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Peak Insiders
by
charleshughsmith
Executive Summary
- The key requirements for being a word power
- Is the "superpower" model sustainable in today's age?
- The key ability to leverage resources
- Which country(ies) is most likely to dominate in this century?
If you have not yet read Who Will Be Tomorrow's Superpower? available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we surveyed the nature of power to explore the concept of superpowers. In this Part 2, we look at power as the ability to solve problems.
What Are the Available Resources?
Solving problems in the real world is not an abstract project, though abstract concepts may undergird the solutions. In the real world, we have to use whatever resources are available, with an eye on cost, scale and sustainability.
Alternative energy offers a useful example. Almost everyone agrees that alternatives to fossil fuels would be beneficial, but what is generally overlooked is the tiny scale of alternatives in the current scheme of things. Depending on what’s being included as alternative (hydropower, etc.), alternative energy sources currently comprise a few percentage points of total energy consumption.
To scale alternatives up to even 50% of current consumption will require not just a monumental amount of capital investment; it also requires the invention and manufacture of new systems of energy storage on an equally vast scale.
As has been noted many times, this capital investment includes an extended period of fossil fuels consumption, as we need huge amounts of energy to construct alternative sources and storage systems. Some have characterized this as building an aircraft in the air while keeping your current aircraft aloft.
As Peak Prosperity members know well, capital has a variety of forms, all of which work together: financial, intellectual, social, human, cultural and symbolic. All these forms of capital must be…
Who Will Dominate This Century?
PREVIEW by charleshughsmithExecutive Summary
- The key requirements for being a word power
- Is the "superpower" model sustainable in today's age?
- The key ability to leverage resources
- Which country(ies) is most likely to dominate in this century?
If you have not yet read Who Will Be Tomorrow's Superpower? available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we surveyed the nature of power to explore the concept of superpowers. In this Part 2, we look at power as the ability to solve problems.
What Are the Available Resources?
Solving problems in the real world is not an abstract project, though abstract concepts may undergird the solutions. In the real world, we have to use whatever resources are available, with an eye on cost, scale and sustainability.
Alternative energy offers a useful example. Almost everyone agrees that alternatives to fossil fuels would be beneficial, but what is generally overlooked is the tiny scale of alternatives in the current scheme of things. Depending on what’s being included as alternative (hydropower, etc.), alternative energy sources currently comprise a few percentage points of total energy consumption.
To scale alternatives up to even 50% of current consumption will require not just a monumental amount of capital investment; it also requires the invention and manufacture of new systems of energy storage on an equally vast scale.
As has been noted many times, this capital investment includes an extended period of fossil fuels consumption, as we need huge amounts of energy to construct alternative sources and storage systems. Some have characterized this as building an aircraft in the air while keeping your current aircraft aloft.
As Peak Prosperity members know well, capital has a variety of forms, all of which work together: financial, intellectual, social, human, cultural and symbolic. All these forms of capital must be…
by
Brian Pretti
by
Chris Martenson
Executive Summary
- What is 'deflation?'
- Why do central banks fear it so much?
- What falling prices really mean.
- Commodities are telling us that a global slowdown is already here.
- China's economic miracle is over.
- What happens next (please keep your preparations on track!)
If you have not yet read Oil And The Global Slowdown available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
The title of this part says it all. So let's begin with an important definition. What is 'deflation'?
To hear the media and central banks tell it, it is something fearful and that must be avoided at all costs. Confusingly they then point to falling prices as evidence of the horror of which they speak.
The only problem is that you and I like falling prices. If my health insurance cost 10% less next year I’d be thrilled. But the central banks would be horrified.
The difference between these two positions lies in the definition of deflation. While the media always blindly regurgitates the central bank line that falling prices are an indication of deflation they really shouldn't.
The Central Banks Have Lost
PREVIEW by Chris MartensonExecutive Summary
- What is 'deflation?'
- Why do central banks fear it so much?
- What falling prices really mean.
- Commodities are telling us that a global slowdown is already here.
- China's economic miracle is over.
- What happens next (please keep your preparations on track!)
If you have not yet read Oil And The Global Slowdown available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
The title of this part says it all. So let's begin with an important definition. What is 'deflation'?
To hear the media and central banks tell it, it is something fearful and that must be avoided at all costs. Confusingly they then point to falling prices as evidence of the horror of which they speak.
The only problem is that you and I like falling prices. If my health insurance cost 10% less next year I’d be thrilled. But the central banks would be horrified.
The difference between these two positions lies in the definition of deflation. While the media always blindly regurgitates the central bank line that falling prices are an indication of deflation they really shouldn't.
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