The petrodollar is in trouble. It will fall sometime, sooner or later. What does that mean?
Many are hoping for this fall. They want to see the arrogant, hypocritical US empire humiliated. But what will this fall actually bring?
The world economic system is carrying a burden. That burden is the world financial system. The financial system is essentially debt. The interest owed on this debt must come from the energy provided by fuel or labor.
The problem is that a certain fuel, oil, is very high in net energy and has no ready replacement. It is also the fuel with the fastest falling net energy. Every day it takes more units of energy to extract, transport, refine, and distribute, than the it did the day before to produce the same units.
Oil production and use, especially use, has generated a massive fixed infrastructure. It cannot be quickly undone. So even if all debt is wiped clean in one day, there is still a mess left behind.
People should not expect this mess to be cleaned up by the US elites. We have to unwind the auto-and-sprawl infrastructure ourselves. The more we do the less painful the collapse will be.
Many are hoping for this fall. They want to see the arrogant, hypocritical US empire humiliated. But what will this fall actually bring?
The world economic system is carrying a burden. That burden is the world financial system. The financial system is essentially debt. The interest owed on this debt must come from the energy provided by fuel or labor.
The problem is that a certain fuel, oil, is very high in net energy and has no ready replacement. It is also the fuel with the fastest falling net energy. Every day it takes more units of energy to extract, transport, refine, and distribute, than the it did the day before to produce the same units.
Oil production and use, especially use, has generated a massive fixed infrastructure. It cannot be quickly undone. So even if all debt is wiped clean in one day, there is still a mess left behind.
People should not expect this mess to be cleaned up by the US elites. We have to unwind the auto-and-sprawl infrastructure ourselves. The more we do the less painful the collapse will be.
