Tag: news

“Today there is a tremendous amount of monetary distortion, on par with the 1929 stock market and certainly the peak of 2007, and many others,” warns Universa’s Mark Spitznagel.

 

At these levels, he suggests (as The Dao of Capital author previously told Maria B, “subsequent large stock market losses and even crashes become perfectly expected events.”

 

 

Post-Bernanke it will be more of the same, he adds, and investors need to know how to navigate such a world full of “monetary distortions in the economy and the creation of malinvestments.” The reality is, Spitznagel concludes that the ‘recovery is a Fed distortion-driven mirage‘ and the only way out is to let the natural homeostasis take over – “the purge that occurs after massive distortion is painful, but ultimately, it’s far better and healthier for the system.”

 

Via Investments & Wealth Monitor:

On the “recovery” in the United States…

Spitznagel: The somewhat improved economic activity that we’re seeing is based on a mirage—that is, the illusion created by artificial zero-interest rates.

 

When central banks lower interest rates in hopes of stimulating the economy, that intervention is not the same as a natural move in interest rates.

 

A genuine drop in interest rates is in response to an increase in savings, as consumers defer consumption now in order to consume later. In a high-savings environment, entrepreneurs put their capital to work to become more roundabout,1 layering their tools and intermediate stages of production to become increasingly productive. The time to make these investments is when consumers are saving, so that entrepreneurs can be in an even better position to make the products that consumers want, when they want them.

 

In an artificial rate environment, however, that’s not what’s happening. Instead of consumers saving now to spend later, they are spending now.

 

But because interest rates are artificially lower, entrepreneurs are being fooled into investing in something now that they will have to back out of later—building up what the Austrians call “malinvestment.” Therefore, the illusion is unsustainable, by definition. The Fed can’t keep interest rates low forever.

 

From an investor perspective, people are trying to extract as much as they can right now. Consider the naïve dividend investment argument: “I can’t afford to be in cash right now.” Investment managers have to provide returns today.

 

Whenever investors sell a low dividend-paying stock to buy a higher-dividend stock, some piece of progress is sapped from our economy. (The cash needed to pay that higher dividend isn’t going to capital investment in the company.)

 

This is the exact opposite of entrepreneurial thinking that advances the economy. Consider the example of Henry Ford, who didn’t care about paying dividends today. He wanted to plow as much capital as possible back into making production more efficient for the benefit of the consumer who would pay less for a higher-quality product.

 

In summary, a major message of my recent book, The Dao of Capital, is recognizing the distortions that come from central bank intervention. Because of the Fed’s actions, interest rates are no longer a real piece of economic information. If you treat them like they are, you will simply do the wrong thing.

 

After all, when the government tries to manipulate things, the inverse of what was intended usually happens. On that point, history is entirely on my side.

On The Government & Federal Reserve’s “Interventions”…

Spitznagel: The reality is, when distortion is created, the only way out is to let the natural homeostasis take over. The purge that occurs after massive distortion is painful, but ultimately, it’s far better and healthier for the system. While that may sound rather heartless, it’s actually the best and least destructive in the long run.

 

Look what happened in the 1930s, when the actions of the government prolonged what should have been a quick purge. Instead, the government prevented the natural rebuilding process from working, which made matters so much worse.

 

I draw a parallel to forest wildfires. Fire suppression prevents small, naturally occurring wildfires from error-correcting the inappropriate growth, and thus prevents the system from seeking its natural homeostatic balance—its natural temporal structure of production, if you will. Instead, everything is allowed to grow at once, as if more resources exist than actually do, and the forest actually gradually consumes itself. When fire inevitably does break out, it is catastrophic. This is a perfect analogy for the market process. We simply do not understand the great homeostasis at work in markets that are allowed to correct their mistakes.

 

Suppression that makes the cure that much worse than the initial ill, until exponentially more damage is done, calls to mind the wry observation made by the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises: “If a man has been hurt by being run over by an automobile, it is no remedy to let the car go back over him in the [opposite] direction.”

 

As the Mises protégé Murray Rothbard would say, the catharsis needed to return to homeostatic balance “is the ‘recovery’ process,” and, “far from being an evil scourge, is the necessary and beneficial return” to healthier growth and “optimum efficiency.”

 

It is unfair to call the Austrians heartless because of these views. The Keynesians are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place—just like those who advocated for the suppression of natural forest fires are the ones who created the tinder box that puts the forest at risk.

On The Yellen Fed… (hint – no change)

Spitznagel: Post-Bernanke it will be more of the same. Therefore, investors need to know how to navigate a distorted world—and post-Bernanke the world is likely to get even more distorted—until the markets, ultimately and inevitably, flush out that distortion. This is why I rely on the Austrian school so much.

 

Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) shows us what is really happening behind the curtain, so to speak, from monetary distortions in the economy and the creation of malinvestment. When the economy is subject to top-down intervention from the government and especially the central bank, investors need to read the signs in order to protect themselves—as well as still find a way to own productive assets.

 

People can avoid becoming trapped into chasing immediate returns along with the rest of the ill-fated crowd.

 

A far better approach is to wait for the return to homeostasis that will prevail even in the midst of pervasive distortion. In that way, investors can embrace roundabout investing by avoiding the distortion and, thus, have all the more resources later for opportunistic investing.

On investing (for retail inevstors)…

Another option for investors is a very simplistic, “mom-and-pop” strategy that starts with recognizing when you are in a distorted environment. For this I use what I call the Misesian stationarity index, which describes the amount of distortion in the economy.

 

This simple, back-of-the-envelope strategy would be to buy when the index is low and sell when it is high. In other words, people should stay out of the market when it is distorted and thus preserve their capital to deploy after the inevitable purge and correction, when productive assets become bargain-priced. Such an approach has resulted historically in an annualized 2-percent outperformance of stocks. Logically it makes sense, and when you look at it empirically, it’s incontrovertible.

 

Yet, admittedly, in the world of investing, sitting with one’s arms folded and not taking advantage of a rising market pumped up with distortion, is difficult—even though avoiding the enticement leads to better intermediate means for positional advantage to be exploited later.

 

It is difficult to do and may even feel anticlimactic. Nonetheless, the disciplined Misesian approach is healthier for one’s portfolio.

On the worst case scenario…

the Fed keeps winning and the illusion continues. The equity markets keep ripping along.

On extreme monetary distrortion and the Q-Ratio…

In simplest terms, the equity Q ratio is the total corporate equity in the United States divided by the replacement cost. Another way to think about it is the appraised value of existing capital in the United States divided by what it would cost to replace or accumulate all that capital.

 

This ratio has tremendous meaning from an Austrian standpoint, as it reflects what the markets are saying about the state of distortion in the economy.

 

This aptly illustrates Mises’s concept of “stationarity.” (In a stationary economy, in the aggregate, balance is achieved between the return and replacement costs.) The farther the ratio moves above “1,” the more monetary distortion there is in the economy. For this reason, and as a tip of the hat to the man who gave us the Austrian business cycle theory, I call this ratio the Misesian stationarity index, or MS index for short. When the MS index is high, subsequent large stock market losses and even crashes become perfectly expected events.

Today there is a tremendous amount of monetary distortion, on par with the 1929 stock market and certainly the peak of 2007, and many others (except the 2000 peak, which got a bit more ahead of itself). And all were caused by monetary distortion. As the Austrians show us, the business cycle is a Fed-induced phenomenon.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1iZQoR7 Tyler Durden

“Today there is a tremendous amount of monetary distortion, on par with the 1929 stock market and certainly the peak of 2007, and many others,” warns Universa’s Mark Spitznagel.

 

At these levels, he suggests (as The Dao of Capital author previously told Maria B, “subsequent large stock market losses and even crashes become perfectly expected events.”

 

 

Post-Bernanke it will be more of the same, he adds, and investors need to know how to navigate such a world full of “monetary distortions in the economy and the creation of malinvestments.” The reality is, Spitznagel concludes that the ‘recovery is a Fed distortion-driven mirage‘ and the only way out is to let the natural homeostasis take over – “the purge that occurs after massive distortion is painful, but ultimately, it’s far better and healthier for the system.”

 

Via Investments & Wealth Monitor:

On the “recovery” in the United States…

Spitznagel: The somewhat improved economic activity that we’re seeing is based on a mirage—that is, the illusion created by artificial zero-interest rates.

 

When central banks lower interest rates in hopes of stimulating the economy, that intervention is not the same as a natural move in interest rates.

 

A genuine drop in interest rates is in response to an increase in savings, as consumers defer consumption now in order to consume later. In a high-savings environment, entrepreneurs put their capital to work to become more roundabout,1 layering their tools and intermediate stages of production to become increasingly productive. The time to make these investments is when consumers are saving, so that entrepreneurs can be in an even better position to make the products that consumers want, when they want them.

 

In an artificial rate environment, however, that’s not what’s happening. Instead of consumers saving now to spend later, they are spending now.

 

But because interest rates are artificially lower, entrepreneurs are being fooled into investing in something now that they will have to back out of later—building up what the Austrians call “malinvestment.” Therefore, the illusion is unsustainable, by definition. The Fed can’t keep interest rates low forever.

 

From an investor perspective, people are trying to extract as much as they can right now. Consider the naïve dividend investment argument: “I can’t afford to be in cash right now.” Investment managers have to provide returns today.

 

Whenever investors sell a low dividend-paying stock to buy a higher-dividend stock, some piece of progress is sapped from our economy. (The cash needed to pay that higher dividend isn’t going to capital investment in the company.)

 

This is the exact opposite of entrepreneurial thinking that advances the economy. Consider the example of Henry Ford, who didn’t care about paying dividends today. He wanted to plow as much capital as possible back into making production more efficient for the benefit of the consumer who would pay less for a higher-quality product.

 

In summary, a major message of my recent book, The Dao of Capital, is recognizing the distortions that come from central bank intervention. Because of the Fed’s actions, interest rates are no longer a real piece of economic information. If you treat them like they are, you will simply do the wrong thing.

 

After all, when the government tries to manipulate things, the inverse of what was intended usually happens. On that point, history is entirely on my side.

On The Government & Federal Reserve’s “Interventions”…

Spitznagel: The reality is, when distortion is created, the only way out is to let the natural homeostasis take over. The purge that occurs after massive distortion is painful, but ultimately, it’s far better and healthier for the system. While that may sound rather heartless, it’s actually the best and least destructive in the long run.

 

Look what happened in the 1930s, when the actions of the government prolonged what should have been a quick purge. Instead, the government prevented the natural rebuilding process from working, which made matters so much worse.

 

I draw a parallel to forest wildfires. Fire suppression prevents small, naturally occurring wildfires from error-correcting the inappropriate growth, and thus prevents the system from seeking its natural homeostatic balance—its natural temporal structure of production, if you will. Instead, everything is allowed to grow at once, as if more resources exist than actually do, and the forest actually gradually consumes itself. When fire inevitably does break out, it is catastrophic. This is a perfect analogy for the market process. We simply do not understand the great homeostasis at work in markets that are allowed to correct their mistakes.

 

Suppression that makes the cure that much worse than the initial ill, until exponentially more damage is done, calls to mind the wry observation made by the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises: “If a man has been hurt by being run over by an automobile, it is no remedy to let the car go back over him in the [opposite] direction.”

 

As the Mises protégé Murray Rothbard would say, the catharsis needed to return to homeostatic balance “is the ‘recovery’ process,” and, “far from being an evil scourge, is the necessary and beneficial return” to healthier growth and “optimum efficiency.”

 

It is unfair to call the Austrians heartless because of these views. The Keynesians are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place—just like those who advocated for the suppression of natural forest fires are the ones who created the tinder box that puts the forest at risk.

On The Yellen Fed… (hint – no change)

Spitznagel: Post-Bernanke it will be more of the same. Therefore, investors need to know how to navigate a distorted world—and post-Bernanke the world is likely to get even more distorted—until the markets, ultimately and inevitably, flush out that distortion. This is why I rely on the Austrian school so much.

 

Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) shows us what is really happening behind the curtain, so to speak, from monetary distortions in the economy and the creation of malinvestment. When the economy is subject to top-down intervention from the government and especially the central bank, investors need to read the signs in order to protect themselves—as well as still find a way to own productive asset
s.

 

People can avoid becoming trapped into chasing immediate returns along with the rest of the ill-fated crowd.

 

A far better approach is to wait for the return to homeostasis that will prevail even in the midst of pervasive distortion. In that way, investors can embrace roundabout investing by avoiding the distortion and, thus, have all the more resources later for opportunistic investing.

On investing (for retail inevstors)…

Another option for investors is a very simplistic, “mom-and-pop” strategy that starts with recognizing when you are in a distorted environment. For this I use what I call the Misesian stationarity index, which describes the amount of distortion in the economy.

 

This simple, back-of-the-envelope strategy would be to buy when the index is low and sell when it is high. In other words, people should stay out of the market when it is distorted and thus preserve their capital to deploy after the inevitable purge and correction, when productive assets become bargain-priced. Such an approach has resulted historically in an annualized 2-percent outperformance of stocks. Logically it makes sense, and when you look at it empirically, it’s incontrovertible.

 

Yet, admittedly, in the world of investing, sitting with one’s arms folded and not taking advantage of a rising market pumped up with distortion, is difficult—even though avoiding the enticement leads to better intermediate means for positional advantage to be exploited later.

 

It is difficult to do and may even feel anticlimactic. Nonetheless, the disciplined Misesian approach is healthier for one’s portfolio.

On the worst case scenario…

the Fed keeps winning and the illusion continues. The equity markets keep ripping along.

On extreme monetary distrortion and the Q-Ratio…

In simplest terms, the equity Q ratio is the total corporate equity in the United States divided by the replacement cost. Another way to think about it is the appraised value of existing capital in the United States divided by what it would cost to replace or accumulate all that capital.

 

This ratio has tremendous meaning from an Austrian standpoint, as it reflects what the markets are saying about the state of distortion in the economy.

 

This aptly illustrates Mises’s concept of “stationarity.” (In a stationary economy, in the aggregate, balance is achieved between the return and replacement costs.) The farther the ratio moves above “1,” the more monetary distortion there is in the economy. For this reason, and as a tip of the hat to the man who gave us the Austrian business cycle theory, I call this ratio the Misesian stationarity index, or MS index for short. When the MS index is high, subsequent large stock market losses and even crashes become perfectly expected events.

Today there is a tremendous amount of monetary distortion, on par with the 1929 stock market and certainly the peak of 2007, and many others (except the 2000 peak, which got a bit more ahead of itself). And all were caused by monetary distortion. As the Austrians show us, the business cycle is a Fed-induced phenomenon.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1iZQoR7 Tyler Durden

A few days ago, in the aftermath of Argentina’s shocking devaluation announcement, we showed the one most important chart for the future of that country’s economy: the correlation between the value of the Arg Peso and the amount of Central Bank foreign reserves, both crashing. And as we predicted when we, before anyone else, started our countdown of Argentina’s reserves, once the number hits zero it’s game over for the Latin American country. Or rather, game over again, considering the number of times in the past Argentina has defaulted. Unfortunately over the past week, things for the Central Bank have gone from bad to worse and were capped overnight with the following headline:

• ARGENTINE CENTRAL BANK SAYS RESERVES FELL $170M TO 28.1B TODAY

To summarize: Argentina has now burned through $2 billion in less than two weeks, the fastest outflow since 2006, and a trend which if sustained (and we see no reason why it would change), means it has just over half a year left of reserves projecting a linear decline. However, since the lower the amount of reserves, the faster the withdrawals will come, it is safe to predict that the endgame for Argentina will come far sooner, just as its suddenly crashing bonds seem to have realized.

Which is perhaps why, as Argentina’s La Nacion reports, the country is suddenly, and long overdue, scrambling to raise $10 billion to “counter the flight of capital” from the country.

 Alas, it just may be too late.

According to the website, Argentina’s economy minister Axel Kicillof secretly approached international banks, the same one he has been criticizing over the past months, with a simple request: please give me $10 billion. Alas, considering the country’s track record of “honoring” its debt repayment promises, not even promising the required interest rate of +? will do much to generate interest in this particular offer banks can not refuse. Or, rather, can and will.

From La Nacion, Google translated:

Nacion reporters say that the meeting was held in strictest confidence, just in the days before major upheaval in the exchange market. When asked about it, the Economy Ministry spokesman did not confirm nor denied the information, in ABA did not respond to calls from this newspaper.

 

It is imperative for Argentina to get the dollars that can counter the flight of capital, which in January alone cost the Central Bank (BCRA) U.S. $ 2.499 billion of its reserves. It was the biggest drop since 2006, when the country repaid its entire debt of more than U.S. $ 9 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

 

The minister confided bankers requesting leave to look for dollars abroad, either by issuing new debt or through commercial credit lines that banks could get. Some entities, according to sources consulted by the NATION, and would have set to work to organize a tour to Kicillof investment to New York this month.

In other words, Argentina will be meeting Goldman shortly. So, in the aftermath of the Denmark Dong affair, we can probably expect another government “overhaul” in a few months, mediated by everyone’s favorite vampire squid who is about to make Argentina an offer it can’t refuse. Or maybe even Goldman won’t touch this any more:

The order of Kicillof, noted the sources, was debated this week between ABA bankers. Although they pledged to work in private they also recognized that it will be difficult in the current context for Argentina to access fresh funding at a reasonable rate of interest and, especially, in the amounts the Government needs, somewhere around U.S. $ 10,000 million.

It gets worse:

In addition, they assert, although the Government intends to solve their conflicts with the Paris Club and Repsol, the devaluation of 18.6% recorded in January, the highest in the last 12 years, quite complicated negotiations, and that sowed new doubts about the ability to repay debt Argentina.

Yes, well, losing 20% of your investment “gains” overnight due to an arbitrary decision by the government does kinda make one want to invest in said government for a bit to quite a bit. As for the inflationary panic that has already gripped the country, and which we already commented on, well – it’s only just begun.

Still, all of the above is largely expected, and was perfectly predictable by anyone not caught up in overconsumption of hopium pills, or having their head stuck in the sand of denial. The one thing we did learn is something which will soon make the front pages of all serious media publications around the globe.

After sharp declines in recent weeks, a sovereign dollar bond Bonar 17 yielded 16.2% yesterday…. Several weeks ago Kicillof announced his intentions to return to the debt markets. The National Social Security Administration (Anses) began in early January to sell their bonds in the market Bonar 18 to contain the escalation of the “dollar bag” on one hand, but also to begin to make a curve in the medium term rates.

Curious what the BONAR is?  Courtesy of this handy glossary of Argentine financial terms and acronyms, we now know that it is the formal name of an Argentina dollar-denominated bond issued under domestic law. Or, as in the case of Greece, precisely the instrument that will quite soon be crammed down due to non-existent covenant protection for creditors.

In other words, in a worst case for Argentina scenario, watch as hundreds of millions of BONARs suddenly deflate to nothing in a bidless market.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1iZJ1sR Tyler Durden

Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

In order to understand what solutions to our energy predicament will or won’t work, it is necessary to understand the true nature of our energy predicament. Most solutions fail because analysts assume that the nature of our energy problem is quite different from what it really is. Analysts assume that our problem is a slowly developing long-term problem, when in fact, it is a problem that is at our door step right now.

The point that most analysts miss is that our energy problem behaves very much like a near-term financial problem. We will discuss why this happens. This near-term financial problem is bound to work itself out in a way that leads to huge job losses and governmental changes in the near term. Our mitigation strategies need to be considered in this context. Strategies aimed simply at relieving energy shortages with high priced fuels and high-tech equipment are bound to be short lived solutions, if they are solutions at all.

OUR ENERGY PREDICAMENT

1. Our number one energy problem is a rapidly rising need for investment capital, just to maintain a fixed level of resource extraction. This investment capital is physical “stuff” like oil, coal, and metals.

We pulled out the “easy to extract” oil, gas, and coal first. As we move on to the difficult to extract resources, we find that the need for investment capital escalates rapidly. According to Mark Lewis writing in the Financial Times, “upstream capital expenditures” for oil and gas amounted to  nearly $700 billion in 2012, compared to $350 billion in 2005, both in 2012 dollars. This corresponds to an inflation-adjusted annual increase of 10% per year for the seven year period.

In theory, we would expect extraction costs to rise as we approach limits of the amount to be extracted. In fact, the steep rise in oil prices in recent years is of the type we would expect, if this is happening. We were able to get around the problem in the 1970s, by adding more oil extraction, substituting other energy products for oil, and increasing efficiency. This time, our options for fixing the situation are much fewer, since the low hanging fruit have already been picked, and we are reaching financial limits now.

To make matters worse, the rapidly rising need for investment capital arises is other industries as well as fossil fuels. Metals extraction follows somewhat the same pattern. We extracted the highest grade ores, in the most accessible locations first. We can still extract more metals, but we need to move to lower grade ores. This means we need to remove more of the unwanted waste products, using more resources, including energy resources.

There is a huge increase in the amount of waste products that must be extracted and disposed of, as we move to lower grade ores (Figure 3). The increase in waste products is only 3% when we move from ore with a concentration of .200, to ore with a concentration .195. When we move from a concentration of .010 to a concentration of .005, the amount of waste product more than doubles.

When we look at the inflation adjusted cost of base metals (Figure 4 below), we see that the index was generally falling for a long period between the 1960s and the 1990s, as productivity improvements were greater than falling ore quality.

Since 2002, the index is higher, as we might expect if we are starting to reach limits with respect to some of the metals in the index.

There are many other situations where we are fighting a losing battle with nature, and as a result need to make larger resource investments. We have badly over-fished the ocean, so  fishermen now need to use more resources too catch the remaining much smaller fish.  Pollution (including CO2 pollution) is becoming more of a problem, so we invest resources in  devices to capture mercury emissions and in wind turbines in the hope they will help our pollution problems. We also need to invest increasing amounts in roads,  bridges, electricity transmission lines, and pipelines, to compensate for deferred maintenance and aging infrastructure.

Some people say that the issue is one of falling Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI), and indeed, falling EROI is part of the problem. The steepness of the curve comes from the rapid increase in energy products used for extraction and many other purposes, as we approach limits.  The investment capital limit was discovered by the original modelers of Limits to Growth in 1972. I discuss this in my post Why EIA, IEA, and Randers’ 2052 Energy Forecasts are Wrong.

2. When the amount of oil extracted each year flattens out (as it has since 2004), a conflict arises: How can there be enough oil both (a) for the growing investment needed to maintain the status quo, plus (b) for new investment to promote growth?

In the previous section, we talked about the rising need for investment capital, just to maintain the status quo. At least some of this investment capital needs to be in the form of oil.  Another use for oil would be to grow the economy–adding new factories, or planting more crops, or transporting more goods. While in theory there is a possibility of substituting away from oil, at any given point in time, the ability to substitute away is quite limited. Most transport options require oil, and most farming requires oil. Construction and road equipment require oil, as do diesel powered irrigation pumps.

Because of the lack of short term substitutability, the need for oil for reinvestment tends to crowd out the possibility of growth. This is at least part of the reason for slower world-wide economic growth in recent years.

3. In the crowding out of growth, the countries that are most handicapped are the ones with the highest average cost of their energy supplies.

For oil importers, oil is a very high cost product, raising the average cost of energy products. This average cost of energy is highest in countries that use the highest percentage of oil in their energy mix.

If we look at a number of oil importing countries, we see that economic growth tends to be much slower in countries that use very much oil in their energy mix. This tends to happen  because high energy costs make products less affordable. For example, high oil costs make vacations to Greece unaffordable, and thus lead to cut backs in their tourist industry.

It is striking when looking at countries arrayed by the proportion of oil in their energy mix, the extent to which high oil use, and thus high cost energy use, is associated with slow economic growth (Figure 5, 6, and 7). There seems to almost be a dose response–the more oil use, the lower the economic growth. While the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are shown as a group, each of the countries in the group shows the same pattern on high oil consumption as a percentage of its total energy production in 2004.

Globalization no doubt acted to accelerate this shift toward countries that used little oil. These countries tended to use much more coal in their energy mix–a much cheaper fuel.

4. The financial systems of countries with slowing growth are especially affected, as are the governments. Debt becomes harder to repay with interest, as economic growth slows.

With slow growth, debt becomes harder to repay with interest. Governments are tempted to add programs to aid their citizens, because employment tends to be low. Governments find that tax revenue lags because of the lagging wages of most citizens, leading to government deficits. (This is precisely the problem that Turchin and Nefedov noted, prior to collapse, when they analyzed eight historical collapses in their book Secular Cycles.)

Governments have recently attempt to fix both their own financial problems and the problems of their citizens by lowering interest rates to very low levels and by using Quantitative Easing. The latter allows governments to keep even long term interest rates low.  With Quantitative Easing, governments are able to keep borrowing without having a market of ready buyers. Use of Quantitative Easing also tends to blow bubbles in prices of stocks and real estate, helping citizens to feel richer.

5. Wages of citizens of  countries oil importing countries tend to remain flat, as oil prices remain high.

At least part of the wage problem relates to the slow economic growth noted above. Furthermore, citizens of the country will cut back on discretionary goods, as the price of oil rises, because their cost of commuting and of food rises (because oil is used in growing food). The cutback in discretionary spending leads to layoffs in discretionary sectors. If exported goods are high priced as well, buyers from other countries will tend to cut back as well, further leading to layoffs and low wage growth.

6. Oil producers find that oil prices don’t rise high enough, cutting back on their funds for reinvestment. 

As oil extraction costs increase, it becomes difficult for the demand for oil to remain high, because wages are not increasing. This is the issue I describe in my post What’s Ahead? Lower Oil Prices, Despite Higher Extraction Costs.

We are seeing this issue today. Bloomberg reports, Oil Profits Slump as Higher Spending Fails to Raise Output. Business Week reports Shell Surprise Shows Profit Squeeze Even at $100 Oil. Statoil, the Norwegian company, is considering walking away from Greenland, to try to keep a lid on production costs.

7. We find ourselves with a long-term growth imperative relating to fossil fuel use, arising from the effects of globalization and from growing world population.

Globalization added approximately 4 billion consumers to the world market place in the 1997 to 2001 time period. These people previously had lived traditional life styles. Once they became aware of all of the goods that people in the rich countries have, they wanted to join in, buying motor bikes, cars, televisions, phones, and other goods. They would also like to eat meat more often. Population in these countries continues to grow adding to demand for goods of all kinds. These goods can only be made using fossil fuels, or by technologies that are enabled by fossil fuels (such as today’s hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar PV).

8. The combination of these forces leads to a situation in which economies, one by one, will turn downward in the very near future–in a few months to a year or two. Some are already on this path (Egypt, Syria, Greece, etc.)

We have two problems that tend to converge: financial problems that countries are now hiding, and ever rising need for resources in a wide range of areas that are reaching limits (oil, metals, over-fishing, deferred maintenance on pipelines).

On the financial side, we have countries trying to hang together despite a serious mismatch between revenue and expenses, using Quantitative Easing and ultra-low interest rates. If countries unwind the Quantitative Easing, interest rates are likely to rise. Because debt is widely used, the cost of everything from oil extraction to buying a new home to buying a new car is likely to rise. The cost of repaying the government’s own debt will rise as well, putting governments in worse financial condition than they are today.

A big concern is that these problems will carry over into debt markets. Rising interest rates will lead to widespread defaults. The availability of debt, including for oil drilling, will dry up.

Even if debt does not dry up, oil companies are already being squeezed for investment funds, and are considering cutting back on drilling. A freeze on credit would make certain this happens.

Meanwhile, we know that investment costs keep rising, in many different industries simultaneously, because we are reaching the limits of a finite world. There are more resources available; they are just more expensive. A mismatch occurs, because our wages aren’t going up.

The physical amount of oil needed for all of this investment keeps rising, but oil production continues on its relatively flat plateau, or may even begins to drop. This leads to less oil available to invest in the rest of the economy. Given the squeeze, even more countries are likely to encounter slowing growth or contraction.

9. My expectation is that the situation will end with a fairly rapid drop in the production of all kinds of energy products and the governments of quite a few countries failing. The governments that remain will dramatically cut services.

With falling oil production, promised government programs will be far in excess of what governments can afford, because governments are basically funded out of the surpluses of a fossil fuel economy–the difference between the cost of extraction and the value of these fossil fuels to society. As the cost of extraction rises, the surpluses tend to dry up.

As these surpluses shrink, governments will need to shrink back dramatically. Government failure will be easier than contracting back to a much smaller size.

International finance and trade will be particularly challenging in this context. Trying to start over will be difficult, because many of the new countries will be much smaller than their predecessors, and will have no “track record.” Those that do have track records will have track records of debt defaults and failed promises, things that will not give lenders confidence in their ability to repay new loans.

While it is clear that oil production will drop, with all of the disruption and a lack of operating financial markets, I expect natural gas and coal production will drop as well. Spare parts for almost anything will be difficult to get, because of the need for the system of international trade to support making these parts. High tech goods such as computers and phones will be especially difficult to purchase. All of these changes will result in a loss of most of the fossil fuel economy and the high tech renewables that these fossil fuels support.

A Forecast of Future Energy Supplies and their Impact

A rough estimate of the amounts by which energy supply will drop is given in Figure 9, below.

The issue we will be encountering could be much better described as “Limits to Growth” than “Peak Oil.” Massive job layoffs will occur, as fuel use declines. Governments will find that their finances are even more pressured than today, with calls for new programs at the time revenue is dropping dramatically. Debt defaults will be a huge problem. International trade will drop, especially to countries with the worst financial problems.

One big issue will be the need to reorganize governments in a new, much less expensive  way. In some cases, countries will break up into smaller units, as the Former Soviet Union did in 1991. In some cases, the situation will go back to local tribes with tribal leaders. The next challenge will be to try to get the governments to act in a somewhat co-ordinated way.  There may need to be more than one set of governmental changes, as the global energy supplies decline.

We will also need to begin manufacturing goods locally, at a time when debt financing no longer works very well, and governments are no longer maintaining roads. We will have to figure out new approaches, without the benefit of high tech goods like computers. With all of the disruption, the electric grid will not last very long either. The question will become: what can we do with local materials, to get some sort of economy going again?

NON-SOLUTIONS and PARTIAL SOLUTIONS TO OUR PROBLEM

There are a lot of proposed solutions to our problem. Most will not work well because the nature of the problem is different from what most people have expected.

1. Substitution. We don’t have time. Furthermore, whatever substitutions we make need to be with cheap local materials, if we expect them to be long-lasting. They also must not over-use resources such as wood, which is in limited supply.

Electricity is likely to decline in availability almost as quickly as oil because of inability to keep up the electrical grid and other disruptions (such as failing governments, lack of oil to lubricate machinery, lack of replacement parts, bankruptcy of companies involved with the production of electricity) so is not really a long-term solution to oil limits.

2. Efficiency. Again, we don’t have time to do much. Higher mileage cars tend to be more expensive, replacing one problem with another. A big problem in the future will be lack of road maintenance. Theoretical gains in efficiency may not hold in the real world. Also, as governments reduce services and often fail, lenders will be unwilling to lend funds for new projects which would in theory improve efficiency.

In some cases, simple devices may provide efficiency. For example, solar thermal can often be a good choice for heating hot water. These devices should be long-lasting.

3. Wind turbines. Current industrial type wind turbines will be hard to maintain, so are  unlikely to be long-lasting. The need for investment capital for wind turbines will compete with other needs for investment capital. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels will drop dramatically, with or without wind turbines.

On the other hand, simple wind mills made with local materials may work for the long term. They are likely to be most useful for mechanical energy, such as pumping water or powering looms for cloth.

4. Solar Panels. Promised incentive plans to help homeowners pay for solar panels can be expected to mostly fall through. Inverters and batteries will need replacement, but probably will not be available. Handy homeowners who can rewire the solar panels for use apart from the grid may find them useful for devices that can run on direct current. As part of the electric grid, solar panels will not add to its lifetime. It probably will not be possible to make solar panels for very many years, as the fossil fuel economy reaches limits.

5. Shale Oil. Shale oil is an example of a product with very high investment costs, and returns which are doubtful at best. Big companies who have tried to extract shale oil have decided the rewards really aren’t there. Smaller companies have somehow been able to put together financial statements claiming profits, based on hoped for future production and very low interest rates.

Costs for extracting shale oil outside the US for shale oil are likely to be even higher than in the US. This happens because the US has laws that enable production (landowner gets a share of profits) and other beneficial situations such as pipelines in place, plentiful water supplies, and low population in areas where fracking is done. If countries decide to ramp up shale oil production, they are likely to run into similarly hugely negative cash flow situations. It is hard to see that these operations will save the world from its financial (and energy) problems.

6. Taxes. Taxes need to be very carefully structured, to have any carbon deterrent benefit. If part of taxes consumers would normally pay to the government are levied on fuel for vehicles, the practice can encourage more the use of more efficient vehicles.

On the other hand, if carbon taxes are levied on businesses, the taxes tend to encourage businesses to move their production to other, lower-cost countries. The shift in production leads to the use of more coal for electricity, rather than less. In theory, carbon taxes could be paired with a very high tax on imported goods made with coal, but this has not been done. Without such a pairing, carbon taxes seem likely to raise world CO2 emissions.

7.  Steady State Economy. Herman Daly was the editor of a book in 1973 called Toward a Steady State Economy, proposing that the world work toward a Steady State economy, instead of growth. Back in 1973, when resources were still fairly plentiful, such an approach would have acted to hold off  Limits to Growth for quite a few years, especially if zero population growth were included in the approach.  

Today, it is far too late for such an approach to work. We are already in a situation with very depleted resources. We can’t keep up current production levels if we want to–to do so would require greatly ramping up energy production because of the rising need for energy investment to maintain current production, discussed in Item (1) of Our Energy Predicament. Collapse will probably be impossible to avoid. We can’t even hope for an outcome as good as a Steady State Economy.

7. Basing Choice of Additional Energy Generation on EROI Calculations. In my view, basing new energy investment on EROI calculations is an iffy prospect at best. EROI calculations measure a theoretical piece of the whole system–”energy at the well-head.” Thus, they miss important parts of the system, which affect both EROI and cost. They also overlook timing, so can indicate that an investment is good, even if it digs a huge financial hole for organizations making the investment. EROI calculations also don’t consider repairability issues which may shorten real-world lifetimes.

Regardless of EROI indications, it is important to consider the likely financial outcome as well. If products are to be competitive in the world marketplace, electricity needs to be inexpensive, regardless of what the EROI calculations seem to say. Our real problem is lack of investment capital–something that is gobbled up at prodigious rates by energy generation devices whose costs occur primarily at the beginning of their lives. We need to be careful to use our investment capital wisely, not for fads that are expensive and won’t hold up for the long run.

8. Demand Reduction. This really needs to be the major way we move away from fossil fuels. Even if we don’t have other options, fossil fuels will move away from us. Encouraging couples to have smaller families would seem to be a good choice.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1acnrhN Tyler Durden

Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

In order to understand what solutions to our energy predicament will or won’t work, it is necessary to understand the true nature of our energy predicament. Most solutions fail because analysts assume that the nature of our energy problem is quite different from what it really is. Analysts assume that our problem is a slowly developing long-term problem, when in fact, it is a problem that is at our door step right now.

The point that most analysts miss is that our energy problem behaves very much like a near-term financial problem. We will discuss why this happens. This near-term financial problem is bound to work itself out in a way that leads to huge job losses and governmental changes in the near term. Our mitigation strategies need to be considered in this context. Strategies aimed simply at relieving energy shortages with high priced fuels and high-tech equipment are bound to be short lived solutions, if they are solutions at all.

OUR ENERGY PREDICAMENT

1. Our number one energy problem is a rapidly rising need for investment capital, just to maintain a fixed level of resource extraction. This investment capital is physical “stuff” like oil, coal, and metals.

We pulled out the “easy to extract” oil, gas, and coal first. As we move on to the difficult to extract resources, we find that the need for investment capital escalates rapidly. According to Mark Lewis writing in the Financial Times, “upstream capital expenditures” for oil and gas amounted to  nearly $700 billion in 2012, compared to $350 billion in 2005, both in 2012 dollars. This corresponds to an inflation-adjusted annual increase of 10% per year for the seven year period.

In theory, we would expect extraction costs to rise as we approach limits of the amount to be extracted. In fact, the steep rise in oil prices in recent years is of the type we would expect, if this is happening. We were able to get around the problem in the 1970s, by adding more oil extraction, substituting other energy products for oil, and increasing efficiency. This time, our options for fixing the situation are much fewer, since the low hanging fruit have already been picked, and we are reaching financial limits now.

To make matters worse, the rapidly rising need for investment capital arises is other industries as well as fossil fuels. Metals extraction follows somewhat the same pattern. We extracted the highest grade ores, in the most accessible locations first. We can still extract more metals, but we need to move to lower grade ores. This means we need to remove more of the unwanted waste products, using more resources, including energy resources.

There is a huge increase in the amount of waste products that must be extracted and disposed of, as we move to lower grade ores (Figure 3). The increase in waste products is only 3% when we move from ore with a concentration of .200, to ore with a concentration .195. When we move from a concentration of .010 to a concentration of .005, the amount of waste product more than doubles.

When we look at the inflation adjusted cost of base metals (Figure 4 below), we see that the index was generally falling for a long period between the 1960s and the 1990s, as productivity improvements were greater than falling ore quality.

Since 2002, the index is higher, as we might expect if we are starting to reach limits with respect to some of the metals in the index.

There are many other situations where we are fighting a losing battle with nature, and as a result need to make larger resource investments. We have badly over-fished the ocean, so  fishermen now need to use more resources too catch the remaining much smaller fish.  Pollution (including CO2 pollution) is becoming more of a problem, so we invest resources in  devices to capture mercury emissions and in wind turbines in the hope they will help our pollution problems. We also need to invest increasing amounts in roads,  bridges, electricity transmission lines, and pipelines, to compensate for deferred maintenance and aging infrastructure.

Some people say that the issue is one of falling Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI), and indeed, falling EROI is part of the problem. The steepness of the curve comes from the rapid increase in energy products used for extraction and many other purposes, as we approach limits.  The investment capital limit was discovered by the original modelers of Limits to Growth in 1972. I discuss this in my post Why EIA, IEA, and Randers’ 2052 Energy Forecasts are Wrong.

2. When the amount of oil extracted each year flattens out (as it has since 2004), a conflict arises: How can there be enough oil both (a) for the growing investment needed to maintain the status quo, plus (b) for new investment to promote growth?

In the previous section, we talked about the rising need for investment capital, just to maintain the status quo. At least some of this investment capital needs to be in the form of oil.  Another use for oil would be to grow the economy–adding new factories, or planting more crops, or transporting more goods. While in theory there is a possibility of substituting away from oil, at any given point in time, the ability to substitute away is quite limited. Most transport options require oil, and most farming requires oil. Construction and road equipment require oil, as do diesel powered irrigation pumps.

Because of the lack of short term substitutability, the need for oil for reinvestment tends to crowd out the possibility of growth. This is at least part of the reason for slower world-wide economic growth in recent years.

3. In the crowding out of growth, the countries that are most handicapped are the ones with the highest average cost of their energy supplies.

For oil importers, oil is a very high cost product, raising the average cost of energy
products. This average cost of energy is highest in countries that use the highest percentage of oil in their energy mix.

If we look at a number of oil importing countries, we see that economic growth tends to be much slower in countries that use very much oil in their energy mix. This tends to happen  because high energy costs make products less affordable. For example, high oil costs make vacations to Greece unaffordable, and thus lead to cut backs in their tourist industry.

It is striking when looking at countries arrayed by the proportion of oil in their energy mix, the extent to which high oil use, and thus high cost energy use, is associated with slow economic growth (Figure 5, 6, and 7). There seems to almost be a dose response–the more oil use, the lower the economic growth. While the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are shown as a group, each of the countries in the group shows the same pattern on high oil consumption as a percentage of its total energy production in 2004.

Globalization no doubt acted to accelerate this shift toward countries that used little oil. These countries tended to use much more coal in their energy mix–a much cheaper fuel.

4. The financial systems of countries with slowing growth are especially affected, as are the governments. Debt becomes harder to repay with interest, as economic growth slows.

With slow growth, debt becomes harder to repay with interest. Governments are tempted to add programs to aid their citizens, because employment tends to be low. Governments find that tax revenue lags because of the lagging wages of most citizens, leading to government deficits. (This is precisely the problem that Turchin and Nefedov noted, prior to collapse, when they analyzed eight historical collapses in their book Secular Cycles.)

Governments have recently attempt to fix both their own financial problems and the problems of their citizens by lowering interest rates to very low levels and by using Quantitative Easing. The latter allows governments to keep even long term interest rates low.  With Quantitative Easing, governments are able to keep borrowing without having a market of ready buyers. Use of Quantitative Easing also tends to blow bubbles in prices of stocks and real estate, helping citizens to feel richer.

5. Wages of citizens of  countries oil importing countries tend to remain flat, as oil prices remain high.

At least part of the wage problem relates to the slow economic growth noted above. Furthermore, citizens of the country will cut back on discretionary goods, as the price of oil rises, because their cost of commuting and of food rises (because oil is used in growing food). The cutback in discretionary spending leads to layoffs in discretionary sectors. If exported goods are high priced as well, buyers from other countries will tend to cut back as well, further leading to layoffs and low wage growth.

6. Oil producers find that oil prices don’t rise high enough, cutting back on their funds for reinvestment. 

As oil extraction costs increase, it becomes difficult for the demand for oil to remain high, because wages are not increasing. This is the issue I describe in my post What’s Ahead? Lower Oil Prices, Despite Higher Extraction Costs.

We are seeing this issue today. Bloomberg reports, Oil Profits Slump as Higher Spending Fails to Raise Output. Business Week reports Shell Surprise Shows Profit Squeeze Even at $100 Oil. Statoil, the Norwegian company, is considering walking away from Greenland, to try to keep a lid on production costs.

7. We find ourselves with a long-term growth imperative relating to fossil fuel use, arising from the effects of globalization and from growing world population.

Globalization added approximately 4 billion consumers to the world market place in the 1997 to 2001 time period. These people previously had lived traditional life styles. Once they became aware of all of the goods that people in the rich countries have, they wanted to join in, buying motor bikes, cars, televisions, phones, and other goods. They would also like to eat meat more often. Population in these countries continues to grow adding to demand for goods of all kinds. These goods can only be made using fossil fuels, or by technologies that are enabled by fossil fuels (such as today’s hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar PV).

8. The combination of these forces leads to a situation in which economies, one by one, will turn downward in the very near future–in a few months to a year or two. Some are already on this path (Egypt, Syria, Greece, etc.)

We have two problems that tend to converge: financial problems that countries are now hiding, and ever rising need for resources in a wide range of areas that are reaching limits (oil, metals, over-fishing, deferred maintenance on pipelines).

On the financial side, we have countries trying to hang together despite a serious mismatch between revenue and expenses, using Quantitative Easing and ultra-low interest rates. If countries unwind the Quantitative Easing, interest rates are likely to rise. Because debt is widely used, the cost of everything from oil extraction to buying a new home to buying a new car is likely to rise. The cost of repaying the government’s own debt will rise as well, putting governments in worse financial condition than they are today.

A big concern is that these problems will carry over into debt markets. Rising interest rates will lead to widespread defaults. The availability of debt, including for oil drilling, will dry up.

Even if debt does not dry up, oil companies are already being squeezed for investment funds, and are considering cutting back on drilling. A freeze on credit would make certain this happens.

Meanwhile, we know that investment costs keep rising, in many different industries simultaneously, because we are reaching the limits of a finite world. There are more resources available; they are just more expensive. A mismatch occurs, because our wages aren’t going up.

The physical amount of oil needed for all of this investment keeps rising, but oil production continues on its relativ
ely flat plateau, or may even begins to drop. This leads to less oil available to invest in the rest of the economy. Given the squeeze, even more countries are likely to encounter slowing growth or contraction.

9. My expectation is that the situation will end with a fairly rapid drop in the production of all kinds of energy products and the governments of quite a few countries failing. The governments that remain will dramatically cut services.

With falling oil production, promised government programs will be far in excess of what governments can afford, because governments are basically funded out of the surpluses of a fossil fuel economy–the difference between the cost of extraction and the value of these fossil fuels to society. As the cost of extraction rises, the surpluses tend to dry up.

As these surpluses shrink, governments will need to shrink back dramatically. Government failure will be easier than contracting back to a much smaller size.

International finance and trade will be particularly challenging in this context. Trying to start over will be difficult, because many of the new countries will be much smaller than their predecessors, and will have no “track record.” Those that do have track records will have track records of debt defaults and failed promises, things that will not give lenders confidence in their ability to repay new loans.

While it is clear that oil production will drop, with all of the disruption and a lack of operating financial markets, I expect natural gas and coal production will drop as well. Spare parts for almost anything will be difficult to get, because of the need for the system of international trade to support making these parts. High tech goods such as computers and phones will be especially difficult to purchase. All of these changes will result in a loss of most of the fossil fuel economy and the high tech renewables that these fossil fuels support.

A Forecast of Future Energy Supplies and their Impact

A rough estimate of the amounts by which energy supply will drop is given in Figure 9, below.

The issue we will be encountering could be much better described as “Limits to Growth” than “Peak Oil.” Massive job layoffs will occur, as fuel use declines. Governments will find that their finances are even more pressured than today, with calls for new programs at the time revenue is dropping dramatically. Debt defaults will be a huge problem. International trade will drop, especially to countries with the worst financial problems.

One big issue will be the need to reorganize governments in a new, much less expensive  way. In some cases, countries will break up into smaller units, as the Former Soviet Union did in 1991. In some cases, the situation will go back to local tribes with tribal leaders. The next challenge will be to try to get the governments to act in a somewhat co-ordinated way.  There may need to be more than one set of governmental changes, as the global energy supplies decline.

We will also need to begin manufacturing goods locally, at a time when debt financing no longer works very well, and governments are no longer maintaining roads. We will have to figure out new approaches, without the benefit of high tech goods like computers. With all of the disruption, the electric grid will not last very long either. The question will become: what can we do with local materials, to get some sort of economy going again?

NON-SOLUTIONS and PARTIAL SOLUTIONS TO OUR PROBLEM

There are a lot of proposed solutions to our problem. Most will not work well because the nature of the problem is different from what most people have expected.

1. Substitution. We don’t have time. Furthermore, whatever substitutions we make need to be with cheap local materials, if we expect them to be long-lasting. They also must not over-use resources such as wood, which is in limited supply.

Electricity is likely to decline in availability almost as quickly as oil because of inability to keep up the electrical grid and other disruptions (such as failing governments, lack of oil to lubricate machinery, lack of replacement parts, bankruptcy of companies involved with the production of electricity) so is not really a long-term solution to oil limits.

2. Efficiency. Again, we don’t have time to do much. Higher mileage cars tend to be more expensive, replacing one problem with another. A big problem in the future will be lack of road maintenance. Theoretical gains in efficiency may not hold in the real world. Also, as governments reduce services and often fail, lenders will be unwilling to lend funds for new projects which would in theory improve efficiency.

In some cases, simple devices may provide efficiency. For example, solar thermal can often be a good choice for heating hot water. These devices should be long-lasting.

3. Wind turbines. Current industrial type wind turbines will be hard to maintain, so are  unlikely to be long-lasting. The need for investment capital for wind turbines will compete with other needs for investment capital. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels will drop dramatically, with or without wind turbines.

On the other hand, simple wind mills made with local materials may work for the long term. They are likely to be most useful for mechanical energy, such as pumping water or powering looms for cloth.

4. Solar Panels. Promised incentive plans to help homeowners pay for solar panels can be expected to mostly fall through. Inverters and batteries will need replacement, but probably will not be available. Handy homeowners who can rewire the solar panels for use apart from the grid may find them useful for devices that can run on direct current. As part of the electric grid, solar panels will not add to its lifetime. It probably will not be possible to make solar panels for very many years, as the fossil fuel economy reaches limits.

5. Shale Oil. Shale oil is an example of a product with very high investment costs, and returns which are doubtful at best. Big companies who have tried to extract shale oil have decided the rewards really aren’t there. Smaller companies have somehow been able to put together financial statements claiming profits, based on hoped for future production and very low interest rates.

Costs for extracting shale oil outside the US for shale oil are likely to be even higher than in the US. This happens because the US has laws that enable production (landowner gets a share of profits) and other beneficial situations such as pipelines in place, plentiful water supplies, and low population in areas where fracking is done. If countries decide to ramp up shale oil production, they are likely to run into similarly hugely negative cash flow situations. It is hard to see that these operations will save the world from its financial (and energy) pr
oblems.

6. Taxes. Taxes need to be very carefully structured, to have any carbon deterrent benefit. If part of taxes consumers would normally pay to the government are levied on fuel for vehicles, the practice can encourage more the use of more efficient vehicles.

On the other hand, if carbon taxes are levied on businesses, the taxes tend to encourage businesses to move their production to other, lower-cost countries. The shift in production leads to the use of more coal for electricity, rather than less. In theory, carbon taxes could be paired with a very high tax on imported goods made with coal, but this has not been done. Without such a pairing, carbon taxes seem likely to raise world CO2 emissions.

7.  Steady State Economy. Herman Daly was the editor of a book in 1973 called Toward a Steady State Economy, proposing that the world work toward a Steady State economy, instead of growth. Back in 1973, when resources were still fairly plentiful, such an approach would have acted to hold off  Limits to Growth for quite a few years, especially if zero population growth were included in the approach.  

Today, it is far too late for such an approach to work. We are already in a situation with very depleted resources. We can’t keep up current production levels if we want to–to do so would require greatly ramping up energy production because of the rising need for energy investment to maintain current production, discussed in Item (1) of Our Energy Predicament. Collapse will probably be impossible to avoid. We can’t even hope for an outcome as good as a Steady State Economy.

7. Basing Choice of Additional Energy Generation on EROI Calculations. In my view, basing new energy investment on EROI calculations is an iffy prospect at best. EROI calculations measure a theoretical piece of the whole system–”energy at the well-head.” Thus, they miss important parts of the system, which affect both EROI and cost. They also overlook timing, so can indicate that an investment is good, even if it digs a huge financial hole for organizations making the investment. EROI calculations also don’t consider repairability issues which may shorten real-world lifetimes.

Regardless of EROI indications, it is important to consider the likely financial outcome as well. If products are to be competitive in the world marketplace, electricity needs to be inexpensive, regardless of what the EROI calculations seem to say. Our real problem is lack of investment capital–something that is gobbled up at prodigious rates by energy generation devices whose costs occur primarily at the beginning of their lives. We need to be careful to use our investment capital wisely, not for fads that are expensive and won’t hold up for the long run.

8. Demand Reduction. This really needs to be the major way we move away from fossil fuels. Even if we don’t have other options, fossil fuels will move away from us. Encouraging couples to have smaller families would seem to be a good choice.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1acnrhN Tyler Durden

Back in December 2013, as we do after every periodic bout of irrational exuberance by Goldman’s chief economist Jan Hatzius et al (who can forget our post from December 2010 “Goldman Jumps Shark, Goes Bullish, Hikes Outlook” in which Hatzius hiked his 2011 GDP forecast from 1.9% to 2.7% only to end the year at 1.8%, and we won’t even comment on the longer-term forecasts) designed merely to provide a context for Goldman’s equity flow and prop-trading axes, we said it was only a matter of time before Goldman (and the rest of the Goldman-following sellside econo-penguins) is forced to once again trim its economic forecasts. Overnight, two months after our prediction, the FDIC-backed hedge fund did just that, after Goldman’s Hatzius announced that “we have taken down our GDP estimates to 2½% in Q1 and 3% in Q2, from 2.7% [ZH: actually 3.0% as of Thursday] and 3½% previously.”

That didn’t take long – we expect many more such cuts in the weeks and months to come after Wall Street is shocked, shocked, to learn that the market once again frontran a huge recovery that is not coming simply because the H2 bounce was entirely due to massive inventory accumulation (and a housing shopping spree that was solely driven by speculative investors reflecting nothing but the Fed’s easy money), that now has to be liquidated and subtract over 1% from full year GDP. That, and of course the coming EM crash as a result of what everyone will soon realize is a world in which not only did nobody get the “tapering is priced in” memo, but also the plunge in markets which results in a reflexive drop in the economy that may in fact end up in recession, forcing the Fed to do what once again, what it always does – print.

So how does Hatzius explain the reason for this now traditional overoptimism? He doesn’t, instead assigning it to – get this – “spurious weakness.” He does, however, mention the impact of the recent EM turbulence in the context of data that has been week for a month with a phenomenon that only took center stage a week or so ago is disingenuous at best, and PhD economist-stupid at worst. Which is why he tries to talk it down:

Both the US economic data and financial market sentiment have taken a turn for the worse since the start of the year. Exhibit 1 shows that our US-MAP surprise index has fallen into negative territory and our current activity indicator (CAI) has slowed from an average of 3.1% in October/November to 2.3% in December, primarily because of the weakness in the employment and housing indicators.

 

The US Economy Is Not Very Exposed to EM

 

What lies behind this weaker news? A tempting explanation is the turbulence in emerging economies and markets. As our EM Markets team has noted, we do not expect the difficulties there to disappear quickly as they reflect a need for significant adjustments in a range of countries in an environment of higher global real interest rates and lower commodity prices. So at least the headline risk from the EM troubles for US financial markets is likely to persist for some time.

 

However, as our Global Economics team has noted, the exposure of developed market economies to EM troubles is quite limited, and this conclusion applies particularly to the US. Exhibit 2 provides a summary of US exposures to emerging markets through three channels: (1) merchandise exports as a share of US GDP, (2) banking system claims as a share of US bank assets, and (3) corporate profits by the EM subsidiaries of US multinationals as a share of overall US corporate profits. In each case, we show both the overall exposure to emerging markets and the exposure to a smaller group of key EM economies in recent focus (Argentina, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia and India).

 

 

Broadly speaking, the exposures look small. US exports are worth 5% of GDP when looking at EM economies broadly and 0.7% when looking at the most affected countries. If we assume a 10% drop in overall EM import demand as a result of the recent troubles this would mechanically shave 0.5 percentage points from real GDP growth. But this is close to a worst-case assumption, as it would match the worst point of the very severe Asian crisis of the late 1990s. It is also worth noting that our US GDP forecast already assumes a small negative contribution from net trade. So we do not see our forecast as particularly vulnerable in this respect.

 

US banking exposures are likewise quite small, accounting for 5.5% of total banking assets when looking at EM overall and 1.9% when looking at the most affected countries. Although the exposures obviously vary significantly between different types of banks, it is difficult to see how credit losses in EM would deal a large blow to the US banking system short of a worst-case outcome for the EM cycle. Finally, the profitability of the US corporate sector is also not particularly exposed to trouble in its EM subsidiaries, at least in aggregate. We estimate that EM subsidiaries account for 5.5% of US corporate profits overall and for 1.0% when looking only at the most troubled economies. Again, short of a very bad outcome with significant contagion across EM and the broader global economy, this is a manageable issue.

So… not very exposed to EMs? Curious then what Jan would say about LTCM’s exposure to the EMs in 1997, and to the US financial system as a result. “Modest at best” perhaps… unless of course Goldman was loaded to the gills with shorts at the time and was seeking to liquidate. We will be sure to keep a close eye on how fast it takes Jan Hatzius to flip flop on this key issue, as the EM crisis subtracts another 1%+ from US 2014 GDP.

Which brings us to the topic of Inventories. Here is what we, lacking an Econ PhD or an entire economics department at our disposal, said in early December: “Here Is The “Growth” – Inventory Hoarding Accounts For Nearly 60% Of GDP Increase In Past Year“, and provided the following chart:

We concluded: “The problem with inventory hoarding, however, is that at some point it will have to be “unhoarded.” Which is why expect many downward revisions to future GDP as this inventory overhang has to be destocked.”

We were two months ahead of the curve. So here is Goldman doing precisely what we said would happen, namely cutting its GDP forecast precisely due to upcoming inventory destocking.

Inventory Payback, But Probably Only in the GDP Data

 

There is another, more technical factor that probably will subtract noticeably from GDP growth in early 2014, namely the sharp pickup in inventory accumulation in the GDP data for the second half of 2013 and the likely payback over the next few quarters. As shown in Exhibit 3, the level of inventory investment stood at 0.9% of GDP in 2013Q4, toward the top end of the range over the past 25 years. Such a rapid pace is unlikely to be sustained, and this probably implies a mechanical negative impulse from inventories to GDP growth over the next couple of quarters. Inventories are likely to be a drag in 2014H1, and we have taken down our GDP estimates to 2½% in Q1 and 3% in Q2, from 2.7% and 3½% previously.

Once again, we will one up Goldman and say that since the downswing in any economic data set always overshoots to both the upside and downside, the impact from the inventory liquidation, once commenced will tumble well below the unchanged line, and by the end of 2014, adversely impact economic output by as much as 2%. Add the impact from EMs and suddenly you are looking at a very realistic recession scenario.

So what to expect in the coming days? It is here that Goldman’s chief economist, once providing respectable insight, gets downright sad. As in “respected man becoming a clown” sad. Case in point: we are said to expect better January payroll number because while January was freezing, the payroll survey week was warmer than normal. It really doesn’t get any more ridiculous than this. But hey, if “economists” want to believe that the weather is impacting payrolls, or housing (which we proved conclusively had nothing to do with the weather), they are welcome to do so. Also believe in the tooth fairy, or that Joe LaVorgna’s forecasting track record is better than Groundhog Phil’s. Cutting straight to Goldman’s failed attempt at non-comedy:

Looking for Decent January Data Next Week

 

Consistent with all this, the January ISM and employment data due next week are likely to look reasonably firm. Our preliminary forecast for the nonfarm payroll report is a bounceback to a 200,000 pace of increase. There are two key reasons why we expect the report to look strong:

 

1.    Better weather (yes, really). Although the month of January as a whole was quite cold, the payroll survey week was actually somewhat warmer than normal, and we expect no significant weather impact on the seasonally adjusted level of payrolls this month. Given our estimate that the cold weather in the December survey week depressed the seasonally adjusted level of payrolls last month by about 50,000, this implies a positive weather impact on the payroll change of about 50,000.

 

2.    Bounceback from spurious weakness. Even excluding the weather impact, the December employment gain looks to be about 50,000 below the recent trend. In our view, this is implausibly weak relative to other job market measures such as jobless claims, Conference Board labor market perceptions, and most hiring surveys. This could result in a bounceback to an above-trend pace even outside the weather impact, although it is also possible that the December reading will be revised up.

 

We also expect a relatively strong household employment survey. In particular, we see a drop in the unemployment rate from 6.7% to 6.6%, partly because the expiration of emergency unemployment benefits at year-end may have caused another drop in labor force participation and partly because we expect a good increase in household employment, which has likewise underperformed job market indicators such as claims. Admittedly, it is also possible that the employment weakness in the establishment and household survey is genuine, and other labor market indicators will soon turn down as well, but that is not our expectation.

It is ours.

Because, gasp, why is it always weakness that is “spurious“? What about spurious strength, especially one derived from $1 trillion in Fed balance sheet expansion which is now tapering, but not before artificially boosting all those other non-hard data indicators that “spuriously” are showing a far better economy than what is actually happening on the ground? Or did Goldman’s crack economists forget about this most critical crutch to growth, which as now see all too well, is being pulled long before the economy was anywhere near “escape velocity” or the now defunct virtuous cycle.

In other words, as we predicted on taper day, now that everyone has seen through the latest attempt to talk up the economy, look for all economic indicators to collapse, serving as “justification” not only for the Fed to halt its tapering, but to ultimately boost the one thing it knows how to do: CTRL-P.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1fxzeGG Tyler Durden