"We still haven't recovered from 2008"
We never will; well, at least not for 20 years.
The Oil – Employment Link, Part 1
Posted on January 3, 2011 by gailtheactuary
I am giving another presentation, which I want to share with you as two posts. The first post is my analysis of the problem. The second post is more about the ramifications, and my view of what might be done.
From what I can see, oil consumption and employment are very closely linked. It is this link that seems to be contributing to the unemployment problems we have now in the US.
Going forward, we know that the US is heavily dependent on oil imports. If these drop, either because world oil production is dropping, or because world oil production is close to flat, and the US is being outbid for the oil, then it seems likely that employment in the United States will drop even more.
ourfiniteworld.com
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The Oil Employment Link – Part 2 – Looking at more detail underlying History Chanel’s “Prophets of Doom” story
Posted on January 6, 2011 by gailtheactuary
In Part 1, I talked about how there is a close tie between the amount of oil consumed and the number of people employed. US oil imports have been dropping, and there are strong indications that they may continue dropping–world supply is flat, and China, India, and oil exporter are taking a larger share of the total. It appears to be almost impossible to ramp up US oil production by a very large amount, so with smaller and smaller imports, it is likely that US oil consumption will continue to decline, and with it the number of people employed in the US.
The problem is that our financial system cannot stand a very high unemployment rate–perhaps double today’s unemployment rate, or greater. If there is very high unemployment, people will default on their debt, and banks and insurance companies will fail. There appears to be a very high probability that the financial system as a whole may fail.
Some of you may have seen the show Prophets of Doom on the History Chanel (Wednesday, Jan. 4). What I am talking about is very much related to the collapse scenarios discussed on that show, although I would not necessarily describe things exactly the same way that participants on that show described things. Also, the ideas I am presenting are my own. Presenters on that program would likely have somewhat different ideas.
Let’s go back to the last chart I showed in Part 1, showing my idea of how I expect employment to change in the future. Continue reading..
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