Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical�: "Family of Irving 'Bud' Feldkamp,
Dies in Montana Plane Crash
Owner of the Nation's Largest Privately Owned Abortion Chain,"

The Oil Drum | The Next Five Years: Peak Lite and the Current Oil Picture

The Oil Drum | The Next Five Years: Peak Lite and the Current Oil Picture: "Conclusions

While the oil industry is historically cyclical"

Conclusions

While the oil industry is historically cyclical, I believe we are approaching the point at which the industry will no longer be able to build out enough new projects to stay ahead of demand. This could manifest itself as peak oil, in which case the rate of depletion permanently overtakes the rate at which new production comes online. Or it could first manifest as peak lite, in which case new production still stays somewhat ahead of depletion, but can't keep up with new demand. In either of these situations, I think the historical cyclicality of the oil industry will disappear. In early 2008 I thought we had reached that point, but it appears that we had at least one more cycle ahead.

While it is too early to tell with a high level of confidence just where we are on the depletion curve, the summer of 2008 provided of taste of life in an oil-constrained world. The current level of underinvestment and the prospect of higher taxes are setting up another situation in which spare capacity erodes, leading to higher oil prices and greater volatility. Add to this the prospect of a global oil production peak, and I have trouble seeing a case where oil prices will remain stable in the coming years.

As an investor, I use blue chip oil stocks as a defensive measure against much higher prices. I am not one who subscribes to the idea that oil companies are going to be put out of business by running out of oil, or by ethanol, algal biodiesel, or any other combination of alternative fuel technologies. In fact, I strongly believe that if an alternative technology begins to look attractive enough, oil companies have deep enough pockets to shift their business in that direction. But I think that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

As a consumer, it would probably pay to evaluate just how much higher prices might impact your budget - and then take action. Can you sustain oil prices that return to $150/bbl or more? Even if you can, do you want that uncertainty hanging over your budget? If not, then it would be prudent to take steps to minimize the personal impact of high oil prices. Steps to consider include utilizing more fuel efficient transportation, public transportation, ride-sharing, and if possible locating closer to your place of employment.

Plan ahead and don't get caught off-guard like so many did last summer. It is only a matter of time before history repeats itself. Here's hoping our political leaders make policy decisions that won't worsen the impact.

Chicago Boyz � Blog Archive � Environmentalism and Reality

Chicago Boyz � Blog Archive � Environmentalism and Reality:
Pittsburg
"sol vason Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 6:19 am

When I moved to pittsburgh, pa in 1970 the polution index ranged from a low of 100 to a high of 300. Environmentalists took no pride in these numbers. The closed down the steel mills and all the other smokestack businesses. Drove them overseas to India and China, I suppose. By 1980 our air was clean and there weas massive unemployment. Many Pittsburgers left town. During that time I could hire PhDs for $7.00/hour. People with 30 years on-the-job experience for $6.00.

Soon other industries left town. Pittsburgh used to be the #3 city in the US in terms of corporate headquarters. Today it is not in the top 300. Even the Mellons and Heinzs sold out and left town.

But now Pittsburgh has clean air. And because so many people have left, very high property taxes. And laws that keeep new imndustries out. Today our graduates all leave town to find new jobs. Except the dumb ones.

Obama says he is going to pass laws to eliminate the cycle of boom and bust. Because no one can gaurantee permanent boom this means we will have permanet bust."

Chicago Boyz � Blog Archive � Environmentalism and Reality

Chicago Boyz � Blog Archive � Environmentalism and Reality

From time to time if I am stuck conversing with a die-hard environmentalist, I will ask them what they think the WORST thing that has happened with regards to the environment is, in their opinion. I usually don’t listen to their reply to closely and then tell them what they OUGHT to be saying

The Fall of Communism and End of Socialism

Under Communism prior to Deng Xiaoping, mainland China was a starving wasteland with few consumer goods, frequent famines, and millions living in caves (no joke). After Deng unleashed his reforms in the countryside, which migrated to the cities, the Chinese government removed the boot of this failed dogma and unleashed a nation of hard charging entrepreneurs and traders. For years the overseas Chinese were some of the most successful business people in Asia - now they were free to raise the standards of living of their own people.

Power plants were built - millions of homes didn’t even have heat - and the country roared to life. New cities were built, highways, ports and railways crossed the country, and now China is the manufacturer for a huge variety of what you have in your house today.

And what did the Chinese consumer want? They wanted what YOU have - a car (bicycles went by the wayside as soon as they had the money), a nice flat, overseas travel, air conditioning and heat in the winter, electricity to power their myriad consumer devices and appliances, and food of all types (especially meat products). An explosion of manufacturing and consumption erupted throughout the country which hasn’t abated (may be slowing a bit now due to the recession).

While Chinese Communism was abandoning Marxist economic principles (but keeping the dictatorship of the state, a core theme), India was abandoning its inward-focused socialism. In the 80’s India began some tentative reforms which also brought the economy to life, as Indians’ overseas were also known as prosperous businesspeople, like the overseas Chinese. Like the Chinese - the Indians wanted what Western consumers had - cosmetics, cars, clothes, air conditioning, power for appliances, more types of food, and all the rest. While their economy was still tied to a democracy (and thus couldn’t run over the rights of everyone in pursuit of development) they focused more on services and managed an incredible run of growth which led to Mumbai being one of the most expensive cities in the entire world to live in.

Don’t forget Brazil - Brazil also moved away from many socialist principles and the economy started to grow to keep up with its burgeoning population, who also want many of the comforts that we take for granted in the West.

China, India and Brazil represent a giant mass of humanity, the most populous countries in their respective continents, all of whom featured BILLIONS of consumers “voting with their feet” (through their actions, since they didn’t really leave) and showing that what they wanted wasn’t a simple, spartan zero-footprint life but in fact the cars, power, air conditioning, and higher end food (meats and not simple grains) that are bemoaned in the West.

IF ONLY - I tell the environmentalist - that you would have allied yourself with Socialism and Communism, two ideologies that made some of the most ambitious and entrepreneurial people in the world poor and impoverished - you would have been able to keep those countries “down”, with few cars (except for the elite) and a tiny infrastructure which is tied to limited consumption.

I remember when East Germany fell - and saw a brief interview with an East German intellectual - saying that he wished for a “third way”, other than the capitalism of the West when the wall fell - but that never happened.

Another opportunity lost for the environmentalist… after all barbed wire, guard towers, and shoot-to-kill orders are a small price to pay for the absence of cars and carbon, right?

A completely bankrupt ideology, which has been blasted to oblivion in the developed world. Their moment, like that of the East German intellectual - never comes when people are given a chance to live their lives fully.

2009 March 25 � Count Us Out

2009 March 25 � Count Us Out

Obama's Selective Service Certification

Brutally Honest: What is that?

Brutally Honest: What is that?

a sparrow

Conversion Diary: Could I have stopped the war? - The diary of a former atheist

Conversion Diary: Could I have stopped the war? - The diary of a former atheist:
"'If you are what you should be,
you will set your whole world on fire.'
~ St. Catherine of Siena"


Dedication for Seven Storey Mountain
"I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both."
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A couple weeks ago I was reading Seven Storey Mountain and came across a passage where Thomas Merton talks about the beginning of World War II, and says in passing:

If I had accepted the gift of sanctity that had been put in my hands when I stood by the [baptismal] font in November 1938, what might have happened in the world?

In the context of that section of the book, it's clear that he was basically asking, Could I have stopped the war? At first I hardly noticed it, thinking of it as a poetic hyperbole to drive home the point that we should all try to be holy. A few pages later, however, that sentence still nagged at me. I went back and re-read it, as well as the paragraph that followed:

People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell. The saints are full of Christ in the plenitude of His Kingly and Divine power: and they are conscious of it, and give themselves to Him, that He may exercise His power through their smallest and seemingly most insignificant acts, for the salvation of the world.

Those thoughts have continued to nag at me over the past couple of weeks. When I see distressing stories on the news or think of the issues that most disturb me, an inconvenient thought keeps popping into mind: Could I have stopped this?

What I mean, of course, is not that there's any chance I could have done much at all through my own efforts; it's a shorthand way of saying, "If I had really died to myself, if I had fully stepped out of the way to let God's love and strength flow through me like a firehose instead of the feeble drip that the world sees now, what could he have done through me?"

Though it seems unlikely that God would use me to effect worldwide change on a major issue, it's certainly not impossible. Also, as Amy points out so well, one thing that is certain is that people who truly surrender their lives to God will have a huge impact on the world in some way or another, even if nobody ever knows their names.

Later in the book Merton describes a Russian Catholic woman who moved into the slums of Harlem to help the people there. After observing the amazing things that God had done through her, he writes:

It is a tremendous thing, the economy of the Holy Ghost! When the Spirit of God finds a soul in which He can work, He uses that soul for any number of purposes: opens out before its eyes a hundred new directions, multiplying its works and its opportunities for the apostolate almost beyond belief and certainly far beyond the ordinary strength of a human being.

So could I have prevented any of those horrible things I hear about on the news each night had I been a saint? The weight of my sins starts to feel awfully heavy when I realize that the answer is, "Maybe."