We (the western world) may run short of oil, coal and other fossil fuels by 2025, and this will cause the economy to decline (or it may be an effect of a shrinking economy that requires less fuel). This isn't an actual shortage, as there will still be lots of fuel in the ground, instead it is a lack of fuel available for sale because the price is too low to pay for the cost of extraction.
Now if the price is too low, you would assume that raising the price would take care of the shortages. But this is the paradox - that oil prices remain too low despite shortages. Why is this? Because the economy has become bifurcated between industrial workers, who work at energy-intensive jobs, and the elite, who don't require as much electricity.
That is my explanation of Gail Tverberg's theory:
As the economy approaches limits, prices tend to fall too low for producers, rather than rise too high for consumers. Energy prices tend to fall too low because, as the economy gets more complex, wage and wealth disparity tend to grow, reflecting differences in training and responsibility. The problem occurs because low-paid workers cannot afford to buy very large quantities of goods and services produced by the economy. For example, many cannot afford a car or a home of their own. The spending of high-paid workers does not offset the loss of demand by low-paid workers because high-paid workers tend to spend their wages more on services, such as advanced education, which require proportionately less energy consumption. Ultimately, the lack of demand by low-paid workers tends to pull down the prices of oil and other commodities below the level required by producers.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/09/23/reaching-the-end-of-early-stimulus-whats-ahead/
Henry Ford paid his auto workers more than the going wage rate so that they could afford their own cars, in a virtuous cycle. This is that cycle in reverse - low paid workers cannot afford to buy what the economy produces, leading to a shrinking in the real economy.
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