DeIndustrialization

Submitted by Romesh Chander (United States), Nov 14, 2006 at 14:33

Europe may be finished. But so, will be USA and the rest of Industrialized West and Japan. The reason is very simple -- exhaustion of Liquid Gold (OIL). Because of Geology, The world is running out of Extractable Oil. Yes, all the world is essentially running out of oil. No oil, no growth. You cannot run war machine without oil, and you cannot run an Empire without oil, nor you can run a modern industrialized economy.

The concept is called "PEAK OIL". Once, the world oil production peaks, DeIndustrialization will start; we will be slowly and slowly going back to Pre-Marxian age, with smaller and smaller population -- there is no way we can feed, clothe, provide warm shelter for Billions of people in this world. There is no Technofix; all technologies require energy, the very product the world will be running short. The Party is Over.

No, all known oil cannot be extracted. You need energy to extract oil. If a stage comes when you need One barrel of oil to extract one barell of oil, the extraction becomes uneconomical -- no matter what is the paper money price of the oil.

No country will be spared, though the effect will be gravest in the countries whose economies are advanced and hence highly dependent upon oil. Modern Globalization is a child of abundant availability of oil, will be a thing of the past soon. You will have to produce locally and consume locally -- I mean really locally; no California lettuce in New York

Unfortunately, no analyst (economic, social, political) is prepared to talk about this concept.

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