Are we stupid enough to think TPTB aren't in control?

[snow hope]

SunnyJim mentioned in another thread that maybe the bankers know what is coming and this could be the reason for the credit crunch and lack of desire to loan money to either commercial or domestic customers.

This got me thinking (always a bit scary ). Some time back I thought why do our leaders and politicans not "get it" regarding Peak Oil? I came to the conclusion that it would be nieve to think that some/most and certainly key politicans were not sufficiently well informed / briefed not to know about Peak Oil. So why wasn't this being discussed openly in parliament? Well, Michael Meacher stated it was because politicans don't talk about things unless they have solutions......... and that answer made sense!

So on that basis I think we must assume that our key politicans (all party leaders and more senior MPs, plus many establishment figures at the very least) know all about PO and what the future may hold. Also I know that most large companies have think tanks / groups of key people who meet up regularly to determine trends, social and political as well as economical changes/swings and the impact they may have on the environment into which they sell their products. The Banks are of course all part of the group of large companies. So they (or the most senior people) will be more aware than most of us (probably) of what is going on and what will soon materialise and what will happen further down the line, due to Peak Oil.

What I am trying to say, is that the bankers (major players in TPTB as well as the key politicians and I am sure many other CEOs, etc. in industry) know full well that Growth is about to end and that Contraction will be the new regime. They know that high inflation is coming back, or indeed that we will have stagflation. They know that high unemployment is on the way, that business will go downhill, that negative equity will re-emerge, that houses will be reposessed the length and bredth of the country. They know we are entering Recession that is likely to go on and on. Maybe they even know the Second Depression is coming.

My point is, that we seem to talk about it as if they don't really know what is happening and that we are the only ones that can see what is going on - I say bullshit! Lets get real, of course they know what is happening and maybe if we can get over that fact then by watching the decisions and the manouveres they are taking we can anticipate what is coming next.

My BIG concern is that there is a whole parallel world (which I have always suspected) running things and we don't get to hear what is going on in that world, so how the heck can we know what is going to come next? We only hear what they want us to hear in our cosy, materialistic, consumer world.

Do you agree, or am I just rambling?

In my search for truth, I suppose I am really asking how do you penetrate the circle of TPTB (or at least get access to their information)?

[danza]

Good post Snow.

I suppose the question would be who are TPTB? Are they really the governments? or are they large cooperations/ bankers/ agribusiness or both. It is almost impossible to know and the complexity of our system does not lead to answers easily.

I would add that TPTB may be in agreement about PO etc but are just interested in looking after their own interests for as long as they can.

Its actually going to take PO and an economic collapse to re order the way our system works for the gain of the long term future of humanity. Just think if there was unlimited fossil fuels, TPTB would burn them until the earth became uninhabitable. PO is positive in the way that it will force our whole society to change in order to live more within the realms of nature and not just to destoy it.

[21st_century_caveman]

Its certainly very tempting to think that there is some grand Illuminati type group behind the scenes running the show, and there are certainly powerful elites out there, but they are not all cooperating with each other, they're all competing for power. Also, I think you're giving them too much credit.

People in positions of power are very reliant on the people below them in the hierarchy to gather information about the external world and report it to them. The problem is the lower people will have a tendency to only report things that they think their superiors want to hear for fear of incurring the wrath of those in authority. Add to that the fact that most people will tend to ignore information which contradicts their beliefs and TPTB most likely have a very deluded view of whats going on in the world.

However, the alarm bells are getting so loud now that they're becoming harder to ignore.

If you've not listened already, some of these issues were discussed in the Dr. Dennis Meadows interview that Skeptik posted in the news forum.

[skeptik]

Some time back I thought why do our leaders and politicans not "get it" regarding Peak Oil??

Because they rely on the experts who are paid to tell them what is going on. The average political leader has a lot of shit on his plate - usually he's in a state of permanent crisis management attempting to juggle a number of balls at once - and doesn't have time to research anything personally.

So he relies on civil servants to pre-digest his info. They, of course have a natural tendency not to rock the boat, and will serve up, if possible, a somewhat rose tinted view of the world, in order to keep their master happy - or steer him in a direction which serves their own interests. They don't want to be the messenger who gets shot. ( As for example happened to numerous scientists/civil servants who told G.Bush stuff he didn't want to hear!)

I think Gordon Brown does now get it. it's a recent conversion, and mainly down to the recent reports from the IEA, which cannot just be spun away by his staff.

The Banks are of course all part of the group of large companies. So they (or the most senior people) will be more aware than most of us (probably) of what is going on and what will soon materialise and what will happen further down the line, due to Peak Oil.

I don't think so. The CEOs of the banks didn't even understand their own business well enough to be able to avoid shooting themselves in the foot with the current derivatives/credit crunch. It had to be explained to them after the event. They suffer from tunnel vision. Totally focussed on the next quarters profits and their share price. The only major player who did figure out the derivatives problem and disinvested before TSHTF was Warren Buffet. - This despite numerous financial bloggers and commentators who have been warning about the property bubble and the dangers of derivatives for a number of year's. Parallels to PO, no?

[nepenthean]

And yet again I am reminded all minds are joined. I was about to start a topic on this subject. Perhaps there will be enough oil/gas for the elites, but the rest of us plebians will have to go without. Perhaps they are storing the petrol to police the world while we bemoan a petrol-less world.

[skeptik]

Perhaps they are storing the petrol to police the world while we bemoan a petrol-less world.

Not likely. The amount that can be stored is too limited. They wouldn't last long.

[SILVERHARP2]

I wouldn't tie the credit crises with PO , and to be honest bankers have shown that they are completely out of touch and are very short term oriented, many of them have destroyed their companies chasing imaginary gains.

[skeptik]

I wouldn't tie the credit crises with PO.

I'm not. The current credit crunch derives from the deregulation of the banking system back in the late 80's. Repeal of Glass-Steagall in the USA and 'Big Bang' in the City of London.

[Bedrock Barney]

Well, I meet senior business figures from time to time and I'm fairly sure that they have a mind set that tells them that we may be in a downturn but it will only last a couple of years and then we will all be back on the fairground ride again. Growth, growth, growth is the mantra. They simply cannot (or will not) contemplate anything else.

[MacG]

I see no reason to believe that anyone is in control of anything! Sure - a lot of actors have a lot of power to influence real-life events, but that is not the same thing as "control".

Just because we have a society that functions reasonably well, it's not evidence that someone is in control or has ever been.

Look at an ant heap or a bee nest - highly organized and well functioning, but nobody (except bible thumpers) would claim that such societies is the result of intelligent design.

Evolutionary processes are actually enough to explain current human societies, and by adopting this view a lot of pieces fall into place, at least for me.

One of the major fallacies is to believe politicians, historians and economists - they provide post facto rationalizations, trying to claim or assign the honor for successful fallouts. What they forget to mention is the myriad of FAILURES that took place before the successful series of events they want to claim/assign honor for.

Most fortunes are the result of sheer luck, and for every fortunate person, there are thousands who made roughly the same decisions but were not as lucky.

[Adam1]

I think there are two points:

1) as has been said above, TPTB are not a monolith. By "TPTB", I assume this refers to key government and corporate decision makers. Just as in any arena in life where people interact, you get disagreement and different takes on events and their implications. If we were more like bees, then maybe the idea of TPTB behaving like a coherent, single-minded entity would be more realistic (hence the second quote in my signature, which comes from a character in Star Trek )

2) "knowing about PO" can mean a lot of things. There are lots of key decision makers (although I suspect still a small minority) who can distinguish between peaking and "running out" and accept that peaking as a phenomenon exists.

A subset of those people understand that it is difficult to change energy infrastructure quickly, another subset that will believe that we can adapt to PO without significant disruption (the "RGR" faction), an another subset that very high prices and a steadily shrinking supply will have profound economic consequences (although many will be so wedded to economic growth ideology that they are unable to deal with this information rationally).

Finally, there is a much smaller sub-set set that understands that complex societies need high EROEI energy sources to sustain themselves and that the transition to a lower EROEI future historically has always resulted in a simplification of society. The only question remains is how we transition. Because one of the characteristics of simpler/lower-EROEI societies is that the gap between the elite and the rest of society is smaller than we see in today's very complex global society, that must make it very hard for individuals within the key-decision-making elite to accept this most profound of PO implications. Although, you could argue that, because the elite have so much wealth and power to lose, they should - once they grasp the risks that our energy predicament poses - be highly motivated to reduce the extent our slide to a low EROEI future, as they have the furthest to fall.

[Adam1]

Evolutionary processes are actually enough to explain current human societies, and by adopting this view a lot of pieces fall into place, at least for me.

I'm beginning to see this too.

[Adam1]

Another thought,

It is probably true that many key decision makers are arrogant enough to believe that they are more in control of events by virtue of their relative power in human society. Perhaps may forget that human society is a sub-set of a larger bio-physical system which does not necessarily function according to the rules that human societies set for themselves.

[MacG]

Another thought,

It is probably true that many key decision makers are arrogant enough to believe that they are more in control of events by virtue of their relative power in human society. Perhaps may forget that human society is a sub-set of a larger bio-physical system which does not necessarily function according to the rules that human societies set for themselves.

Indeed! When looking a little from the outside, our current world is ruled by nothing more than humongous amounts of pure old superstitious beliefs!

Everytime science has evolved and managed to explain previously unexplainable phenomena, just about everyone and his dog has protested vigorously. Sometimes the process has been painfully extended over 50-100 years.

The people who are hosts to superstition take it as reality itself and fight hard to keep it. Those who burned heretics did not intend to be evil - they actually believed they did something good! The same with eugenics in the early 1900's.

History seem to show that science always win though, even if it might take some time.

[leroy]

It is probably true that many key decision makers are arrogant enough to believe that they are more in control of events by virtue of their relative power in human society.

I have met a few very wealthy businesspeople and an influential economist and this rings true for me.

Perhaps may forget that human society is a sub-set of a larger bio-physical system which does not necessarily function according to the rules that human societies set for themselves.

Absolutely, a kind of 'hyper-humanism' which gives rise to concepts like the one of us 'saving the planet' or holding back the tides from the East-Anglian coastal broads. I also think that many voters, politicians and academics work with peoples rights being the fundamental building blocks of policy making and not to the ability to supply the resources or energy to fulfill such obligations. Where these two sets of ideas regularly come into conflict, such as within the NHS, people find them hard to reconcile and debate often becomes polarised. also think we are far more emotionally-driven than rational beings, that most of our actions revolve around meeting certain needs and not contributing to some overall, holistic vision that we hold in our heads or than are steered towards by some shady boardroom in Canary Wharf or Westminster.