Ponzi Schemes

Carlo aka Charles Ponzi was a famous swindler from the 1920’s who used an elaborate pyramid scheme to reward earlier investors by using newer investor money, much the same way as Bernie Madoff did. Because of the scale of things, I think $50 billion trumps a few million and we should rename it a Madoff

Bye Bye American Pie

The end of suburbia is near and almost no one gets it yet. The whole gigantic misallocation of national wealth has probably ended soon to be followed by the great national garage sale. My borther who lives in California’s central valley told me that unemployment has jumped to 11 %In Merced a town just north

Swiss and Icelandic solutions

This is the quiet time in Jackson Hole. The motor homes have long since departed down the winding road in Hoback Canyon, the hotels are empty, the restaurants slow. The recession is starting to show. The local paper historically had pages of want ads to a few columns of rentals and that ratio has reversed

Weekend Update

The first winter snows have already arrived and we will see more fresh snow this weekend. The pond is beginning to freeze, a metaphor for the world economy.Icelandreview.com carried a recent survey that said 50% of Icelanders age 18-24 would consider emigrating compared to 33% aged 18-75 . These are stunning numbers especially when you

Why Jackson Hole needs to be worried

The worldwide economic and financial collapse could be coming soon to a town near you. In case you haven’t noticed the entire world is enveloped in an unprecedented deflationary collapse of equities, real estate and commodities. It is not just the magnitude and breadth of the collapse that is stunning, it is the rapidity of

IEA World Energy Outlook

The International Energy Agency headquartered in Paris is an organization that looks at all aspects of world energy use. On November 12th they will release their widely anticipated World Energy Outlook report. It seems that the Financial Times in London yesterday leaked a portion of that report and the numbers if true are stunning.   

What goes on in Iceland, does not stay in Iceland

I felt I was remiss not to share the beautiful currency of Iceland which at the moment is frozen for the purposes of international exchange.Today’s news from Iceland is the big jump in the national interest rate from their central bank from 12% to 18%. It was just 2 weeks ago that the rate was

Auschwitz Guards

You might think this photo a bizarre image to be in a blog dealing with Peak Oil and striving toward sustainability. But it was the quote from a reader of Richard Heinberg in the Post Carbon Institute web site that inspired me. I had talked to family and friends this weekend concerning who was culpable

Speed and Complexity

I continue to study previous panics and depressions and the search for pictures to illustrate this blog has been an education. There is a paucity of images from depressions previous to the 1930’s, which limits my choices. It is the sheer pace of economic events that astound, not so much the actual events themselves. I

How did this happen?

It should be obvious by now that I am a fan of the haunting photographs of Dorthea Lange who chronicled the people of the Great Depression. I have spent the past week researching the causes of the previous depressions and panics looking for patterns that might offer clues and perhaps help in dealing with the