The ASPO world convention is taking place this year for the first time in Washington, DC, at the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel. This is – according to ASPO rumors – the first step to the Association becoming yet another crummy lobbying group.

Peak Oil is dead, long live … what, exactly?

Peak oil having taken place in the past, the consequence being lived by all in the present, the next form of organization is yet to emerge. The characters are vivid, the stage is banal. What else is there?

The great paradigm of our time is the execution of imagination in the back alley … of imagination.

The hotel itself is of a piece with our hypertrophic empire: a massive glass box cantilevered into and over itself with forms that call to mind the Matrix (perhaps under the parking level). Inside are reminders of the obliterating massiveness of the Establishment. There are several conventions taking place in this hotel simultaneously. Most appear to be job fairs/spamming events for ‘security’ and ‘intelligence’ outfits. In and among the various misfits and experts wandering more or less aimlessly scurry bright looking young hotel people in various shades of trendy charcoal gray pretending to be doing something important.

Presumably all have college degrees and all earn a bit more than minimum wage.

The entire peak oil concept – as simple to grasp as a leaky bucket – is not worth examining again. What’s next after the peak is reached (was reached a long time ago) and the sickening slide begins in earnest? The group is decidedly without concrete answers. It takes imagination to conceptualize the peak oil effect on consumers. The most effective promoters describe in simple language what they see in their minds’ eyes. This is one reason why the most effective peak oil articulates are artists and writers.

How we cope defies imagination. Our cultural prejudices presuppose a sci- fi Matrix future. How to create way of life without high- energy- consumption machines and all that goes with them has not been imagined by the crowd that has spent the best parts of their working lives seeking validation for what has been swept under the rug as not having any real importance.

Here comes Andy Warhol’s fifteen seconds of fame as peak oil’s effects will be felt at the point where people will not be able pass credit where it is due or not. Even in its end, the culture holds all in its death’s grip.

Interesting folks include Arch- Druid John Michael Greer, Diva of Deflation Nicole Foss, Sharon Astyk, Oil Drum stalwart Gail Tverberg, Good talks so far by Charlie Hall, Tom Whipple, Chris Martenson, Andre Angelantoni, Jeffrey Brown. Gregor MacDonald and I agreed that California is nearing (hopefully) its ‘Tainter Moment’ of accelerated simplification and might become a cheap (and fun) place to live, again.

I have some recordings but I haven’t figured out the ‘tech’ yet.

Most annoying opportunity let slip away was a chance to jump up and down on the head of Admiral Rice and Congressman Roscoe Bartlett. Both are actors pretending to be establishment figures. I’ve become a nice guy: “Why isn’t the government/military doing their jobs?”

This is an area where I need to improve; the be a more effective rabble rouser!

EDIT:

Two things to watch on the finance front: One is that crude has slipped a dollar from $84; the June high of $87 may not be reached/tested. Not bullish for the other markets as decline in the crude market has so far this year preceded declines in the stock market. Usually the declines are illuminated by ‘bad news’ somewhere:

Here’s another one:

September Employment Report: 18K Jobs Lost ex-Census, 9.6% Unemployment Rate

by CalculatedRisk 

Note: This will be the last “ex-Census” report this decade.

From the BLS:

Nonfarm payroll employment edged down (-95,000) in September, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Government employment declined (-159,000), reflecting both a drop in the number of temporary jobs for Census 2010 and job losses in local government. Private-sector payroll employment continued to trend up modestly (+64,000).

Census 2010 hiring decreased 77,000 in September. Non-farm payroll employment decreased 18,000 in September ex-Census.

Both July and August payroll employment were revised down. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from -54,000 to -66,000, and the change for August was revised from -54,000 to -57,000.

Et tu, stocks?

We are also watching the unemployment numbers along with expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet. I will also endeavor to get some UK information as well as Eurozone stats when (not if) the ECB starts its own QE program.

NOTE:

Bianca Jagger – a keynote speaker – makes an impassioned moral pitch for a responsible (cliche alert) energy policy. She also brings up climate change, a topic heretofor unmentioned.

Jeff Rubin discusses a future with high energy costs. Real? Who has the money to pay high prices? High prices kill business activity which reduces discretionary funds. This dynamic has been underway since 2003, the outcome is … everyone is broke!

The problem with these organizations is no institutional sense of humor. ASPO needed to give Tom Whipple the ‘Tom Whipple Award’. They gave him another award instead …

MORE ON UNEMPLOYMENT:

Here is Mish:

Fantastic News: Nonfarm Payrolls Decline by 95,000, Much Weaker than Expected; Involuntary Part-Time Work Soars by 612,000!

Today we have fantastic news from the BLS that the economy shed 95,000 jobs, far weaker than the economists’ consensus expectation of a mere 5,000 drop.

Moreover, part-time workers for economic reasons increased by a whopping 612,000 workers, much higher than an recent numbers and also higher than a year ago. The effect of rising part-time work is the effective unemployment rate shot up .4% to 17.1%

Shedding jobs is great news because it seals the fate for Bernanke’s Quantitative Easing program that is all but guaranteed to create jobs and drive the stock market higher according to the consensus opinion of Wall Street cheerleaders.

The worse the news, the better off the economy would be. Unfortunately, the official unemployment rate stayed flat at 9.6%. Had it blasted higher to 9.9% or better yet 10.1%, I am sure the stock market wold be up 3% right now.

To recap, the only way the economy can get better is if it gets worse first. So bad news is good news, and good news shows the bad news worked. Thus, all news is good news. Such is the magic of QE.