AS THE ECONOMY CRUMBLES

As the Economy Crumbles features selected news summaries with links to further information about the lousy economic trends affecting many of us. The rose-colored rhetoric, hype and spin from economists, bureaucrats, PR flacks and analysts emanating from Wall Street and the financial media requires a skeptical mind and a well-functioning bullshit detector.

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1. The Party's Over
2. Rollback
3. Critical Condition
4. We're Screwed
5. Debt & Bankruptcy
6. Jobs? What Jobs?
7. Investor Gloom
8. Market Blues

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1. THE PARTY'S OVER

The Party's Over - "Industrial nations' fossil-fueled joyride is about to end . . . is anyone prepared?"
When Mike Bowlin, Chairman of ARCO, said in 1999 that "We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil," he was voicing a truth that many others in the petroleum industry knew but dared not utter. Over the past few years, evidence has mounted that global oil production is nearing its historic peak. Oil has been the cheapest and most convenient energy resource ever discovered by humans. During the past two centuries, people in industrial nations accustomed themselves to a regime in which more fossil-fuel energy was available each year, and the global population grew quickly to take advantage of this energy windfall. Industrial nations also came to rely on an economic system built on the assumption that growth is normal and necessary, and that it can go on forever. When oil production peaks, that assumption will come crashing down.
FROM: New College News

D is-Integration - What, Me Worry?
Peak Oil is here. The world is starting to run out. There is no more oil to find and what's left can't be put into your gas tank or our power generating stations quickly. Global production capacity is stretched like a rubber band about to break and the slightest hiccup in world oil production will crash the global economy like a Styrofoam cup under an elephant's foot at a Rave party. Don't believe me? Well then perhaps recent warnings by Goldman Sachs and James Baker might. Those warnings, and an incredibly precise economic analysis by Marshall Auerback, were recently published by The Prudent Bear. To make it simple, the problem is this: In spite of microscopic fig leaves stating that OPEC will ramp up production to meet oil needs, the fact is that OPEC just can't do it. Goldman Sachs knows it. James Baker knows it. Bush knows it.
FROM: From the Wilderness, 28 Feb

Offi cials Say OPEC Can't Contain Rising Crude-Oil Prices
With U.S. crude-oil prices fast approaching $40 a barrel - the highest since the start of the Persian Gulf War - senior OPEC officials acknowledged that their increased production can no longer suppress the price rise, at least for now, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported. The officials from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Counties also said that only a dwindling amount of extra production capacity is left to meet world demand. ... The sharp rise in prices represents a serious threat to the sputtering U.S. and global economic recovery. Prices are rising for everything from jet fuel - which is leading to higher air fares - to gasoline - already more than $2 a gallon in some U.S. markets - and that is driving up the cost of doing business for many industries.
FROM: Dow Jones, 28 Feb

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