Lol, I love all the people who run around saying 'peak oil peak oil' and then totally ignore that the recent oil price spike and slump looking exactly the same as the recent housing price spike and slump.

Bubbles are an inherent part of the free market, as people are not rational actors. Of course, people who believe in garbage theory with no support in economics like the fact that interest rates are a fraud perpetuated on society by evil bankers, may not be sufficently rational actors to fully understand the problem here.

There is a significant body of academic work on how price responds to exhaustible goods: risk free intrest rate + a percentage. So expect oil prices to go up at the federal funds rate + 3-5%, and significant deviation from that to be pulled back. Of course you might think that all academic work is wrong, but I have no argument if you refute logic and reason.

Edit: And people who demand an end to fractional reserve banking are demanding the collapse of modern society. I look forward it. Hell, we bleat about the 'credit crunch' today, what do you think cutting the amount of loans that banks can issue by 80% or more will do? Do you know what you really want? I presume you are totally okay with banks never issuing home loans ever again?

I wish I could remember who said that economists are the only scientists who devise models of the world, and when the models don't fit, convince politicians to change the world to fit the models.

Peter

One point first. The argument that there are only two sides in the debate over how to "read" the Constitution is an oversimplification. There are several. The four I normally think of are

1. Originalist - What the Founders said is what we have to do.
2. Intentionalist - What the Founders meant is more important that what or how they said it.
3. Interpretor - I think is means this, you think it means that, let's vote.
4. Evergreen documentalist - Let's update it to reflect where we are right now.

The problem is that each has a place in the discussion. Let me give a quick example. Let's say we are talking about Cruel and Unusual Punishment with respect to the death penalty. The Originalist would argue that firing squad is OK because the Founders used it. Drawing and Quartering would be out because they didn't. The Intentionalist could land on either side as their intention was to prevent what they saw a cruel and unusual. So, is capital punishment cruel and unusual? Assuming he said yes, he would get a nod from the Interpretor who had decided that he didn't like capital punishment at all. In all cases the Evergreen Documentalist would be working to keep the Constitution up to date.

I believe that we need to understand the original intent (1 and 2) and then make a decision on what (or if) we need to change the document. So I suppose that puts me more in the camp of a literalist. I agree that the document must be changed from time to time to keep it up to date which is why the Founders put in the ability to amend the document. The only one that scares me is the Interpretor. There is nothing solid about the interpretation other than tradition. I would rather have something more solid.

same video as one file:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9...cJ4qGiQLF_L20Cw

as for peak oil or not, i dont much care. we (as a planet) should get of the oil addiction, asap...

and yep, that could very well mean a economic meltdown of the nation i live it. so what i say. nothing happens here any more unless its related to oil...

For those who do not think Peak Oil is here.. please read the following article in financial times about IEA's finding that the supply of new oil will drop about 6% each year.. And that is no matter what we do basicly.. if we do nothing it falls about 9.4%, if we invest heavily it will "only" drop about 6%.
This is the first time in 30 friggin years that the IEA has cried "wolf" so do not take it lightley and dismiss it as of no consequense for the world economy.

Link to the financial times article, and for those who are not registered there read the spoiler..
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5e78778-a53f-11...?nclick_check=1




EDIT: forgot the FT link.. soos..

Actually we don't have problems with the amount of oil left: there is still a huge amount of oil out there. The problem is that the consumption of this oil is increasing a lot. So even if we do have a lot of oil, at that rate we're going to deplete it completely in a few decades.
But until then, we'll still have a lot of it which is why it's hard to change.

The other issue is that the oil that is left is harder to extract. Some of it may take almost as much energy and resource to get it, as it would provide.

The Federal Reserve and fiat money will bring its own end to 'modern society'. Or we can learn from history and get on back to the system that brings steady, but real, economical growth.

The problem is you do not seem to understand that if we abolish the fed and return to Constitutional money, peoples earnings would possess far greater buying power (for example, coffee would cost pennies). They could once again save their money and not have it be eaten away by inflation- and properly save up to by the house of their dreams, instead of burying themselves in debt to do so.

I will readily confess, to abolish the Federal Reserve, even if done right, would produce a 'hangover' of sorts; markets and prices would ebb and flow as equilibrium is found. But, (IMHO) to do nothing is going to produce something far worse. History shows us every nation who has adopted this style of economics has failed and died in the hands of hyperinflation (coffee costing millions). The Federal Reserve may have some more bells and whistles, but it is the same machine, the same beast that has consumed others before us.

Time we kill the beast.

I remember back in... oh gawd it's been a decade since school. The prof was a former oil exec, anyway he also mentioned how at the time they kept saying there's only 40 years of oil left and then 10 years later it's still 40 years oil left. Basically he mentioned about how advancing technologies in oil extracting and increasing efficiencies in engine performances and such keeps pushing back how much oil is left. But yes, the emerging markets of China and India have really increased consumption have probably skewed future projections.
Still, the higher prices in gas was a nice kick in the pants for everyone to get more gas efficient vehicles. I just hope they keep it up.

when its empty its empty, no two ways about it...

"Oh.... whew, see, I didn't fall off the girder 300 stories off the ground."

"Oh.... whew, see, I didn't fall off the girder 300 stories off the ground."

"Oh.... whew, see, I didn't fall off the girder 300 stories off the ground."

"Oh.... whew, see, I didn't fall off the girder 300 stories off the ground."

"Oh.... whew, see, I didn't fall off the girder 300 stories off the ground."

"Oh.... whew, see, I didn't fall off the girder 300 stories off the ground."

"Oh.... whew, see, I didn't fall off the girder 300 stories off the ground."

"Oh...SHITTTTTTtttttttt............"

Peter

True, but if it takes 15 gallons of oil to get 14, would you bother getting? No, not until the tech brought down the cost to 13 gallons.

Since you were curious about my feelings, under your model I would have a 'evergreen.' Interpretation of the constitution. I think the founding fathers that had a number of daft ideas (3/5 compromise anyone?) that may have been appropriate for their time, but would not be appropriate for our current state of affairs. I believe the electoral college is another classic example. Having a council of wise men elect the president may have been a good idea in the days when it took weeks for information to cross the country (and maybe not even then, it was practically done away with with unitary ballots and pledge electors immediately after its inception). But it is an idea which is outdated in our current times.

The founding fathers never ment the constitution to be writen in stone. Thats why they wrote it in paper, despite the fact that so many of them were (stone)masons.

My only beef with your distinction is how you classify interpreters. A democracy (or a democratic republic if you feel like making that distinction). Ultimatly derives its athority from the goverened. Which ulitamtly means a vote (in our case by our elected representatives). Thus someone who decides to change the constiution based upon that authority is justified. And I would consider them an 'evergreen.' To me an interpretor is someone who seeks to change our constitution without first getting aproval from the populace to do so, be that by judicial interpretation or any other means (like execuitive orders).

--

The people that really bother me is the ones who claim to derive their authority from the founding fathers intent, but are in fact really interpreters, as their beliefs often bare little resemblance to what the founding fathers actually meant.

MaxMahem,

Actually I believe that we are closer to the same page than it might first appear.

I think of an interpreter as one who does exactly what you stated you disagree with: "someone who seeks to change our constitution without first getting approval from the populace to do so".

I have no problem with the concept of an evergreen document provided we understand what the Founders meant and how the proposed change will effect everything. Being a big picture person myself, I feel like we need to see how changes to "this little part" will effect the whole.

Do I think we should be chained to the words of the Founding Fathers? No.

Should we throw those words out because we live in a different time? No.

Can we change those words through the process side aside for that purpose? Absolutely, once we make sure we have looked that change over from every angle and decided that we really want to do it that way.

-----

With respect to the daft ideas, I believe that you hit the nail on the head: their time is not ours.

My problem there is, I don't have enough faith in those currently governing to believe they could possibly change the Constitution in any way without either:
1) Pursuing their own self-interest first, by giving themselves more power or perks than would be best for the coutnry
2) Failing to appreciate the actual consequences of the changes they made.


Looking at the past 11 amendments of the past century, I think 4 of them were poorly thought out (16, 17, 18 and 23), five were well thought out (20, 21, 22, 25 and 26 - most of which were ultimately very minor, like presidential succession and caps on number of terms), and three were mixed, or not clear either way (19, 27, 24. Okay, I'm joking about 19.)

That's not a great track record, and something as huge as changing how we elect the people in power has the potential to be so extremely destructive, it's not something I really even want to contemplate.

Probably the biggest problem with intentionalist arguments is that historically, the constitution was never interpreted based on the framers' intentions. Going back to the first major case in US history, Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court interpreted the constitution largely as they saw fit. The framers never told us that the Supreme Court could overrule enactments of Congress, it's not really even implied by the document. If they followed an intentionalist view, they would have to say "sorry, the framers never wanted this, I guess we have to wait for an Amendment." But that wasn't even considered relevant enough to enter the discussion...

So, based on a history of interpreting the constitution based on judicial reasoning, rather than some dead guys' intentions, the principles of stare decisis and reliance basically blast a big hole in original intent. If we went back to the original intent, principles of law that have become part of the foundation of our society would be destroyed, and people who rely on those principles would have the legal rug yanked out from under their feet. It would literally turn back the clock to 1797. And that's assuming we can turn back the clock with any degree of certainty. The fact of the matter is, through all the discussions of original intent I have read, both sides tend to marshal equally convincing historical facts to back themselves up. History itself does not deal in truths, but in interpretations. Thus, basing constitutional interpretation on original intent may actually be an impossibility.

And even if it was possible to know the unified will of the framers (who didn't agree with each other very often), there's one little problem: the constitution itself does not specify its means of interpretation! You would have something going if it said "this document shall be interpreted according to the intentions of the legislature." But that is conspicuously absent. The fact is, under Marbury v. Madison, the final arbiters of the Constitution's meaning are nine senior citizens appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the senate. There are arguments why they should look at original meaning, or disregard it, but those are only arguments. Their job, as judges, it to apply their judgment and produce justice. It's what they're for! The problem is, people usually use original intent arguments to try and prevent justice, they recognize an unjust state of affairs but want to say "it's up to the people." If that was the case, then we would have trial by democracy, where juries review each other, rather than cases going up through a system of appeals. But we don't. Justice is in the hands of the courts, and it should be their one true aim. Any system of interpretation which fails to do justice should be disregarded.

And finally, about majoritarianism: that argument actually contradicts the very structure of the government. The Supreme Court is appointed for life and is not subject to any control by democratic institutions other than impeachment. The Supreme Court, by the letter of the constitution, is countermajoritarian, purposefully vested with "the judicial power of the United States" without any real checks other than the fact that it has no means to enforce its decisions. They exist to decide cases fairly, irrespective of what the majority may think fairness is. Majority belief never makes something more true: was the majority right when the punished Galileo for saying the earth went around the sun? Things are true or they aren't, and weight of opinion can never change that. Judicial reasoning is about finding truth, and that's why the Court is isolated from political forces which are often quite hostile to truth.

What value does gold have? It has the value of only what you are willing to trade for it. That's the same thing as any currency now. It's only worth what somebody is willing to trade for it. Gold's value is measured in that fiat money you call dollars.

The whole concept of money is an imaginary play game. It simplified and removed the need for a barter system where items and services had to be hauled around and traded.

in the end, its a a time and energy economy. the more we automate, the more we introduce inflation as there is more time available...

I will agree that anything can be perceived as 'money'; so long as the persons trading agree on the terms, cigarettes, tulip bulbs, and a myriad of other things can, have and will be used as 'money'.

You are; however, wrong to consider precious metals non-intrinsic.

Gold, outside of being a currency, is also sought by both industry and ornament, it is rare and takes man power to extract from the earth, and it is a storehouse and measure of value that can be broken down into smaller parts, as well as transported and stored easily.

It was not a coincidence that the world eventually adopted gold and silver as the basis of currency, and did so for centuries. For gold and silver are intrinsic. It is also no coincidence that the fiat 'FRN' was touted "as good as gold", even though it wasn't.

(It should be noted that, only in recent times has gold been measured against fiat legal fiction whose values are exactly what you say- "an imaginary play game." Please notice how the value of gold was originally set at $35 per ounce, and it is now sitting at around $800 per ounce- a perfect example of how fiat currency has steadily devalued over the last eighty years, and in doing so has robbed people of their savings).

Currency was, and is supposed to be a unit of measurement, not really any different then an inch.

Would you tolerate it if you went to the store to buy a rug one day, but have only half of what you ordered delivered the next because, 'the value of the inch dropped last night'?

Of course not.

So why put up with that crap with our currency?

Of course your rug doesn't grow when you deposit it in a bank so your analogy is stupid.

Seriously though, if its a huge issue for you, just carry the majority of your savings in gold. Not a problem. No law against it. You'll need to turn your daily consumption into cash at the spot price, but the market for that is highly liquid.

Anyone can do that. Go for it!

Say Peak oil to the Brazillions who just found 60 trillion barrels of it off their coast last year. Oh yeah were running out of the stuff... the only thing we are running out of, is common sense. Show me what can replace oil and I will invest. The answer... nothing. So let's invest in oil and continue to explore technology outside of it. Instead of turning our food into oil and driving up prices on everything and causing a massive food shortage world wide... oh wait we did that.

Ok, nobody liked my short essay on constitutional interpretation. That's fine, I was just talking to myself anyway >.>

On the matter of currency, what about making currency based on the price of energy? I'm thinking of course of Alpha Centauri's "energy credits." But thinking about that game makes me sad that it doesn't run on modern machines, and that Sid Meier has not released another one in like 10 years, that douche!

@ Larme

Calm down. You have had your post up for less than 24 hours. I read it this afternoon but only now got back from a work Christmas party. Let me sleep and I'll take a closer look at your post in the morning.

Hear, hear.


Actually, I did like it, except the part about Galileo, everyone hated him because he was vulgar, rude, condescending, antagonistic, abusive, etc (in other words, he was ME). The pope at the time (can't remember which one) actually tired to protect him at first, but he was to much of an asshole; so, the pope left him to his fate, and his enemies used his theories to brand him a heretic. But yeah, Galileo was a prick.

iirc, there is a way to get it going in winxp. i could have sworn i have done it here...

here, this may work:
http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=7

I'm not un-calm. I honestly don't mind if people aren't interested in what I wrote, it was just some off-the-cuff rambling.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Another GOOOD link about the current state of the US economy. I advice all of you to listen to it.. even tho it is 3 hours and 20 minutes long.
If you cant be bothered with listening throu it in one go.. take a few chapters at a time..

I would very much like to hear your opinions on chris theorys and conclusions..

ok, chapter 3 alone makes me say that we really, really need to go beyond this single planet, and we need to do it NOW!

Sounds too depressing to listen to on Christmas Day. Anyone care to summarize?

our way of living will hit the roof very soon, and the way down will be "interesting"...

People have been saying that kind of thing for many centuries.

I think this Depression will be worst than the one in the 1930's.

hmm, chapter 10 may be a interesting thing to contemplate when looking at the SR world, and the shadowrunners place in it

Slow down. Most economists don't even agree that we're going to hit a depression.

Earlydawn, do watch this um, crash course, it makes a very compelling case that the coming 20 years will be a SERIOUS challenge, and worse than the 30ies if we do not realize facts.. =)

What, you want qualified, accurate economic analysis on Dumpshock? The whole point of this board is to fire off unqualified ravings from the hip

hmm, i had a spark go of right now while writing a different post.

the point of the nuyen would be to produce a currency thats super-national, and that wont be going nuts because of some war, domestic economic policy or other.

its basically a "gold standard", but one controlled by the corps, not some national government that may get mixed up in all kinds of stuff.

and to keep any of the megas from going to war, and thereby risk the stability of the nuyen, there is the shadowrunners, doing their low key dirty work between the starscrapers and arcologies of the sprawls.

If that happens, then could the German posters here please be kind enough to attempt to conquer the world with military might? That usually works out pretty good for the global economy.

The Sky is falling, THE SKY IS FALLING!

Amen. Europe going to war always solves the world's problems. (Thanks you guys! Your the best, even though we left.)

SO... we have a bunch of farmers on subsidies, being paid by the goverment to not grow things, so it won't flood the market...

We have inflation on food because we're turning it into fuel...

Perhaps the goverment should say to the farmers "Ok, now we're going to pay you to grow things." If you want the more controlled version, the goverment buys it upfront, and basically we end up with a goverment run bio-fuel company. Or, if you like the capitalistic way, the goverment goes "here are some subsidies to get started, the economy can handle it." And eventually it sorts itself out. (I prefer a plan A which turns into plan B, but that's idealistic.)

AngelisStorm, do listen to chapter 17B from 5 minutes and forward.. regarding food to fuel..

Ooo, they address that? Excellent, I shall go through it when I get a chance.

meh, its mostly that there is no liquid energy source thats close to oil...

Oh. Well nevermind then. (Though I'll still check the section.) But a car with a diesel engine can run on 100% bio-fuel, no diesel/gasoline required, can't it? *half shrug* Better than nothing. The farmer's aren't growing anything as is.

What I'm pissed about is that someone figured out a *tries to remember off top of head* a wave frequency that could ignite salt water. So I'm pushing for the come back of the steam engine in the coastal states.

Also I think I recall reading somewhere that Canada has more oil than the entire middle east. It's just unfortunatly locked up in shale, and there isn't a good way to refine it *also off top of head*. If this is the case, we should be giving money hand over fist to Canada, and then watch out world! *supresses evil cackle* (jk. At least about "watch out world.")

a diesel engine can in theory run on coal dust, as long as it can produce a sufficient boom and self-ignite under sufficient compression...

as for burning salt water, thinking about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGg0ATfoBgo

the problem there will, as always, be that pesky termodynamics. that is, there is no way that burning said salt water can produce enough energy to both continue to feed the transmitter and something else at the same time.

for that there will be to many conversion points, and each of those will produce waste energy in the form of heat.

and that tar sand and oil shales are also touched on by 17b. the main problem with all of it is the amount of energy needed to maintain production of energy...

btw, who else thinks "national scale enron" when viewing chapter 16 (fuzzy numbers)?

Evidentially.