Comment by siculars | Hacker News Reader

Comment by siculars | Hacker News Reader

I've asked this thought exercise before (here) and I'll ask it again: what happens when the world stops paying for oil?

A significant portion of the world in terms of area and population derive virtually all their earning power from oil. When oil ceases to be valuable one must consider the consequences. Look at Nigeria which recently requested $3.5 billion dollars in emergency aid from the World Bank[0], like yesterday, to fill their budget gap. This will get worse not only due to current market conditions but let's look past those to utopia: a world with no need for fossil fuels. These economies are completely dependent on fossil fuels - for everything - what would that utopia look like for them?

If you adhere to the school of jobs and economy equates to less terrorism then the environmental panacea that awaits us in a world of free renewable energy will be paradoxically diminished by terrorism and human tragedy.

Discuss.

[0] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3f2f140-c8f0-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953...

Its going to come sooner or later though. Maybe this could be a good kick in the butt for nations that lived off selling their natural resources for so long that they have never bothered doing anything else. Middle east is the biggest offender, followed by Russia and a few in Latin America.

A few locals are already voicing concerns on that, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvvvomANbRo

What about Norway?

Its kill.

http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nor/#Exports

Edit: yeah Norway is definitely going to go to the shatter unless they invest in high tech right now. Compare this with Canada for example.

http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/can/#Exports

Nor: >50% of exports are crude and petroleum based products Can: ~25% of exports are crude and petroleum based products

Norway is notable for not fixing their budget to their oil exports, they've been squirreling it away.

In August 2014, the Government Pension Fund controlled assets were valued at approximately US$884 billion (equal to US$173,000 per capita) which is about 174% of Norway's current GDP. It is the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

An effect, from the same charts, which partially mitigates what you're highlighting is that Norway has a totally different balance of exports versus imports:

    Canada: Imports $437 B Exports $438 B
    Norway: Imports $92  B Exports $147 B

It has nothing to do with oil and everything to do with bad government.

E.g. Norway v. Canada.

The question is how to enable politicians to take the long view.

Not through regular popularity contests, that's for sure. For all the positives this is the greatest flaw of democracy IMHO. There is a conflict of interest between keeping voters happy in the short term (and voters memories are very very short) and doing the right thing for the long term. This is where planned economies and single party states have the potential to out strategise liberal democracies.

And Norway is one of the few countries that has a king instead of a president, taking an active role in government.

A skillful king is better than a democracy: but the downside of a monarchy is much much worse than a democracy, which is why we prefer democracy.

Is there anything supporting that school of thought? I think the evidence shows otherwise: http://www.aei.org/publication/what-makes-a-terrorist/

I don't think there actually is much in the way of supporting that position. It just seems to be the school of thought espoused by certain folks in politics and the media. It's as if to say poor people are predisposed to becoming terrorists. Is that logical? I actually don't think there is any evidence to support that.

We need to change our economic thinking from a growth perspective to a circulation perspective. Global negative interest rates and land taxes would be a good place to start.

War.

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