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  • https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8848g5/government-agency-warns-global-oil-industry-is-on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown

    The plateauing of conventional crude oil production in January 2005
    was one of the triggers of events leading to the 2008 global financial
    crash, according to the report. As debt built-up in the subprime
    mortgage sector, the crude oil plateau drove up the underlying energy
    costs for the entire economy making that debt more difficult to
    repay—and eventually resulting in catastrophic defaults. The report
    warns that “unresolved” dynamics in the global energy system were only
    temporarily relieved due to "Quantitative Easing"—the creation of new
    money by central banks. A correction is now overdue, it warns.

    The report says we are not running out of oil—vast reserves exist—but
    says that it is becoming uneconomical to exploit it. The plateauing of
    crude oil production was “a decisive turning point for the industrial
    ecosystem,” with demand shortfall being made up from liquid fuels
    which are far more expensive and difficult to extract—namely,
    unconventional oil sources like crude oil from deep offshore sources,
    oil sands, and especially shale oil (also known as "tight oil,"
    extracted by fracking).

    These sources require far more elaborate and expensive methods of
    extraction, refining and processing than conventional crude mined
    onshore, which has driven up costs of production and operations.

    Yet the shift to more expensive sources of oil to sustain the global
    economy, the report finds, is not only already undermining economic
    growth, but likely to become unsustainable on its own terms. In short,
    we have entered a new era of expensive energy that is likely to
    trigger a long-term economic contraction.

  • Agreed, I don't think it is looking good. Unless they stop doing the chronic short term thinking and really go for green new deals.

    But what is one to do? If you have a job, should you go nuts and borrow now and get a house, or wait for it to really go wrong with lots of defaulting and a huge houseprice drop, at the risk of high interest rates/not being able to get a mortgage?

    Wages are still lower in real terms compared to 2008, what is going to happen with yet another crash? Nothing to good perhaps...

  • or wait for it to really go wrong with lots of defaulting and a huge houseprice drop

    Been waiting for twenty years

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