MSM screams Armageddon, wants Goyim begin next phase: PANIC!

[joeblow]

http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/curre ... 344-1.html

The coming economic collapse and end of the world

By Bill Settlemyer

OK, you guessed right: This is not an upbeat column. It probably doesn't help that I just finished a second reading of Stephen Leeb's 2006 book "The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel."

Leeb did a pretty good job back in 2006 of describing what's happening now in the world oil markets, as well as the serious consequences that will follow as world demand continues to outstrip producers' and refiners' ability to bring enough finished product to market to meet rising demand.

Leeb offers a stark choice for investors: a collapse in the value of their assets (cash, stocks and bonds) or wealth gained from investing in gold, oil, real estate, China and India, and a few additional strategies. Of course, the investment challenges reflect only a small part of the tremendous turmoil and hardship that will afflict people around the world if his views are accurate.

To his credit, Leeb asserts that, "I did not want to write this book (and) I hope the premise and everything I forecast turns out to be dead wrong. Everyone, including me, will be much better off if that is true. The problem is that all the evidence shows that I am right."

Groupthink and leadership

I'm going to step away, for the moment, from Leeb's economic and financial predictions.

What I found more disturbing, but perhaps more helpful, was his assessment of the lack of political and civic leadership plaguing this country and the world. That shortfall, coupled with "groupthink" by government leaders and the herd instinct among investors and others has combined to create a plausible case for world economic collapse followed by the decimation of the planet as a place fit for human habitation (the latter being my point, not his).

As for damage caused by the herd instinct, the tech stock bubble of 2000 and the recent housing and credit bubbles and their subsequent collapses serve to prove only that you can be a savvy Wall Street trader, a sophisticated investment banker or a guy down the street and you can still make decisions that, in retrospect, look obviously and incredibly stupid.

And we don't do it just once and learn our lesson; we do it over and over, with the same results.

Now let's look at leadership. Citing other authors who have studied the collapse of past civilizations, Leeb says governments, just like individuals and investors, often get stuck in a mental rut and lack the open-mindedness, vision and foresight necessary to save a civilization from collapse. He gives examples, such as the leaders on Easter Island who consumed the island's forests to build massive statues and the Norsemen on Greenland who shunned the advice and experience of native peoples who knew how to build and maintain a sustainable economy in Greenland's harsh conditions.

If America's leaders had open-mindedness, vision and foresight, they would have been telling us for some time that our profligate energy-intensive lifestyles and our credit-bingeing in government and in our personal lives were unsustainable and threatened our current well-being and our children's futures.

If America's leaders were honest, they wouldn't be misleading the people with such slogans as "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less." That's the slogan for the effort led by Newt Gingrich to whip up support for increased offshore oil drilling. The truth is more complex, as further offshore exploration would take decades to affect prices, and even then the impact on supply and price would be small, according to some experts.

In other words, a case can be made that the "Drill Here" bandwagon is little more than a push for a parting political gift to the oil industry, rather than a real, long-term solution. True leadership would push aggressively for the development of alternative energy sources and energy efficiency, all of which have taken a backseat even though they provide the only real hope of avoiding the collapse of the American economy as we know it.

Don't forget the end of the world

My personal opinion is that we're doomed. By that I mean our grandchildren or their children and grandchildren will witness the beginning of the end of the planet as a habitable place for human beings. Given the current course set by the world's governments, especially those of the United States, China and India, we should anticipate that the land surfaces on the planet (those not submerged by rising seas, that is) will evolve largely into vast, burning-hot deserts unable to support more than a tiny fraction of the world's population. The planet will survive, but human civilization won't.

A recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that worldwide energy consumption will rise by 50% between 2005 and 2030 and that without efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, annual emissions will rise from 28.1 billion metric tons in 2005 to 42.3 billion metric tons in 2030.

If that happens, we've killed the planet as a place for us to inhabit, just like the leaders of Easter Island and the Norsemen of Greenland did to their civilizations. Are we any smarter or wiser than they were? I doubt it. After all, they didn't fully understand or appreciate the damage they were doing to their environment. We do, yet we're treating the problem as something to be handled by some wiser future generation (at which time it will be way too late to prevent catastrophe).

Of course, miracles do happen. People and governments could come together to stave off catastrophic change in the world's climate. If that happens, the demand for oil as a fuel will drop dramatically as governments move aggressively to limit the production and consumption of oil. And, most likely, that will occur well before those coveted American offshore oil fields begin producing any oil.

[kolnidre]

I can't take seriously fear mongering by someone who believes that carbon dioxide emissions will cause the seas to swamp habitable land and green pastures to become fiery deserts. How ironic that he criticizes "groupthink" when he exemplifies it himself.

[joeblow]

I agree completely with your assessment, but if one takes a few steps back and look at the whole picture, this fits in exactly with what AJ was saying that the Elites want the Profane (<- Masonic term, look it up!) to begin making stupid business decisions so that they (our Jewish betters) can swoop in, like the vultures they are, and buy up what remains.