Great article by Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity on why owning hard assets; gold, oil, farmland, cashflowing real estate, etc..
One of the themes Chris touches on in his various articles at his site is the idea of perpetual compounding growth and how it is simply not possible. Unlimited growth on a finite planet as he says.
However, it is this unending compounding of growth that governments and people employed in finance are counting on to bail them out of their various problems whether it is pension shortfalls, massive debt, and risk of financial collapse.
He points out that this math does not and will not work out.
There are a hundred exponential charts we could discuss, and they are all important in their own right, but there’s one that stands far above them all.
It’s so prevalent in your life that you probably take it for granted and might not appreciate all that it provides. You are the fish and it is the water.
Here it is:
Fossil fuel energy is responsible for providing every creature comfort and material abundance in your life and it’s has been growing exponentially for your entire life.
Here’s the brain buster. Squint at that chart carefully and you’ll see that fully half of all the fossil fuels ever burned throughout all of history have been burned since 1990.
Which means that if you are 29 years old, you’ve been alive when half of all the fossil fuels ever burned throughout all of human history have been burned. Half! In just 29 years!
If that doesn’t shock you, then I need you to re-read it and think about it some more, because it’s a really profound insight. Especially once I connect it to the second giant step below.
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In just the past 22 years, as much oil energy as used throughout human history has been used. It’s moved your personal vehicle, massive container ships and airplanes. It’s dug up vast mineral ore deposits and installed wind towers, as well as spread plastic throughout the oceans. It’s trawled, and cut and scraped and plowed the dwindling natural habitats.
It’s very difficult to overstate just how much material abundance it has brought to the world. “All of it” would be closest to the truth. Water to a fish.
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How many more doublings do you think we’ve got? One more? Can we manage to find and burn another amount of coal, oil and natural gas equal to all that has come before?
The only thing that grows exponentially are things that usually end up killing us; bacteria, viruses, cancer cells. There is a limit, the question is how far away from the limit are we?