HO LEE SHYTT!!!

Jiggs, you just don't understand the implications of exponential growth, do you? Sad.

I do... Quite comprehensively, as my posts citing Albert Bartlett years ago here make rather clear (a premise - population growth - which you ignored, as always).

What I "don't understand" is how you can baselessly assume "exponential growth" in test-phase alternative energy can continue, perpetually, without any critical analysis being applied at all.

Yes, exponential growth of any data set on a chart climbs rapidly. No, you don't understand the logistics involved in making it so when it comes to energy production. Sad.

8 more years of Jiggs, lol.

This how delusional you are. I was a mod and not only did I not ban you, I encouraged you to post about peak oil here.

And...



I'm not sure you want to talk about recent economic growth either. Remember how you challenged me about 10 metrics of growth for the duration of 2016? How many were down again?

Wasn't it you who challenged?

Anyway, we couldn't really agree/find enough metrics that were fair for both sides, or provided by the entities in question regularly, so we never agreed to initiate any bet. You just re-wrote forum history, and then trumpeted victory like you always do. Again, there was no bet. It never started.

You continue to hand yourself a trophy based on metrics that are almost entirely enabled by papering over gaping wounds with new mountains of debt. None of it is sustainable (as we're seeing in Europe, Japan, S. America, etc.), and bubbled market volume will not last.

I've challenged any single one of you to explain why global growth forecasts by the World Bank and IMF continuously have to be revised downward each year... None of you have an alternate narrative for why all these countries abroad are failing at the same time. I mean, TS tried to insist it was all because of lazy non-homogeneous people, but that was about as far as it went.

Even by your preferred metrics, real GDP growth for the US for 2016 was estimated at 1.6% ... and that was with ongoing fiscal stimulus measures... Pretty awful.

Face it.... Almost a decade of relentless rounds of global cash injections are simply not working. Why do you think that is?

LOL.

LOL again. I laid out the metrics we had here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1913

Notice you're the one that provided 4 of the 5 measurements. And of course, you disappeared like you always do before proposing the additional 5.

And obviously it wasn't a formal bet (notice that you used 'bet' but I used 'challenge'). But it doesn't change the fact that of the metrics YOU proposed for the challenge that YOU proposed, you lost. Badly.

Edit: And by all means Jiggs, feel free to provide an additional 5 metrics that we can compare January 1st 2017 to December 31st 2017.

Lol, "you're all rewriting forum history" (btw I got nothin')

hahahahaha at Jiggzzzzzz ever providing any metrics or quantifiable predictions of any kind ever ever ever again.

I tried to talk about GDP, saying that can't be his metric. He confused it with the DOW, blamed his mistake on the website. And, never gave any metric, and the same typical defensive strategy, lol GDP. I mean what metric? Ounces of JiggsFoil per capita?

Jiggzzzzz- serious question.

What is wrong with this:

Why isn't stimulating the economy with loose monetary policy and quantitative easing sustainable? What consequences do you foresee from the world's central banks engaging in low interest rates and quantitative easing?

What are the logistical problems associated with solar providing a substantial portion of the world's energy budget?

I didn't ignore Bartlett's laughably simplistic lecture. Population growth is ALREADY not exponential in developed countries. It is flat. So we see from evidence that population growth can and does level off in mature industrial societies.

Of course exponential solar power growth will not continue forever. But what will limit it? Not space, a tiny fraction of the earth's surface would need to be covered with solar panels to supply all our energy needs. Cost? It's already close to competitive with coal and natural gas on price, in 10-20 years it will be even cheaper. And people increasingly want it. The climate denier morons will die off in coming years, and the younger generations are very much pro-solar. What exactly will stop solar from becoming a major energy source?

And, just to be explicit for Jiggsy, its not just people worried about climate change that want solar power (or other sources like wind). People that want to 'live off the grid', people that just want to be self-sufficient, people in more remote areas that don't want the hassle of needing fuel, etc. etc.

It's a significantly more convenient power source in a lot of ways - particularly as it gets cheaper and battery technology improves.

And actually I think that the increasingly pro-solar sentiment will be a fairly minor contributor to solar power growth. Bottom line is it will become cheaper than anything else and that will drive its growth. Unfortunately fossil fuel prices are currently (and in the past) cheaper to consumers than the true societal cost with the externalities from pollution and global warming figured in. If that were factored into the market price for gasoline and electricity from coal and natural gas then the solar revolution would happen even more quickly. Sadly that's not the case. And worse, the oil and gas industry is massively subsidized. That will make getting off fossil fuels take longer, but it will still happen, and imo sooner than is generally thought.

JJ... everything you've championed above is 100% the result of perpetual debt expansion... US household debt is up to something like $12.3 trillion now (auto loans, school loans, credit cards and mortgages). 10th worst rate as % of GDP in the world, actually, ... worse than Portugal.

SO, why is this new level of stratospheric debt suddenly necessary? You don't seem to have an answer to that question. You just point to the ballooned S&P, like a coke head noting their considerable vigor after doing a bump.

Beyond the current debt time bomb, and failing rates of actually paying that debt back, we have the president of the NY Fed actually saying this:

"Whatever the timing, a return to a reasonable pattern of home equity extraction would be a positive development for retailers, and would provide a boost to aggregate growth.”

Yes... by all means, forget 2008, and get back to borrowing against your existing loans... Because that's the only way we get out of the 1.6% growth malaise.

Sound economic strategy there, Mr. Dudley.

Not that anyone is surprised. This is all the high priests of finance know to do anymore.

Keeed, I'll address your solar hopium claims (which you supported with nothing) later.

Why is debt expansion necessary? To stimulate the economy! Why is this a good thing? I don't know bro, all the experts in economics seem to agree that it is prudent and necessary. The burden isn't on me to explain why the economic experts are correct. I'm deferring to them! The burden is on you to explain why exactly what they are doing is wrong. And, predictably you have utterly failed to even begin to explain this.

Also, what in the world is hopium? Why do you keep talking about it? What does it mean?

I'll try to bring some banking skepticism at some point.

Did some forum digging... there's numerous threads on this in the econ forum. I'd ask J.R.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/11...e-debt-553060/

Hopium (n): portmanteau of hope and opium. It is a word people use when you don't act sufficiently concerned about their highly certain and accurate and prediction of the inevitable upcoming zombie apocalypse. Used most often when someone points out that technological progress exists. First known historical use was when Ugg pointed out to Zog that they'd starve because rocks to hit deer over the head with were not limitless in numbers, indicating that the end due to peak rock was nigh, and Zog responded with a short treatise on the potential of bronze to replace rocks as the key to crushing deer skulls.

Update: my internet is still working fine. We never ran out of rocks.

I'm skeptical about the peak rock theory. Can't you reuse a rock after crushing a deer head with it?

Hahaha I was pronouncing it hop ium, like how a rabbit moves. Was very confused

bump

In this context, Joe is shaking his head at you, dumbass... You truly are "easily confused," as you conceded above.

Who was the last US president to not have a single year above 3% growth? Not blaming Obama, merely holding a mirror up to the realities of today. When energy can no longer drive growth, your high priests of finance turn to the only thing they know to do: expanding and monetizing debt. Hopium addicts like you seem to believe a return vibrant growth is inevitable. It isn't. It's over.

And it's over because energy's ability to power the ship is like a slowly dying battery. It's not getting better. It's getting worse.

A historically sluggish GDP isn’t the only concern worth mentioning. Under Obama’s tenure, average annual food stamp enrollment has risen by more than 15 million (compared to 2008). The home ownership rate is the lowest it has been since 1995, the earliest year provided in the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports more than 590,000 Americans say they are not in the labor force because they are discouraged, a figure that’s 26 percent higher than even the worst annual average under George W. Bush. Additionally, the employment-population ratio has been continuously below the 60-percent threshold under Obama; the last time it was this low was 1985.

Of course, if the fallout from net energy decline does not all occur overnight, it must not be happening. Our boiling frogs here are certain of it. I'm sure those miraculous advances in test-phase solar/biodiesel/space laser technology are ready to kick into high gear within the decade. Count on it, because hopium addicts are.

Meanwhile... yeah:

Oil companies just had their worst year since 1940

Global oil/gas discoveries drop to 70-year low

Boeing To Start Trump Era With New Wave Of Downsizing

Deutsche Bank says job cuts will continue

The days of cheap natural gas are over

The real reason your city has no money

Aides: Trump plans a major naval build-up in East Asia to counter China's aggression in South China Sea

Shell exits third major Saudi project

US now 10th on list of world's biggest debt slaves

I mean I was confused because you repeatedly used a made up word that you refused to explain the meaning of. Sure. Hard to see how that makes me "easily confused".

And of course, the economy still seems fine. Not booming, but fine. Unemployment is close to pre-Great Recession levels, gasoline is reasonably priced, the stock market is at all time highs. The Fed is even raising interest rates! Things are fine.