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Civilization Killers

 

Life requires energy. Cheap oil is finite. Life and nations powered by cheap oil are terminal. 

US oil production is depleting at the rate of 11% per year. This will recreate the 2008 crisis by 2019.

The Federal highway monopoly binds the survival of Americans to a 48% dependence on foreign oil that is growing at the rate of 1 million barrels per day per year. It typically requires 40 to 200 years to retool a major infrastructure. We have 3 years.

In 2008 the US economy nearly collapsed as gasoline prices hit $4.52 per gallon and people used their mortgage payments to buy gas to keep their jobs. Since 2008, zero interest rates encouraged $200 billion investments into the Fracking Boom. This put 2,000 drilling rigs in the field and increased US oil production from 5 million barrels per day (mb/d) to 9.5 mb/d. In 2014 the Fracking Boom busted. Rig counts have dropped to 400. Peak Fracking was in June 2015. US oil production is dropping at the rate of 1 mb/d per year, or about one 1973 Oil Embargo per year.

Syria may provide a model for how the long and complex oil supply chain collapses as production drops below some critical level. The Syrian tipping point of collapse occurred in about 2010-11. 

 

Federal violation of the Constitution’s Divided Sovereignty in taxing to build and monopoly control transportation and power infrastructures resulted in Civilization Killers: 

  • Oil Famine nearly occurred in Sept 2008, with debt nearly failed to buy foreign oil. The logistical events of increasing debt and declining US oil production are recreating the crisis of 2008. It seems highly probable the Oil Famine will occur by 2020. Syria provides the model for what Oil Famine is like. 
  • Pollution tilting the balance of nature.  This  of self-discipline to clean up our pollution that is tilting the balance of nature into Climate Change.
  • Federal monopolies that socialize the costs of resource depletion (US Peak Oil in 1970).
  • The Paths to War. There are two know paths for Americans to go to war with Americans:
    • Illicit Energy, dependence on energy outside self-reliance. Federally mandated 50% dependence on foreign oil repeats the path to war of Federal support for slavery.
    • Taxation without Representation. Debt is the tax on future labor, a tax on the labor of children imposed without their consent. Avarice of Federal officials combined with a Tyranny of the Majority to exploit a defenseless, non-voting minority, children. They/we borrowed to support our consumption, $59,000 against the liberty and future labor of every child. As nearly happened in Sept 2008, this debt house of cards will collapse to the great harm of children. Without decisive action today, our children should expect Oil Famine and debt collapse by 2020.

 

The Federal government is mandated to “provide” for the defense of Liberty for Posterity. This requires usufruct capitalism:

  • Usufruct means to use for profit without harm. The first place I saw this word used was in Thomas Jefferson’ Letter “The Earth Belongs to the Living“.
  • To profit is to add more value than the cost to compete.
  • We may use any resource that we can profit from to pursue our happiness.
  • We must capitalize all costs to restore those resources to like condition so Posterity, our children, have equivalent resources to pursue their happiness. 

If we are facing Civilization Killers, the Federal government would warn us. Right?

The track record is not good:

  • Department of War, predecessor of Department of Defense, had the data that an attack on Pearl Harbor was immenent and failed to warn field commands.
  • DOD, NSA, FBI, CIA had the dots to warn of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, but secrecy prevented them from connecting the dots. 
  • Between 1998 and 2008 families lost about $4,155 dollars per year of disposable income to rising gasoline prices. Yet EIA kept forecasting lower gasoline prices.
  • In September 2008, the economy nearly collapsed in the Great Recession. There was no warning despite the obvious fraud that cost American taxpayers between $6 and $14 trillion. The Big Short.
    • Unemployment is highly correlated to gasoline prices so jobs were lost. 
    • To keep their jobs, families started missing mortage payments. 
    • Since June 2015 US oil production has been depleting at the rate of 1 million barrels per day (mb/d) per year. At this rate of supply decrease will force gasoline prices so by 2020 the crisis of 2008 will be repeated. The crisis could happen tomorrow if debt, political instability in Venezuala, or other event triggers.
    • The Energy Information Administration (EIA) employes 370 people, an annual budget of $117 million, and a mission to provide “public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment.” Yet EIA completely failed to warn the American people of the crisis on 2008, and the one that is unfolding since Peak Fracking in June 2015.  
    • Crisis of Civilization

Many will discount the risks; this is the “tiger problem”. We are biologically blind to overwhelming problems we cannot see a short term profit in solving. The psychology of “devaluing the future” accounts for the repeated collapse of civilizations. Easter Island provides an example we are repeating today. Sailors of such great skill, they navigated across thousands of miles of the Pacific Ocean to settle on Easter Island. They estabished a vibrant society. Then in excess, slowly over decades, they chopped down trees to build Moai’s faster than trees could sustain a forest ecology. Trees large enough to build fishing boat deminished. Existing fishing boats succumb to long use. The society experienced a Malthusian Collapse, an 85% die-off.

The book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jarad Diamond details this and other examples.

Following is a summary of Civilization Killers currently facing the American people. If anyone can offer proof there is no risk, or why the risk is lower than I expect, I will gladly adjust the page and provide links to their ideas. Educated at West Point and experienced as an Infantryman, I tend to hunt for where there are uncontained risks.

I do not think these are Civilization Killers, but they are pretty harmful:

  • Oil-dollars funded religious terrorism.
  • NSA police state surveillance to protect against oil-funded terrorist.
  • Perpetual oil-wars since 1991.
  • Shifting America’s economy from producing to consuming.
  • Shifting the definition of the American dream from personal liberty to borrowing to buy a house, car and oil.
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