Shit is hitting the fan

[Zeke]

19 minutes ago, #00Buck said:

There are no houses on the waterfront in downtown Toronto. 

The only thing you can buy is a condo. 

Sorry, thinking of my area

But do not buy houses on the water in the mid-south east coast.

[Gamedog]

8 minutes ago, Zeke said:

Sorry, thinking of my area

But do not buy houses on the water in the mid-south east coast.

dont buy houses there period

[Rassah]

1 hour ago, I Did It For The Cat Girls said:

The amount of passive-aggressive posting and shitty trolling in this thread is ridiculous. 

I'll take your word for it. I'm mostly ignoring those users (skipping without reading)

1 hour ago, #00Buck said:

The aquarium wasn't there until 2013.

*shrug* I'll take your word for it? I only go there once every few years. You know the area I'm talking about at least.

1 hour ago, #00Buck said:

This. The waterfront is incredibly expensive. You pricing is way off. Maybe your thick glasses were catching lamp glare and you didn't see the prices correctly.

You know how you drive from the southwest (from Niagara), and you're up on the highway way above everything before you get into that downtown area where the aquarium and CN tower are? Where you can look right into the apartment windows as you drive by? Those apartments used to be the ones way cheap some time in 05/06. They're not exactly on the waterfront.

And yes, I know that there are a few "downtowns," one by CN tower, one at Yonge-Dundas Square, etc. It's a big city, and I've walked most of it.

1 hour ago, RTDragon said:

You are totally hopeless Rassah why argue with everyone when it's clear your bitcoins can't buy you happiness. I really doubt that considering one most young people will screw up job interviews based on their attitude.

I don't understand what you are saying! Please add some commas. I don't know what considering one most people is.

1 hour ago, Onnes said:

You know, earlier I was thinking in the back of my mind, "It's going to be shadowstats." But for some reason I believed that was simply too silly to actually happen.

One was shadowstats, one was official stats, and one was a rebuke of shadowstats. Think shadowstats is bunk and want to believe the official rate? Fine. 10% it is. I even said that shadowstats is too high.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Rassah

[Gamedog]

the only time anyone should be forced to run the gauntlet through/around GTA is if theyre going to canada's wonderland or buying a house near barrie

there is no other reason to go by there, you only suffer that if you absolutely have to. barrie has great housing right by a lake.

[AshleyAshes]

2 minutes ago, Rassah said:

You know how you drive from the southwest (from Niagara), and you're up on the highway way above everything before you get into that downtown area where the aquarium and CN tower are? Where you can look right into the apartment windows as you drive by? Those apartments used to be the ones way cheap some time in 05/06. They're not exactly on the waterfront. And yes, I know that there are a few "downtowns," one by CN tower, one at Yonge-Dundas Square, etc. It's a big city, and I've walked most of it.

These condos, they are not apartments, along the Gardiner were NOT $50 000-$75 000 in 2007, nor in any time around that.  You're being rather unsuccessful at convincing any of the Canadians here that they were.  That's prime real estate, it has been sinc the 1970s, and any illusions you have of them having been bargain basement are just that, illusions.

[#00Buck]

4 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

These condos, they are not apartments, along the Gardiner were NOT $50 000-$75 000 in 2007, nor in any time around that.  You're being rather unsuccessful at convincing any of the Canadians here that they were.  That's prime real estate, it has been sinc the 1970s, and any illusions you have of them having been bargain basement are just that, illusions.

Those are not apartments. They are condos and incredibly expensive. I know someone who lives in one of them. Bought it about ten years ago for 2.5 million. 

You don't know what you're talking about. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by #00Buck

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, #00Buck said:

Those are not apartments. They are condos and incredibly expensive. I know someone who lives in one of them. Bought it about ten years ago for 2.5 million. 

You don't know what you're talking about. 

The CHEAP ones go for about $500 000 for 1000sqft, they were certainly NOT 10% of that price ten years ago.  These properties are literally the most attractive properties in the city.

And Rassah wonders why no one takes him seriously when he claims to be good at economics. .

I also find it funny how Rassah thinks that there are 'multiple downtowns', including the Union Station area or the Dundas Square area.  They are all downtown, the same downtown.  Downtown is like everything south of Bloor, East of Dufferin, and West of... I dunno, Jarvis?

[Jerry]

$50K condos in downtown Toronto? lolwut

My dad paid $61K for a bungalow in the small town I was born and raised in.. 

 

In 1992.

[WileyWarWeasel]

Perhaps one good thing about Canada being in recession will be lower house prices.

Whatever the future holds we can't expect renewable energy will help much:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/

Interesting paragraphs relating to electrifying stuff:

"

Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms - and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.

In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive - which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably). This in turn means that everyone would become miserably poor and economic growth would cease (the more honest hardline greens admit this openly). That, however, means that such expensive luxuries as welfare states and pensioners, proper healthcare (watch out for that pandemic), reasonable public services, affordable manufactured goods and transport, decent personal hygiene, space programmes (watch out for the meteor!) etc etc would all have to go - none of those things are sustainable without economic growth.

"

It's a bit tricky creating economies of scale when the expenses would become too much for any economy to bear well before any major scaling up and innovation happens.

Somewhat simulating oil non-energy products with even more expensive bio alternatives isn't a viable solution given the additional expenses.

Mining plastics from our landfills would be very energy intensive and would at best be a temporary solution. Recycling in general, especially when trying to separate materials used in complex devices such as electronics is also incredibly energy intensive.

Hydrogen is nowhere near a viable solution and it will likely not be in the near future:

http://phys.org/news/2006-12-hydrogen-economy-doesnt.html

Uber may facilitate a reduction in the number of cars, however keep in mind that this would drive demand and thus prices for resources of all sorts even further down. Almost all resource producers at the moment cannot sustain their businesses let alone make profits with current prices.

Even if we ignore the costs of new equipment/infrastructure and simply switch to a new energy source it would still take some time, and while still relying on oil and other fossil fuels this would drive demand and thus prices for them even lower. Oil and gas companies were not doing well last year when prices were higher:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-25/oil-bankruptcies-hit-highest-level-crisis-and-theres-more-come-fed-warns

Batteries will become better over time however they will still be a more costly way of storing and transferring energy compared to the simple fuel tank. As for relying on multiple electricity sources, see the above quote (even electricity obtained through a source other than renewables would require a monumental investment in balancing/storage/transmission/etc equipment. It will be especially hard to obtain funds for this given what's coming).

[Barnectomy]

lol people think shit is bad now, just wait until machines replace all of our jobs. That's when the whole fucking system comes crashing down.

12 hours ago, Azure said:

Why does anyone eat ramen at all? not real actual ramen but that nasty 34 cent a package plastic tasting shit. I get that you are either too lazy to learn how to cook, or get a job during college, or any other lame excuse for putting that toxic salt lick garbage tier food into your body, but please dont say its tasty. Stop fooling yourselves

Nigga WHAT?! Do not deny the spicy chicken

KD is good and all, but I still like Hamburger Helper the most.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Barnectomy

[Spot]

You fucking plebs, get on my Indomie level.

[Jerry]

8 minutes ago, Barnectomy said:

lol people think shit is bad now, just wait until machines replace all of our jobs. That's when the whole fucking system comes crashing down.

That's by biggest concern. While not all the workforce will be replaced by robots, I can easily see 30% of it kicked out within 20 years. And those are the most optimistic estimations. Others expect 50% or even 80%. Even just 30% of jobs robotized will probably boost the unemployment level to what was seen during the Great Depression.

But no matter what, it's going to blow, one way or another. 

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

We are not going to get replaced by robots. Christ people, do you know who you sound like right now? I'll give you a hint:

[WileyWarWeasel]

4 minutes ago, Sidewalk Surfboard said:

We are not going to get replaced by robots. Christ people, do you know who you sound like right now? I'll give you a hint:

You're only saying that because you're one of the robots/immigrants/communists/etc that's gonna take our jobs ;V

[Rassah]

3 hours ago, #00Buck said:

Those are not apartments. They are condos and incredibly expensive. I know someone who lives in one of them. Bought it about ten years ago for 2.5 million. 

You don't know what you're talking about. 

Hey, I'm just saying what I saw on the banners hanging off the buildings back when they were still under construction. Maybe it said $150 instead of $50? Fuck, it's been ten years ago. You don't expect me to remember what I saw on a side of a building from ten years ago, do you?

Not sure why Ashley thinks me not remembering right what those condos costs has anything to do with economics. Sounds kinda stupid.

@WileyWarWeasel That's quite a lot to cover. I feel that article misses some things, and assumes the change will be very rapid. Like, suddenly we're out of oil, and everyone has to change over. I doubt that will happen. We still have lots of oil left around the world. We are slowly electrifying more and more things, and people are slowly buying more renewable options, like rooftop solar panels and wind turbines. Yes, it will be an unprecedented change that uses a lot of energy, but more and more of that energy will be "free" as it increasingly comes from renewables, and if done over a long time, its still doable. Loot at what we did for the internet. That required an unprecedented amount of fiberoptic cables laid around the world, routers to organize the traffic, radios and WiFi to spread it to places where cables don't reach... But after a decade of two it just happened without anyone really planning or noticing the whole thing.

It also seems to ignore technological innovation and assumes this change will have to rely on current technologies. There are new carbon based batteries being developed which won't need rare earth metals, and continuing improvements in solar and wind, as well as wave, small nuclear, and even fusion energy sources.

Even hydrogen, while being an overly expensive option ten years ago, can now be created as a byproduct of a lot of current processes, as long as you have time to wait for it. That's the tradeoff with a lot of this new energy: if you're willing to wait, it can be cheaper (like waiting on a solar panel to charge up a battery).

As for those oil and gas bankruptcies, they are happening for the exact opposite reason: because oil has gotten so much cheaper due in part to so many new sources of it being discovered, and in part because OPEC has started pumping so much more of it and flooding the market with it. Shale oil and deep drilling companies, which rely on a costlier source of oil, simply couldn't compete. But that shale oil will still be there for us when sweet crude starts running low and goes up in price again.

Really, for all of this, the question is how much time do we have. If it's ten years, then yeah, we're fucked. If it's 50 or more, I think we'll be fine. Hopefully more people can install solar panels on their roofs and buy Tesla cars in the meantime.

 

21 minutes ago, Jerry said:

That's my biggest concern. While not all the workforce will be replaced by robots, I can easily see 30% of it kicked out within 20 years. And those are the most optimistic estimations. Others expect 50% or even 80%. Even just 30% of jobs robotized will probably boost the unemployment level to what was seen during the Great Depression.

But no matter what, it's going to blow, one way or another. 

There's a very important factor that people don't consider in this issue which makes it a falacy: automation makes things much cheaper.

So, while 30% of the people may become unemployed or underemployed, the things that got automated may become so much cheaper as a result that those same people can still afford them nonetheless. For example, you may be working min wage at McD's for $7.50/h, and working full time can afford 8 of their $7.50 meals a day. Automation comes, kicks you out of a job, you can only scrounge up maybe an hour of word a day, but due to automation that McD's meal now only costs $1. So, despite you working less, you can still almost afford 8 of those meals a day.

We used to work doing hard manual labor 15 hours a day just to survive. Thanks to automation, we are working fairly simple and easy jobs 8 hours a day, while enjoying much better lifestyles. If automation ends up creating 100% unemployment, that's a GOOD thing.

[Barnectomy]

5 minutes ago, Sidewalk Surfboard said:

We are not going to get replaced by robots. Christ people, do you know who you sound like right now? I'll give you a hint:

Uhh it's not a conspiracy theory, it's simply inevitable. Technology is quickly advancing. It's cheaper and more efficient to keep machines running than it will be to pay a human's salary. This kind of thing has already been happening for years! Add in artificial intelligence and soon we'll be seeing little need for human labor.

[AlexInsane]

Rassah, it's a good thing I can't reach you through the internet and make you regret ever typing this shit. 

I bet even your goldfish committed suicide rather than hang around with you, didn't it? You just inspire people to want to kill themselves rather than wait to see the dystopian future you inevitably predict all while sucking huge hairy Bitcoin cock. 

Here's a piece of friendly advice - don't type ideas like this out. People will like you more. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by AlexInsane

[Gamedog]

6 minutes ago, AlexInsane said:

Rassah, it's a good thing I can't reach you through the internet and make you regret ever typing this shit.

 

[AlexInsane]

3 minutes ago, Gamedog said:

 

Hey now. That's pretty harsh. My moobs point down, not to the side. Big difference, buddy. 

And well, y'know, it's true. I mean, after reading the kinds of things Rassah types, my hands just sort of, kinda, y'know, convulse. Open and shut themselves of their own accord. And for some reason I keep visualizing throttling someone the way Homer did with Bart. But I'm sure that's all a coincidence. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by AlexInsane

[Rassah]

Alex, I'm actually a giddy bouncy optimist. Hell, I'm an optimist to a fault. Even when things are crashing and burning around me, I still always find a ray of sunshine and cling onto it. Even if my world completely collapsed around me, I'd probably think it's an awesome adventure or something.

Which makes me posting this that much worse...

Hell, even in this case I'm optimistic. Some of the major things that may collapse would be the institutions that have caused this problem in the first place. Institutions which have been exploiting people for a century (banks and such). Some of this chaos may get people to finally change their ways, become more responsible, and less trustworthy of those who would take advantage of them. Some of the things that break may cause people to innovate to create even better and more resilient things. I think, after the dust is settled, we're going to end up in a world MUCH better than what we have today, as opposed to some Mad Max like dystopia.

I just posted that as a heads up warning to prepare in the meantime, so people can be not caught off guard, weather the storm, and come out on the other side.

 

By the way, what makes you think the future I predict is dystopian?

Edited January 8, 2016 by Rassah

[AlexInsane]

Humanity redundant

Collapse of civilization as we know it

The Walking Dead: Reality Edition

Bitcoin barons

Yeah, definitely dystopian. My only consolation is that with any luck we'll all be dead due to comets or volcano death cloud activity before this happens. 

Edited January 8, 2016 by AlexInsane

[Wrecker]

24 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Hey, I'm just saying what I saw on the banners hanging off the buildings back when they were still under construction. Maybe it said $150 instead of $50? Fuck, it's been ten years ago. You don't expect me to remember what I saw on a side of a building from ten years ago, do you?

Not sure why Ashley thinks me not remembering right what those condos costs has anything to do with economics. Sounds kinda stupid.

@WileyWarWeasel That's quite a lot to cover. I feel that article misses some things, and assumes the change will be very rapid. Like, suddenly we're out of oil, and everyone has to change over. I doubt that will happen. We still have lots of oil left around the world. We are slowly electrifying more and more things, and people are slowly buying more renewable options, like rooftop solar panels and wind turbines. Yes, it will be an unprecedented change that uses a lot of energy, but more and more of that energy will be "free" as it increasingly comes from renewables, and if done over a long time, its still doable. Loot at what we did for the internet. That required an unprecedented amount of fiberoptic cables laid around the world, routers to organize the traffic, radios and WiFi to spread it to places where cables don't reach... But after a decade of two it just happened without anyone really planning or noticing the whole thing.

It also seems to ignore technological innovation and assumes this change will have to rely on current technologies. There are new carbon based batteries being developed which won't need rare earth metals, and continuing improvements in solar and wind, as well as wave, small nuclear, and even fusion energy sources.

Even hydrogen, while being an overly expensive option ten years ago, can now be created as a byproduct of a lot of current processes, as long as you have time to wait for it. That's the tradeoff with a lot of this new energy: if you're willing to wait, it can be cheaper (like waiting on a solar panel to charge up a battery).

As for those oil and gas bankruptcies, they are happening for the exact opposite reason: because oil has gotten so much cheaper due in part to so many new sources of it being discovered, and in part because OPEC has started pumping so much more of it and flooding the market with it. Shale oil and deep drilling companies, which rely on a costlier source of oil, simply couldn't compete. But that shale oil will still be there for us when sweet crude starts running low and goes up in price again.

Really, for all of this, the question is how much time do we have. If it's ten years, then yeah, we're fucked. If it's 50 or more, I think we'll be fine. Hopefully more people can install solar panels on their roofs and buy Tesla cars in the meantime.

 

There's a very important factor that people don't consider in this issue which makes it a falacy: automation makes things much cheaper.

So, while 30% of the people may become unemployed or underemployed, the things that got automated may become so much cheaper as a result that those same people can still afford them nonetheless. For example, you may be working min wage at McD's for $7.50/h, and working full time can afford 8 of their $7.50 meals a day. Automation comes, kicks you out of a job, you can only scrounge up maybe an hour of word a day, but due to automation that McD's meal now only costs $1. So, despite you working less, you can still almost afford 8 of those meals a day.

We used to work doing hard manual labor 15 hours a day just to survive. Thanks to automation, we are working fairly simple and easy jobs 8 hours a day, while enjoying much better lifestyles. If automation ends up creating 100% unemployment, that's a GOOD thing.

How do you say things in a half-decent way...

You absolutely fucking do not know half of the shit you're pretending to talk about.

[WileyWarWeasel]

17 minutes ago, Rassah said:

 

@WileyWarWeasel That's quite a lot to cover. I feel that article misses some things, and assumes the change will be very rapid. Like, suddenly we're out of oil, and everyone has to change over. I doubt that will happen. We still have lots of oil left around the world. We are slowly electrifying more and more things, and people are slowly buying more renewable options, like rooftop solar panels and wind turbines. Yes, it will be an unprecedented change that uses a lot of energy, but more and more of that energy will be "free" as it increasingly comes from renewables, and if done over a long time, its still doable. Loot at what we did for the internet. That required an unprecedented amount of fiberoptic cables laid around the world, routers to organize the traffic, radios and WiFi to spread it to places where cables don't reach... But after a decade of two it just happened without anyone really planning or noticing the whole thing.

It also seems to ignore technological innovation and assumes this change will have to rely on current technologies. There are new carbon based batteries being developed which won't need rare earth metals, and continuing improvements in solar and wind, as well as wave, small nuclear, and even fusion energy sources.

Even hydrogen, while being an overly expensive option ten years ago, can now be created as a byproduct of a lot of current processes, as long as you have time to wait for it. That's the tradeoff with a lot of this new energy: if you're willing to wait, it can be cheaper (like waiting on a solar panel to charge up a battery).

As for those oil and gas bankruptcies, they are happening for the exact opposite reason: because oil has gotten so much cheaper due in part to so many new sources of it being discovered, and in part because OPEC has started pumping so much more of it and flooding the market with it. Shale oil and deep drilling companies, which rely on a costlier source of oil, simply couldn't compete. But that shale oil will still be there for us when sweet crude starts running low and goes up in price again.

Really, for all of this, the question is how much time do we have. If it's ten years, then yeah, we're fucked. If it's 50 or more, I think we'll be fine. Hopefully more people can install solar panels on their roofs and buy Tesla cars in the meantime.

World oil production has steadily climbed over time:

http://peakoilbarrel.com/world-oil-yearly-production-charts/

Oil prices have been less steady as of late:

http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/crude-oil.aspx?timeframe=10y

Keep in mind that other resource prices have crashed as well even earlier than oil. Extraction costs on the other hand have steadily risen since we already plucked all the low-hanging fruit.

There will be plenty of oil left in the ground when extraction stops; the problem is not so much the technical availability of oil as it is the cost to extract.

Conventional oil companies require oil prices above $100 per barrel to be viable. Unconventional oil companies (shale, etc) require prices around $120-$140 to be viable depending on the exact source.

Please see the following article to get more of an idea of what sort of construction would be necessary in order to switch to electricity/renewables for industry/vehicles/etc:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/energy-usage-at-three-cubic-miles-of-oil-and-growing-5196

-My own additional note to the above link: renewables are not "free" once they are setup. They require decades (especially if you include storage costs) for them to break even in terms of overall costs associated with creating them. Keep in mind that vehicles and factories and such that extract materials, produce and transport parts for renewable energy infrastructure are almost all fossil fuel powered. Also keep in mind that during this time storage and the renewables themselves would deteriorate and that we do not know the real lifetime of new batteries due to the simple fact that they haven't been around long enough. With all this in mind it may even be possible that renewables may never repay their true costs when you take into account that they are heavily subsidized.

We have been able to fool ourselves into thinking customers/businesses/etc can afford endlessly rising resource/energy costs by the use of increasing levels of debt (remember that since the 1970s debt growth has far outpaced GDP growth).

We appear to be running into the limits of endless debt growth and we now require very cheap energy sources that are also cheap to set up and ideally can work for existing devices.

I'm not saying that such a thing is impossible, however given the following:

-Costs of setting up any new infrastructure, especially electrical infrastructure to replace what was previously powered by fossil fuels

-The world economy has already deteriorated significantly and continues to sink

-There are no *cheap* sources of energy currently available and will not likely be available for years if not decades

-Our world economic system relies on continuous growth and our global financial system relies on debt being repaid

it is unlikely.

[Wrecker]

11 minutes ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Conventional oil companies require oil prices above $100 per barrel to be viable. Unconventional oil companies (shale, etc) require prices around $120-$140 to be viable depending on the exact source.

No. Knock that down about 80%

[Gamedog]

Regardless of how you feel about someone's opinion or argument, threatening them with physical violence "if i meet you not online faggot!!!!!" is lame.

[PastryOfApathy]

1 hour ago, AlexInsane said:

Rassah, it's a good thing I can't reach you through the internet and make you regret ever typing this shit.

"1v1 me offline mutherfuker n see wut happens!!!1"

[ZorroValdez]

Oh goodie, its starting! Time to go grab ol' Cletus an' the boys and get the bunker broke in! *redneck hoots and hollers*

:V

[AshleyAshes]

6 hours ago, Rassah said:

Hey, I'm just saying what I saw on the banners hanging off the buildings back when they were still under construction. Maybe it said $150 instead of $50? Fuck, it's been ten years ago. You don't expect me to remember what I saw on a side of a building from ten years ago, do you?

Rassah's confidence that he understands why more Canadians rent than buy in comparison to those in the United States has shifted from 'Certian' to 'Fuck, it was 10 years ago, maybe I was off by at least $100 000!?  I can't remember that stuff!'  Makes one wonder why he said he remembered it as part of his assertion in the first place.

Edited January 8, 2016 by AshleyAshes

[Khaki]

21 hours ago, Kinharia said:

Wait the recession ended? We're still going through the 2008 one here!

It only just started here about two years ago, the government doesn't seem to care about it either.

 

19 hours ago, Rassah said:

In US, no. In Europe, it might. Greece, Italy, and other economically depressed countries are having nationalist (fascist and communist) movements take hold and rise to power. Don't forget, WW2 happened because of Germany's economic and currency troubles.

My guess is it will just be a series of civil unrests and maybe a civil/proxy war or two, just depends if it escalates from there due to outside involvement.

18 hours ago, Zeke said:

topkek is also tasty :3

The advert for that is great, never seen it for sale though.

17 hours ago, Joel said:

But rassah doge coins are doing great even better in some cases to bitcoins I feel the reason you are so quick to say you don't like it is because you have your stock in bitcoins http://m.mic.com/articles/79017/bitcoin-vs-dogecoin-which-one-is-really-worth-more#.yXW7qqts7

That was a serious thing?

I thought it was just a joke as result of the doge memes and bitcoin's notoriety.

Also, does it have a high user base in China like Bitcoin does?

17 hours ago, Kinharia said:

I already plan to move to either France, Belgium or Germany eventually. Potentially Canada or the US if the right economic conditions allow it.

There has been a lot of work available for backpackers here if you can stand the enviroment.

13 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Canada Thread Is Declared!!!

 

Hats aren't supposed to talk.

7 hours ago, Rassah said:

As opposed to some Mad Max like dystopia.

So no Bartertown?

Edited January 8, 2016 by Khaki

[#00Buck]

3 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Rassah's confidence that he understands why more Canadians rent than buy in comparison to those in the United States has shifted from 'Certian' to 'Fuck, it was 10 years ago, maybe I was off by at least $100 000!?  I can't remember that stuff!'  Makes one wonder why he said he remembered it as part of his assertion in the first place.

Didn't sleep well in the trunk of his prius last night. 

[WileyWarWeasel]

8 hours ago, Wrecker said:

No. Knock that down about 80%

Please see the following article, it's a bit old but overall extraction costs have only gone up since then:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html

“The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120.”

I apologize for my previous wording however, I meant to say that the vast majority require prices over $100.

Please see my previous post regarding how well oil & gas companies did during last year's prices:

11 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Oil and gas companies were not doing well last year when prices were higher:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-25/oil-bankruptcies-hit-highest-level-crisis-and-theres-more-come-fed-warns

 

[Azure]

17 minutes ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Please see the following article, it's a bit old but overall extraction costs have only gone up since then:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html

“The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120.”

I apologize for my previous wording however, I meant to say that the vast majority require prices over $100.

Please see my previous post regarding how well oil & gas companies did during last year's prices:

 

You are so wrong it isnt funny. Exxon Mobil had its most profitable year EVER in 2008 and the average price of a barrel of pil that year was 91 dollars. EVER! So shaddup

Edited January 8, 2016 by Azure
And by most profitable ever, i mean 45 billion dollars

[WileyWarWeasel]

6 minutes ago, Azure said:

You are so wrong it isnt funny. Exxon Mobil had its most profitable year EVER in 2008 and the average price of a barrel of pil that year was 91 dollars. EVER! So shaddup

Exxon's debt to equity and debt to capital ratios have more than doubled from 2010 to 2015 (look at quarterly data):

https://www.stock-analysis-on.net/NYSE/Company/Exxon-Mobil-Corp/Ratios/Long-term-Debt-and-Solvency

Oil prices are lower than 2008:

http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/crude-oil.aspx?timeframe=10y

There are other indicators on that analysis site and elsewhere showing the overall deterioration of the company however I think this covers your sarcastic post nicely

[Rassah]

9 hours ago, AlexInsane said:

Humanity redundant

Collapse of civilization as we know it

The Walking Dead: Reality Edition

Bitcoin barons

Yeah, definitely dystopian. My only consolation is that with any luck we'll all be dead due to comets or volcano death cloud activity before this happens. 

Woah, seriously? That's the complete opposite of what I believe.

I don't believe we're overpopulated.

Humanity is wonderful and impressive, innovating and creating awesome things all the time (I dabble in cutting edge tech)

Regardless of adversity, even that caused by other bad humans, we still always find ways to circumvent, recover, and persevere

Bitcoin will finally break the monopoly of banks, oligarchs, and powerful governments, and give actual power, as well as many more opportunities, to the rest of the people

Instead of believing that everything will collapse and we'll end up in a zombie desert hellscape, I'm looking forward to a world resembling some sort of sciency, technological utopia. I just know that, to get there, we first have to go through a few hard bumps to clear out the issues we got ourselves into (like defaulting on lots of debts).

9 hours ago, Wrecker said:

How do you say things in a half-decent way...

You absolutely fucking do not know half of the shit you're pretending to talk about.

You don't know 2/3rds of the things you're talking about. So what?

 

@WileyWarWeasel You're confusing prices with costs. If the oil is $35 a barrel now, instead of $100, that means some oil producer somewhere is still being profitable selling it at even $35 a barrel. Price has no relation to cost. If price of oil is $100, all that means is that some of the costlier sources of oil become profitable to drill for again.

And, as I said, as the price of oil goes up, it will start to match other more expensive energy sources, which, when we start depending more on, will in turn drop in price.

Also, regarding replacing current energy usage, that again forgets progress in tech innovation: we are finding ways to reduce our energy usage and become more efficient. Which would also accelerate should energy start becoming more expensive. So it's a two hit drop: more renewables to power construction of new renewables, AND more efficiency on the other end. Renewables do repay for themselves. Some do not, others very quickly. If we stop subsidizing them, we'll figure that out fast and will know which to focus on.

I do agree with you on the debt vs GDP being our #1 problem, but I don't think that had anything to do with energy. Countries around the world have been borrowing to spend of everything from wars, to social programs, to massive business subsidies trying to compete with 1st world (China). And, I'm just optimistic enough to believe that, instead of us needing to have some infrastructure changing global mega project, people will just do that themselves, bit by bit, as they find old sources of energy too expensive, or new ones more convenient.

4 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Rassah's confidence that he understands why more Canadians rent than buy in comparison to those in the United States has shifted from 'Certian' to 'Fuck, it was 10 years ago, maybe I was off by at least $100 000!?  I can't remember that stuff!'  Makes one wonder why he said he remembered it as part of his assertion in the first place.

No, my memory of what the condos were worth 10 years ago, and how much housing prices went up, has... actually never shifted. I never claimed I was certain.

But, OK smartass, you're in the spot light. My claim is that, contrary to US, more Canadians rent than buy, have been renting than buying for almost a century, and have a renter culture as a result, which in turn spared them from most of the 2008 crisis, is because Canada does not subsidize housing, does not give tax deductions for mortgages (you know what those are, right?), and has never pushed "The American Dream of a house with white picket fence" since the 30's with those programs.

What is your claim for the reason that Canadians rent instead of buy? "Houses are too expensive?"

Edited January 8, 2016 by Rassah

[AshleyAshes]

6 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Woah, seriously? That's the complete opposite of what I believe.

I don't believe we're overpopulated.

Humanity is wonderful and impressive, innovating and creating awesome things all the time (I dabble in cutting edge tech)

Regardless of adversity, even that caused by other bad humans, we still always find ways to circumvent, recover, and persevere

Bitcoin will finally break the monopoly of banks, oligarchs, and powerful governments, and give actual power, as well as many more opportunities, to the rest of the people

Instead of believing that everything will collapse and we'll end up in a zombie desert hellscape, I'm looking forward to a world resembling some sort of sciency, technological utopia. I just know that, to get there, we first have to go through a few hard bumps to clear out the issues we got ourselves into (like defaulting on lots of debts).

You don't know 2/3rds of the things you're talking about. So what?

 

@WileyWarWeasel You're confusing prices with costs. If the oil is $35 a barrel now, instead of $100, that means some oil producer somewhere is still being profitable selling it at even $35 a barrel. Price has no relation to cost. If price of oil is $100, all that means is that some of the costlier sources of oil become profitable to drill for again.

And, as I said, as the price of oil goes up, it will start to match other more expensive energy sources, which, when we start depending more on, will in turn drop in price.

Also, regarding replacing current energy usage, that again forgets progress in tech innovation: we are finding ways to reduce our energy usage and become more efficient. Which would also accelerate should energy start becoming more expensive. So it's a two hit drop: more renewables to power construction of new renewables, AND more efficiency on the other end. Renewables do repay for themselves. Some do not, others very quickly. If we stop subsidizing them, we'll figure that out fast and will know which to focus on.

I do agree with you on the debt vs GDP being our #1 problem, but I don't think that had anything to do with energy. Countries around the world have been borrowing to spend of everything from wars, to social programs, to massive business subsidies trying to compete with 1st world (China). And, I'm just optimistic enough to believe that, instead of us needing to have some infrastructure changing global mega project, people will just do that themselves, bit by bit, as they find old sources of energy too expensive, or new ones more convenient.

OK, smartass, you're in the spot light. My claim is that l, contrary to US, more Canadians rent than buy, have been renting than buying for almost a century, and have a renter culture as a result, because Canada does not subsidize housing, does not give tax deductions for mortgages, and has never pushed "The American Dream of a house with white picket fence" since the 30's.

What is your claim for the reason that Canadians rent instead of buy? "Houses are too expensive?"

Too expensive in a lot of regions and that Menifest Destiny American Dream thing you mentioned.  Home ownership doesn't make sense to a lot of Canadians for cost reasons well before you factor in costs above the list price.

[Rassah]

44 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Too expensive in a lot of regions and that Menifest Destiny American Dream thing you mentioned.  Home ownership doesn't make sense to a lot of Canadians for cost reasons well before you factor in costs above the list price.

You don't realize that this makes no sense? If something is too expensive, no one would buy it, forcing sellers to keep lowering prices until people do buy it. So even if the prices seem too high for YOU, someone out there is still buying all those houses, even at their current price. So, then the question is, who is it that has enough money to buy those houses at the higher price? My bet is property investors who intend to rent them.

Also, those "cost reasons" is exactly what I was talking about. You need a large amount of cash up front (down payment), and you can't deduct loan interest on your taxes (which can be as much as $300 a month in savings on a $250k house when you start).

Edited January 8, 2016 by Rassah

[WileyWarWeasel]

1 hour ago, AshleyAshes said:

You're confusing prices with costs. If the oil is $35 a barrel now, instead of $100, that means some oil producer somewhere is still being profitable selling it at even $35 a barrel. Price has no relation to cost. If price of oil is $100, all that means is that some of the costlier sources of oil become profitable to drill for again.

You are correct in that price sometimes has no relation to cost.

Remember what I said previously about how the vast majority of oil companies require higher prices:

1 hour ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html

“The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120.”

This means that the vast majority of oil companies are ultimately pumping out oil at a loss because prices are below production costs. Keep in mind that in order for our global economy to function we need more than just a couple of companies that can afford to pump oil at cheaper prices.

Globally we were able to sustain increasing oil prices and costs due to increasing debt at a much faster rate than GDP (please see figure 4):

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/01/07/2016-oil-limits-and-the-end-of-the-debt-supercycle/comment-page-1/

Figure 1 on the above link also shows that Capex per Barrel has gradually grown up until 2000 when it sharply accelerated in growth (I know that it doesn't show before 1985 but honestly I think I've done enough work in looking up the current citations and figures). Capex per Barrel doesn't show the total costs of extraction but it is a good indicator of the rising costs of extraction.

Figure 2 also does a good job in showing oil prices and supply from 2000 onward. There was clearly no massive surge in production that many people are blaming for low oil prices.

We are reaching debt limits as indicated by the crash in commodities prices (not just oil) while debt and defaults spiral out of control. Quite simply put, customers and businesses all over the world can no longer afford high oil prices however the vast majority of oil companies still require prices to be much higher in order for them to function.

1 hour ago, AshleyAshes said:

And, as I said, as the price of oil goes up, it will start to match other more expensive energy sources, which, when we start depending more on, will in turn drop in price.

As demonstrated in my previous posts and links our economy requires cheap energy and other resources in order to properly function without unsustainable escalating debt. Substituting one expensive form of energy for another is not a solution.

Alternative energy sources will gradually drop in price (or suddenly if you're banking on a miracle happening) but setting up alternative energy sources now and in the years to come will still incur a massive front-loaded cost that will still take decades to repay (especially with storage included).

This means that alternative energy sources now and in the near future actually represent a substantial cost to our economy and can at best be introduced gradually without overwhelming our current system due to massive front-loaded costs.

 

According to the following research back in 2008 we were using the equivalent of 3 CMO (cubic miles of oil) every year, we would be using more now:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/energy-usage-at-three-cubic-miles-of-oil-and-growing-5196

I will post some excerpts from this article as it appears that you did not even glance at the infrastructure that would be required for replacing conventional with alternative energy sources.

"

Getting just one CMO-equivalent of photovoltaic solar power in the next 50 years would require 4.2 billion 2-kilowatt solar rooftop systems, or 250,000 installed every single day over that timeframe, he said.

Looking at concentrated solar-thermal power, which produces power using the sun's heat at lower cost than photovoltaic solar systems, Malhotra said it would take 7,700 solar-thermal parks of 900-megawatts capacity – or three built per week over the next 50 years – to add up to one cubic mile of oil equivalent.

As for wind power, getting to that one CMO-equivalent within 50 years would require putting up 1,200 1.6-megawatt wind turbines every week over that time, he said.

Using solar-thermal and wind power effectively will also require a massive investment in transmission to bring the power from the remote areas where it's best produced to the cities that need it most, he said.

Creating one CMO-equivalent of biodiesel, for example, would require an 85-fold increase in the current amount of land now dedicated to growing soybeans around the world, he said.

As for nuclear power, which Malhotra said must be a part of the world's energy future, getting to the equivalent of one cubic mile of oil would require the building of 2,500 nuclear plants, or one every week for the next 50 years.

"

Then there is also the associated transmission, storage and other costs.

1 hour ago, AshleyAshes said:

Also, regarding replacing current energy usage, that again forgets progress in tech innovation: we are finding ways to reduce our energy usage and become more efficient. Which would also accelerate should energy start becoming more expensive. So it's a two hit drop: more renewables to power construction of new renewables, AND more efficiency on the other end. Renewables do repay for themselves. Some do not, others very quickly. If we stop subsidizing them, we'll figure that out fast and will know which to focus on.

Please see the following (I have bolded the relevant sections for your convenience):

13 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/

Interesting paragraphs relating to electrifying stuff:

"

Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear. All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms - and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.

In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive - which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably). This in turn means that everyone would become miserably poor and economic growth would cease (the more honest hardline greens admit this openly). That, however, means that such expensive luxuries as welfare states and pensioners, proper healthcare (watch out for that pandemic), reasonable public services, affordable manufactured goods and transport, decent personal hygiene, space programmes (watch out for the meteor!) etc etc would all have to go - none of those things are sustainable without economic growth.

"

We are also a long way away from exploiting any energy sources for vehicles that are as cheap, efficient or dense as oil was to extract back in the 1970s.

I also talked about efficiency earlier in my post (see from "Alternative energy sources will gradually drop in price").

1 hour ago, AshleyAshes said:

I do agree with you on the debt vs GDP being our #1 problem, but I don't think that had anything to do with energy. Countries around the world have been borrowing to spend of everything from wars, to social programs, to massive business subsidies trying to compete with 1st world (China). And, I'm just optimistic enough to believe that, instead of us needing to have some infrastructure changing global mega project, people will just do that themselves, bit by bit, as they find old sources of energy too expensive, or new ones more convenient.

Our world economy relies on continuous growth. GDP growth and energy consumption growth are tightly linked. When energy and other resource costs rise faster than worker's wages rise (remember energy costs have to be paid for one way or another at the end of the day) we instead substitute debt for real wages growth to keep the system growing.

"Energy consumption has grown in parallel with the economy for a very long time." (search for this quote on the following link along with the graphs beneath it):

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/01/07/2016-oil-limits-and-the-end-of-the-debt-supercycle/comment-page-1/#comments

People are indeed bit by bit seeking and implementing alternative energy sources, however the current rate of progress appears to be far too slow given the accelerating deterioration of the system (unless you think we have 50-150 or more years to replace the 3 CMO and rising equivalent of energy that we are using now).

I'm personally hoping for one or more breakthroughs that would allow us access to cheap, clean, high density energy that requires minimum infrastructure to set up and minimum changes to existing devices however at the end of the day we must admit that there is a slim chance of that happening.

EDIT: Meant to quote @Rassah rather than Ashleigh.

 

Edited January 8, 2016 by WileyWarWeasel
Meant to quote Rassah

[AshleyAshes]

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

You don't realize that this makes no sense? If something is too expensive, no one would buy it, forcing sellers to keep lowering prices until people do buy it. So even if the prices seem too high for YOU, someone out there is still buying all those houses, even at their current price. So, then the question is, who is it that has enough money to buy those houses at the higher price? My bet is property investors who intend to rent them.

Also, those "cost reasons" is exactly what I was talking about. You need a large amount of cash up front (down payment), and you can't deduct loan interest on your taxes (which can be as much as $300 a month in savings on a $250k house when you start).

You're right about investors, namely foreign investors.  You're also assuming that canada is a single homogenized market when it varies.  Housing is far cheaper outside of the metro areas of Canada and you see higher rates of home ownership on those areas where its chraper.  The metro areas have limited land for continued population density increases, so those expensive properties go up in price due to their increased scarcity so the prices don't fall, there's enough buyers for those properties.

[Jerry]

11 hours ago, Rassah said:

There's a very important factor that people don't consider in this issue which makes it a falacy: automation makes things much cheaper.

So, while 30% of the people may become unemployed or underemployed, the things that got automated may become so much cheaper as a result that those same people can still afford them nonetheless. For example, you may be working min wage at McD's for $7.50/h, and working full time can afford 8 of their $7.50 meals a day. Automation comes, kicks you out of a job, you can only scrounge up maybe an hour of word a day, but due to automation that McD's meal now only costs $1. So, despite you working less, you can still almost afford 8 of those meals a day.

We used to work doing hard manual labor 15 hours a day just to survive. Thanks to automation, we are working fairly simple and easy jobs 8 hours a day, while enjoying much better lifestyles. If automation ends up creating 100% unemployment, that's a GOOD thing.

It goes much further than the supposed reduction of the cost of goods. With monstrosities like TPP, we're letting the biggest corporations of this world do whatever they want. TransCanada is now asking for $15G in damages because Keystone XL went kaput. They didn't lose a fucking penny, but they know all too well they're likely to win the suit thanks to TPP,

All that money could be be used to repair our roads, provide healthcare or even help SMEs that struggle! But nope, it'll all go in the pockets of someone who most likely has plenty of money already, and that money will never be seen again.

This is the real problem. Human greed has no limits. Robots will mean less employees, less costs thus more profits. That's all they want. Companies don't do charity, they make profits.

[WileyWarWeasel]

6 minutes ago, Jerry said:

It goes much further than the supposed reduction of the cost of goods. With monstrosities like TPP, we're letting the biggest corporations of this world do whatever they want. TransCanada is now asking for $15G in damages because Keystone XL went kaput. They didn't lose a fucking penny, but they know all too well they're likely to win the suit thanks to TPP,

All that money could be be used to repair our roads, provide healthcare or even help SMEs that struggle! But nope, it'll all go in the pockets of someone who most likely has plenty of money already, and that money will never be seen again.

This is the real problem. Human greed has no limits. Robots will mean less employees, less costs thus more profits. That's all they want. Companies don't do charity, they make profits.

Robots along with software are also beginning to replace jobs that require higher education. Analysis tools along with other types of software are becoming increasingly sophisticated (and CPU power is increasing), performing more and more tasks that would previously require teams of analysts and other qualified personnel.

The irony is that automation is good for the business in the short term, however in the longer term it means less job prospects for humans which in turn mean less profits for the business because no one has the money to buy their stuff. Also you can't tax machines the same way that you can tax workers.

As for automation making things cheaper: it makes labor cheaper for the company however given the fact that resource extraction costs are rising (faster than average worker's wages as well) coupled with the fact that one job is permanently lost it means that the laid off worker is on the whole poorer.

 

As for automation creating employment:

First of all no one in their right mind would purchase robots/software to get rid of say 5 employees only to hire more than 5 people afterwards (at same wages/hours/etc) or even to hire less people afterwards who still cost more in terms of the wages/conditions/etc paid to the original 5 employees.

 

Secondly I'd like to address the idea of jobs being created for creating the robots/software:

-It would make no sense from an economic perspective for the overall number of workers/wages paid in a collection of businesses utilizing automation to be higher or even the same as a similar collection utilizing less automation but with the same output (collection of businesses meaning for example the business that makes the software/robot and another business that utilizes it). If that were to happen then the latter collection of businesses using more human labor would out-compete them in terms of efficiency, all other things being equal of course.

Thus from an economic standpoint it makes no sense to automate jobs/tasks unless the overall costs to the multiple businesses involved are less (ie lower wages, less workers needed for same output).

[#00Buck]

You people all type way too much. 

[Rassah]

@WileyWarWeasel I read that ourfinateworld article, and the writer seems to miss some key economic points. It starts with the assumption that the world is finite somehow, but there's no reason to assume that's true. Don't forget that we didn't even have a concept of oil 150 years ago. She assumes that commodities, including oil, will continue to be mined even when they are not profitable, which doesn't happen. And she makes a claim that, as the price of commodities and energy falls, non-elite workers will not be able to afford them, which I just don't get. I'm also a bit confused why debt growth would cause falling commodity prices.

It's also completely incorrect that our world economy relies on continuous growth. The Keynesian government clusteefuck that depends on more and more debt, maybe, but not economies in general.

Upon further look into her, I think I know why her post seems to be so "off" with so many economic contradictions. She is an actuary. An advanced accountant that calculates risks. Not an economist

But, honestly, besides the economics and some assumptions of her seeming off, I don't feel qualified to comment on the commodities part of it.  I asked my commodities trader expert who actually deals with these prices directly (the ex-VC of JP Morgan Chase) to give me his opinion of that article, and the first thing he said is, "Here is the biggest one they miss, 90% of the reason why oil is $30 is because that is the outlook a year out. When the last guy sells everyone becomes buyers."

He said he'll read the article tomorrow and give me his opinion then, but I think the doom and gloom in it is waaaay overstated.

[Wrecker]

14 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Please see the following article, it's a bit old but overall extraction costs have only gone up since then:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html

“The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120.”

I apologize for my previous wording however, I meant to say that the vast majority require prices over $100.

Please see my previous post regarding how well oil & gas companies did during last year's prices:

 

 

http://www.megenergy.com/news-room/article/meg-energy-significantly-reduces-overall-cost-structure-enabling-positive-cash

http://www.huskyenergy.com/news/release.asp?release_id=1949600

http://beaconenergynews.ca/energy-news/cnrl-horizon-oil-sands-mine-op-costs-down-to-29-73-a-barrel/

http://www.albertaoilmagazine.com/2015/09/the-future-of-the-alberta-oil-sands/

http://marketrealist.com/2015/12/4q15-double-take-conocophillipss-cost-efficiencies/

For starters...

EDIT: Oh, missed that note, there are certainly still a pile of viable producers, however.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Wrecker

[Rassah]

Your point was that robots will take away jobs, and we'll have increasing unemployment. I didn't miss that point, I addressed it directly. Automation makes things cheaper, meaning we need to work much less to maintain the same quality of life.

11 hours ago, Jerry said:

It goes much further than the supposed reduction of the cost of goods. With monstrosities like TPP, we're letting the biggest corporations of this world do whatever they want.

What is it you think that the evil boogieman called "corporations" want exactly?

11 hours ago, Jerry said:

TransCanada is now asking for $15G in damages because Keystone XL went kaput. They didn't lose a fucking penny, but they know all too well they're likely to win the suit thanks to TPP,

Why do you think they "didn't lose a fucking penny?" At the least they lost all the money they would have have potentially made if Keystone was built. And they also no doubt lost millions in planning for it. They had engineers, researchers, planners, probably contracts already paid for, and probably some initial constructed infrastructure that was depending on that pipe being there, which all went to waste.

11 hours ago, Jerry said:

All that money could be used to repair our roads, provide healthcare or even help SMEs that struggle! But nope, it'll all go in the pockets of someone who most likely has plenty of money already, and that money will never be seen again.

Never seen again? You mean it will never be spent on anything? And who is it that you think owns those corporations and gets all that money they make?

11 hours ago, Jerry said:

This is the real problem. Human greed has no limits.

Which is great! It means humans have no limits for overcoming adversity and fighting to get what we want. But greed isn't the problem, satisfying it by taking someone else's stuff without their consent is I.e. you could be greedy for a new game system, and take on extra work hours to earn money for it. Or you can steal it from someone. Maybe you're thinking "selfishness?" Or "envy?" If you're not greedy, you're probably dead, or a total waste of a being.

11 hours ago, Jerry said:

Robots will mean less employees, less costs thus more profits. That's all they want. Companies don't do charity, they make profits.

Yeah. Which is great. That means an incentive for companies to innovate, become more efficient, and do what they do using fewer resources. Don't we WANT companies to be less wasteful? It also means that, for a short while, those who own corporations can earn extra money. I say for a short while, because very quickly other competing companies also start using those robots and try to undercut that first company, then a price war starts, and prices drop to where there are almost no profits again. Then some company invents some other new way to become even more efficient, earns a profit for a short time, and again competition starts and prices drop. That's how business, technological advancement, and profits have always worked (only exception is government protected monopolies).

So what's the problem with constantly decreasing prices? Do you WANT to force to keep prices artificially high so only those with some minimum amount of money can afford those things?

11 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Robots along with software are also beginning to replace jobs that require higher education. Analysis tools along with other types of software are becoming increasingly sophisticated (and CPU power is increasing), performing more and more tasks that would previously require teams of analysts and other qualified personnel.

Which is also awesome, and nothing new. AutoCAD and Excel has replaced literally dozens of highly skilled professionals with a single guy in front of a computer. Hell, a "computer" used to be a job title, not a thing, and a room full of computers used to be a room full of people with slide rules and graph paper doing things, slowly, by hand. All this tech improvement means is that services that used to be reserved only for the wealthiest of people and corporations, are now available to any small business or person with extra cash (or in a pinch some BitTorrent know-how).

11 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

The irony is that automation is good for the business in the short term, however in the longer term it means less job prospects for humans which in turn mean less profits for the business because no one has the money to buy their stuff.

If no one has money to buy their stuff, then they will keep decreasing prices until people can buy their stuff. No one even *plans* to make products they can't sell, let alone actually waste resources making them. This falacy is fairly commonly repeated, but misses that fundamental fact. Said another way, "If we replace 98% of our farmers with combines and other farming machines, then those people will no longer be able to afford food."

11 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Also you can't tax machines the same way that you can tax workers.

Pretty soon you won't be able to tax workers, either >.> Why, you want to pay taxes? Or you just want others to pay taxes for your personal benefit?

11 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

As for automation making things cheaper: it makes labor cheaper for the company however given the fact that resource extraction costs are rising (faster than average worker's wages as well) coupled with the fact that one job is permanently lost it means that the laid off worker is on the whole poorer.

Some resource extraction is rising, some is falling. So what? Food production cost is falling. Housing construction costs are falling. And who cares if one type of job is permanently lost? Do we *want* to keep useless, wasteful, energy expanding jobs we don't need any more? Should we have created a government subsidy to keep our buggy whip workers employed?

11 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

As for automation creating employment:

Eh? Who said that?

11 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

Secondly I'd like to address the idea of jobs being created for creating the robots/software:

-It would make no sense from an economic perspective for the overall number of workers/wages paid in a collection of businesses utilizing automation to be higher or even the same as a similar collection utilizing less automation but with the same output (collection of businesses meaning for example the business that makes the software/robot and another business that utilizes it). If that were to happen then the latter collection of businesses using more human labor would out-compete them in terms of efficiency, all other things being equal of course.

Thus from an economic standpoint it makes no sense to automate jobs/tasks unless the overall costs to the multiple businesses involved are less (ie lower wages, less workers needed for same output).

Um, yeah? You obviously don't want businesses wasting more money on running stuff after automating things. They want to lower costs. Not sure what your point is...

Overall, on the topic of automation causing a doomsday unemployment scenario, what do you guys purpose? Ban innovation, lock prices to what they are now, and not allow companies to attempt to conserve resources?

[Wrecker]

40 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Why do you think they "didn't lose a fucking penny?" At the least they lost all the money they would have have potentially made if Keystone was built. And they also no doubt lost millions in planning for it. They had engineers, researchers, planners, probably contracts already paid for, and probably some initial constructed infrastructure that was depending on that pipe being there, which all went to waste.

I actually agree with you here...

They lost more than a penny. It's not just "let's build this shit," you have to perform every literal inch, every linear foot of piping and process to code; and there are a fucking pile of them. ASME, ANSI, CSA, ABSA and ASTM to name a select few. Everything from moving dirt to shoring; proper selection of piping material to accommodate any kind of corrosive feature of the process it's supposed to handle as well as the temperature delta it's expected to endure; proper schedule of pipe to ensure it will handle expected pressures and volume of flow, as well as any unexpected upsets such as fluid-hammer; you've got jacketing; booster stations; anchoring, guides and suppports; permits; procurement of materials; bidding; hydrostatic testing; x-ray; MPI; PWHT; commissioning; scheduling; estimating... It's not something that just happens.

And just because my head is still ringing with shit,

You've got weld procedures, control systems, E&I, corrosion coupons, planning, land procurement, surveying, royalties, QCI, QCM, equipment procurement and inspections, tool procurement and inspections, fastener procurement, fitting procurement... These lines aren't underground or below the frost line 100% of the time, so you also have insulation and tracing costs...

You get anything not bearing a mark traceable to your MTR? It's scrap, you can't use it. That happens a lot, too.

The list doesn't fucking end.

Edited January 9, 2016 by Wrecker

[Rassah]

Fuck dude... There's a reason I get a sinking feeling when I see your posts come up as replies. You are an extremely formidable debate opponent.

[WileyWarWeasel]

2 hours ago, #00Buck said:

You people all type way too much. 

I think you're right.

@WreckerIt's good to see someone else using links/citations

That being said, I don't see how our oil-based economy can work with only part of the oil producers being viable.

@Rassah

and

@Wrecker

I was going to start writing yet another long post, but honestly I can't be bothered explaining things such as rising resource costs, debt, finite world, etc over many pages and possibly hours. Others have already done a good job providing the info elsewhere and would be better debaters.

It's obvious that we're coming from completely different understandings of the way that we see things work. As such I think we'll continue talking past each other no matter how many pages we write. For the record I once believed that we could innovate our way out of any problem but not anymore.

If you believe in things such as alternative energy sources, bitcoin and automation I strongly urge you to invest as much as you can in these industries and see what happens in a few years. Don't forget to spare some money for our existing resource companies too ;P

[Rassah]

I guess thanks for sparing us a wall of text? You did explain your side in pretty full detail. I'm not sure what you would be able to add. Only thing I'm wondering about is why you don't believe new tech will get cheaper as more people start using it. Not just from economies of scale, but new innovations in production.

Actually, I guess that's the main dividing line of contention in arguments like these, which doesn't actually have any concrete facts to back it up with, and as a result ends up stuck in a draw of opinions. That line is, do you believe people will be able to keep innovating, or do you believe they won't be. As an optimist I think they will be. What's her name who wrote that article is a pessimist, since that's literally her job (risk analysis for insurance), and I am guessing you are too, so you believe they won't be. Or at least not in time. So in the end, the only way to settle this argument is "Let's wait and see?"

10 minutes ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

If you believe in things such as alternative energy sources, bitcoin and automation I strongly urge you to invest as much as you can in these industries and see what happens in a few years. Don't forget to spare some money for our existing resource companies too ;P

Where do you think I've been pouring tens of thousands of dollars over the last few years?

[WileyWarWeasel]

32 minutes ago, Rassah said:

I guess thanks for sparing us a wall of text? You did explain your side in pretty full detail. I'm not sure what you would be able to add. Only thing I'm wondering about is why you don't believe new tech will get cheaper as more people start using it. Not just from economies of scale, but new innovations in production.

Actually, I guess that's the main dividing line of contention in arguments like these, which doesn't actually have any concrete facts to back it up with, and as a result ends up stuck in a draw of opinions. That line is, do you believe people will be able to keep innovating, or do you believe they won't be. As an optimist I think they will be. What's her name who wrote that article is a pessimist, since that's literally her job (risk analysis for insurance), and I am guessing you are too, so you believe they won't be. Or at least not in time. So in the end, the only way to settle this argument is "Let's wait and see?"

Where do you think I've been pouring tens of thousands of dollars over the last few years?

Must.. resist... writing... walls...

Perhaps I didn't word it too well, but I'm pretty sure I said technology would likely continue getting *gradually* better and sometimes cheaper.

The biggest issue I see however is the time and resources that we have to make such incremental improvements. If you think we have another few decades or longer and plenty of resources to keep making incremental improvements that's fine, I'm hoping for a similar or better (ie much faster improvements) outcome. I don't think we have that much time though based on what's happened in the last 40 years and especially in the last 7 years.

I hope you'll agree that the continuation of our modern society at least in part relies on the continued exploitation of viable energy sources. Based on the info I've seen we will most likely not be extracting on a large enough scale some new *cheap* (not just to extract but to implement/use) energy source now or in the next few years barring a miracle, and our world economy is deteriorating too rapidly to allow for more time than that.

I've done a smattering of different jobs and run a business over the last decade however you could say that I've always thought about costs first and foremost for pretty much everything. That could explain why we've both approached the present situation from such different angles.

I've observed for almost too long now, personally I'll be shorting the market soon

[MuttButt]

Y'all are dumb, the answer is simple. We just have to print more money. Bam, infinite money. Now that's what I call a self-sustaining economy.