This is just the beginning peeps. Things are going to get way worse. The strategic petroleum reserves are at record lows and we’re draining it everyday. If we were “energy independent” would we be using up our rainy day fund? Well the rainy day isn’t stopping but the fund will run out. That’s when panic sets in. Stock up on food now. Invest in a portable solar battery back up (or solar panels for your house if you can afford it). We’re about to experience another “once in a lifetime event”
any power plants running on certain fuels would in theory need to charge more or even shut down in the worst case. I don’t know how much oil accounts for generation, but some countries still have a lot of gas and coal.
Wouldn’t that just most likely lead to higher prices for energy? A more cost effective investment for a lot of people might be hot water bottles so you can turn the heating down.
A more cost effective investment for a lot of people might be hot water bottles so you can turn the heating down.
You’re thinking heat, but many places are also unlivable without air conditioning which is not so easily solved. Many backup power solutions are also petrochem and that could lead to weird consequences at some point, though I don’t know if it would do so in a way that would be passed on directly to consumers.
Wouldn’t that just most likely lead to higher prices for energy?
As long as there’s supply enough to fill the demand, yes. A lot of people around the world are already stretched super thin and in precarious positions. Not everyone supports balcony solar and the like, either.
You can also just do balcony solar and tell them to get fucked. Legal issues only come from connecting it to the mains, if you connect it to a battery its just a camping solar/battery setup instead and totally fine. You could also charge the battery from the mains when there is no sun.
Considered it, but energy is cheap and stable enough it doesn’t really seem worth the effort. USB power banks are alright, I suspect they sell higher volumes so mass production makes the cost/Wh more competitive.
Now if I had an off grid cabin, suddenly all sorts of fun solar/battery options exist.
Anything that runs on petro is about to explode in price due to trumps stupidity.
And its not just gonna be food and manufactured goods, which depend on diesel for harvesting and transporting.
Its gonna be power too. And not just oil and gas plants, but coal, nuclear, wind, etc too… because they all use diesel to get men and materials where they need to be. Not to mention petro-chemical derivatives like grease and plastics.
even raw material extraction is gonna skyrocket, because all those machines also run on diesel.
We’ve used the strategic stockpile to kick the can down the road, but once thats tapped out the significant reduction in oil is gonna hit home, and its gonna hit hard, and shits gonna skyrocket across the board because everything relies on gas and diesel in some form or another.
Your mortgage is a long term concern, being able to afford to eat with price increases due to petro costs rising across the board is the more immediate concern.
Most farming (especially in the US, which is hugelly dependent on hybrid corn, which requires fertilizer since it grows with such a high density of plants that the natural fertility of the soil isn’t enough) uses fertilizer.
So the lack of Oil will hit Food Production upstream from transportation, especially in the US.
even raw material extraction is gonna skyrocket, because all those machines also run on diesel.
Be more forward thinking. A few generations of uranium and lithium mining with pickaxes and oxen drawn wagons will get the world economy up and running again.
We’ve used the strategic stockpile to kick the can down the road, but once thats tapped out the significant reduction in oil is gonna hit home, and its gonna hit hard, and shits gonna skyrocket across the board because everything relies on gas and diesel in some form or another.
They’re running low to the point where there are concerns about whether or not the salt caves they’re stored in can ever be used to store oil again:
What kind of food price increase is actually likely though? Food costs fuck all compared to a mortgage. UK prices, I can buy 15-20kg of oats/rice/flour/potatoes for an hour of minimum wage.
Even if food goes up 4x its current price, I will just cut out some of the luxury products like meat. Not like its a massive problem. Potatoes with some rosemary salt, delicious. I grow the rosemary myself, used to do it as guerilla gardening along some foot paths but now I have a small garden.
and if my food costs went up 4x, Theres no amount of cutting I could do that could keep the power and water on, or keep a roof over our head, because not only have I cut all my luxuries out years ago, I’ve cut out a good deal of necessities. Hell, some meals are just meals for eating nutrition, not meals to lvie or thrive with. I’ve cut literally everything and anything I can cut, thats not my own wrists.
I don’t think we’re living in similar tax brackets.
I used to live off £8k just fine. Now on £29k but my increase in spending is just on luxuries I could easily survive without, or goes to savings.
Like I don’t need expensive bags on my bike, I could use 2x Aldi carrier bags and strap a couple of bamboo canes to the panier rack to support them. I used to have a setup close to that and it works pretty well. Isn’t waterproof of course.
I haven’t kept up with the state of things in Britain (I left some years ago), but were I am now (Portugal) it was just recently on the news that credit card debt is the highest it has ever been.
This kind of thing is a signal that people’s finances are tight (read: they have no savings, spending everything they earn), as many people use credit card debt (which, remember, tends to have 20%+ APR interest) for dealing with unexpected large expenses (for example, their fridge stopped working) that they can’t pay for directly from their savings.
From what I remember from the UK, even before Brexit things were getting worse for most people with average real incomes for the lower 90% of the population in economic terms falling at about 1% per year.
From what I’ve been reading it’s the same or even worse in the US.
So, how likely is that the various effects of higher oil prices (not just on food prices but on the prices of pretty much every physical product due to transportation costs as well on the prices of fuel for people who still have ICE cars) will, when a large percentage if not even the majority of people are in a financially tight situation with no significant savings, cascade into all manner of problems, from mortgage defaults to companies going bankrupt (with people losing their jobs) because their revenues went down due to lower sales and their costs went up due to higher fuel prices?
Further, specifically for Britain, never forget that the response of the Government to the 2007 Crash was to support bankers and more broadly asset owners and make most people pay for it via Austerity (something which in turn fed the discontent that gave Leave a victory in the Referendum and thus Brexit).
Absolutelly, people will basically do like you and squeeze little savings here and there, yet when lots of people do that companies’ revenues fall and some will be bankrupt, plus some things (like mortgages and rents) aren’t really flexible (wellm not easilly: sometimes you can downsize but even that has costs) and with the current housing market a lot of people are spending most of their after tax incomes on housing.
Herbgrower, you seem to view the world through a singular lens…
“Covid smovid… I could just make a vinaigrette with some chervil and tarragon, throw that on the little swab they stick in your brain before they test and I’d feel jusr fine, shoot? And I grow that tarragon myself actually…”
“Food is going to be unaffordable”, I proceed to demonstrate just how cheap food is. So far price rises have just been a little bit the previous times things like this have happened. I don’t think there is any credible reason to expect food to go up by as much as some seem to make it sound like.
Just food price increases will mainly hit poorer people in poorer countries more.
Then again the median wealth in the US is less than Portugal - it’s a “rich” country only because a handful of people are stupidly rich, not because most people are - so most Americans are poorer than Brits (which has a median income above Portugal).
You do make a good point though.
As I see it, there are two factors here:
How much will food prices go up: on one side there are a few ways oil price push prices up, mainly increases in fertilizer costs (as most fertilizer is made from oil), farming machinery operation and transportation, whilst on the other side there is some flexibility on the Demand-side (people actually eat more than they need and can eat less) so its not like this is an inflexible market were a small inbalance between Production and Demand can massivelly move prices.
How tight are most people’s finances already. Specifically, how likely it is that there’s a “drop that spilled the glass” effect from higher food prices that mean it cascades into all manner of other things (such as mortgage defaults) because that pushed people over the edge.
Personally I’m more concerned over the latter mainly because wage growth in most of the West hasn’t kept up with inflation, inequality has exploded and most people have been so bad in terms of balance between incomings and outgoings that not only do they have little or no savings but aggregated credit card debt has never been this high.
Seems to me that the way this will explode is likely to be more akin to dominos falling due to various effects from oil prices increase cascading into an ever greater effect because we’re in an Economy where financially most people are already very tight, than due to any one overwhelming effect.
We COULD be, but US companies are making back off of exporting oil. We are exporting record amounts of oil to other countries. Mr Global on YouTube does an excellent job of explaining the intricacies of oil and gas industry.
2 charts showing crude import vs export. There was a brief time where USA exported more crude than it imported around April/may. The consistent trend is USA needs 3 million barrels per day of crude imported. (We import 6 million and export 3 million)
The video you linked doesn’t even say we export more than we import. What is your point exactly?
This is just the beginning peeps. Things are going to get way worse. The strategic petroleum reserves are at record lows and we’re draining it everyday. If we were “energy independent” would we be using up our rainy day fund? Well the rainy day isn’t stopping but the fund will run out. That’s when panic sets in. Stock up on food now. Invest in a portable solar battery back up (or solar panels for your house if you can afford it). We’re about to experience another “once in a lifetime event”
… as was foretold.
Once you’ve got the basics squared, do make sure you have a local copy of a suitably appropriate soundtrack.
This Is The Beginning.
What is expected to happen that would need solar backup?
Realistically the largest risk I can see is fucked economy and job losses. So if anything I need enough money to cover mortgage payments for a while.
any power plants running on certain fuels would in theory need to charge more or even shut down in the worst case. I don’t know how much oil accounts for generation, but some countries still have a lot of gas and coal.
Wouldn’t that just most likely lead to higher prices for energy? A more cost effective investment for a lot of people might be hot water bottles so you can turn the heating down.
You’re thinking heat, but many places are also unlivable without air conditioning which is not so easily solved. Many backup power solutions are also petrochem and that could lead to weird consequences at some point, though I don’t know if it would do so in a way that would be passed on directly to consumers.
As long as there’s supply enough to fill the demand, yes. A lot of people around the world are already stretched super thin and in precarious positions. Not everyone supports balcony solar and the like, either.
You can also just do balcony solar and tell them to get fucked. Legal issues only come from connecting it to the mains, if you connect it to a battery its just a camping solar/battery setup instead and totally fine. You could also charge the battery from the mains when there is no sun.
Considered it, but energy is cheap and stable enough it doesn’t really seem worth the effort. USB power banks are alright, I suspect they sell higher volumes so mass production makes the cost/Wh more competitive.
Now if I had an off grid cabin, suddenly all sorts of fun solar/battery options exist.
Ah, yep. I meant balcony solar that plugs in to an outlet that some countries can do; I was less thinking about just the type that charge batteries.
Yeah, battery doesn’t require legislation to use though. Plug into the mains does, but it is even cheaper as you don’t need a battery.
Anything that runs on petro is about to explode in price due to trumps stupidity.
And its not just gonna be food and manufactured goods, which depend on diesel for harvesting and transporting.
Its gonna be power too. And not just oil and gas plants, but coal, nuclear, wind, etc too… because they all use diesel to get men and materials where they need to be. Not to mention petro-chemical derivatives like grease and plastics.
even raw material extraction is gonna skyrocket, because all those machines also run on diesel.
We’ve used the strategic stockpile to kick the can down the road, but once thats tapped out the significant reduction in oil is gonna hit home, and its gonna hit hard, and shits gonna skyrocket across the board because everything relies on gas and diesel in some form or another.
Your mortgage is a long term concern, being able to afford to eat with price increases due to petro costs rising across the board is the more immediate concern.
Most Fertilizer is made from Oil.
Most farming (especially in the US, which is hugelly dependent on hybrid corn, which requires fertilizer since it grows with such a high density of plants that the natural fertility of the soil isn’t enough) uses fertilizer.
So the lack of Oil will hit Food Production upstream from transportation, especially in the US.
Be more forward thinking. A few generations of uranium and lithium mining with pickaxes and oxen drawn wagons will get the world economy up and running again.
They’re running low to the point where there are concerns about whether or not the salt caves they’re stored in can ever be used to store oil again:
What kind of food price increase is actually likely though? Food costs fuck all compared to a mortgage. UK prices, I can buy 15-20kg of oats/rice/flour/potatoes for an hour of minimum wage.
Even if food goes up 4x its current price, I will just cut out some of the luxury products like meat. Not like its a massive problem. Potatoes with some rosemary salt, delicious. I grow the rosemary myself, used to do it as guerilla gardening along some foot paths but now I have a small garden.
and if my food costs went up 4x, Theres no amount of cutting I could do that could keep the power and water on, or keep a roof over our head, because not only have I cut all my luxuries out years ago, I’ve cut out a good deal of necessities. Hell, some meals are just meals for eating nutrition, not meals to lvie or thrive with. I’ve cut literally everything and anything I can cut, thats not my own wrists.
I don’t think we’re living in similar tax brackets.
I used to live off £8k just fine. Now on £29k but my increase in spending is just on luxuries I could easily survive without, or goes to savings.
Like I don’t need expensive bags on my bike, I could use 2x Aldi carrier bags and strap a couple of bamboo canes to the panier rack to support them. I used to have a setup close to that and it works pretty well. Isn’t waterproof of course.
I haven’t kept up with the state of things in Britain (I left some years ago), but were I am now (Portugal) it was just recently on the news that credit card debt is the highest it has ever been.
This kind of thing is a signal that people’s finances are tight (read: they have no savings, spending everything they earn), as many people use credit card debt (which, remember, tends to have 20%+ APR interest) for dealing with unexpected large expenses (for example, their fridge stopped working) that they can’t pay for directly from their savings.
From what I remember from the UK, even before Brexit things were getting worse for most people with average real incomes for the lower 90% of the population in economic terms falling at about 1% per year.
From what I’ve been reading it’s the same or even worse in the US.
So, how likely is that the various effects of higher oil prices (not just on food prices but on the prices of pretty much every physical product due to transportation costs as well on the prices of fuel for people who still have ICE cars) will, when a large percentage if not even the majority of people are in a financially tight situation with no significant savings, cascade into all manner of problems, from mortgage defaults to companies going bankrupt (with people losing their jobs) because their revenues went down due to lower sales and their costs went up due to higher fuel prices?
Further, specifically for Britain, never forget that the response of the Government to the 2007 Crash was to support bankers and more broadly asset owners and make most people pay for it via Austerity (something which in turn fed the discontent that gave Leave a victory in the Referendum and thus Brexit).
Absolutelly, people will basically do like you and squeeze little savings here and there, yet when lots of people do that companies’ revenues fall and some will be bankrupt, plus some things (like mortgages and rents) aren’t really flexible (wellm not easilly: sometimes you can downsize but even that has costs) and with the current housing market a lot of people are spending most of their after tax incomes on housing.
Herbgrower, you seem to view the world through a singular lens…
“Covid smovid… I could just make a vinaigrette with some chervil and tarragon, throw that on the little swab they stick in your brain before they test and I’d feel jusr fine, shoot? And I grow that tarragon myself actually…”
“Food is going to be unaffordable”, I proceed to demonstrate just how cheap food is. So far price rises have just been a little bit the previous times things like this have happened. I don’t think there is any credible reason to expect food to go up by as much as some seem to make it sound like.
Just food price increases will mainly hit poorer people in poorer countries more.
Then again the median wealth in the US is less than Portugal - it’s a “rich” country only because a handful of people are stupidly rich, not because most people are - so most Americans are poorer than Brits (which has a median income above Portugal).
You do make a good point though.
As I see it, there are two factors here:
Personally I’m more concerned over the latter mainly because wage growth in most of the West hasn’t kept up with inflation, inequality has exploded and most people have been so bad in terms of balance between incomings and outgoings that not only do they have little or no savings but aggregated credit card debt has never been this high.
Seems to me that the way this will explode is likely to be more akin to dominos falling due to various effects from oil prices increase cascading into an ever greater effect because we’re in an Economy where financially most people are already very tight, than due to any one overwhelming effect.
If only we lived in a rational market. There was plenty of toilet paper to go around as well.
I’ve heard this so many times before and it’s never as bad as people said.
We’re all getting used to the slowly warming waters (literally and figuratively) soon the water will boil and we’ll be dead. Ribbit.
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Yes, if there was a reason to dip into the fund like an enormously expensive war. Once the war is done the reserve can be refilled.
How does that logic work exactly? My point is we are not energy independent. Are you arguing we are?
We COULD be, but US companies are making back off of exporting oil. We are exporting record amounts of oil to other countries. Mr Global on YouTube does an excellent job of explaining the intricacies of oil and gas industry.
2 charts showing crude import vs export. There was a brief time where USA exported more crude than it imported around April/may. The consistent trend is USA needs 3 million barrels per day of crude imported. (We import 6 million and export 3 million)
The video you linked doesn’t even say we export more than we import. What is your point exactly?