1-30-2006

Age of Economics

There's a human need in history for categorization. People categorize everything, from plants to stars. We categorize because it's convenient, easy to understand - it's factual and paves way to progress. Understanding of physical laws helps us write new theorems, and theorems in turn flower into applications. In history, categorization is rarely this lucid, as years and centuries of observation rarely offer a glimpse into the future. And though Nostrodamus is still turning out a new prophecy every year, as the conscious of us have learned by now - they never come true. Still, we categorize - years into generations, generations into centuries, and centuries into epochs. Do historians want to second guess fate? Or self fulfill their own prophecies? It is an interesting contrast, - a systematic analysis of genes paves way towards useful medicine, or a thorough introspection into microeconomics leads to a better understanding financial dynamics, but historical debates more often than not cause controversy, draw criticism, are often biased, and even more often wrong. Then again, history is complex; genes, economics, music, religion, weather, humans, and animals all play a vital role in contributing and changing the course of history, and they themselves are complex entities we barely understand. Nevertheless the world we live in, with each passing year becomes simpler, easier to control, and more importantly easier to predict, not because the world is becoming simpler per se, but we've reached a resource bottleneck that hinders the growth of our civilizations.

Today we live in the Age of Economics, a Resource Race that will determine which countries survive and have the means to enter the next stage of development.

Today's world is governed by the use of non-replenishable resources, of which the major ones are oil, gas and coal. Over the past fifty years the progressive countries of the world, have been lavishly using these resources to build up national prestige via military might; economic growth, corporation domination, and world trade influence.

In turn these factors have constituted new technologies: from cars, planes to plasma TVs and iPods. Technological breakthroughs are daunting, and the technological advancement over the past twenty years, rivals that of the past five thousand.

Profit motivation being the main goal, along with a quickly aging Baby Boomer generation, our country (America) has spearheaded, supported, and promoted the growth of personal consumption and pharmaceutical investment. As a result the technological rate of achievement had outpaced its utility and in many cases is unviable for mass production and use. We produce technology that quickly becomes obsolete to better versions of itself, or completely obsolete to a completely brand new process. Additionally the massive interest in pharmaceutical products has resulted in a diverged academic push towards biochemical and medical fields of study as opposed to traditional sciences such as physics. Our society is more concerned with treating people today, without any consideration whether or not it will even exist to treat people tomorrow. As such we are easily seen as the grasshopper, in the ant and grasshopper fable, where we indulge in the harvest ( resources ) of today, without consideration of how to live once it is gone.

One does not have to agree with principles of "Peak Oil", -however the concept that we are nearing the maximum attainable production of Oil at a given year, after which Oil production will decline, and eventually cease to exist in useful numbers, is being supported by factual evidence as well as common sense -- that nothing lasts forever. Eventually oil and gas will stop being the major sources of energy and eventually they will stop existing altogether, and until then we shall remain in the Age of Economics.

In the last ten years, political alliances of the world have undergone tremendous shifts from political ideology to economic pragmatism. Food For Oil programs gone wrong, Special and Discriminatory Humanitarian concerns, and of course the War in Iraq have often left Western Democratic Countries like members of EU, the US, and Japan looking hypocritical at best, and at worst completely undemocratic and inhumane. WHY?

Why was France and Germany along with Russia and China the main transgressors of the Food for Oil Programs? Why were they leeching oil? Why was Russia buying Iraqi Oil in the late 90s and reselling it to the US for profit? Why, in part are we there now? The answer is the Age of Economics.

We are all in a race, a race of who will survive when oil and gas are gone. We have squandered much of our resources on personal consumption, military might, pharmaceutical research, among other less important needs in our lives and have yet to come up with a sensible and cheap energy resource for the future. All the civilized countries realize this, and have frantically begun doing whatever it is in their capacity to insure they survive to be as important and powerful tomorrow as they are today. One does not need to think hard to understand, that in the absence of a relatively cheap resource like oil or gas impoverished countries, along with those whose economies are dead or dying, will not be able to make it in our next technological stage of development. The costs are simply too high. New energy resources are not easily accessible without sophisticated technology, they are expensive to develop, sustain, and that is ignoring the fact they are usually not as productive, or efficient on the small scale, as the resources of choice are today. A resource like coal is inefficient and is a major pollutant, while Nuclear Energy, again requires a technological know how, not every country can put together. So until there is outmost necessity a "real" energy crisis so to speak, no advanced or semi advanced country will consider spending a large percentage of its resources and brainpower to come up with a new viable energy alternative. This human trait of countries is in effect fueling the rivalry, war, and diplomatic allegiance that characterizes our Age of Economics.

Therefore, should the world's natural resources deplete tomorrow, most of the world, would find itself in the Dark Ages; unable to grow, to sustain or feed its populace. A perfect example of this, can be found in a "civilized" country like Ukraine, which without Russian gas finds itself not only unable to provide heat for its people, but sustain its manufacture and compete on the world market with prices (as a result of their higher cost production). At this stage of course, iPods, Maybachs, and cell stem research becomes irrelevant, find that surprising? The African tribe of Maasai disagrees.

So what have we accomplished today, that will allow us to remain a superpower tomorrow? There are few countries or organizations today, that are actively trying to insure their survival and place in the future. The European Union in its failed opposition of US's invasion of Iraq, has seen significant repercussions to its economy. As an organization with minimal natural resources, European Union currently offers the world technological expertise, and fashion. Once the US has taken over control of Iraqi oil, US and its ally UK have taken a large step to solidify their position as a leader in the Middle East, cutting off European Union (France and Germany) from reemerging as a potential economic super power. Also it puts European Union in a weaker position for being able to survive as a powerful force after natural non renewable resources are gone. As a result it has become more dependent on Russia for its source of oil and natural gas. There is no doubt of course that the European Union has the necessary intellectual resources to create a new viable source of power for themselves, the question is however, whether or not they will be able to sustain its funding or have the financial means to create it without putting themselves and their civilization in jeopardy. Russia has spent the latter part of the 90s selling Iraqi oil off to US, while conserving their own stock. With immense resource stock, Russia is one of the few countries in the world which can afford to lag behind economically and technologically. But even Russia realizes where the future is heading, and freely flaunts its powers on the "civilized" countries that are around it, like Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and Georgia. China - one of the worlds largest and fastest growing economies anticipates its thirst for oil and gas and has went through great lengths to secure its relationship with Iran, with almost 100 billion dollars to be invested in the next 10 years. In addition, a gas pipeline will finally be built between Russia and China at the cost of some 2 billion dollars. Whether or not China establishes itself and its resource supply to become as an economic force to be reckoned with, through diplomacy as opposed to military force remains to be seen, but some things are clear, military might today do not guarantee military might, or even existence tomorrow ( North Korea). Another economic superpower that should not be overlooked is Japan. Offering efficiency and productivity that often goes unmatched in the world, Japan has been a partner to the US since WWII, they realize their place in the world as a technological king but are vastly dependent on OPEC for their natural resources, and while they may be in little or no position to control the remaining stocks of natural resources, they are definitely one of the few countries that can be relied on to pull themselves through an energy crisis through technological prowess.

As of March 2003, the second war in Iraq, not only has America been able to drive out European and Russian influence over Iraq -- one of the largest individual reserves of oil and gas in the world, but they have also spread Democracy to the region. The instability that they have caused will not only pave way to a region that will never again become as powerful as it once did - as ethnic elements of the region will always strive for autonomy and independence, but they have in effect pulled a plug on an economic boom for Europe, if ever such a thing was to occur. The international policies of our country self centered as they may be, defiantly placed us, a country of quickly diminishing natural resources, in a good position to sustain its economic growth and position as a future world leader. As self interested we may be, our country with its human qualities of greed, and wanton consumption is better at it than most other countries out there. We are not the most pleasant country, and we may not be the richest, productive or even intelligent, but we are cunning and we are successful in what we do. Indeed, Civilizations come , and civilizations go, and each civilization wants to last forever.