Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Resources on Jan 4th, 2010
Look at what has happened to the scarcity of salt over the past 100 years. The top chart adjusts nominal salt prices to account for the general rise in prices since 1900 using a measure of the CPI’s broad inflation index. The bottom chart takes a different approach to adjust the salt data. It looks […]
Posted in Resources on Jan 3rd, 2010
Look at what has happened to the scarcity of tin over the past 100 years. The top chart adjusts nominal tin prices to account for the general rise in prices since 1900 using a measure of the CPI’s broad inflation index. The bottom chart takes a different approach to adjust the tin data. It looks […]
Posted in Resources on Jan 2nd, 2010
Look at what has happened to the scarcity of bacon over the past 100 years. The top chart adjusts nominal bacon prices to account for the general rise in prices since 1900 using a measure of the CPI’s broad inflation index. The bottom chart takes a different approach to adjust the bacon data. It looks […]
Posted in Resources on Jan 1st, 2010
Look at what has happened to the scarcity of aluminum over the past 100 years. The top chart adjusts nominal aluminum prices to account for the general rise in prices since 1900 using a measure of the CPI’s broad inflation index. The bottom chart takes a different approach to adjust the aluminum data. It looks […]
Posted in Resources on Dec 31st, 2009
Look at what has happened to the scarcity of oil over the past 100 years. Look here and here for information on oil since it was discovered in 1859. The top chart adjusts nominal oil prices to account for the general rise in prices since 1900 using a measure of the CPI’s broad inflation index. […]
Posted in Resources on Dec 30th, 2009
Look at what has happened to the scarcity of cobalt over the past 100 years. The top chart adjusts nominal cobalt prices to account for the general rise in prices since 1900 using a measure of the CPI’s broad inflation index. The bottom chart takes a different approach to adjust the cobalt data. It looks […]
Posted in Resources on Dec 29th, 2009
Look at what has happened to the scarcity of copper over the past 100 years. The top chart adjusts nominal copper prices to account for the general rise in prices since 1900 using a measure of the CPI’s broad inflation index. The bottom chart takes a different approach to adjust the copper data. It looks […]
Posted in Resources on Dec 28th, 2009
Technical/engineering notions of what an exhaustible resource is focus on the physical properties of the “resource” only. A typical physical definition would be a material which does not have prospects for increasing in available quantities over any meaningful time frame. Thus, technical forecasts look at quantities of known reserves, and look at expected consumption of […]
Posted in Resources, Standards of Living on Dec 27th, 2009
You might be thinking, yes, energy is becoming a smaller portion of our incomes – but you are just playing games with numbers and prices. If energy prices were truly reflective of its REAL scarcity, we would not see the declining importance of energy. Or would we? The following chart plots a measure of energy […]
Posted in Resources, Standards of Living on Dec 26th, 2009
We are spending more of our income on energy today than ever before, right? Wrong! Even allowing for the inflation / commodities boom preceding this recession, energy expenditures make up about 2.7% of GDP. I plotted data back to 1929. Our energy expenditures peaked, as a share of GDP, in the depths of the Depression […]