patrick.net

I hope the Boomers aren't counting on funding their retirement with a home sale.

And childless singles and couples that work in the city don't want a 4 Bed, 2.5 bath on 1/5th of an acre in East Guam, an hour from work each way with gas at +$3/gal.

This chart had me convinced "MAD MAX" would ensue.
I am actually thankful for the younger generation sidestepping religious large family traditions, even marriage. (why buy the cow ?) Acceptance of gay rights will also certainly reduce the rate of population growth.
Housing prices OVER inflated, during the introduction of the most important & most profitable invention in history. (The more you make the more you spend.)
That commodities introduction has become a piece of furniture, so house prices will now return to normal. Ho Hum.

Great. So now we'll have politicians justifying exorbitant housing costs as means of population control

Hey, it works for the racist statists in their good neighborhoods with the good schools wink wink

If you were a 20 something chick, would you want to get knocked up by a 20 something guy that has never even had a Summer job, let alone a job now. And his favorite past times are playing Beer Pong, and Bear Spray flinch?

Come on now, 20 somethings are a lot of things, but capable of making conscious decisions about BC is not really one of them. This has more to do with subconscious BC than concerted efforts.

Women are turned on by the strongest of the species and the providers, not often in the same package, hence infidelity. But make no mistake, there weren't many hot babes in the Jackass movie series.

CaptainShuddup says

But make no mistake, there weren't many hot babes in the Jackass movie series.

I'm sure they get laid more than you do.

Oh look who's back...

epitaph says

I'm sure they get laid more than you do.

Yeah, but I don't frequent Turkish Bathhouses.

For once a Mish article I agree with.

This is not just a USA trend. Birth rates worldwide are running around 2 per married couple. I'm sure it'll shock a lot of the "Idiocracy" idiots who tend to think that the brown people & unfit will crowd out "our kind", but it's true almost everywhere you look. Mexico is nearly the same as USA. The few places left with high birth rates are ones where medical care is poor and infant mortality high. People mostly it seems decided to have a bunch of kids, based on their estimation of risk of how many they need get a few survivors.

Ruki says

Mish also believes in the Peak Oil BS, folks.

BS?

Yes, peak oil is BS by definition of inference. The theory is sound, but unprovable in advance on an empirical basis (with currently imaginable technique). We wil only know when "peak oil" occurred at some point significantly beyond its occurrence.

Similar to "peak sun" theory. It is sound. The sun will die eventually, and there will be a definitive point at which it begins to enter a marked phase of decline. When that will occur is impossible to know on any meaningful timescale until after it actually occurs.

I stopped believing in peak oil. The Mayan end date is more entertaining.

Randy H says

The theory is sound, but unprovable in advance on an empirical basis (with currently imaginable technique)

BS.

Hubbert chart aligns well with observed reality.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Hubbert_US_high.svg

I believe that young couples are choosing to have fewer or even zero children based on other factors that do not include the economy. Right now in this society, there is a ton of enjoyable ways to fill a lifetime that do not include wiping noses or butts or sleep deprived nights and stretch marks. Having kids is a big commitment and many couples just are not doing it as a lifestyle choice. As a result they usually have nicer houses with more toys, better vacations, and a more interesting night life than couples who strain finances, time, and patience raising children.
Don't get me wrong, I love children. I'll have my third any day now, but it's a terrible sacrifice to make that choice nowadays. People who do not value progeny as much as I and my wife do are making the choice to stay childless.

I still doubt kids are good investments. Corporations are people too, perhaps people choose to make corporate person babies instead?

Vicente says

Randy H says

The theory is sound, but unprovable in advance on an empirical basis (with currently imaginable technique)

BS.

Hubbert chart aligns well with observed reality.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Hubbert_US_high.svg

“Eagles are dandified vultures” - Teddy Roosevelt

Still BS. Causality is not proven by those observations. The same curves occurred during WWII and other events that impacted oil production yields. You cannot view those in hind sight but have to eliminate all subsequent data in order to do apples-to-apples comparisons of predictability of future outcomes based on past data.

Further, it is entirely irrational to assume the curve would be gaussian in nature. It should exhibit extreme skewness were it the product of natural constraints versus colinear factors.

Randy H says

Still BS. Causality is not proven by those observations.

My problem with this entire line of argument, is that it doesn't MATTER if it's 10 years from now, or one year ago. When we are looking back on it from about 30 years in the future... we'll say yeah that was the peak. Do I give 2 honks if peak is 2011 or 2014? Nope. That it WILL come is inevitable. That certain knoheads think the Oil Fairy will ride in on her unicorn which will poop out some more oil for us and things will be fine and dandy indefinitely is what really bugs me. There are concrete things we could do to make our future better and we are not doing them.

Peter P says

I still doubt kids are good investments. Corporations are people too, perhaps people choose to make corporate person babies instead?

Corporations don't make babies. They eat their young.

Society has changed. Back then , you had a bunch of kids and they helped you in the farm/buisness from a very young age . As you grew old, they took care of you.

Now you have kids, they don't help you with anything and it takes them almost early twenties to late twenties to be independant. You spend a big cunk of your time shuttling them from one little activity to another. Then they grow up and move on and you have to take care of yourself. In the mean time, your spouse might have divorced you and took half your wealth and then some and you will be forced to pay outrageous amounts in child support-without having a say in how that money is spent.

Why on earth would anyone want kids? I love them and cherish them-but governemnt has gotten in too deep into the American/western family and ruined it.

I wouldn't care if it was a difference between 2011 or 2014 either. I don't even care if it's 1990-2020. The issue is we have no way of actually knowing the granularity of the situation. It could be that peak oil won't hit until 2150 or that it happened in 1980. And we won't know until well after the fact.

But I come to the same conclusions as you, which is that we should be doing something *now* to mitigate the eventuality. This is what I call the "asteroid" argument. One will hit. It will hit in the timescale of human modern civilization. We can't be precisely sure whether that will be in 100 or 1000 years, but it will happen, so we should be putting resources into the issue now.

Randy H says

so we should be putting resources into the issue now

I thought we WERE trying to find another inhabitable planet.
If you mean gubmint should tax us for ANY unexpected events, they are.

Ruki says

New discoveries that Peak Oil frauds claimed wouldn't happen are happening and reserve numbers constantly go up.

M. King Hubbard -- the God of the Peak oilers -- was wrong. Peak Oil is the Keynesianism of the oil industry.

So you are saying we can pump more and more oil forever, it's an infinite resource?

Oil is used in automotive ignition coils to keep them from overheating.
I wonder if oil submerged in the earth provides a similar cooling effect.
Just maybe we shouldn't suck it all up this generation.

Peter P says

Corporations are people too,

Corporations are people and it's illegal to buy and sell people. All stocks and options should be seized. Corporations should be forbidden from "merging", that's just plain sick!

Or we can see people as self-owned properties with restricted stocks. :-)