David Martin

15 More Thoughts on the Current Crisis

An excellent post, as always. I always bookmark your articles.
Here is a further not-so-cheery thought:
Check out the Financial Times for details of the IEA's report on oil prospects. Add in the fact that present low prices mean that the investment in things like the oil sands just are not happening, and in any case the costs will be vastly more than present low oil prices from easy to exploit fields, and it is clear that oil availability will be greatly restricted.
This means that any sort of recovery will almost immediately bang up against an oil price going through the roof, bringing the recovery to a grinding halt.
A real, sustainable recovery will need both present levels of debt to be unwound, together with the jailing of the criminals who have lied and lied again about asset valuations to keep their ponzi schemes going, or they will continue to pillage the system instead of undertaking any real investment in productive assets, and also the replacement of present energy systems.
We are looking at a 20 years, at minimum.