The US is fracking all over the place, and yet you seem to be saying there is a lack of resources like natural gas. Well, I may not bother to check the forum on this point, call me ignorant...

Please understand, we are not here to prove some point at all costs. I know that I have huge amount of data backing things I say here. And you want to just argue with mass media words and common people "logic". It is different levels of discussion.

Please, understand me right. Your POV is absolutely non original and very common. In fact, it is not POV at all, it is just mass media propaganda that due to mind nature transformed in your opinion that you now thing is original.

I must say that the statement "money plays zero role in all current trends" is something I hadn't heard before, or not for a long time. Very materialist, I guess. Sorry this got a bit intense; I do enjoy arguing, but I'm not sure this is going to go anywhere new and I don't want it to sound personal.

Money indeed do not set any of current trends, money are used as tools to make things slightly better in short term (and much worse in long term) despite the trends.

I concede the point about oil, I was really talking about natural gas so I'm not sure why I went down that road. My house uses oil for heat, and the price has only increased in the last 5 years (and it's too damn high! as I'd mentioned). If I had a natural gas burning furnace, it would be significantly less expensive -- but it's the US that now has so much natural gas that it exports it like Russia, not Greece or PIGS.

Larger point about whether money can influence costs, just take a look at the prices of energy on the stock market, or for raw materials, and compare with price for production. If a lot of people decide to invest in the stock the price rises, and it's been characteristic of recent years that the price of oil, or metals say, can go way higher than is justified by anything except speculation by investors. And then it drops because it was just speculation, this happened a number of times over the past decade.

Maybe you are really saying that money can't influence energy prices downward, only upward. That may in fact be the case in a sense because for energy the price will never go below a certain level because the demand is always there. I don't say my POV is original, just that it's based on financial data which could be checked by anyone. There can only be other data that perhaps I'm not looking at, and I commend your efforts to highlight them if they are out there and being obscured by the worlds major news media.

Last thing -- the price of borrowing is crucial here, and this is how policies of the EU affect the price of energy. If they make the price of borrowing outrageously high like it is now, then just to keep the country running, the price is far higher than it would have been otherwise. And all that money just get borrowed and puts the Greeks further in the hole. The rest of this is a bit of a distraction from that bigger point.

For 34 years, Gwendolyn Beasley worked as a clerk at the Detroit Public Library and paid a portion of her salary into a fund that would someday help pay for her pension.

Now retired, Beasley, 67, receives $1,500 a month from that pension. But she's cutting back on spending after a judge ruled last week that Detroit's pension funds, like other city creditors, may have to take a hit as the city reorganizes its finances under bankruptcy.

It's not just Detroit retirees who are worried about their pensions. Financially troubled cities in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania will soon face decisions on what to do with chronically underfunded pension funds, and experts say the Detroit ruling has made it easier for cities to argue that pensions must be cut.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-public-employee-pensions-20131208,0,3337836.story

People here need to learn exponential thinking. Looking at the future with current technology easily leads to all this doomsdays scenarios.

You know why Greeks are in trouble?

Because they are corrupt, avoid taxes, only want to work till they are 50, because 25% of people in that country work for the government and more of those reasons. They only ones to blame are themselves.

And yes, the world as we know it will collapse but what we are going to get is going to be prettier and more sustainable.

I recommend you guys start reading some literature: Society 3.0, Singularity, The Power of Pull. Instead of complaining about all the bullshit going on in this world, do something to change it.

The sun and wind are unlimited resources (for a long time ahead), we have to start utilising them. The costs of solar panels is coming down at amazing speed. The technology is already there to turn every single house in this world into a energy self sufficient provider which means we don't need any other resources for energy: no coal, no gas, no wood. We just have to get better in capturing energy that is already present.

@sohus "People here need to learn exponential thinking" You do understand the irony of your statements right? :)

I think some people fail to realize that they were born in the world of ever going exponential economical growth that made the living of every new generation better than their fathers. And they think it will continue forever. It won't. The technological revolution and a century of economic growth had a price. Machines that liberated man from tedious manual labour don't run just because. They need fuel. And 85% of global electricity is generated from burning coal, gas and oil. So as these resources peak and start to become more scarce the costs of producing EVERYTHING will gradually increase. That means tighter profit margins for busynesses, smaller salaries, higher prices for basic necessities etc. We are living right in the times of peak resources, so that old logic - every new generation will have more prosperous living will be gone. Quite the contrary, sons now will work harder and afford less than their fathers. Well, unless, of course, mankind invents some revolutionary source of cheap energy to replace depleting fossil fuels.