Are you worried about the future? So am I!

Friends of mine from opposite ends of the political spectrum have expressed concerns about the future of this country and the world in general to me recently. They have very similar fears even though some trust government regulation to fix everything and some think that if the government was not involved in anything would be the most idea solution. They all have fears about the economy, crime, food stability and the future. Some understand about peak oil and climate change and some don’t, but they are worried about the future.


First of all I believe in climate change and peak oil and of the two I believe that peak oil will have a much greater impact on me and my son’s lives. Climate change will have more of an effect my grandchildren and future generations. It is not that climate change is not a worry, but it is not the topic of this post.

I believe that our current economic malaise is a result of peak oil and is a direct result of the oil shock that we experienced in 2008. Now world governments and the oil industry itself are starting to state that if new production is not found we could face a 10mbpd (million barrel a day) shortfall of oil in the next 5 years. 10mbpd is what Saudi Arabia produces, so unless we find another Saudi Arabia out there we are going to see a 10% drop in supply within the next 5-10 years. When oil got up to $147 barrel and gas above $4 a gallon there was just a 2% gap between supply and demand, just imagine what a 10% gap will look like. Add to this a world that is addicted to debt, oceans stripped of fish, water shortages, falling crop yields, over population and climate change and you have a recipe for disaster.

I will concentrate on the US since that is where I live. Our country has decided to base its economy (as has the whole world for that matter) on exponential growth. For some reason economist thought that the laws of the universe does not apply to them, you cannot have exponential growth on a finite planet. To sustain this growth we have went from one income households, to two income households, we have become reliant on personal debt as well as national debt. Since we have switched from production based economy to a consumer economy (to allow for more growth of course) we added to the absurdity of our situation by trying to sustain a society where we just sell each other stuff made someplace else. We have to cut back on our spending now and will have to more in the future, and our government will eventually too.

The US government has been relying on borrowed money since the 1960’s to help sustain economic growth and the harder it got to grow the economy the more money the fed borrowed and printed. We are expecting to owe more than we make in one year (we currently owe 88.9% of GDP) by 2012 and 130% by 2015. There will come a time that we can either borrow no more money or that our money is so abundant that it is worthless.

The economy is going to slow down as resources become scarce and prices rise, if we keep using government infusions of cash to try to keep it afloat we will eventually be printing so much money that you will rush to the grocery store after you get paid to try to get there before prices raise again. We will reach a point where cash is useless except for low quality toilet paper. The economy has collapsed and society can collapse at this point and services are curtailed or halted altogether. Roads are not paved, broken cell phone towers are not repaired, the barter system and other more stable currencies are used (gold, silver or another country’s money if it has a stable and predictable value).

For most of us who are use to our disposable society, in which we cannot cook using raw materials, mend our clothes, fix common household appliances our do the numerous other things that our grand (our great grand) parents could and did do to help them through the depression. The fact that we have outsourced our production capability and centralized our food production is going to hurt us in every aspect of society. To add to this the fact that gasoline will be unaffordable to the common middle-class (which will have become extinct) American and you might begin to sense the desperation that could lie ahead of us.

Now we could have a government that puts in some stiff austerity measures and balances the budget and pays down debt. This would mean no more Social Security, Medicare, Defense Spending, Food Stamps, Federal Highway dollars, etc… This would result in massive unemployment, which would eventually led to a similar scenario to hyper-inflation, but in my opinion it is better because it gives us a chance to focus our few resources on areas that matter most to us.

Now there are so many variables that could happen from resource wars, revolts, massive protests and civil unrest and the destruction of our constitutional government. But no matter the variables the ability to produce some of your own food, survive with less energy and resources, having some skills that are marketable in a new era of depletion. Skills like knife sharpening, sewing, carpentry, making shingles, repairing electronic appliances etc… Learning to reuse things and use less now will be a lot easier than it will be when you no longer have a choice.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union or Argentina people did not flood the country side because they did not have skills to survive in the country, they flocked to the cities where there were services that they where use to having. Crime sky-rocketed has police protection became either nonexistent or only for those who could afford it. Food became scarce and government soup lines formed, food riots started (they also started in Egypt in 2008) and people began growing gardens anywhere they could. If we are lucky we will follow Cuba’s example and localize food production and encourage cottage industries (of course Cuba is now trying to roll back those freedoms now that they are exiting their crisis) and this will help mitigate the worse effects of the coming resource shortage.

In short I will encourage you to start a garden and grow as much food as you can, learn to cook from scratch, try to cut back on your spending and energy usage, reuse items, buy durable reusable items instead of disposable ones, develop skills that your grandparents had. I would add to this to buy a gun and learn to use it, but I will caution you that if you do not learn to use it, it can be as dangerous to you and your family as it is to any potential aggressor. Just remember that owning a gun makes you now more prepared than owning a piano makes you a musician.