An invitation to think differently

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.energybulletin.net/51195

"National governments and multilateral organizations attribute the global economy’s deep wounds to a pile-up accident of financial investment outfits and banks. Misconduct and lost confidence that erupted into an unprecedented imbroglio mid-2008 was the supposed culprit behind the recession that has been declared over despite the troubling new spell of worldwide pauperization and protracted indolence on the investment front.

The dominant narrative remains mum on the strong possibility that the turmoil-provoking explosion in the seedy joint of super-leveraged dirty dancing had its fuse lit at a gas station/grocery store somewhere along the interminable commuting route between a North American city, where the jobs are, and exurbia where the zero-down-payment houses were built and sold on the assumption that the costs of transportation and food would never interfere with the perpetual climb of real estate values.

The notion that for the first time in modern history the world has come face to face with a binding resource constraint (call it “peak oil”) is absent from the radar screen of public consciousness.

How did it happen and what’s going on? The typical answer echoing from the academic-liberal media establishment takes excess liquidity as the point of departure.

From there the thread leads to superabundant credit, the competitive search for profit by the financial estate, and the concomitant, across-the-board relaxation of conditions to obtain loans."