Doctor Doctor

Bisolvon Linctus. Now there's a name from the Land of Too-Sick-To-Go-To-School, or in this case, work. Ja I've been off sick today, and went to the doctor at about 4pm. Nice chat. We spoke - of all things - about the impact America has had on Asia, especially Korea and Japan. He's from the platteland, and also a big swimmer.

He says I have the sort of growth in my air canal that only people who have done A LOT of swimming get. They're sort of minute warts - and he says nobody knows why they develop. My theory is that the ears don't like getting water in them, and the prolonged exposure causes a reaction that is an attempt to seal off the vulnerable membranes against the damaging impact of salt or chlorine. Just a theory.

I told the doctor about my experience at Changi airport in Singapore. Where I was standing at a free internet terminal and suddenly felt like I was in an elevator. Just felt my legs buckle slightly a few times. I didn't mention how I almost threw up in the plane when I was given something to eat (a small dinner snack at around 3am).

The doc diagnosed an impressive infection that has spread even to my ears, and on my doctor's note cited 'exhaustion'. He recommended bed rest, and specifrically that I stay away from keyboards and computers for a few days. IN ORDER TO REST.

I have 4 sets of medications to work through, among them, Bisolvon Linctus. It even tastes like childhood. Transparent, semi-sweet, semi salty. A syrup that's supposed to make you feel better by dissolving the sicky green mucous of life. The mucous is doing well - I'm feeling worse than I did this morning which means I need to not be doing what I'm doing right now for a while. Brent Crude is going to have to go its merry way to $125 without 'I told you so's' and 'why we can't be a throwaway society any more' and other running commentaries.

From my sickbed I have to say I can see how the world is starting to unravel; the pace I mean, is picking up. The difference is, when I am overwhelmed with stress, I get sick, stay home a few days, take something, and a few days later I'm back to normal. Unfortunately, and this isn't doomsday at all, it's reality: our oil addictions have taken society down a path that is terminal. You don't come back to work feeling better. This stuff doesn't get better, it gets more difficult by the day. We're in that zone now. Even I can't tell you whether the human organism in its entirety is going to survive this. And right now, those serpents are beginning to writhe.

The best prescription I can recommend for you who want to know what to think about the world and where it is going, is to do what I am doing: read Jim Kunstler's World Made By Hand. And take some time to honestly think about your life, where it is going and collectively, where everything is going.

Understanding The Oil Conundrum

Global economic expansion has resulted in a world demand for oil that has been rising steadily – and has proved remarkably resilient in the face of high prices.

According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, world oil demand will increase a further 1.3 million barrels per day in 2008, with Asia and the Middle East accounting for 800,000 barrels per day of that growth.

To put that figure in context, the US consumes about 20.6 million barrels per day, or roughly 25 percent [one quarter] of global demand. China is the second-largest consumer, at 7.2 million barrels per day. Japan, with 5.2 million barrels per day, is third.

High gas prices have dampened demand somewhat, but not as much as might be expected, according to Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell.

The demand reaction to continued high prices might be a delayed one, said Mr. van der Veer at a recent symposium at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"We think it may happen that people won't drive less, but that next time they buy a car they will buy a more fuel-efficient car," he said.

NVDL: What no one talks about is population growth, and how this pushes up the tide of demand. Even if demand contracts, the latest slew of university graduates in the US and other wealthy countries demand what they feel entitled to have (based on their parents consumption patterns). While consumption might decrease, demand in the basic sense of equipping additional users to operate (cars, suburban homes and gadgets like phones, Tvs and computers) basically provides for a fundamental level of demand that isn't easily eroded. Thus we face a future where there are holes in the supply chain, a future where thereare shortages, have nots, economics losers. We are seeing the poor taking a big hit now. The Middle Classes around the world are next.

Richard Heinberg: It's Happening

There is a surreal quality to the experience of seeing the unfolding of unpleasant events that one has predicted. Plenty of times over the past few years I’ve said, "I want to be proven wrong!" Who in their right mind would wish to see economic collapse and famine? But it was obvious that, given the direction our society is headed, these must be the consequences.

Now, with oil at $117 a barrel, the US economy teetering, and food riots erupting in Haiti, Egypt, and Asia, one could perhaps gain some satisfaction in saying "I told you so." But what faint compensation that would be. We are all going to have to share the bitter fruits of our society's century-long growth binge, whether we have criticized it or participated wholeheartedly.

The only silver lining is the possibility that now, at last, as the trends (Peak Oil, the failure of growth-based economics, the failure of industrial agriculture, climate chaos, and so on) are becoming so starkly clear, policy makers will begin seriously to contemplate a Plan B (or C, as Pat Murphy insists). For those of us who have been lobbying in that latter direction for some while, this is no time to let up, but rather the ideal moment to redouble our efforts.

NVDL: Now is the ideal moment to redouble our efforts. Exactly.

Opec decision likely to push oil prices above $100 this week

Oil prices could finally breach the $100 barrier this week, deepening fears for the West’s economic prospects, if the Opec oil cartel confirms an expected decision at its extraordinary meeting in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday not to raise crude production, analysts believe.

Opec is under pressure from Western oil-consuming nations to take urgent action to rein back prices from their recent record highs, amid mounting concern that the cost of crude will undercut already faltering growth in developed economies while simultaneously stoking inflation.

Close observers of the cartel believe that it will spurn the West’s pleas and keep its output pegged, because any increase ordered this week would not come through until towards the end of the winter in the northern hemisphere. Opec may fear that by that time any extra crude production could risk oversupplying a market in which demand will be cut not only by warmer weather but by an impending slowdown in leading Western economies.

Veronica Smart, an analyst with the Energy Information Centre, a leading consultancy, said that this delayed effect meant that a move this week by Opec to boost output would probably be viewed as “too little, too late”.

She said that the cartel generally disliked raising production ahead of the second quarter because it tries to avoid any build-up of oil stockpiles around that time as part of its pricing strategy.

Simon Wardell, of Global Insight, an independent analysis group, shared Ms Smart’s view: “With the economic problems hanging over the global economy now, Opec’s probably thinking that demand [for oil] is more likely to go down than up in terms of current forecasts, and they will probably want to keep things steady [on output].” Expectations that Opec will stay its hand were reinforced by comments from senior cartel figures.

Rafael RamÍrez, the Venezuelan Oil Minister, said yesterday: “We expect that the market will maintain the same prices that we have seen this year. Probably, if there is not geo-political tension, prices should be around $100 a barrel.”

Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi Arabian Oil Minister, said that present oil stocks were in a “very comfortable range”.

by Gary Duncan, Economics Editor for The Times Online (UK)

NVDL: Is oil at $100 as much of a brou ha ha as the Y2K bug? You'd think so based on the disdain stock markets have for fuel prices. Unfortunately, reality is much more simple. Essentially every time there is a hike in petrol prices (that's prices you pay to fill up your tank), the money you have left for everything else gets less. Not only that, everyone else has less money, and the costs also get transferred to everything else: food, transport and all the rest. We keep forgetting that cheap oil underpins EVERTHING THAT WE DO. Thus, every change in these prices have critical impacts, particularly for those in debt, and the poor.

When the number of poor (economic losers) increases, so do social ills such as unemployment and crime. That's not good for anyone.

$100: Welcome to a New World

Sleep well tonight because you may well wake up tomorrow, and find yourself in a different world; a world where everyone - including yourself - finds the world to be an entirely different place. A place of reality, consequence and purpose. A place where you can no longer get something for nothing. A place where reality TV somehow has a very ironic, black humor ring to it. A place where attrition is the order of the day. A place where oil prices of $100 will seem benign tomorrow, a place of rapid change, a place of chaos and uncertainty, of unrest and contraction, and the beginning of our collective plunge, our descent, into austerity.

This being the case, what can we do?

Control what you can. What you eat, exercise, and your consumption. Learn to be a good neighbour, you're going to need each other. It may longer be a choice to change, but the choice that does remain is HOW MUCH. Our inner decency will answer this question on each individual level. Let's hope that will be enough.

10 businesses facing extinction in 10 years

Determining which industries aren't long for this world may seem easy enough. But some types of businesses, such as telemarketing, are surprisingly hard to kill.
And then again, other industries, probably the ones you're sad to see go, can't find a way to survive.
So start setting up your office pool, because here are our picks for 10 businesses facing extinction in 10 years.

From Entrepreneur.com
By Geoff Williams

Record stores

Record stores are closing in, well, record numbers. One of the most prominent music retailers, Tower Records, shut down all 89 stores last year after concluding it couldn't withstand the onslaught of online music stores and chains like Wal-Mart, which can offer lower prices and sell other items to offset the smaller number of CDs being sold.

Odds of survival in 10 years: Great, if you consider Wal-Mart a record store.

Camera film manufacturing

This probably isn't the best business to get into right now. According to The Chicago Tribune, from May 2006 to May 2007, the volume of prints made from digital cameras grew by 34 percent. Film camera sales, meanwhile, fell by 49 percent, while digital cameras sales continued to grow — by 5 percent. Of American internet users, 70 percent own a digital camera; another survey shows that 70 percent of Canadians now use a digital camera. Odds of survival in 10 years: Some entrepreneurs who specialize in making camera film for amateur photographers could possibly make a living.

Crop dusters

They'll be around in 10 years, but likely not in their present form. The average age of the typical crop duster is 60, the number of crop dusters is dwindling, and the profession can be dangerous. Just several weeks ago, an Arkansas crop dusting company was ordered to stop flying in Iowa after spraying farm workers with a fungicide; 36 farm hands in a cornfield had to be decontaminated by a hazardous materials crew.

Odds of survival in 10 years: The type of crop dusting plane that chased after Cary Grant in "North by Northwest" will have almost certainly gone south. Farmers say that they'll always need crop dusters, even though new technologies have made them less important than in the past. But commercial airlines are increasingly taking business away from the small, independent crop dusters.

Gay bars

As The Orlando Sentinel noted in a recent article, around the country gay bars have been going out of business as gay men and women have been gaining greater acceptance in society. What used to be a hangout for people who felt unwelcome elsewhere is becoming less necessary.

Odds of survival in 10 years: As with many industries, the very best of them will endure; the rest won't.

Newspapers

Some people thought they were through when radio and TV news came about. Even after the fax machine revolutionized offices, some people predicted that everyone would have their news faxed in, since that would be quicker than relying on a newspaper. But the numbers have been falling precipitously since the 1990s when the internet came on the scene. In the past year, the Audit Bureau of Circulations twice has posted drops averaging 2.1 and 2.8 percent over six-month periods. Newsrooms across the country have been hemorrhaging staff.

Odds of survival in 10 years: They won't disappear; they'll be on the internet. We don't recommend startups investing a lot of money into a printing press plant.

Pay phones

In 1997, there were more than 2 million pay phones in the U.S.; now there are approximately half as many. There are probably always going to be certain places like airports and hotels that offer pay phones, as long as there are people who don't own or can't afford cell phones. Because phone kiosks on the streets are a favorite for drug dealers, who don't want to have their own numbers tapped and tracked, cities are shedding them.

Odds of survival in 10 years: They'll be around, but won't be anything to call home about.

Used bookstores

They've been closing fast, and those that are still open are relying on what's making them obsolete: the internet. A used bookstore used to be the place to find that beloved, out-of-print children's book you used to read 17 times a day until your little sister flushed it down the toilet. Now you just type that title in a search engine and order it within minutes. Odds of survival in 10 years: Some of them will still be eking out an existence, but the handwriting is on the wall.
Piggy banksYou may chuckle, but as we continue gravitating toward a paperless society, it's not difficult to imagine a day when piggy banks no longer exist.

Odds of survival in 10 years: Sure, they'll probably still be a few around — in antique shops.

Telemarketing

The good news for people who hate telemarketing calls is that the industry may finally be dying; the bad news is that it may take a while. Telemarketing has been hit hard by the national Do-Not Call list that was established five years ago, and sales have been stagnant, but the industry still managed to bring in $393 billion in revenue last year. Some of this is due to clever marketing. This includes holding raffles at shopping malls; when you sign your information, you agree to accept calls from the company running the contest and its partners. Cell phones are exempt from automated telemarketing calls, but not from individuals calling. Then there are occasional windows of opportunity: The national Do-Not Call list is set to expire in 2008, unless you remember to register again.

Odds of survival in 10 years: They'll be here. Humbled, more impotent, but probably still here.

Coin-operated arcades

With Nintendo Wii, casual gaming online and the Xbox 360, the video game arcade industry is thriving, but not the standalone brick-and-mortar arcades. For those of you who thought arcades were already dead, they still exist — at movie theaters, miniature golf courses and other touristy spots — but it seems only a matter of time before they vanish from the landscape. Ten years ago, there were 10,000 arcades in the nation, and now the number is close to 3,000, according to the American Amusement Machine Association. Revenue from arcade game units brought in $866 million last year, which sounds good until you consider that in 1994, the industry was pocketing $2.3 billion and that the profits are only still high because it costs so much to play a game.

Odds of survival in 10 years: Game over.

NVDL: The grass can't stay green forever. Interesting on this list are newspapers, record stores and gay bars. Not sure if I agree with the crop duster idea. If you buy into the philosophy that the world is about to unflatten, unshrink, become far larger, we'll see the end of a lot of industries: the hypermarket, parking lots, malls, drive thru, fast food, airline alliances like Star, the convenience store at a gas station etc.

We'll see a return of cottage industries like the butcher, the baker and the candlestickmaker. We'll also see the demassification of schools, from the current prison lookalikes, to private and home tutoring and also smaller, friendlier, more community integrated buildings.