Requires affordable energy for lengthy test phase... Lots of it, in fact. Do you think tech companies are in it for something other than profit? As input costs increase, innovation is curtailed.

Do better

Try not to declare some victory when you're actually reinforcing my point.

Except you're wrong. Fuel required technology first to use. Also, there's much less costs in energy for people to work in labs figuring out new systems for computer chips, etc than driving cars. And with the invent of electric cars, hybrids, better mpg cars, and other fuel cutting inventions it is time you get off your stubborn persistence of thinking you know what is evidence of some dire situation.

Except, I'm not wrong.

You need energy to convert raw materials into any finished product. It's a rather ******ed to pretend electric cars somehow suddenly don't require fossil fuels to make. Not to mention the fact that electric cars can't move freight, can't fertilize crops and can't kill insects for those crops. Just to be clear, electricity isn't an energy source.

What's the price to free cash flow rate of the tech sector these days?

If technology is making progress "cutting fuel", why is it that consumption is higher every year?

In any event... Nope.... Technology - which depends on energy - isn't comparable to the effect energy has on the overall market. Not remotely close.

Good god, yes it does. You have not even gotten the fundamentals of economics down. You just have this preconceived notion as to what economics is.

Go watch youtubes or read about the Solow Growth Models.

There's a reason there's growth, it isn't energy in any real sense. Because the world was stagnant in so far as growth goes in the times of Malthus (whom you line of reasoning reminds me of). Technology existed before fossil fuels. It will exist after it.

So Jiggs will acknowledge humans have always needed energy and that our sources of energy have changed over time. But for some reason, even though we have always adapted and overcome obstacles in acquiring energy for the economy to grow, he expects the world economy to collapse sometime in our near future. Because somehow now things are different?! It doesn't make sense.

No, it doesn't. Your noticeable aversion to my very valid points aside - technology, like every other sector of global markets, depends upon energy (the cheaper the cost inputs of that energy, the better) ... This also includes industrials, consumer goods, health care, telecom, utilities and on and on and on. When the price of energy rises ahead of normal inflation, growth in those sectors suffers greatly.

Technology isn't immune to this, especially test-phase technology that perpetually earns the label "technology of the future... and always will be."

It must suck coming to grips with the fact that your entire college education only gave you half the story, and that what you do hold so vitally sacred is a doctrine that utterly depends upon false assumptions.

It is YOU who hasn't got the fundamentals down, especially when you try to decouple energy from economics, which is ... well, fundamentally ridiculous.

But I'm sure "electric cars" will fix everything. I mean, electricity (and the grid for it) doesn't require fossil fuels or anything.

LOL... this is steelhouse-level fail right here. You definitely don't appear to understand what you're talking about. There is no global growth without ever-greater energy consumption.

Less Jim Cramer ... more Limits to Growth...

I swear, it's the same dumb metaphor from cultists of finance. It must be the default rationalization disseminated by your church. Why not go back further and use the tired "stone age didn't end for lack of stones" false equivalency?

Yeah, see, the modern industrial economy doesn't resemble the times of Malthus even a little bit. When Malthus died, the world already had a proven new energy source on the near horizon. The Russians were refining petrol 80 years earlier. There is no replacement today, and hope is not a policy. So, yeah, kinda different.

Even a cursory perusal of the planet's failing biosphere and bubble economy dislocations indicates we are butting up against hard natural limits. That is, unless you're mired in bottomless denial, like most parishioners of your cornucopian church.

If you could spotlight a "technology" ready to alleviate even a fraction of our exhaustive 91 million barrels per day in liquid crude consumption, you are welcome to try and write something up. Something tells me you'll bounce right back to vague allusions to "technology," buttressed by baseless promises of "electric cars" as an example.

Jiggs. You are beyond repair.

One of us has schooling to back Economics up with. And the other is not intellectually curious.

Why is that?

So, if I'm wrong about energy =/= growth. Why is it the economy rapidly expanded once there were technological leaps in the 19th century? I mean, gosh, oil wasn't a big thing until the 20th century, and humans kinda had to think up steam engines and things like trains before the cars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solow%E2%80%93Swan_model

So go learn something other than you very very narrow view of what drives growth.

Jiggs still stuck on demand curve basics I see.

Yeah, ummmm.... the steam engine relied mostly on coal, which A) is a fossil fuel that has also always been quite finite, and B) was replaced by far-more versatile crude oil ... when you can allude to anything that's ready to replace crude, you may have a point. We're still waiting.

It is interesting to note that I'm willing and able to answer your challenge, yet you run and hide from mine.

Again, you're failing badly in your lame attempt to pretend growth is some magical phenomenon. To maintain growth, you need ever more abundant (and affordable) energy for consumption. There is no way around it, just like there's no way around the basic Laws of Thermodynamics, which you undoubtedly didn't study during your soft science economics classes.

The question has nothing to do with the demand curve, and everything to do with his premise that efficiency allows for global growth. It doesn't. Efficiency tends to only increase consumption, so my question (which he - and you - avoided) still stands.

As the forum's alleged economics big d***, you might wanna re-acquaint yourself with Jevons Paradox.

No, efficiency does not just increase consumption.

No, I have not claimed to be the forums econ big dick, but I do know basic **** like they fact that energy IS the economy is nonsense.

I didn't say steam engines were barren of fossil fuels. Quit misrepresenting what I actually typed.

You have zero understanding of economics, Jiggs. No one said growth is a magical phenomenon. It is tied to innovation (technology). Not because people use more and more gas. Before fossil fuel burning engines someone had to think them up. It's plain. If you don't understand it then you are completely helpless.

Social Sciences is still more scientific than your theories that you aren't even equipped or trained to test. However, I know how to hypo test use Z and T tables, etc. I don't think I am the one who has made predictions of the EU ending in year XXXX and being wrong about.

But you like 9/11 conspiracy theorists have too much hubris to actually go look into other possibilities.

So, Jevons Paradox is a myth? Or the rate of global consumption increasing every year is a big conspiracy? Do tell how your proclamation is so, despite the fact that the data isn't.

No, you just act like it. Especially the pretense that growth doesn't require energy.

Except that every sector of the economy depends on energy in some form or another.

Your soft science doctrine continues to fail under the weight of reality.

Jiggs, debating you is like debating a random word generator, what you spew back has only a tangential connection with the posts you are responding to.

Then why don't you actually attempt to "represent" yourself rather than merely repeating "you don't understand" over and over again?

You implied that technology allowed for 19th century growth, when in fact a more versatile, abundant and affordable form of ENERGY spurred the technology.

Cart before horse much?

Uh huh. You keep saying this. The reality is I understand that it's a soft science, and you are wholly devoted to the false assumptions it rests upon. You're such a devoted zealot, that you'll attempt to make exceptions to hard science so that your "unscientific" doctrine seems to be rational.

As to your demand curve rationale, do tell how human beings will "just buy less" (and never riot) when the price of an essential good (water, crude oil) grows too expensive?

When you attempt to decouple energy from the economy, you most certainly ARE implying it's a magical phenomenon.

LOL at "thinking them up" yielding growth. You STILL need the energy to DO the work, genius. Whether that be wood, human labor, animal labor, wind/water mill, etc. You can "think" all you like. But it's action that gets the work done. Or do you believe you can "think" long and hard enough, and telekinesis will develop?

Profound ironies.

LOL... The Laws of Thermodynamics aren't a "theory." And for all your braggadocio, you are the one rejecting hard science, not me.

So arrogant, as if creating money from fiat is a sustainable solution to growing insolvency. The EU's immediate fate got "saved" by central banks. For now.

I've yet to hear any of you "Team No Problem" drones posit a hypothesis of a world today that didn't QE itself out of trouble. That's because you know the world is propped up, the can kicked down the road a few years, but the fundamental problem remains. .... Gosh, is growth back over 3% yet?

No. Not hubris... Just some common sense, and an acceptance of the planet's very natural limits. You should try it sometime.

You sound like a poster that just lead himself down a dead end and doesn't know how to get back out.

If you could explain how global consumption rises every year despite gains in "technology," you would... It is notable that you only acknowledge some economics terms, and ignore others.

"You drop a stone, known forces determine its trajectory. You change a price, and economic theory can tell what mighthappen. It can even tell you -- with mathematical precision -- what should happen if that price change is met by fully rational actors with full information.

But it cannot tell you what will happen, nor will it ever be able to do so."

- Jared Bernstein

I could explain it to you if you'd bother to learn what a demand curve is. That's beyond you so I can't.

Well, duh, Jiggs.

Causation =/= Correlation.

However, you told 2p2 what will happen. EU ending. You were wildly wrong. But it didn't even give you a pause to reflect on why you were wrong apparently. You just brushed it off as a timing thing.

"I keep telling you kids... just you wait..."

No, that's where you retreat to. Instead, you can't explain it because you keep bashing your head up against hard science, and irrational market behaviors. Technology and "efficiency" measures don't really atone for slowing growth amid rising energy prices. Becoming more efficient only leads to increased consumption. This is well documented.

Awww.... I'm sorry that you and your pupil here are drawing dead, but it's not a bad thing to admit your doctrine of choice relies on many false assumptions.

Gee, "technology" sure isn't curtailing consumption.



Even with this, growth has slowed 35-50% because the world can't get the amount of energy it needs... You know, to grow at the rate capitalism "requires." Quite a paradox, I know. Surely technology with fix everything.

Again, since you don't know what a demand curve is I cant explain it to you

(pro-tip: that is not a graph of a demand curve)
(pro-tip 2: increased efficiency does not lead to nearly a 1-to-1 increase in energy consumption)

I didn't say it was, dip****. If you could read, I'm indicating that consumption keeps rising, relentlessly, because if it doesn't, growth stops. Technology doesn't fix it, unless you can point to a magic new substance the world is ready to unveil.

Oh look, Jiggs complains about the level of discourse in the forum then lashes out angrily at things he doesn't understand. Never seen that before. Please Jiggs, if you procreate, seek professional help so you don't pass on your behavioral failures to your kids.

Why are you looking for some magic on off switch where technology "fixes it", whatever it rather than an evolution of cost improvement for alternative energy sources and increased energy efficiency?

What does that OECD line look like if you ran the graph back 100 years, what do you think the slope of the non-OECD line evolves into, and what do you think it looks like when overlaying slowing population growth?

Why do you think that graph supports this statement (hint: its has to do with you not understanding how demand curves work)

Now respond angrily, and throw in one of your stupid awwwwwws. You can either educate yourself or we can continue to point, mock, and laugh at you much like we point, mock, and laugh at the bahbahmickeys and silvermans of the forum. You are about on their level with this stuff.

I didn't complain about the level of discourse. I merely noted it was horrible, and that everyone is to blame. Huge difference. No where did I advocate "dear forum, please stop being awful" nor "dear mods, please make people behave." That would be whiners like you, while, conversely, portraying the most douchey behavior that exists here.

That applies to you more than me, you perpetual fraud. Your kids deserve better than a doctrine that has no actual mathematical application.

I don't. Your pupil does. He thinks growth can occur if you "think about it" enough, irrespective of available energy.

I guess because the "evolution" has only led to ever more expensive alternatives. Face it: Sweet crude was as good as it gets, certainly in terms of bang for buck, abundance and versatility.

You can't effectively trumpet the wonders of technology and efficiency when, in fact, the long-term price keeps rising, and consumption hasn't abated.

Just to be clear: You realize it goes horse, then cart. It's energy availability that yields population growth. Not the other way around, right genius?

Slowed population growth is a result of affordable energy supply shortfall. If we still had trillions of barrels at $30, ummm, yeah... Probably 8-9 billion by now.

Which statement? You're fairly terrible at writing clearly, and have been for quite some time now.

In the meantime, I think the graph shows that oil is about as inelastic as food and water, and people will need it at any price ... up through the point where they get violent for it. ... Which is what we're currently seeing all over the planet.

I only respond that way because you routinely act like a condescending dick. If you could ever post without being a troll, you'd receive the same in return.

But apparently you don't have to, right? LOL

No, that would be you. And as long as you keep insisting energy can be decoupled from the economy, and somehow isn't necessary for growth, you'll continue to look uneducated... and I'll continue to point mock and laugh at you. Your position in this debate is fundamentally the same as that of steelhouse.

I know your own rage posting manifests itself in this condescending way of yours, but it's not my fault you refuse to get your head around the fact that energy drives growth. "Free market solutions" do not.