Energy minister will hold summit over peak oil

[nexus]

You want the truth??? You want the truth??? You can't handle the truth!!!! The government is in the banker's pockets, as are big business. They can all see it coming, but there is nothing we can do but keep on paying the interest, and the only way we can keep on paying the interest is by going to work. BAU till it breaks. The government will use TT initiative as a way of making society more efficient. If we can do the same work in the day, and produce our own food to keep ourselves alive during the weekends, who exactly benefits from that??? Now if we were going to get the same wages for a 30 hr week so that we could make our communities resilient, that would be a different thing entirely. Someone needs to address the growth/interest issue, otherwise anything the TT lot are doing is simply helping to maintain the BAU ideal. Unless that is the TT movement all give up their jobs, declare themselves bankrupt and start living in squats.

yeah, I think Jim has nailed it.

[Andy Hunt]

You want the truth??? You want the truth??? You can't handle the truth!!!! The government is in the banker's pockets, as are big business. They can all see it coming, but there is nothing we can do but keep on paying the interest, and the only way we can keep on paying the interest is by going to work. BAU till it breaks. The government will use TT initiative as a way of making society more efficient. If we can do the same work in the day, and produce our own food to keep ourselves alive during the weekends, who exactly benefits from that??? Now if we were going to get the same wages for a 30 hr week so that we could make our communities resilient, that would be a different thing entirely. Someone needs to address the growth/interest issue, otherwise anything the TT lot are doing is simply helping to maintain the BAU ideal. Unless that is the TT movement all give up their jobs, declare themselves bankrupt and start living in squats.

PO and higher energy prices will mean us all working harder to meet our payments. Transition towns initiative? That will help us all to give up our leisure time in order to turn brownfield sites into food production units, so that we can keep going to work to earn the money to pay our mortgages for longer. Until the system breaks....

I think that's a pretty good assessment of the situation, and very likely how TPTB see things and the way they rationalise staying in control.

But I think that the TT initiative is symptomatic of those deeper undercurrents that TPTB are not in control of, and ultimately turning brownfield land into allotments can only be a good thing. You could even take the view that although we are being milked by the system in the short to medium term, that system also works for us in that it provides a structure and a framework within which the transition work can progress in an orderly fashion - in other words, by our wage slavery we are actually buying some time in which to build those brownfield allotments and install that renewable energy using loans and financial models which are ultimately unsustainable - but that doesn't matter, what matters is getting the renewables installed NOW, not whether we will be able to pay back the loans for them in the long run.

Even if we have to work all week to service our debts and then work all weekend to grow our food, that lifestyle is still amazingly privileged and opulent compared to what countless people throughout history have had to endure. We might think it's pretty tough but in fact it could be infinitely worse.

There is an inevitability about what is happening but it's only traumatic if we rail against it. There is a certain comfort in acceptance and 'getting on with it' with a smile, in the knowledge that we have the privilege to be living in a pivotal period of human and geological history on planet Earth.

And I do believe that the catharsis will ultimately lead to a better world. But the dead wood will undoubtedly have to be burned off before that happens.

[SunnyJim]

Yes. Good points Andy.

However, it really irks me how it will be you and I that put all the work in, while those with the 'F--k you buddy' approach will continue to invent ever more devious financial 'instruments' with which to prise our efforts from us with. Why shouldn't those with capital to spare be made to re-invest in the system from which they have benefited so massively? After all, that is what TT is trying to do! Maintain some kind of system, to re-model it, but avoid the breakdown of 'the system'. Why are we led to believe that taxing the rich is a bad thing? We're told that we'd all be better of concentrating on growing our own food to stand a chance of staying alive, rather than tax the rich and use the money to build a post oil community based infrastructure. It has to be done in spare time, but we don't have any spare time!

It's not that I begrudge growing my own food. I enjoy doing it. But it takes a lot of time and effort, and I begrudge those who could simply put up the interest payments on my house and effectively steal the fruits of my labour. Especially as I understand that they didn't lend me anyone else's money. The creation of my mortgage was a scam. They wrote my mortgage into existence. It doesn't represent anyone's capital from which they are making money or anything. The charging of interest on what are in effect wishful promises (pounds, dollars or euros etc) is what is forcing the country to focus on economic growth. This causes in almost every corner of daily life the incorrect value attributed to things and effort. e.g. A field has to be 'profitable' so chemicals are used etc, regardless of the long term effects of chemicals on the ecosystem. Everything must continually change and be updated, so that stuff becomes redundant, this drives growth and profits. We must stop this cycle. Otherwise all the good we do is in vain.

[Andy Hunt]

Well I can't say I disagree with any of that Jim.

[kenneal - lagger]

I've thought for some time now that we should start our own bank and play them at their own game but to our advantage.

[snow hope]

Credit Unions Ken?

[RenewableCandy]

Sharon Astik proposed bailing out America by paying off everybody's mortgage (or sharing the dosh equally, to be fairer) rather than propping up the banks. That would have been interesting (noooooo!!!) and it would probably even have worked.

[kenneal - lagger]

Credit Unions Ken?

With a credit union, aren't you limited to the amount of money deposited? With a bank it could print more money up to 10 times the amount held on deposit I think.

[Blue Peter]

Especially as I understand that they didn't lend me anyone else's money. The creation of my mortgage was a scam. They wrote my mortgage into existence. It doesn't represent anyone's capital from which they are making money or anything.

I don't believe that that is correct. If it were, we wouldn't have had the crisis we have had.

The banks borrow the money for your mortgage and then lend it to you. They make their money on your mortgage on the difference between the rates at which they borrow and lend.

The current problems have arisen, in part, because the money that the banks have lent out is not being repaid. In turn that means that the people who have lent moeny to the banks for these mortgages are not lending them anymore and won't lend them money in the future to roll over the loans. This is of about 300 billion concern to British institutions in 2012, when the government schemes to cover this shortfall in lending are set to finish - though I suspect that the bankers are banking on it (pun intended) being renewed:

Pesto


On the model that you seem to be suggesting, I can't see why any of this should be a problem,


Peter.

Edit: For url typo.

[clv101]

Sharon Astik proposed bailing out America by paying off everybody's mortgage (or sharing the dosh equally, to be fairer) rather than propping up the banks. That would have been interesting (noooooo!!!) and it would probably even have worked.

Paying everyone's mortgage off would be similar to devaluing the currency. A few years of several hundred percent inflation would do it.

[kenneal - lagger]

The banks borrow the money for your mortgage and then lend it to you. They make their money on your mortgage on the difference between the rates at which they borrow and lend.

The banks do borrow some of their money to loan out but they can lend about ten times their assets. And a loan is counted as an asset.

Have you taken "The Crash Course", Peter?

http://www.anglofareast.com/research/crash-course/

or seen "Money as Debt" on U-Tube?

If the banks aren't lending, no new money comes into existence. When the banks don't loan and people are repaying their loans the amount of money in the system reduces over time making it more difficult to get a loan. It takes time to regrow the amount of money.

Thus, the system is addicted to debt to grow the economy at the same time as too much debt is a problem. That's why the system is broken and Gordon is patching it up.

[Blue Peter]

The banks borrow the money for your mortgage and then lend it to you. They make their money on your mortgage on the difference between the rates at which they borrow and lend.

The banks do borrow some of their money to loan out but they can lend about ten times their assets. And a loan is counted as an asset.

I think that it would more correctly be said that they can lend about 10 times their capital. In fact, during the crisis, the banks were lending at rather larger multiples or their capital.

For a bank, a loan to someone else is an asset and a borrowing from someone else is a liability.

The balance sheet is: Assets = Capital + Liabilities

So, unless you acquire more capital, if you make a loan (acquire an asset), you need to acquire a liability (borrow).

Have you taken "The Crash Course", Peter?

http://www.anglofareast.com/research/crash-course/

or seen "Money as Debt" on U-Tube?

No.

If the banks aren't lending, no new money comes into existence. When the banks don't loan and people are repaying their loans the amount of money in the system reduces over time making it more difficult to get a loan. It takes time to regrow the amount of money.

Yes, if a bank's assets are reduced (someone pays back a loan), it needs to reduce its liabilities (pay back one of its loans).

Thus, the system is addicted to debt to grow the economy at the same time as too much debt is a problem. That's why the system is broken and Gordon is patching it up.

Growth tends to require more debt; interest is a promise to pay future earnings; however, I'm not sure that your paragraph is necessarily true, even if it is in practice,


Peter.

[fifthcolumn]

I suspect the outcome will be higher fuel tax...

I suspect that you are right ! and whilst I support higher fuel taxes, I would hope that our leaders make some proper long term plans for a lower energy future rather than Just raising taxes.

Electrify railways, and introduce battery powered trains for shorter routes and branches that cant be economicly electrified.
Bring back trolley buses.
Introduce battery buses.
Encourage walking and cycling.
Make more use of canals
Stop building out of town supermarkets that require a car to use them.

More use of wind and solar energy will reduce the gas and coal burnt for electricity production, but wont help much with oil shortages since very little oil is used for electricity generation in the UK.

And in addition to that lot: make sure that the government only buys vans, lorries and mini buses from smith electric vehicles or modec so that economies of scale kick in and British jobs are created...

And.... buy electric cars for the coppers too....

[fifthcolumn]

I don't believe that that is correct. If it were, we wouldn't have had the crisis we have had.

No, even though Jim is a commie, he has it correct.
(Ha, sorry Jim, I had to throw that one in, wouldn't expect anything less etc).

You see: what has happened is that there're two economies.

One "real" economy, which is the one in which we work in and in which we make our earnings and pay the interest on our mortgages and credit cards.

The other economy is the financial economy and it's anywhere from ten to fifty times larger.

The problem arose because the derivatives live in the financial economy but the"insurance" payments on the derivatives (notional payments as they are actually called) come from the real economy.

When the economy went south, the outstanding bad debt on the derivatives was close to ten times the size of the real economy and the notional payments defaulted on about ten percent of the real economy.

I'm not sure exactly what would have happened were the derivatives allowed to go into default. The system would have seized up likely and we would have had immediate pain similar to the hardest times in the 1930s and very possibly no hope of being able to do any kind of mitigation against peak oil.

The situation we have now, however, is not much better. We now have the monkey of the debt we have taken on in order to bail out a seized up system which is siphoning off funds we could otherwise have used to bail ourselves out.

*Luckily* some may say, we have the system we have.
If we were on the old system (e.g. the gold standard) there would have been no ability to just print up a bunch of cash to paper over the cracks. There would not have been enough gold and we would have had the 1930s for sure.

So it's fingers crossed time basically.

[Blue Peter]

I don't believe that that is correct. If it were, we wouldn't have had the crisis we have had.

No, even though Jim is a commie, he has it correct.

If Jim had it correct - that we could just magic money into existence - then we wouldn't have had the crisis because as soon as it looked like there might be a loss somewhere, they would have just magiced up a bit more money.

People can't do that, so we had a crisis,


Peter.