil, the impact on global
warming will only get worse, bringing us closer to ecological
disaster, even if, or because those resources can remain plentiful over a
protracted time period. In my understanding, almost none
of the suggestions that you hear day in and day out from most
economists or politicians, for expanding the economy or
growing jobs, will make any difference at all no matter how
good or hopeful they sound.
Government
officials and oil moguls know this. Oil companies are
trying to maximize profits and extract as much wealth as
possible from the public while they can, while our government
is engaged in making war in order to confiscate whatever oil
resources are left in the world regardless of where they are
located. The attempts they make at offering legitimate reasons
for engaging in war are becoming more and more ridiculous as
their strategy unfolds, and this is likely to result in what
the CIA refers to as “blowback,” i.e., repercussions from
people who decide to fight back, the reason for which our
generally uninformed population will not likely comprehend.
Unfortunately,
theirs is not a strategy designed to help any society or any
people who are not in the oil, war, security, or finance
industries. War
uses up so much of our resources and destroys so much of the
assets and infrastructure of other countries that the net
result is the accelerated destruction of economies, ours and
theirs, even though it is still profitable for those who are
on the payroll of those industries or otherwise own
or control oil or have a vested interest in its protection, extraction, production, financing, or sales.
As
long as our elected officials are bought and paid for, we will
continue on this path, apparently until the oligarchs can’t
extract any more wealth from us or from oil producing
countries; or until the economy collapses altogether; or until
people wake up in time to embark on a more enlightened
strategy for economic sustainability. With respect to this last option, it is doubtful
that our current crop of leaders and oligarchs are either
inclined to create, or intellectually and emotionally capable of creating, such a
strategy.
The
current state of consciousness is as follows: Oil runs
the economic engine. When oil is in short supply, those
members of society who are not critical to keeping that engine
turning should be ignored, discarded, and/or impoverished,
thereby freeing up additional non-productive resources that
can instead be used to keep that hungry economic engine
turning. Of course the destruction of other economies
helps too for the same reason.
So
in my view, this is what protestors are protesting about even
though most of them probably don’t know it. This is
why social safety nets are under attack; this is why Obama and
others aren’t trying to grow the economy; this is why we're
at war and this is why government is tooling up and training to handle a general
citizens' insurrection. It’s only a matter of
time. The more time they have, the more prepared they
will be. I don’t rule out the possibility of some black
swan event that could save us from the scenario I describe,
but then again, black swan events are events that aren’t
predictable.
This
is my theory, which, if you investigate the links I provided,
you will see I extrapolated from other sources. I have
no hard proof that this explains current events and behaviors
as I experience them, only a lot of circumstantial evidence.
(No Middle Eastern country accurately reports their reserves
and certainly none will admit publicly that they have reached
peak oil until they have no choice).
If
you think this won’t affect you, you probably have a lot of
financial resources which you believe will carry you through,
and/or a lot of faith... or you may simply possess what one
politician once called… the audacity of hope.
Return to Commentary
|