The Enormity of It All

The population of the United States (2009): 307 million

Wealth statistics, United States (comprehensive data, at link):

Examples -

Percentage of capital income captured by top 10% of US households? 79.4%.
Percentage of total income (2006) for top 20%? 61.4%
Percentage of total wealth held by top 10% (2000)? 69.8%.
Share of wealth held by top 1%? 34.6%.

Finished domestic oil consumption, United States (2008): 17,500,000 barrels per day, of which 9000 barrels is gasoline. (55 gallons per barrel)

All domestic petroleum products consumed, United States (2008): 19,500,000 barrels per day.

Military expenditures, per year, United States (2009): $711 billion

Oil used by the military, United States (2004): 330,000 to 360,000 barrels, per day.

Total carbon released by the military, United States (2008):  75 million tons, or more than 139 nations, combined.

Percent of the world's population which lives on less than $10 USD, per day: 80%

Median yearly income, USA (2008): $52k, or $142.50 per day

US greenhouse gas emissions:

Global C02 emissions (in thousands of metric tons):

Top Five:

China: 6.1 million
US: 5.75 million
European Union: 3.9 million
Russia: 1.56 million
India: 1.5 million

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Why all this?

http://www.energybulletin.net/52811 

And this:

"We face a dangerous future when the oil reserves around the world start to dry up. Those that have oil may find themselves faced with an American war machine ready to murder and destroy in order to take it. The myriad of products we depend on that require oil will start to become less and less available. The alternative energy sources that we need now will not be available or strong enough to carry our energy burden. Expanding our dependence, even domestically, only perpetuates a myth we have coaxed ourselves into believing and doesn’t prepare us for this sobering reality.

We can’t expect this to stop our country’s determination to exploit every ounce of oil and push off serious investment into alternative energy sources. The president will make an appearance, maybe wash the oil off a sea turtle or two (photo op!), proclaim that those involved in the clean-up are doing a great job, wait a few weeks for this to recede from the nation’s collective memory, and proceed with pushing for more drilling. After all, he has to if he expects to be able to count on the oil corporations’ donations for his reelection, and that is clearly what is important here."

And this:

(human poverty index, 2002)

(purchasing power, per country, 2002)

What does it all mean?

"...As the primary resource fueling later order capitalism - oil - approaches its revaluation as a luxury commodity, the surviving managing states must look for a new approach to stability; it must look to what populations it will protect, and which ones it will exploit and control. If international currencies can no longer depend on trade in fungible petroleum for their exchange value, then one of the final necessities of the modern nation state, and the international system of loans, debt financing and trade agreement, no longer acts as a pervasive bond between it and subject populations, losing its ability to discipline the citizenry with monetary policy. Without this oil based international order, the ruling factions must re-conceive the disciplinary nation state, configuring it to protect the wealth and welfare of a smaller class of beneficiaries, while retaining the power to police externalized populations.

Oil will not remain a widespread commodity into the next generation. If disciplinary states cannot retain their hegemony over captive populations their usefulness as delimiting organizations ends, setting into motion a period of intense competition for contested resources, as newly unrestrained actors search for advantages without enduring systems for conflict mediation. No longer assisted in conflict management by nation states, and the application of captured labor receipts to the military gelding of underdeveloped populations who happen to sit on resources, finance and extraction firms lose the capacity to shield their actions under the aegis of national interest and public security, exposing themselves as direct agents of alienation, violence and systematic oppression.

Exposing their operational logic to the immediate pressures of rebellious populations.

The modern nation state, understood in this light, remains vital as a buffer against direct opposition to exploitation, absorbing the violence, outrage and justified anger of laborers and the dwindling classes of petty small holders. For an American example, see the Tea Party. Or liberal political advocacy organizations..."

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In other words: the very wealthy in the US have neared the terminal point of their oil based power, and have begun the project of triage, dismantling the welfare state, shifting created wealth out of public systems and into private ones, increasing "national security" and "anti-terrorism" expenditures as a means of consolidating power using the rump of the liberal state. A similar process unfolds in Western Europe, and follows a pattern set in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. These measures, imposed first externally on Argentina, South East Asia and Brazil, as well as Mexico, now threaten Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain with the liberation of the wealthy from the reaches of the remaining poor. China and India will face crisis situations, driven by population and food/fuel consumption, which will precipitate resource conflicts within and beyond their own borders, so that "this disparity between the Euro-American dominions, the territorially expansive but unevenly developed nations such as Russia, Turkey, Brazil, China and Iran, and the 'underdeveloped' peripheries compel the several factions and combinations of capital and control to vie for access to remaining convertible resources, by simultaneously withdrawing public commitments to superfluous domestic populations and extending armed authority over regions ripe for extraction."

This may present a useful way of understanding the seemingly "knee jerk" reaction of American elites, to failed and minor acts of "terrorism," as well as to any protest or provocation which calls into question the means, methods or morality of their power.

As justifications for the militarization of the commons, and the capture of the creative class as dependents of the corporate-state.

As the world approaches a climate tipping point for which no solution present itself, coupled with the collapse of the one hundred year historical anomaly of cheap, reliable energy, the ruling factions approach a final plateau - sacrifice their power, luxury and wealth, or sacrifice the rest of us.

What do you think they'll choose?

h/t today's energy bulletin post: John W. Smart

Update:

A common theme today:

http://forwantofanail.com/2010/05/a-4-5-billion-year-strategy/

and

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bp_and_the_little_eichmanns_20100517/

h/t BlackDogRed