Hidden Places

i think this is a very insightful comment from DP.

from: http://www.dailypaul.com/node/86818

Peaceful protests first, riots next, and then who knows
On March 20th, 2009 Henry says:
Isn't it logical to think that initial attempts are peaceful, "working within the system". As economic pain escalates so will the response and who knows where it will end, in France, in the US, or elsewhere.

The conventional wisdom is that however bad the current economic downturn gets, it will end and good times will ultimately return. Even Dr. Paul says that government attempts to prevent liquidation of the distortions will prolong the pain, and turn a deep recession into a depression, but he does anticipate the return of good times at some future point. This is a significant error. Even the free markets, if we had them, cannot create energy out of nothing at zero cost. And it is energy that fuels our industrial economy upon we depend for the necessities of life.

If you think it was the faulty monetary system and related Wall Street manipulation that is to blame for the current downturn, you are only partially correct. The true elephant in the room is higher cost energy and the simultaneous decreasing of world conventional oil production. Coal was a relatively new energy source at the time of the American Revolution. Oil was discovered in 1848. Natural gas and nuclear are very recent sources of energy. It was energy and related resources that made the great expansion of the economic pie possible. Without energy, our lives would more resemble those of our Founding Fathers than the affluence of recent times. Without energy to sustain it, the industrial age is kaput; modern farming is back to low yields and human and animal power; the electric grid fails; and the population falls rapidly to match the ability of economic output to sustain us.

The easiest, cheapest, and largest deposits of energy are those which are found first. You don't drill in 10,000 feet of water if you can just drill 300 feet on easy to access land. The history of energy production is progressively increasing cost. And energy sources are produced in a predictable pattern, which is why Marion King Hubbert was able to predict when US oil production would begin to decline, 20 years in advance of when it actually began to decline, and why people using the same techniques can predict that we are now at the peak of conventional oil production, and face a future of declining (and more costly) production. A mere 3.5% annual decline in production will cut it in half in just 20 years, thus cutting the output of the industrial age in half or more in the same time frame. There will be no significant economic recovery anytime in the foreseeable future unless a new energy source is discovered, and there is none that is known today. Hydrogen, solar, wind, coal, natural gas, nuclear (fission), fusion, and biofuels are all inadequate, limited themselves, or too costly to implement at a time when we are out of enough energy to keep us going. We are in the same position as the cartoon character, Wylie Coyote when he runs off the edge of a cliff, looks down, and realizes there is noting but air holding him up.

So politically, I think no government is likely to survive the pressure, particularly not the US government which is already at odds with the population, and already financially bankrupt. It would be nice to live in a free society so that we would all have an equal shot at survival instead of the majority being plundered and controlled by corrupt government and special interests, but even that would not change the overall outcome. It would just change who the survivors are.

So I do expect that protests will give way to riots, and riots to rebellion, and rebellion to civil war; this will not necessarily bring us freedom (it might), but will be part of the process of unwinding the industrial age. I think it is reasonable to expect much violence before 2020. The future will be something very few in the world expect.