Does Vodacom Think We're Dumb - and smart ways to save money on your next cellphone contract

So Vodacom has just released its June/July catalogue. Not bad, but no iPhone in sight. Sorry.
Before we look at it in finer detail, here's a primer. In their most recent televised ads Vodacom show a silly, bald white man who doesn't make much sense ("trees grow on money" etc), and then a hip young black chap who is wise to all the latest tech-know-how. The young guy humors the bald dope, patiently, and in good humor, showing him how things work. And at the end, the white guy imparts his 'wisdom' clumsily to an attractive brunette (also white), who walks away with thinly bridled contempt. Moral of the story: old white guys are stupid. Young black guys are where its at. Whether you want to take this with a pinch of salt or not, this is the psychology Vodacom is peddling right now.

Having been involved in advertising, my gut feel is that this patronising ad (it's patronising to the black diamonds they're so desperate to build market share with) was conceived by white okes. The wordplay is very white. Do young black men need to be played up against stupid white farts to prove they're smart? I don't think so. I think there's another way to be funny, and clever. Couldn't we see young black actors playing the part of spies (carrying their web-enabled phones) and basically kicking butt in a future-paradigm - in other words, no racial undertones, just a rendering of web/mobile savviness that is leveraged by a super-sleuth type persona. I don't know about you, but I'm guessing we're grown up enough and sophisticated enough to enjoy that over Vodacom's current toilet humor silliness.

That said, my Vodacom contract is coming up for renewal/termination. I'm renewing, but I'm going to make the decision to save as much as possible on the package that is going to take me up to 2010. My expenses each month are, in order of bank break ability:
1) rent
2) communication (mobile + internet)
3) Food
4) Transport
5) Entertainment

4 and 5 possibly trade places, but I'm guessing 4 is going to be chugging up to rival the number 2 expenditure pretty soon.

So having looked at their bundles, here are a few pointers, do's and don'ts.
1) FREE* isn't free. The * refers to terms and conditions, and that shiny new handset is paid for, each and every penny, in your subscription fee over 24 months.
2) Look carefully at your subscription. Anything over R200 is going to hurt you over the next to years (if you're middle income like me, at any rate).
3) If you like to talk a lot, think of a Business package, that allows a cheapish rate 7 days a week, and at any hour of the day.
4) Don't be tempted by Wii players, Camcorders and all the rest. They may seem like a steal, but you're paying much more for these extras than you would if you just went to the store and bought the damn things in a one of purchase. Vodacom are cleverly offering nice Mac-books at "incredible" prices under R1000 a month. Here's the catch - for 36 months. I'm not sure how much Mac-books cost, but hazarding a guess it's got to be a lot less than R36 000. And anyway, I wouldn't be interested if it was more than a third of that price at this point. Yes, you can get good new computers for around R12 000. Be smart.
5) If you have the internet at home, and can access Facebook at home (and at work), don't bother with Facebook enbaled phones. Also watch those upfront fees. Thing about what you really need, not what you want.

My cellphone bill has fluctuated from R900 to almost R2000. I need to get it in the R500 - R750 ballpark. If I continue with a subscription of over R400, that's not going to work. Remember, your subscription is important to lower your overall costs, but the proportion of your subscription can also raise the overall costs, so be careful with your sums. I am going for a lower subscription, probably R185. Business Talk. I like Samsung, so I might get the Samsung i560 or the GPS enabled Samsung i780 (pay in R900) - for geo-blogging, or the Sony Erickson K850i. I have an idea it's between the two Samsung's, and probably not the i780. I've already indicated that I want to blog less than I am. I also want to call less than I do.

It is when these sort of contracts expire that we have a choice: repeat our mistakes, or continue to buy more things we don't need? I'm going to err on the side of less is more, because we know to expect less and less, and by exercising a choice to cut back, I think we have a better sense that we can handle the increasingly tough times ahead. I hope more will do the same. It's the logical way to live.

Here's a final quote to send you on your way - from the seminal Jim Kunstler:

The trouble in the United States is we’re driving incessantly. We’re driving every kind of car there is, incessantly. And we’ve got to find a way out of the incessant motoring and a way to live without it, and a happy way to live without it—not a punishment way to live without it, but a way to be happy and do it. And it means, really, a completely different paradigm for everyday life.

I can hear you saying: 'what does that have to do with buying a mobile phone?' Everything. Energy prices have everything to do with everything, and we can start changing everything we do, by examining everything we do. I sincerely hope that if you read this, you will begin to respond, by critically looking at what you consume, and internally accepting that we need to consume less. Then, when it comes time to exercise your needs and want, perhaps you (and I) will choose to exercise our demands a little less.

Does A $2,500 Tata Nano in India Mean Higher Gas Prices and More CO2 Everywhere Else? (WIRED)

As the hype surrounding the Tata Nano subsides, we're seeing a sharper picture of what a $2,500 car means for the environment and global energy demand. It doesn't look good.
The world's cheapest car is a marvel of engineering and ruthless cost-cutting sure to bring greater mobility to people throughout the developing world. And that is what makes it so troubling.

The Nano doesn't go on sale until fall, but already environmentalists say it will bring big increases in carbon dioxide emissions and pollution. "This car promises to be an environmental disaster of substantial proportions," Yale environmental law professor Daniel Esty told Newsweek. Some energy experts say all those new cars will increase demand for gasoline, with one telling CNN, "we'll get into a situation where we'll have to compete with them for gasoline, $4, $5 a gallon. Who knows how high we could go?"

It would be easy to denounce the naysayers as western do-gooders with no moral standing to criticize India. But the most vocal critics include Indians who say the Nano will deepen the country's critical pollution, infrastructure and traffic woes.
Could the Nano really be so bad?

NVDL: In a word: Duh! The problem is we are addicted to oil, we cannot live without it, and our consumption levels (demand levels) are so outrageously high... And everyone wants this lifestyle. You can't blame them, or stop them, but something has got to give.

By Chuck Squatriglia
For the rest of this excellent article, go here.

Famous Last Words

'Crude oil traders joke that the price jump to $100 a barrel on Wednesday was like a teenager's first kiss' - Javier Blas

NVDL: Do these traders know what teenagers are like? After that first kiss it's not like they go into hibernation. It's not like they go: oh, okay, let's go rollerskating. It's not like one little snowflake. There's a freakin' avalanche on the heels of that first kiss. So the analogy turns out to be more accurate than I guess they meant it to be.

Oil prices aim higher on US rate cut hopes

Donkey Carts, Bicycles and Scooters

"The life you know, the stuff you take for granted, it's not going to last.”
- John Connor in Terminator 3.

Take a look around you. Wherever you here, look up from your computer, and just take in what’s around you. Just about everything in your environment comes to you courtesy of Cheap Oil. The plastic of your keyboard, the vinyl on your desk, the food in your refrigerator from your local Pick ‘n Pay – that food was trucked, shipped or airlifted to you. We’ve got televisions made in Korea, iPod’s made in China, and more than half of South Africa’s fleet of motor vehicles comes from doer anderkant. ¹ Many of your souvenirs, coasters, glasses, paintings, or porcelain you’ve purchased on an overseas trip. You probably flew on one the planet’s ultimate gas guzzlers, a Boeing 747. You flew cheaply.
You paid for your holiday by driving from your home to work and back, every day, and saving some of your paycheck each month. Did someone drive your kids to school? You didn’t really notice how much fuel you were consuming because it didn’t cost a lot. You’re starting to notice it now.

Everyone else who is stuck in traffic around you is living much the same way you are.
A theory put forward by Dr. M. King Hubbert predicted, with remarkable accuracy, the peak and decline of American fuel reserves in 1970². This theory forms the basis of Peak Oil Theory for the planet. This Theory is subscribed to by many experts who predict that the life we know is all going to change. Not a little but a lot, and not soon, it has already begun.

A Hungry and Thirsty Planet

"Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know."
M. King Hubbert

If it seems unlikely to you that we’re about to run out of oil, you’re right. We’re nowhere near running out of oil. In fact, we’re currently producing the most we’ve ever produced in the history of oil production. We’re producing around 30 billion barrels annually, and the planet is gulping down over 80 million barrels a day. We’re trying to increase capacity, especially refining capacity as fast as we can. The problem isn’t just supply, you see, it’s demand. Demand continues to skyrocket, particularly from countries like China and India, with their billion plus populations. In China alone, the demand for motor vehicles means that 30 000 new cars are added to the roads of Beijing every month (1000 new cars a day).4 Imagine how that drives up the demand for oil. Not just to fill up those cars but bear in mind you need twenty seven barrels of oil for the construction of one car (in terms of energy). The worldwide fleet is now around 600 million, and 200 million are in the USA. The problem is that oil supply can no longer keep pace with demand.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.
If our only problem was a demand side problem, we could take a deep breath, and try to be patient.
But the problem is not only on the demand side. It’s on the supply side too (see attached graphic), which makes this a global phenomenon that will be felt by all, in many ways that are the same, and in many that are not.

It’s a popular fact that none of the large oil companies (Shell, Exxon etc) have invested much in building new refineries simply because they know they won’t be able to provide extra refining capacity (they’ve explored everywhere and can’t find significant new sources of oil).

But haven’t we been here before? Yes, there was an oil crisis in the early 80’s (many news reports that make comparisons to today’s high prices refer to the records set in this particular period), and we survived it, didn’t we? How did we do it? With ingenuity. Oil exploration companies exploded over the planet, using new drilling methods in harsher environments, drilling the crust underwater or in subzero conditions (previously uncharted territory). These forays paid off. The North Sea finds yielded handsome new discoveries (for the UK and Norway), and so did Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska. That was it. That is basically what we found, and it’s lasted until now. Just over 20 years. We’ve found some scraps besides, but basically, we’re back in 1978-1980, this time with no North Sea fields beckoning, no Prudhoe Bay, and a very different planet. There are many more cars on the highways now, and millions more mouths to feed.

But surely we have the technology to save us, some have argued. Many intelligent people argue (even in newspapers like The New York Times) that we are smart enough to solve this problem too. We’ll just use technology. We’ll become even more fuel efficient. But technology is not energy. And without energy, technology becomes obsolete. Simple example: a car with no petrol doesn’t move, no matter how efficient it is. A computer with 200 Gigs of memory won’t operate if the electricity isn’t on.


Technology

We have turned to technology, in ways that have helped us, and in other ways (the Ghawar field as a prime example) that are questionable at best. The cars on the road today are twice as efficient as their forebears of a few years ago. And we’re getting better at sucking the oil out of the Earth too.
In Saudi Arabia for example, Ghawar is the largest single oil reservoir on the planet. It pumps out roughly 5 million plus barrels a day. But today, even Ghawar is hardly our panacea. For the oil barons there, it’s not coming out fast enough, so they have started pumping seawater into Ghawar, and voila, problem solved.

Over the short term, Ghawar’s capacity has increased slightly. But pumping in seawater into the world’s biggest oil well is an incredible gamble. What people are already seeing is 7 million barrels of seawater going into Ghawar (according to Matthew R. Simmons in Twilight in the Desert). Now we know only 5 million barrels a day is coming out. Meanwhile the sensitive geology of the well is being eroded and destroyed and a lot of this vital resource is being lost or ruined by this process.
If you’re interested in the topic, just google ‘Peak Oil’ or any of the terms used in this article (like ‘Ghawar’) and see what you come up with.

If you google ghawar seawater you’ll get this article6, fourth from the top:
Crude Awakening
The only hope for meeting growing world demand for oil is to tap Saudi Arabia's reserves. A Bush advisor on energy says those reserves don't exist.
By Kevin Drum

Simmons, an expert on energy investments, also says that the Saudi’s have consistently overstated their reserves. Recently we’ve seen Shell7 do the same on their balance sheets.
In fact, nobody knows how much oil is in the deep dark crevasses underground. But by using Hubbert’s physics and mathematical models, many authoritative people believe we are in the Peak Oil era right now. Some geologists have predicted Peak Oil by 2010. Other say we’re at the peak right now. Kunstler suggests we will see the Peak in November (Thanksgiving Day to be precise) 2005.

What Is Peak Oil?
"Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that "people cannot stand too much reality..." James Howard Kunstler in The Long Emergency

Peak Oil is the top of a bell supply curve which represents that from now on, we will run out of oil faster and faster.
So if it seems like we are out our maximum capacity right now, and can’t pump out and more oil, any faster than we are, then we’re at the peak. It does seem like that if you follow the news. Despite these Hurricanes, despite the ongoing high prices, no country has been able to come up with spare capacity. Not a single one.
To complicate matters, the peak can only really be seen in ‘the rearview mirror’. Only once we’re in the crisis, in a worsening crisis, will we know we’ve reached, and passed the peak.

In plain language, once we have passed the peak, no matter how much we pump or refine, no matter what we do, we will get less oil out of the Earth. There won’t be enough for everyone and each day that passes there will be less and less. This means that prices will go through the roof no matter what we do (Simmons predicts $100 per barrel this winter, that’s December/January 2005/2006 and American gas prices around $10).

Effects

This effects you whether you live in New York or Orkney. The reality is this:
We are living on a planet that has enjoyed what Kunstler calls “the cheap oil fiesta”. Populations have expanded to bursting point, both in number and girth. Guess what made this possible? The Green Revolution, all the pesticides, fertilizers and equipment to harvest it all was powered by Cheap Oil. Peak Oil means that the supply lines begin to shut down, airlines especially, because oil is simply too scarce and too expensive for these supply runs to run profitably any more. Goodbye Wal-Mart, goodbye Pick‘n Pay. One of the first dilemmas people everywhere will face is food shortages.
We will see a drastic reduction in the human population of this planet as a result.8

What Can We Do In South Africa?

There are two answers:
1) Not a lot, since we’re addicted to oil in almost every aspect of our lives, and we’re already in the Peak Oil era. We must change how we move around, how and where we get our food, where we live etc. and some may find they can’t (or won’t).
2) Plenty. Time may not be on our side, but we can
- invest in renewables like solar (still expensive) and wind (cheaper but very underutilized)
- change the car you drive for a smaller, more up to date, and more fuel efficient model (better yet, buy a hybrid if you can afford one)
- find somewhere else to live, preferably closer to work (or change jobs)
- start using public transport, and share transport to common destinations
- think carefully about financial investments, especially purchases of property, and look to gold when oil prices begin to break loose (actual gold, not stocks)
- support local markets, like food stalletjies (not supermarkets, who get their products from very far away), from grocers to engine makers – soon we’ll have only them to rely on
- plant a vegetable garden in your back garden
- save energy and encourage those around you to do the same

But don’t take my word for it; there are plenty of experts who will tell you the same thing. Colin Cambell5 is one, Mathew Simmons (founder and Chairman of the world's largest energy investment banking company, Simmons & Co), Kenneth S. Deffeyes and numerous other writers. One of the most eloquent is an American writer, James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century. In this book he provides, in a succinct tone and somewhat euphemistically, an elaborate near future scenario. He also discusses the various alternatives, and explains why almost all can be dismissed as ‘too little, too late’.

Here’s a last word, from James Howard Kunstler:

Remember: These immensely hypertrophic organisms like Wal-Mart are products of the special economic growth of the late 20th century, namely an unusually long period of relative world peace and extraordinarily cheap energy. If you remove those two elements, all large-scale enterprises --corporate farming, big-box shopping, big government, professional sports -- are going to be in trouble. – James Howard Kunstler

Sources

Business Report: SA car prices compare favourably September 27, 2005By Justin Barnes, Raphael Kaplinsky and Mike Morris
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2891837
"M. King Hubbert is best known in the greater earth-science community for having predicted oil shortage (in the USA) some twenty years before it actually occurred. He is well known in hydrogeology for his contributions to the hydrodynamics of groundwater and the application of hydrodynamics to the exploration for petroleum…His most famous predictive analysis was published in 1956. In it, he indicated that our (the USA’s) conventional crude-oil production would go over the top of a great curve in 1970 and start down..."
from: http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century Thomas L. Friedman, p.407Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Hardcover, 496 pages, April 2005
After being awarded a Ph.D at Oxford in 1957, Dr Campbell joined the oil industry as an exploration geologist. His career took him to Borneo, Trinidad, Colombia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, the USA, Ecuador, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Norway. He is now a Trustee of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre ("ODAC"), a charitable organisation in London that is dedicated to researching the date and impact of the peak and decline of world oil production due to resource constraints, and raising awareness of the serious consequences. He has published extensively, and his recent articles have stimulated lively debate. His views are provocative yet carry the weight of a wide international experience. (Source: http://www.oilcrisis.com/campbell/)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0506.drum.html
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/shell_overstates_sakhalin_29112004.html
http://www.dieoff.org/, http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/, http://www.peakoil.org/,http:/www.hubbertpeak.com/, http://www.kunstler.com/
Further reading: The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (Hardcover) by James Howard Kunstler "Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that "people cannot stand too much reality...", Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage (Hardcover)by Kenneth S. Deffeyes "Global oil production will probably reach a peak sometime during this decade..." and Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy by Matthew R. Simmons
www.kunstler.com

Oil: Slipping Its Way Back To $100 A Barrel?

Oil has been down more than $2 a barrel today, but some traders say the move to $100 is back in play. That trend became clear yesterday, when crude rose $4.37 to $94.39 per barrel, a 4.9 percent increase.

Joe Terranova, MBF Clearing director of trading, said he saw a a condition in crude futures today he hasn't seen in months. Terranova explained that the front month contract in oil futures, the January month, was trading at a slightly lower price than February.

Today's price move "is a modest correction based on the front month spread slipped into contango for the first time since earlier this summer," he said. February's contract was trading about 17 cents above January's this afternoon. "A contango market is not necessarily down but it doesn't trade with upward momentum," he said.

But Terranova says though the trend toward $100 is still in place. He said one sign of that is the call from Goldman Sachs for a $95 oil price in 2008. "When the New York Yankees say something, everyone listens," he said. Goldman apparently wears the pin stripes on Wall Street. "They bear a lot of weight in the marketplace. If I see them coming, I don't get in the way," he said.

M.F. Global senior vice president John Kilduff also says the move toward $100 per barrel is on. He has been predicting oil would hit $100 before the end of the year, and he said today's sell off is not surprising and the trend higher is still in tact.
By:Patti Domm from CNBC.com

ESKOM: We're Learning

So we've had a few irritating periods of load shedding, followed by announcements to say that load shedding won't happen for several days. What does this mean? It means we're learning that if we DO SOMETHING, if we co-operate, if we get those messages that we once ignored on TV and get up and turn off a few lights etc., it can save us the bother of having everything going off for a few hours.

One of the nasty consequences, in Jozi in particular, of a blackout is that your perimeter fencing goes off; in other words your fortified prison no longer works. Sit in the dark, grab a knife, hold thumbs and pray it comes back on before the Tsotsi's find your house...

That's great. I hope though that we'll be able to maintain these habits, rather than have to endure a schoolyard system. What's a schoolyard system? It means behaving reasonably for a limited time, then misbehaving, being taught a lesson, and repeating the process about a gazillion times. It's not very nice because everyone suffers.

Hopefully, at this early stage, we will have learnt that in terms of wasting energy, (using) less is more (for all). There's one teeny tiny snag though. Let's say we collectively manage to cut down our consumption, thereby raising capacity, what also happens is that there will then be a semi-artificial situation created where additional users get added to the grid (because there's theoretically additional electricity available).

Think about it: the housing rollout in South Africa also includes the rollout of electricity en masse. Whatever we don't use, at the end of the day, is going to be used up by additional users. In the this sense our electrical feature in South Africa seems increasingly, well, dim. The roll out of Nuclear Power stations is at least 10 years away, and they will only come online if the costs of inflation don't go through the roof. That's also not guaranteed. But, I digress. I need to send off this email before the power goes out in the building (something that's happening more and more often eeek!)

Here's more:
Load shedding in Tshwane
Matric students (in Pakistan) blame results on blackout nights of study
Integrated load shedding schedule for Cape Town and the Western Cape
Eskom Load Shedding Schedule
What to expect and what you need to know about the current shortfall of electricity in the Western Cape

Global Warming = World War

Global warming and climate change effectively herald the limiting of worldwide resources. Food, land, fresh water. Even without these limits, we are rapidly coming approaching the moment when limited fuel supplies become too expensive for certain elements of a country's economy, who then become sidelined, become economic losers and then the mob, or criminals.

In South Africa the majority of crimes are perpetrated by The Unemployed Youth, who roam around in small groups or bigger gangs.

Climate Change basically places an even greater demand on energy requirements, to cool us down, to repair storm ravaged settelements etc. The future is looking less and less pretty. A good way to help out is perhaps to decide to not have children. This planet is about to do some human load shedding.

Report warns of global threat (From The Times.co.za)

Global warming could trigger wars, economic upheaval and population shifts, scientists in Hong Kong said yesterday.
University researchers have found that “extreme” cold weather in past centuries has coincided with wars, population collapse and economic crises.

While extreme cold could lead to wars, continued global warming could result in a shortage of fresh water, land and food — and subsequent conflicts and population shifts, the university report said.

Oil Prices Steady Above $97 a Barrel

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said late Wednesday that the record high oil prices are a burden on Asian nations.
"For those of us who are not oil exporters, and we import all our oil, this is a burden which is growing," he said. "It is particularly a burden on the low-income groups, and it's also a factor in increasing the inflation rate and the cost of living for consumers in their countries."

Internet: Excess Demand Will Fatally Clog The Tubes Unless New Global Infrastructures Developed (WIRED)

A new study by analyst Nemertes Research Group says that by 2010, increasing internet traffic will fatally clog the tubes. Several numbers are kicked around. For instance, the study says that $137 billion will have to be invested in worldwide broadband infrastructure to meet demand.

Video (including YouTube), VoIP and BitTorrent are blamed, and the study warns of the coming apocalypse: "The [...] study is evidence the exaflood is coming." Predictions include internet brownouts and slow connections: "it may take more than one attempt to confirm an online purchase or it may take longer to download the latest video from YouTube." (so, no real change there).

By Charlie Sorrel

NVDL: Excess demand, as in all things, merely means that it will take longer to get what we want, or we may have to go without it for long (but potentially just temporary) periods. This is also true for other resources, such as fuel and all the rest. But this is an interesting metaphor: excessive human demand to plug into a sort of digitised global consciousness. And there's not enough connectivity to go round. Makes sense. But maybe it is necessary that we start to see the human blitzkrieg slowing down. Perhaps things will slow down enough so that people may finally and collectively leave their desks and walk outside, feeling the sunshine in their faces - or the rain.

Oil: Latest Stats

1) Crude oil - Latest available figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that crude oil production including lease condensates increased by 455,000 b/d from June to July. Total production in July was estimated at 73.28 million b/d, which is 1.01 million b/d lower than the all time high crude oil production of 74.30 million b/d reached in May 2005.

2) Total liquids - In September world production of total liquids increased by 450,000 barrels per day from August according to the latest figures of the International Energy Agency (IEA). Resulting in total world liquids production of 85.10 million b/d, which is 1.03 million b/d lower than the all time maximum liquids production of 86.13 million b/d reached in July 2006.

3) Status of the production plateau - Both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Energy Information Administration (EIA) figures show that global liquids production has been on a plateau since 2005. The IEA figures result in an average global production in 2007 up to September of 85.03 million b/d, almost to the same as the average 2006 production of 85.00 million b/d and higher than the average 2005 production of 84.10 million b/d. The EIA puts the average global 2007 production up to July at 84.40 million b/d, slightly lower than the average 2006 production of 84.60 million b/d and the average 2005 production of 84.63 million b/d.

These Statistics were sourced and are explained further here.

NVDL: It's a lot of information that boils down to this: supply is slipping, and demand is continues to be rampant.

The Walls Move In

Gold is at a 28 year high. Oil prices are in constant flux; nudging all time records. The JSE has blasted through the 30 000 level, food prices are on the march - some of them doubling since last year. Car sales in South Africa have shrunk year on year for the sixth consecutive month. Banks are issuing alerts. Did you ever stop to think: could something be awry*?


Remember the clamour of voices a long time ago about oil prices? Now we're seeing oil remain comfortably in the $70 range. It's a matter of time before that mad dog goes yelping beyond $100. Some of us thought it would be last year or this year. Every month this doesn't happen, means an even sharper crash. People who say this sort of thing are typically called 'doomsayers'.


Unfortunately, the message has been lost in noise and hysteria. The message (once again) is this: We are at a Peak, a global peak, the likes of which we will never see again. Never before and never again will so many people - so many individuals - enjoy so much lavish and luxurious wealth and power as they are now. This exceptional period of surplus and abundance has been unleashed courtesy of the legacy of fossil fuels. These fuels take millions of years of sunlight bathed forests to shore up. We've pissed half of it into the atmosphere in less than 100 years.


Until now, this fantastic We should say cheap and abundant, because from here on out, with the human population of this planet having absorbed all the capacity that such artificial energy abundance created - we are now moving towards scarcity.


The implications of this are scary. Try not to panic. I spoke recently to a wealthy private game farm owner, an intelligent doctor. He was saying that ecosystems that are out of balance don't correct themselves neatly and seamlessly. They do so in chronic and destabilising crashes. So if a certain species breaches capacity, it doesn't just slowly reduce itself until it fits into a newer and better and more balanced efficiency. Instead, it crashes.


Logic indicates that the same fate awaits us. By us I mean you and all the human beings around you, and every human being you have ever met. I know it sounds dramatic. In fact, it's impossible to overdrammatize. In our lifetimes we are going to see Big Shit. We'll see the human population crash from over 6 billion, and if we're lucky, we'll have 1 billion left over. The doctor I spoke to reckoned on less - a few hundred million perhaps.


I'm sorry if that sounds pessimistic. It's really just a logical and realistic assessment. Meanwhile, the newspapers are starting to notice that something - they're not sure what - is awry. Meanwhile, while the stock exchanges celebrate and crash through new records, so too does worldwide weather, reducing crops to debris and dust. The walls move in on a world that thinks it can continue moving on towards happily ever after. I wish it was a happy ending folks, but unfortunately, it isn't.


The major challenge in the future will be agriculture. Translation: the jobs of the future will be farming, as we attempt to feed ourselves. It's a grim and austere future that right now seems impossible. That is the extent of our common delusion.


Awry: Adj. 1. awry - turned or twisted toward one side; "a...youth with a gorgeous red necktie all awry"- G.K.Chesterton; "his wig was, as the British say, skew-whiff"
askew, cockeyed, skew-whiff, wonky, lopsided
crooked - having or marked by bends or angles; not straight or aligned; "crooked country roads"; "crooked teeth"
2. awry - not functioning properly; "something is amiss"; "has gone completely haywire"; "something is wrong with the engine"
amiss, haywire, wrong
malfunctioning, nonfunctional - not performing or able to perform its regular function; "a malfunctioning valve"
Adv. 1. awry - away from the correct or expected course; "something has gone awry in our plans"; "something went badly amiss in the preparations"
amiss
2. awry - turned or twisted to one side; "rugs lying askew"; "with his necktie twisted awry"
askew, skew-whiff

China’s Future Is Drying Up

By JIM YARDLEY

SHIJIAZHUANG, China — Hundreds of feet below ground, the primary water source for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running dry. The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater.

South-to-North Water Transfer Project Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. A new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city’s water table.

“People who are buying apartments aren’t thinking about whether there will be water in the future,” said Zhang Zhongmin, who has tried for 20 years to raise public awareness about the city’s dire water situation.
For more from this New York Times article, click here.

Kunstler: Shock & Awe

From Kunstler.com:

With gasoline prices still skulking in the neighborhood of $3-a-gallon, despite oil priced above $80-a-barrel, political and economic leaders can pretend a little while longer that things are okay on the real life American scene. But between the dollar tanking in response to the Federal Reserve's Easy-Money-for-Big-Players policy, and the start of the home-heating season, you can be sure we are headed up to the $4-a-gallon range for happy motoring fuel before New Years.

There is still broad disagreement among commentators as to whether we are headed into a wild inflation or a grim deflation, but the emerging pattern looks to me like a big ocean wave that gathers itself into a high cresting peak and then collapses under its own weight -- that is, a technical wild inflation resolving into the low slop of people unable to buy anything. However you cut it, and from whatever angle you look at it, the bottom line will be a steeply lower standard of living for most Americans.

Of course, the US government's official inflation index is worthless, since it doesn't factor in the two vital commodities that normal people can't live without: food and gasoline. But measured against meaningful indexes, there's no question that the dollar is rapidly hemorrhaging value. Last week, the dollar reached new lows against the Euro ($1.40+ to one), oil ventured past $82-a-barrel, and gold topped $740 an a troy ounce. Food commodity prices have also been soaring, with the price-per-bushel of wheat topping $8 -- meaning more expensive Hot Pockets for American microwave food junkies in the season ahead.

It appears that Fed Chairman Bernanke's interest rate cut was designed mostly to help bail out the big banks, which are in desperate need of cheap loan money to cover the losses that they are suffering from not being able to unload tons of worthless mortgage-backed-securities.

Secondarily, the Fed governors might hope that their lowered rates would soften the blow of re-sets on millions of adjustable-rate mortgages -- but mortgage rates have de-coupled from Fed rates, so that may just be whistling past the graveyard.

The next two months will see a much bigger wave of re-sets than months previous, and the re-setters themselves have to figure in some idea of real inflation if they don't intend to lose money on those contracts -- and whoever these parties are at the re-set end, after years of slicing, dicing, re-bundling and re-selling, they are not liable to be in a charity business of buying houses for people at a loss to themselves in interest rate differentials. So, bottom line again, those poor shlubs who signed "creative" mortgages are going to get re-set upward pretty steeply whatever the Federal Reserve does. The political fallout from folks getting tossed out of repossessed houses is sure to get worse.

There's also no guarantee that the Fed rate cuts will rescue any big banks, investment houses, or hedge funds. Sooner or later, to either meet redemptions or admit losses, they'll all have to roll out those mortgage-backed securities, CLOs, and other fraudulent items currently hiding in their books, and ask the world what they're worth paying for. The world will answer by wrinkling its collective noses at the odor emanating from these bundles of financial offal, and that will determine whether some of these outfits stay in business or sink into the mire of financial history.

... what happens as the oil export crisis gathers force and we begin to get supply-and-allocation disturbances. . . ? Or what happens when the US military starts competing with agri-business and commuters for oil? Or what happens geo-politically when the contest for dwindling oil supplies from the exporting nations begins to affect relations between the major importers, namely, China, the US, Japan, and Europe? Or what happens politically on the domestic scene as times get hard and the public looks for targets to direct their righteous wrath against?

What all this come's down to is the sense of a nation absolutely fooling itself that it can carry on in the way it is used to. I'm hardly an advocate of the US giving up and committing suicide. What I advocate is a broad recognition that reality is compelling us to change our behavior. Reality is trying to tell us that we can't run an economy based on nothing more than investment schemes without directing investment into activities that produce things of value. Reality is telling us to be very worried about living arrangements that can only function with copious imports of oil from people who are disgusted with us. Reality is telling us that we can't divert our food crops into making motor fuels without people becoming unable to afford either fuel or food. Reality is telling us to redirect our culture more toward things-we-do-with-other-people and less toward things-we-do-with-new-things. Reality is telling us to shift from avoidance behavior and denial to engaging with reality in order to lead lives that are consistent with reality.

The next several weeks are liable to be a time of great stress as these realities become increasingly undeniable. I imagine the public chatter will become increasingly delusional as the wave crests. When it it finally comes, the shock of recognition that we are a bankrupt nation will present itself at first as a great silence. The public's collective jaw will fall open, but no sound will come out. That will be the true moment of shock and awe.

Grim Reaper Eyes Poor Countries

Thanks JL
Peter Walker and agencies Tuesday September 18 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Developing countries in Africa and Asia will be among those most affected by climate change, global warming experts will warn today.

Millions of people are likely to face drought, hunger and floods given predicted increases in global temperatures, scientists will say in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The UN-convened body, which is the world's most authoritative organisation on climate change, will today issue the fourth assessment report by its Working Group II. The document names Africa, the Asian mega-deltas, small islands and the Arctic as being most at risk.

According to the report, an interim summary of which was published in April, it is probably too late to avoid some major consequences. The full document was launched this morning at the Royal Geographical Society in central London. It warns that agriculture and human health in developing nations will be hit, along with coral reefs, sea ice, coastal regions, mountains and tundra.

During a two-day meeting in London this week, IPCC experts will discuss its impact on Africa and other vulnerable areas, as well as Britain and Europe.
The interim summary made for grim reading, even after it was toned down following pressure from America, China, India and Saudi Arabia. It said that by 2080, 1.1 billion to 3.2 billion people will face water shortages, and some 200 million to 600 million will face food shortages.

NVDL: Anyone out there pregnant or planning to start a family? Maybe a good time to start reading the news and thinking about what the future will mean, not only for you, but also your puppy's. Our just-in-time one-click get-what-you-want lifestyles are about to slip down a few gears as we move down a few rungs on the Convenience LifeStyle Ladder.

If you go off to the beach today...

Oil Hits New World Record - $80

Oil prices climb on tight supply report
Thu, September 13, 2007

NEW YORK -- Oil futures prices rose sharply yesterday, briefly climbing above a record US$80 a barrel after the government reported a surprisingly large drop in crude inventories and declines in gasoline supplies and refinery activity.

>still being caught out by surprise on this old, old subject?<

The report from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration suggested oil supplies are tightening as demand remains strong. That's why oil prices are rising despite OPEC's decision Tuesday to boost crude production by 500,000 barrels a day this fall, analysts said. Despite yesterday's jump, oil is still well below inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980.

>Yes, but not for much longer unfortunately.<