Michael Ruppert (1951 - 2014), The End of Oil, and The Industrial Revolution

[Doc Holliday]

One of the greatest horror writers of the last decade, Michael Ruppert, took his life last Sunday. Vice recorded a documentary with him last year and it plays like a swan song.

It's one part: the story of the collapse of a man. As an LAPD detective, he outed the CIA in cooperating with local gangs in drug trafficking. Ever since he's been plagued with legal trouble. In this, you can see a broken man literally at his end.

The other part: is the theory of the collapse of an empire and a system built on unsustainable growth. If you saw the documentary Collapse, you know this part.

I was curious as to Melonie's opinion on these issues - fiat currency (money given value on purely trust, rather than a commodity like gold), fossil fuel depletion (the inevitable end of oil), a Ponzi based world economy (one needing future growth greater than the current state to profit), and the world after the industrial age?


Here is the full 60+minute documentary.

Part I



Part II



Part III



Part IV



Part V



Part IV

[Melonie]

^^^ all I can really say about Michael Ruppert is this. The subject matter he raised, both in the clips you have posted as well as in more 'mainstream' productions he has contributed to and the books he has written, goes well beyond the limit of 'acceptable' topics for discussion in Dollar Den.

Also, of the questions you raise, there is really only one which has a direct and significant near term impact on the dancers and camgirls reading Dollar Den. That topic is 'fiat' money. Several different discussions in this forum as well as other SW forums have, at their base, the fact that - like professional athletes - dancers and camgirls have a relatively short 'window' of peak earnings opportunity. As such, they are in need of a method of 'preserving' the 'wealth' they are able to accumulate during that short 'window' of high earnings potential.

If dancers and camgirls are being paid in a 'fiat' currency, and are saving and investing in something denominated in a 'fiat' currency, then their ability for them to 'preserve' that hard earned 'wealth' is a direct function of the ( changing ) 'purchasing power' of that 'fiat' currency ( over time ). But, for better or worse, most general education / media treats the 'fiat' currency as if it were of constant value ... as opposed to a 'moving target' in terms of purchasing power. And, also for better or worse, that 'moving target' has consistently moved in the 'wrong' direction over the course of the past ~40 years ! In regard to the probable future direction of that 'moving target', all I can offer is some factual input regarding the current situation facing the US FED's need to continue printing 'fiat' US dollars ...





As such, it's all too possible for central bank money printing policies to erode the purchasing power of 'fiat' currencies. The net result is that ( shifting to a concrete example ) US$10,000 worth of dancer / camgirl earnings deposited in a US bank account at 1% interest today will be likely to be able to purchase far less in terms of goods and services for the resulting $10,100 a year from now than the $10,000 can purchase today. To avoid this de-facto loss of purchasing power, dancers and camgirls need some alternate means of 'wealth preservation'.

The problem with virtually all 'wealth preservation' alternatives which are available to 'small time' savers and investors ( i.e. dealing in thousands as opposed to hundreds of thousands or millions ) is that they all involve market based loss risk. Nonetheless, as I have already stated in another thread, in my own case I have elected to 'hedge' my own exposure to future US dollar loss of purchasing power by investing in some amount of physical gold, by purchasing some shares of USO ( proxy ETF for crude oil ), by 'saving' some amount of my cash in the form of Canadian 'fiat' dollars, etc.

[Doc Holliday]

Good, I was hoping you would say gold. What about property? We are safely enough past the bubble I would think it has returned to a solid investment.

I spent the last five months trading cryptocurrencies. *I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND IT* In order to gain, you have to gauge an anonymous international crowd's interest in the currency, like a macro-psychologist. When they want the currency, the price goes up. When they lose interest, it goes down. It's pure faith in an abstract system. With the USD, the faith in the currency is connected to the government. So, it does have that going for it. And that makes it certainly more stable than today's cryptos. But like the cryptos, and any currency tied to the user-base's interest, the USD is better as a trading tool than as an investment.

All this, led me to read Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of crowds, a book written almost 200 years ago, but still rings true today. Then as now, humans will always tend to rush into an investment or money-making opportunity well beyond that opportunity's real potential value. Then, when this is collectively realized, they sell off and crash back down. The key as a smart investor is to get into an investment before the rush and get out before the crash, hence the notion every investment has a bit of Ponzi in it - for you to profit, someone after you has to buy.

Ruppert takes that further and says everything in the world economy is a Ponzi curve tied to oil. If he's right, if we are past peak oil production, oil would be the thing to invest in. The thing that will get most people discrediting Ruppert though, and where he does an extreme disservice to himself, is his mad sense of urgency and doom & gloom. The end of oil is certainly not imminent. But being aware the age of oil is in decline would be wise as to identify where humans will go next and to put your investments there.