On Peak Lunacy, “you’ve been wrong long enough” – Peak Oil #18

Carpe Diem quotes the current issue of “The Gartman Letter” in a post, Quotation of the day on ‘peak lunacy.’ The newsletter is subscription only and I’m sure it’s far beyond my price range, so I have to quote the quote.

Mr. Gartman recalls his undergrad days when the Malthusians said the world would be out of crude oil by 1984. He calls this “sheer lunacy.”

Since it is now 2013 and I’m still driving a car powered by gasoline, I think we can call that a failed forecast.

What is Peak Oil?

Continue reading “On Peak Lunacy, “you’ve been wrong long enough” – Peak Oil #18”

Where do you draw the line on tradeoffs?

John Bredehoft ponders the question in his post, A steering wheel desk – where do you draw the line between personal and corporate responsibility?

Under discussion is a portable desk you can set up while in the driver’s seat. The illustration at Amazon makes it clear it fits over the bottom of the wheel and would make turning impossible even if you could handle dumping everything on your lap.

Continue reading “Where do you draw the line on tradeoffs?”

The poor need the rich so the poor can go to work

(Cross-post from my other blog, Freedom is Moral.)

If you need anything other than the clothes you wear in order to do the work needed to get a paycheck, you are dependent on “the rich” to provide the tools and equipment to get your work done.

That is the point in a 1-25-13 letter to the editor at the Wall Street Journal from Mr. Fred Anderson of Pittsburgh.

He says: Continue reading “The poor need the rich so the poor can go to work”

Mali update – 2-17-13

2-11 – Wall Street Journal – French, Malians Retake Gao After Assault by Militants

Militants attacked the city of Gao. After an apparent running gun battle, the French and Malian troops chased the rebels out of town.

2-15 – Wall Street Journal – French Lessons in Mali

Let’s see if I can put this in one sentence.

The Tuareg in northern Mali (MNLA) will cooperate with the French against the jihadists but continue to have long-running grievances with the Malian government and army thus won’t cooperate with them, so to get out of the country France needs to negotiate a political deal between the government and MNLA.

Am I close? I’m not sure

2-16 – New York Times – In Mali, the Peril of Guerrilla War Looms

The jihadists/rebels/militants have reportedly blended in with the locals at villages near Goa. They can hide in plain sight. Looks like they may wait for an opportunity to strike back.

Capital appreciation bonds -– compound the interest on a bond for 20 years before starting to make any payments. How’s that for a wonderfully bad idea?

If you thought zero documentation and 120% loans were good for the economy, you will love capital appreciation bonds.

Here’s the deal – what are schools and local governments in California to do once they have run out of cash to pay even the interest on bonds, can’t cover the principal on the cost of new buildings, and face huge voter resistance to any increase in spending? What to do when you just want to keep spending?

How about issuing capital appreciation bonds. That allows the government agency to keep spending whatever they want.

You can borrow money, make no payments for 20 years, compound the interest into principal, and burden the adult children of current students with the huge payments.

Continue reading “Capital appreciation bonds -– compound the interest on a bond for 20 years before starting to make any payments. How’s that for a wonderfully bad idea?”

North Dakota oil production back to record level for 12-12

December production increased to 704,360 bopd from revised 670,850 in November (5.0% increase) and up from revised 684,233 in October. That’s a net increase of 2.9% over two months.

Statewide stats here. Director’s Cut here.

Million Dollar Way has various stat data for last five months and highlights of the Director’s Cut.

I graphed the monthly production. Also calculated average annual production by year. I’m particularly amazed at the trend of production by year.  Here are the graphs:

Continue reading “North Dakota oil production back to record level for 12-12”

Increase in Crude By Rail shows flexibility in economy – capitalism solves problems

When I started paying attention to the huge changes in energy production about a year and a half ago, one of the possible obstacles in North Dakota was the lack of pipelines to get the oil from fields to refineries in the Gulf Coast. The lack of capacity could constrain production and slow down drilling because there was no way to ship the oil. There wasn’t any way to store it for a couple of years until pipelines could be built.

Has that crippling problem stopped drilling?

No.

What happened?

Capitalism solved the problem.

Continue reading “Increase in Crude By Rail shows flexibility in economy – capitalism solves problems”

An economist decides to break up with his girlfriend after a quantitative cost-benefit analysis of the relationship

I don’t do humor, unless there is a good economic point to be made.  I just about fell out of my chair on this one.

Here is the start of the economist’s talk with his soon-to-be-former-sweetheart: Continue reading “An economist decides to break up with his girlfriend after a quantitative cost-benefit analysis of the relationship”

What economic system has lifted humanity out of the dirt?

(Cross-post from my other blog Freedom Is Moral.)

That would be capitalism.

I, for one, am thrilled to not live as my great-great-grandparents did. I’m not into subsistence agriculture, loosing half my children in their infancy, or facing a life expectancy of 30 years.

John Mackey has expanded that idea in his book, Conscious Capitalism.

Carpe Diem has a quote from the author in their post, Quotation of the day: Capitalism has lifted humanity out of the dirt and is greatest value creator in history of the world Continue reading “What economic system has lifted humanity out of the dirt?”

Making sense of the radical change surrounding us – a long-term perspective – 2

The change overwhelming us is simultaneously exciting, frightening, thrilling, unsettling, clear, and confused.  We have a scary and exciting future with incredible opportunities that we can only vaguely see.

How to make sense of it?

Two writers more than all others have helped me as I slowly sort things out: Seth Godin and Walter Russell Mead.

I’d like to highlight a few articles from Mr. Mead to give a sense of the major trends facing us. He regularly refers to the breakdown of the “blue model.”

The way we’ve done things since World War II isn’t working anymore. None of us have any idea today what the replacement way of doing things will look like.

Previous post provided a deep introduction from one of Mr. Mead’s articles..

For a very long read that provides deep explanation, check out The Once and Future Liberalism.

The article goes into great detail about the factors that have collapsed the ‘blue model’ in the private sector. The government sector has yet to deal with this: Continue reading “Making sense of the radical change surrounding us – a long-term perspective – 2”

Mali update – 2-10-13 – The ‘fun’ part is over while the war has just begun

Some of the news of the last week –

2-2 – The Guardian – Inside Gao where Arab jihadis took bloody sharia retribution on Mali’s black Africans

More stories are surfacing of the brutality of the occupation. In addition, the punishments appear to have been dispensed on an ethnic basis: Continue reading “Mali update – 2-10-13 – The ‘fun’ part is over while the war has just begun”

Role of the government in generating the financial crisis

(Cross-post from my other blog, Freedom Is Moral)

“[…] many of the financial institutions that contributed to the problem were crony capitalist. Business leaders can have confidence in the working of free markets. It is government interference in markets that they should fear.”

John A. Allison

That’s the opening quote in Pablo Paniagua’s review of Mr. Allison’s book, The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism is the World Economy’s Only Hope

Mr. Allison was a long-serving CEO of BB&T Bank. He saw the interference of government in the banking industry up close and personal.

Those icky, greedy bankers and icky greedy Wall Street financiers played a role in our current mess, but minor compared to the interference and misdirection and forced distortions arising from various federal agencies.

An overview of the mess we are in: Continue reading “Role of the government in generating the financial crisis”

Have you noticed the new unit of measure for large oil fields is “Bakkens”?

I’ve noticed a fun trend. In discussions of undeveloped oil fields where fracking could open up huge production the potential size of the field is compared to Bakken. Thus, a new unit of measure – how many Bakkens are in the new field.

Three examples.

Continue reading “Have you noticed the new unit of measure for large oil fields is “Bakkens”?”

California has two-thirds of the shale oil reserves in the U.S.

The New York Times noticed the amount of shale reserves in California and wrote a major article:  Vast Oil Reserve May Now Be Within Reach, and Battle Heats Up.

The billion dollar question – do we in California have the wisdom to safely tap the economic growth, tens of thousands of jobs (if not a hundred thousand), and a couple billion of state tax revenue every year for the next couple of decades that shale oil could provide?

Two key comments from the article:

Continue reading “California has two-thirds of the shale oil reserves in the U.S.”