patrick.net

Peter P,

What do you think of Warren Buffet getting married at his age? Who's the lucky gal? Anyone heard? Please tell me she was born in the same century as Warren B! This isn't one of those Marla Maples look-alike kind of deals is it?

Conor,

Those are big sky macro questions; and my opinion probably isn't worth much more than yours for answering very long term questions.

My opinion is that it all centers around real growth, mostly as defined by the Solow and related theories. In the very long run, real growth is only defined by productivity, which itself reduces to technology advancement. Population growth is offset in the long run with capital creation.

I don't necessarily agree that credit creation need be deflationary. So long as long term credit does not exceed long term real growth, then there is no net deflationary effect.

What I do agree with is that we've (collectively we, meaning anglo-style western market capitalism, which defines the global economy) committed ourselves to ever increasing growth. In the very long run this can only mean forever growing (but not necessarily accelerating) technological enhancements.

So in my mind, and ignoring obvious major reset events like global wars, it is a race between what the credit & capital enables: technology, and our ability to exploit that technology without wiping ourselves out.

In the very very long run, this will eventually lead to progressively expanded markets, resources, and growth opportunities. Mostly in the form of ocean and space territorial conquests.

For that matter, does a rapidly deteriorating housing & credit market here portend doom for these overseas markets?

I hope so :}

DinOR,

Buffett has been living with the same woman for decades. He had a very open marriage with his first wife and the three of them were allegedly on great terms with each other.

As for deadly influenza or a more communicable version of Ebola (Gawd that would be a messy way to die), the upside is that killing large populations this way is less traumatic on human civilization compared to war.

If humanity gets its act together, such a pandemic might shake humanity out of its bad old ways and result in a cultural/technological rebirth. (As with Europe and Black Death, which temporarily relieved the population pressure brought on the high Middle Ages + Little Ice Ages, lead to loosening of the manor-serf based system, and may have kick started the Renaissance.)

StuckInBA Says:

The continuation of UK and Aus bubble is one of the very few reasons for my self-doubt. I know, different societies, different laws, different mortgages and just about everything may be different.

On top of that, whatm0980 are the consumer savings rates in AU and UK, or the rest of Europe for that matter? I can't imagine them being nearly as bad as in the US. This would suggest that the average US homedebtor has no reserve when the $hit hits the fan. I'd argue this makes the US situation a potentially worse.

Minutes from the Fed Aug. 8 meeting:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/FOMC/minutes/20060808.htm

"All members agreed that the statement to be released after the meeting should convey that inflation risks remained dominant and that consequently keeping policy unchanged at this meeting did not necessarily mark the end of the tightening cycle. They concurred that an indication that economic growth had moderated was appropriate, and a consensus favored citing the same reasons for that moderation as in the June statement. Members also agreed that the statement should both mention factors contributing to the likely moderation of inflation pressures over time and reiterate the forces that were seen as having the potential to sustain inflation pressures."

Talk about fence-sitting!

astrid,

"on great terms with each other"

I'm sorry, that's disgusting AND weird!

"I’m sorry, that’s disgusting AND weird!"

Sorry, didn't mean to imply old people threesomes. Buffett picked up the current wife after he became somewhat estranged from his first wife, but the three of them would show up at events together and sign Christmas cards together.

"I think this is unlikely due to EROEI issues. Putting anything into space (outside of earth orbit - i.e. where any “resources” might be) is so energy demanding that the returns would have to be truely “astronomical” for it to be viable. Also as the term SPACE implies -there just is notmuch there."

Fusion or a vastly improved fission power production would be essential. It's all a pipedream that'll do nothing for us, or our kids, or our kids' kids unless friendly aliens drop by to lend a hand

astrid,

Apologies to all! I misunderstood, but that's still a little weird. I guess when you have that much money (even in Omaha) it's perfectly acceptable.

Ryno73/alien,

I'll chalk that one up to "bubbletainment" and nothing more. My question is how many of those "homes for sale" searches were accompanied by the advanced search parameters of +reduced, +motivated, +desperate?

alien,

The problem isn't EROIE, or even simple EVA, it's that the fixed costs of such systems is too high to guarantee the positive future flows of such a long harvest time period.

But then, if you were looking at the "Colonize the New World" problem with these kinds of economic and financial constraints, you would have come to the same conclusion.

What “resources” were you intending to extract from the ocean?

Quiz:

What current common resource is rapidly diminishing in consumption per capita terms?

Even the US will experience regional shortages of this resource, naturally increasing its commodity value over time.

The Oceans happen to be full of this resource, but with a catch. Some pretty large scale energy production and specialized resource processing facilities need to be designed and built.

And then there's the derivative uses of this great resource, one of which is currently under proof of concept development in many countries; intended to use a sub component of this resource as a transportable energy store.

The problem with economic justification analyses is that they are static, and the framing problem domain is dynamic and often surprising.

Heavy water?

I'm personally hoping to see developed world zoning codes move towards underground homes. Not only does this decrease cooling and heating costs and allow for higher construction density, but it would allow a more natural plant covering on top of the housing and relieve urban heat island effect.

The recent 42% jump in online queries about homes for sale could suggest that prospective buyers sat on the sidelines this summer waiting for home prices to fall and are now returning to the market.

I do a lot of searches to see if the market is dead yet.

As for deadly influenza or a more communicable version of Ebola (Gawd that would be a messy way to die), the upside is that killing large populations this way is less traumatic on human civilization compared to war.

How about A Taste of Armageddon? Perhaps it is a better way to fight wars.

What do you think of Warren Buffet getting married at his age?

I have nothing to say.

The recent 42% jump in online queries about homes for sale could suggest that prospective buyers sat on the sidelines this summer waiting for home prices to fall and are now returning to the market.

Sorry, that was my fault. I'll stop doing so many searches.

Or just FBs worried about their home "equity" checking out the competition.

Haha. You beat me to it. My line was…

Maybe it’s from me hitting refresh so often to see which houses are reducing their prices.

In semi-seriousness, I actually do a lot of searches to look for content to post on my site (http://burbed.com).

Lately, there's been too much stuff! :(

"Or just FB's worried about their home "equity" checking out the competition". LOL!

Honey, we've been on the market for 11 days now and we damn sure don't have next months first and second payment, check how the Jones' are doing on Zillow to see if our latest price reduction is lower, again.

Like I say "Bubbletainment"

I cold call for MB buddy and a lot of the "leads" are in SoCal and every third person tells me, "Oh, we're listing it, so we won't be needing your services!" Some w/confidence and even bravado (clueless) most others are clearly frantic! Research is great but there's NOTHING like cold calling if want "da goods".

George,

I'd say you're on a roll, don't stop now!

alien,

I could swear Randy H was talking about components for a fusion or fission reaction. Wasn't there some stupid rumor about the Chinese or Rumsfeld or somebody going to the Moon to look for some kind of nuclear fuel.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, thanks for your analysis.

Amsterdam, the Netherlands,

Thanks for the global perspective. Agreed, not looking good. Just curious though, what can you tell us about Vestas, the wind powered generation company? They're starting to ship a lot of units here in the Pacific NW and people are....... well curious.

Alien

If it is fresh water you are after you DON’T need large scale energy production

Now who's being unrealistic. People who propose things like There are a number of initiatives to build low-tech facilities to reap freshwater supplies by mimicking the characteristics of insects are at best ignorant about the scale of the problem or at worst disingenious. If you want there to be less people and less technology, then just state that up front. It is a noble goal in some people's minds. As to composting, what exactly do you think is occurring in landfills? Or are all those methane recapture facilities I see in landfills-turned-parks just for show? By the way, existing large-scale desal facilities are powered by fission reactors. It is a very efficient, low emission system.

astrid Says:

> Sorry, didn’t mean to imply old people threesomes. Buffett picked up the
> current wife after he became somewhat estranged from his first wife, but
> the three of them would show up at events together and sign Christmas
> cards together.

I've met Buffett a couple times (and send him a happy birthday e-mail yesterday) and his a little strange (if you consider that the "normal" American watches American Idol rather than reading annual reports at night).

Buffett does not have a "current wife" since he was only married once to Susie who died last year.

After 25 years of marriage Warren and Susie basically got "divorced" without actually filing the papers and Susie moved to SF in the 70's.

Like many couples who split up since they want to do different things Buffett and his wife remained friends over the years even after Buffett's current girlfriend Astrid moved in with him.

I just heard that Buffett now has a second wife...

alien and Randy,

Wait, this is a discussion about freshwater?

Then the solution is obvious. Annex Canada!

If it is fresh water you are after you DON’T need large scale energy production

It's true that solar energy is responsible for 99.9% of the freshwater on this planet. My idea is to have huge floating transparent plastic barges out in the pacific and pump in a small amount of water into the insulated bottoms of them. The sun would rapidly turn this into water vapor. Then flush out the remaining brine, add fresh salt water and repeat.

You then either use condensation towers or connect to a wide diameter plastic pipeline that climbs up to the top of the Sierras where the water vapor cools and gets dumped as water.

Could work. Wouldn't use fossile fuels. Save all that nuke power for H2 production.

Alien,

It's true that dumping the heat to the ocean is preferred as if obviates sending it somewhere else. The problem is those closed liferaft solutions high a max vapor pressure and max out. The steam vent in the sierras just keeps pouring out humid air, so I think it might be better for large scale production with no moving parts.

anyway...

SF Woman,
What I find interesting about your flipper example is that when you are dealing with that amount of capital (or perhaps debt), why not use it to finance multiple property flips rather than a single property, to distribute risk a little better. Yes, if they sell at $7M they will reap a huge profit, but that seems like gambling and putting all your chips on "7 Red" on one spin.

Or we could just ban lawns, golf courses, and desert rice growing...

Or we could just ban lawns, golf courses, and desert rice growing…

Why ban anything. Just charge the right price and people will act accordingly.

"Just charge the right price and people will act accordingly."

And how do you propose to set up the "right price" for clean air, or clean water, or salt, or Alaskan brown bear reserves?

And how do you propose to set up the “right price” for clean air, or clean water, or salt, or Alaskan brown bear reserves?

Just let people bid for them.

Can we say, "Waterworld"???

Can we say, “Waterworld”???

Whatever happens in the future, we will adapt, or not. We should not worry too much about it.