The story of energy and the economy seems to be an obvious common sense one: some sources of energy are becoming scarce or overly polluting, so we need to develop new ones. The new ones may be more expensive, but the world will adapt. Prices will rise and people will learn to do more with less. Everything will work out in the end. It is only a matter of time and a little faith. In fact, the Financial Times published an article recently called “Looking Past the Death of Peak Oil” that pretty much followed this line of reasoning.
Energy Common Sense Doesn’t Work Because the World is Finite
The main reason such common sense doesn’t work is because in a finite world, every action we take has many direct and indirect effects. This chain of effects produces connectedness that makes the economy operate as a network. This network behaves differently than most of us would expect. This networked behavior is not reflected in current economic models.
Most people believe that the amount of oil in the ground is the limiting factor for oil extraction. In a finite world, this isn’t true. In a finite world, the limiting factor is feedback loops that lead to inadequate wages, inadequate debt growth, inadequate tax revenue, and ultimately inadequate funds for investment in oil extraction. The behavior of networks may lead to economic collapses of oil exporters, and even to a collapse of the overall economic system.
An issue that is often overlooked in the standard view of oil limits is diminishing returns. With diminishing returns, the cost of extraction eventually rises because the easy-to-obtain resources are extracted first. For a time, the rising cost of extraction can be hidden by advances in technology and increased mechanization, but at some point, the inflation-adjusted cost of oil production starts to rise.
With diminishing returns, the economy is, in effect, becoming less and less efficient, instead of becoming more and more efficient. As this effect feeds through the system, wages tend to fall and the economy tends to shrink rather than grow. Because of the way a networked system “works,” this shrinkage tends to collapse the economy. The usage of energy products of all kinds is likely to fall, more or less simultaneously.
In some ways current, economic models are the equivalent of flat maps, when we live in a spherical world. These models work pretty well for a while, but eventually, their predictions deviate further and further from reality. The reason our models of the future are wrong is because we are not imagining the system correctly.
The Connectedness of a Finite World
In a finite world, an action a person takes has wide-ranging impacts. The amount of food I eat, or the amount of minerals I extract from the earth, affects what other people (now and in the future) can do, and what other species can do.
To illustrate, let’s look at an exaggerated example. At any given time, there is only so much broccoli that is ready for harvest. If I decide to corner the broccoli market and buy up 50% of the world’s broccoli supply, that means that other people will have less broccoli available to buy. If those growing the broccoli spray the growing crop with pesticides, “broccoli pests” (caterpillars, aphids, and other insects) will die back in number, perhaps contributing to a decline of those species. The pesticides may also affect desirable species, like bees.
Growing the broccoli will also deplete the soil of nutrients. If 50% of the world’s broccoli is shipped to me, the nutrients from the soil will find their way around the world to me. These nutrients are not likely to be replaced in the soil where the broccoli was grown without long-distance transport of nutrients.
To take another example, if I (or the imaginary company I own) extract oil from the ground, the extraction and the selling of that oil will have many far-ranging effects:
- The oil I extract will most likely be the cheapest, easiest-to-extract oil that I can find. Because of this, the oil that is left will tend to be more expensive to extract. My extraction of oil thus contributes to diminishing returns–that is, the tendency of the cost of oil extraction to rise over time as resources deplete.
- The petroleum I extract from the ground will consist of a mixture of hydrocarbon chains of varying lengths. When I send the petroleum to a refinery, the refinery will separate the petroleum into varying length chains: short chains are gasses, longer chains are liquids, still longer ones are very viscous, and the longest ones are solids, such as asphalt. Different length chains are used for different purposes. The shortest chains are natural gas. Some chains are sold as gasoline, some as diesel, and some as lubricants. Some parts of the petroleum spectrum are used to make plastics, medicines, fabrics, and pesticides. All of these uses will help create jobs in a wide range of industries. Indirectly, these uses are likely to enable higher food production, and thus higher population.
- When I extract the oil from the ground, the process itself will use some oil and natural gas. Refining the oil will also use energy.
- Jobs will be created in the oil industry. People with these jobs will spend their money on goods and services of all sorts, indirectly leading to greater availability of jobs outside the oil industry.
- Oil’s price is important. The lower the price, the more affordable products using oil will be, such as cars.
- In order for consumers to purchase cars that will operate using gasoline, there will likely be a need for debt to buy the cars. Thus, the extraction of oil is tightly tied to the build-up of debt.
- As an oil producer, I will pay taxes of many different types to all levels of governments. (Governments of oil exporting countries tend to get a high percentage of their revenue from taxes on oil. Even in non-exporting countries, taxes on oil tend to be high.) Consumers will also pay taxes, such as gasoline taxes.
- The jobs that are created through the use of oil will lead to more tax revenue, because wage earners pay income taxes.
- The government will need to build more roads, partly for the additional cars that operate on the roads thanks to the use of gasoline and diesel, and partly to repair the damage that is done as trucks travel to oil extraction sites.
- To keep the oil extraction process going, there will likely need to be schools and medical facilities to take care of the workers and their families, and to educate those workers.
Needless to say, there are other effects as well. The existence of my oil in the marketplace will somehow affect the market price of oil. Burning of the oil may affect the climate, and will tend to acidify oceans. It would be possible to go on and on.
The Difficulty of Substituting Away from Oil
In some sense, the use of oil is very deeply imbedded into the operation of the overall economy. We can talk about electricity replacing oil, but oil’s involvement in the economy is so pervasive, it can’t possibly replace everything. Perhaps electricity might replace gasoline in private passenger automobiles. Such a change would reduce the demand for hydrocarbon chains of a certain length (C7 to C11), but that only reduces demand for one “slice” of the oil mixture. Both shorter and longer chain hydrocarbons would be unaffected.
The price of gasoline will drop, (making Chinese buyers happy because more will be able to afford to use motorcycles), but what else will happen? Won’t we still need as much diesel, and as many medicines as before? Refiners can fairly easily break longer-chain molecules into shorter-chain molecules, so they can make diesel or asphalt into gasoline. But going the other direction doesn’t work well at all. Making gasoline into shorter chains would be a huge waste, because gasoline is much more valuable than the resulting gases.
How about replacing all of the taxes directly and indirectly related to the unused gasoline? Will the price of electricity used in electric-powered vehicles be adjusted to cover the foregone tax revenue?
If a liquid substitute for oil is made, it needs to be low priced, because a high-priced substitute for oil is very different from a low-priced substitute. Part of the problem is that high-priced substitutes do not leave enough “room” for taxes for governments. Another part of the problem is that customers cannot afford high-priced oil products. They cut back on discretionary expenditures, and the economy tends to contract. There are layoffs in the discretionary sectors, and (again) the government finds it difficult to collect enough tax revenue.
The Economy as a Networked System
I think of the world economic system as being a networked system, something like the dome shown in Figure 1. The dome behaves as an object that is different from the many wooden sticks from which it is made. The dome can collapse if sticks are removed.
Figure 1. Dome constructed using Leonardo Sticks
The world economy consists of a network of businesses, consumers, governments, and resources that is bound together with a financial system. It is self-organizing, in the sense that consumers decide what to buy based on what products are available at what prices. New businesses are formed based on the overall environment: potential customers, competition, resource availability, services available from other businesses, and laws. Governments participate in the system as well, building infrastructure, making laws, and charging taxes.
Over time, all of these gradually change. If one business changes, other business and consumers are likely to make changes in response. Even governments may change: make new laws, or build new infrastructure. Over time, the tendency is to build a larger and more complex network. Unused portions of the network tend to wither away–for example, few businesses make buggy whips today. This is why the network is illustrated as hollow. This feature makes it difficult for the network to “go backward.”
The network got its start as a way to deliver food energy to people. Gradually economies expanded to include other goods and services. Because energy is required to “do work,” (such as provide heat, mechanical energy, or electricity), energy is always central to an economy. In fact, the economy might be considered an energy delivery system. This is especially the case if we consider wages to be payment for an important type of energy–human energy.
Because of the way the network has grown over time, there is considerable interdependency among different types of energy. For example, electricity powers oil pipelines and gasoline pumps. Oil is used to maintain the electric grid. Nuclear electric plants depend on electricity from the grid to restart their operations after outages. Thus, if one type of energy “has a problem,” this problem is likely to spread to other types of energy. This is the opposite of the common belief that energy substitution will fix all problems.
Economies are Prone to Collapse
We know the wooden dome in Figure 1 can collapse if “things go wrong.” History shows that many civilizations have collapsed in the past. Research has been done to see why this is the case.
Joseph Tainter’s research indicates that diminishing returns played an important role in the collapse of past civilizations. Diminishing returns would be a problem when adding more workers didn’t add a corresponding amount more output, particularly with respect to food. Such a situation might be reached when population grew too large for a piece of arable land. Degradation of soil fertility might play a role as well.
Today, we are reaching diminishing returns with respect to oil supply, as evidenced by the rising cost of oil extraction. This is occurring because we removed the easy to extract oil, and now must move on to the more expensive to extract oil. In effect, the system is becoming less efficient. More workers and more resources of other types are needed to produce a given barrel of oil. The value of the barrel of oil in terms of what it can do as work (say, how far it can move a car, or how much heat it can produce) is unchanged, so the value each worker is producing is less. This is the opposite of efficiency.
Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov have done research on the nature of past collapses, documented in a book called Secular Cycles. An economy would clear a piece of land, or discover an approach to irrigation, or by some other means discover a way to expand the number of people who could live in an area. The resulting economy would grow for well over 100 years, until population started catching up with resource availability. A period of stagflation followed, typically for about 50 or 60 years, as the economy tried to continue to grow, but bumped against increasing obstacles. Wage disparity grew as wages of new workers lagged. Debt also grew.
Eventually collapse occurred, over a period of 20 to 50 years. Often, much of the population died off. An inter-cycle period followed, during which resources regenerated, so that a new civilization could arise.
Figure 2. Shape of typical Secular Cycle, based on work of Peter Turkin and Sergey Nefedov in Secular Cycles.
One of the major issues in past collapses was difficulty in funding government services. Part of the problem was that wages of common workers were low, making it difficult to collect enough taxes. Part of governments’ problems were that their costs went up, as they tried to solve the increasingly complex problems of society. Today these costs might include unemployment insurance and bailing out banks; in ages past they included larger armies to try to conquer new lands with more resources, as their own resources depleted.
Today’s Situation
Our situation isn’t too different. The economy started growing in the early 1800s, about the time we started using fossil fuels, thanks to technology that allowed us to use them. Oil is the fossil fuel that is depleting most quickly, because it is very valuable in many uses, including transportation, agriculture, construction, mining, and as a raw material to produce many goods we use every day.
Our economy seems to have hit stagflation in the early 1970s, when oil prices first began to spike. Now, some of the symptoms we are seeing are looking distressingly like the symptoms that other civilizations saw prior to the beginning of collapse. Our networked system has many weak points:
- Oil exporters Governments can collapse, as the government of the Former Soviet Union did in 1991, if oil prices are too low. The fact that oil prices have not risen since 2011 is probably contributing to unrest in the Middle East.
- Oil importers Spikes in oil prices lead to recession.
- Governments funding Debt keeps expanding; infrastructure needs fixes but they don’t get done; too many promises for pensions and healthcare.
- Failing financial systems Debt defaults are likely to be a major problem if the economic system starts shrinking. Debt is needed to keep oil prices up.
- Contagion if one energy product is in short supply This happens many ways. For example, nearly all businesses rely on both electricity and oil. If either one of these becomes unavailable (say oil to supply parts and ship goods to customers), then the business will need to close. Because of the business closure, demand for other energy products the business uses, such as electricity and natural gas, will drop at the same time. Direct use of energy products to produce other energy products (mentioned previously) also contributes to this contagion.
Unfortunately, when it comes to operating an economy, it is Liebig’s Law of the Minimum that rules. In other words, if any required element is missing, the system doesn’t work. If businesses can’t get financing, or can’t pay their employees because banks are closed, businesses may need to close. Workers will get laid off, and the inability to afford energy products (economists would call this “lack of demand”) will be what brings the system down.
Modeling our Current Economy
Everywhere we look, we see models of how the energy system or the economy can be expected to work. None of the models match our current situation well.
Growth will Continue As in the Past It is pretty clear that this model is inadequate. Every revision to growth estimates seems to be downward. In a finite world, we know that growth at the same rate can’t continue forever–we would run out of resources, and places for people to stand. The networked nature of the system explains how the system really grows, and why this growth can’t continue indefinitely.
Rising Cost of Producing Energy Products Doesn’t Matter In a global world, we compete on the price of goods and services. The cost of producing these goods and services depends on (a) the cost of energy products used in making these goods and services (b) wages paid to workers for producing these services (c) government, healthcare, and other overhead costs, and (d) financing costs.
One part of our problem is that with globalization, we are competing against warm countries–countries that receive more free energy from the sun than we do, so are warmer than the US and Europe. Because of this free energy from the sun, homes do not need to be built as sturdily and less heat is needed in winter. Without these costs, wages do not need to be as high. These countries also tend to have less expensive healthcare systems and lower pensions for the elderly.
Governments can try to fix our non-competitive cost structure compared to these countries by reducing interest rates as much as possible, but the fact remains–it is very difficult for countries in cold parts of the world to compete with countries in warm parts of the world in making goods. This cost competition problem becomes worse, as the price of energy products rises because we are competing with a cost of $0 for heating requirements. If cold countries add carbon taxes, but do not surcharge goods imported from warm countries, the disparity with warm countries becomes even worse.
In the early years of civilization, warm countries dominated the world economy. As energy prices rise, this situation is likely to again occur.
Price is Not Important Apart from the warm country–cool country issue, there is another reason that energy cost (in real goods, not just in financial printed money) is important:
The price of the energy used in the economy is important because it is tied to how much must be “given up” to buy the oil or anther energy product (such as food). If energy is cheap, little needs to be given up to obtain the energy. Because of energy’s huge ability to do “work,” the work that is obtained can easily make goods and services that compensate for what has been given up. If energy is expensive, there is much less benefit (or perhaps negative benefit) when what is given up is compared to the work that the energy product provides. As a result, economic growth is held back by high-priced energy products of any kind.
Supply and Demand Leads to Higher Prices and Substitutes Major obstacles to the standard model working are (a) diminishing returns with respect to oil supply, (b) recession and even government failure of oil importers, when oil prices rise and (c) civil unrest and even government failure in oil exporters, if oil prices don’t keep rising. If there isn’t enough oil supply, oil prices rise, but there are soon so many follow-on effects that oil prices fall back again.
Reserves/ Production This ratio supposedly tells how long we can produce oil (or natural gas or coal) at current extraction rates. This ratio is simply misleading. The real limit is how long the economy can function, given the feedback loops related to diminishing returns. If a person simply looks at investment dollars required, it becomes clear that this model doesn’t work. See my post IEA Investment Report – What is Right; What is Wrong.
IPCC Climate Change Model Estimates of future carbon emissions do not take into the networked nature of the energy system and economy, so tend to be high. See my post Oil Limits and Climate Change – How They Fit Together.
Energy Payback Period, Energy Return on Energy Invested, and Life Cycle Analysis These approaches look at the efficiency of energy production, comparing energy used in the process to energy produced in the process. In some ways, they work–they show that we are becoming less and less efficient at producing oil, or coal, or natural gas, as we move to more difficult to extract resources. And they can be worthwhile, if a decision is being made as to which of two similar devices to purchase: Wind Turbine A or Wind Turbine B.
Unfortunately, modeling a finite world is virtually impossible. These approaches use narrow boundaries–energy used in pulling oil out of the ground, or making a wind turbine. It doesn’t tell as much as we need to know about new energy generation equipment, together with (a) changes needed elsewhere in the system and (b) whatever financial system is used to pay for the energy generated with that system, will actually work in the economy. To really analyze the situation, broader analyses are needed.
Furthermore, there are the inherent assumptions that (a) we have a long time period to make changes and (b) one energy source can be substituted for another. Neither of these assumptions is really true when we are this close to oil limits.
Where the Peak Oil Model Went Wrong
Part of the Peak Oil story is right: We are reaching oil limits, and those limits are hitting about now. Part of the Peak Oil story is not right, though, at least in a common version that is prevalent now. The version that is prevalent is more or less equivalent to the “standard” view of our current situation that I talked about at the beginning of the post. In this standard view, oil supply will not disappear very quickly–approximately 50% of the total amount of oil ever extracted will become available after the peak in oil production. There will be considerable substitution with other fuels, often at higher prices. The financial system may be affected, but it can be replaced, and the economy will continue.
This view is based on writing of M. King Hubbert back in 1957. At that time, it was commonly believed that nuclear energy would provide electricity too cheap to meter. In fact, in a 1962 paper, Hubbert talks about “reversing combustion,” to make liquid fuels. Thus, not only did his story include cheap electricity, it also included cheap liquid fuels, both in huge quantity.
Figure 3. Figure from Hubbert’s 1956 paper, Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels.
In such a situation, growth could continue indefinitely. There would be no need to replace huge numbers of vehicles with electric vehicles. Governments wouldn’t have a problem with funding. There would be no problem with collapse. The supply of oil and other fossil fuels could decline slowly, as suggested in his papers. Assuming that it is possible to extract about 50% of oil supply after peak is equivalent to assuming that the networked economy will hold together indefinitely–there will be no problem with collapse.
But the story of the cheap, rapid nuclear ramp-up didn’t materialize, and we gradually got closer to the time when limits were beginning to hit. Major changes were needed to Hubbert’s story to reflect the fact that we really didn’t have a fix that would keep business as usual going indefinitely. But these changes never took place. Instead the view of how little change was needed to keep the economy going kept getting downgraded more and more. “Standard” economic views filtered into the story, too.
There is a correct version of the oil limits story to tell. It is the story of the failure of networked systems. That is the story I am telling in my posts.
New York Times article concerning poverty stricken communities surrounding Eagle Ford in Texas. The locals do not see the wealth and are powerless to halt the exploitation that leaves them with a mess afterward:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/us/boom-meets-bust-in-texas-atop-sea-of-oil-poverty-digs-in.html
There is no regard for the health or safety of the bottom 70% in the US. This is not news.
Did I say it was? Some folks think they know it all and I am VERY sure you did not know the particulars of the story. If you have not material to add to the discussion refrain from adding just a dig. Pun intented
Dear Gail and All
There continues to be a lot of confusion about Ukraine and Europe and Russia and gas. For example, you may read that ‘Europe could have made itself independent of Russian gas if it had done the proper planning 15 years ago’, or that ‘Russia is using gas as a political weapon’. Then Zero Hedge prints this article today:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-30/russia-reveals-plan-b-gazprom-says-gas-transit-ukraine-may-be-stopped-completely
I think it is necessary to keep some basics in mind:
1. Putin is probably correct that gas from pipes will always be cheaper than LNG.
Nevertheless, the US seems to have a strategy to become Europe’s gas supplier with a massive fleet of LNG tankers.
2, Russia needs Europe as customers, and Europe needs Russia as a supplier. The two are interdependent. This is not at all like the Arab Oil Embargo (leaving aside all the questions about whether that embargo was real or fictional). A few Saudi’s getting very, very rich by selling oil could theoretically shut off much of the supply, let the price rise, and still make plenty of money. Russia has lots of people, and its main exports are oil and gas. Shutting down oil and gas exports would be catastrophic for Russia. Therefore, it is more accurate to describe the Russian/ European relationship as one of Mutual Assured Destruction.
3, The US would like nothing better than to see Russia destroyed. The US would get rid of an impediment to world domination and could seize the oil and gas.
4, Russia has long had problems with Ukraine, which is a failing state unable to pay its bills, and prone to larcenous behavior. Russia built the North Stream pipeline through the Baltic Sea as a hedge against bad behavior by the Ukrainians. Russia also proposes to build the South Stream pipeline to diversify further against Ukrainian bad behavior. With both North Stream and South Stream in place, Russia would have a much more assured capability of delivering gas to western Europe.
5, The US is trying to stop South Stream. It isn’t clear to outsiders whether the US is trying to preserve the Ukrainian bottleneck so that the failing state of Ukraine can siphon off money and thus maintain itself without the appearance of ‘foreign aid’, or whether the US seriously wants to disrupt the ability of Russia to deliver gas.
6. Even more perplexing is the attitude of the European Union leaders. They also appear to be trying to stop South Stream. Why would Europe want to jeopardize its own gas supplies? As someone far away and uninvolved, I perceive that the EU leaders have a deep-seated hatred for anything Russian, and are unable to think in practical business terms about the situation. I find the Russians thinking very practically about the business situation.
7. I perceive that Russia sees the irrational behavior by the EU leaders as impetus to develop enough pipeline capacity to reach various markets in Asia so that they can promptly switch where they send their gas. If the EU doesn’t want the gas, let them try to function without it.
8 It’s really hard to tell if the US is serious about massive shipments of LNG. Does the government really believe its hype about fracking?
In general, what I see is a business (Gazprom) trying to deal with political leaders in the EU and the US. Business leaders can’t afford too many delusions. The EU leaders seem to thrive on delusions. It’ hard to tell whether the US political leaders are deluded or just diabolical. It doesn’t make for smooth sailing.
Don Stewart
“The US would like nothing better than to see Russia destroyed. The US would get rid of an impediment to world domination and could seize the oil and gas.”
Russia is no contender for any world role. Is is a regional power and petrostate with a collapsing economy
more
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/16/who_cares_if_putin_torpedoes_the_russian_economy_oligarchs_ukraine
The best policy for the US is to step back and watch.
Dear interguru
Russia is the largest exporter of oil plus gas in the world. One of the reasons it exports so much is because the economy has never recovered to the Soviet level, as Gail has posted graphs many times. The strategic thinkers in the Deep State have to be thinking about how to emasculate the Russian government so they can get absolute control over the oil. The same sorts of NeoCon thinking from a decade ago about the advantages of simply destroying middle eastern governments and letting small oil fiefdoms rule the region.
And there is still the unpleasant fact that Russia and the US exist in a state of Mutually Assured Destruction. If Russia collapses, and the missiles aren’t fired, then the Deep State will be quite pleased.
As it is right now, Russia is a collection of oil and gas businesses existing in a country with a weak economy.
If your goal is to destroy the Russian government and grab control of the oil and gas assets, you do what the US has been doing. If your goal is to run an economically healthy western Europe, then you need the Russian oil and gas…especially the gas because oil is far more globally mobile.
Or so it seems to me…Don Stewart
So it seems to me as well, Don.
Russia has massive resources, a small, well educated population for its size, and the larges intact forrest on Earth, and a population that has experienced collapse.
Canada, Russia, Argentina, Chile and New Zealand seem to be best suited for survival as we steer this train wreck into the ditch.
Agree. Having been through a collapse and getting back on your feet develops cognitive processes that are able to accept reality. The Russians realize life is tenuous and enjoy it all the more. This is huge along with the education,population, and resource issues you mention. Russia also bears less karmic burden than the USA or Canada because they didnt kill off the natives to the same extent. The eastern provinces reflect a large incorporation of natives into Russian society in real way. Read Mowats “SIBIR” . His showing true incorporation of natives into Russian society and the evolution of largely autonomous and largely native soviet provinces was the cause of his ban in the USA as it shows that their were alternatives to the genocide of natives that occured in the USA. I consider Mowat one of the greatest writers of our time, but Mowat was shown a very good time by the Soviets which brings questions to my mind about their motives. “SIBIR” is not to be taken without a grain of salt but the underlying thesis rings true. Every naturalist has to confront difficult inconsistancies if they are honest with themselves at some point.
There is a lot of good people in the USA. Noting Russias condition is not a attack on the USAs people. I reject any false team dichotomy propaganda. What is the “USA” anyhow? The wars,fiscal policy, the government is not me or any person.. I reject any association with it except to realize they can squash me like a ant if they choose. The dream that many people dream the governments dream is very faint to me. To waste a lot of energy to absorb it, dream it, and then reject it seems rather fruitless to me rather like ingesting poison and vomiting it up.
This ground, this earth is not the governments earth. It was stolen with genocide all of it. All of it bears a karmic blood debt. This earth I live on , I live with it, it lives with me it still doesnt make it “mine”. If anything it owns me but catagorizing the relationship as ownership is not accurate. The idea of owning the earth is one of the most malignant and destructive ideas that the human species ever conceived.
To deny ownership is akin to much greater sins,nothing will get you strung up faster. It is clear that fossil fuel has done all of the “WORK” All of our jobs are rendered frivilous without fossil fuel. Since no WORK was done by us we “EARNED” nothing. “EARNED ” dissolves. “OWN” dissolves along with “EARN” . These ideas ingrained as virtuous from the git go in us all dissolve. Society dissolves. I find it quite humorous that while some spend a lot of energy pointing the finger in every which way they maintain their “WORK” their “EARNED” their “OWN” retains its virtuous qualities. The left maintains their “OWN” is virtuous but the rights “OWN” is not and visa versa. Somehow their minds which grasp complicated intricate ideas are unable to see that all consumption is taken from the earth. Fundamental to every consumption model is the idea of virtuous ownership. No, none of us has earned anything. If you want to earn something pick up a shovel, even that is not “virtuous”. If you choose to hold on to something you are a bandit. I am a bandit. Every creature in the natural world is a bandit but they only take what they need. In their turn they are consumed by other bandits. Its not the taking thats important its the giving back. When you give it back you are no longer a bandit. The most vital and important way of giving back right now is to not have no more than one child. The term virtue seperates humans from the natural world by denoting a seperate standard so I use it understanding it has fatal flaws. The one simple action of having only one child within it contains more vituousness than any gift of fiat to a charity IMHO. Hats off to those who have chosen to adopt you have my respect. The conscious decision to have only one child actually does do considerable “WORK” the “WORK” of bringing us back in balance.
“I OWN’
“I AM ON MY OWN”
Note the seperation inherant to the concept. Language mans greatest capability, and his greatest delusion. Korzybski should be required reading, unfortunatly it is not. Few are the individuals willing to address the unsanity that confusing language and thought with things of substance creates.
Well said.
Perhaps, but they are cold countries, and fossil fuel extraction probably cannot continue at anything like today’s pace without a world economy.
Wood alone doesn’t give much of an economy–you need animals to help grow food, and a way to transport food to people. The warmer countries have historically had a big advantage.
Which is why Ukraine is Moscow’s breadbasket and Washington’s plaything for target-practice.
Is there anywhere in Russia that remotely compares with……Detroit?
When leaders are faced with a collapsing–or even unsustainable–state, they almost invariably find a reason to get belligerent with a neighbouring state
this diverts the minds of the ignorant masses, and gives them something else to think about for a while, and blame their condition on others than their idiotic leaders
Yes, the US rulers would like to destroy Russia and would like to control its gas and oil. We can not forget China. China NEEDS Russian gas and oil. It is not an ego trip for them it is existence. China will not allow Russia to go down. Russia will do business with countries that are not controlled by the US, principally India and China.
As to whether US rulers believe in frack abundance and the “new Saudi Arabia” my guess is they see they are being paid bribes to allow and or have the government pay for fracking/pipelines/LNG ports and for them that makes it reality.
I think business leaders are deluded–the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. Or at least, the advertisement for grass on the other side of the fence looks attractive.
PBS article.interview of Chris Martenson:
Invest in solar hot water heaters:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/put-feds-trillions-renewable-energy/
I can imagine Chris would suggest to invest in a solar water heater that he is promoting on his site…. or that he is endorsing …. in return for a nice kick-back….
We’ll will be lucky to have COLD showers in the years ahead
“I can imagine Chris would suggest to invest in a solar water heater that he is promoting on his site…. or that he is endorsing …. in return for a nice kick-back….”
Sounds like envy talking!
I think we need diversity and many approaches. Would you rather Chris did his thing of providing valuable information for a fee, or that he simply disappear into the 1%, using his considerable skills to rake in from Wall Street many times whatever piddly amount he gets from product placement?
I recall when Chris first left Wall Street to preach the end of the world. He created the “Crash Course” for no remuneration, using hundreds of hours. I and a few other volunteers contributed feedback on early versions, not expecting remuneration. I bought a case of his first DVD at cost — I think they were 50 cents each. I gave them out to friends and relatives for free. I do not begrudge his wanting to get something back for that effort.
While not agreeing with everything Chris says, I think he’s providing a valuable service.
Why not criticize Richard Heinberg, [sarcasm mode] who surely must have a cushy job at Post Carbon Institute, publish books on the impending crash? [/sarcasm mode]
Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good enough.” If someone ain’t against you, at least a portion of their vector is for you. I don’t understand this animosity you have for Martenson — wouldn’t that animosity be better directed elsewhere?
You may recall that some months ago and bashed Heinberg as well — because he had changed his tune and was singing koombaya and saying if everyone shifted to organic farming we’d all be fine… happy endings sell more books of course…
Martenson seems to be using the tried and true business model of organized religion — I can save you — but you need to give me money….
My major beef with Peak Prosperity is not so much that they are making money off of this situation — but more with their integrity.
As I have stated my confrontation came when ripped holes the size of a small country in Sorenson’s claims about thorium.
Specifically — I posted info from leading scientists who have done work in this field who say it is never going to work …
I also posted info about the massive amounts of subsidies thrown at clean energy by governments the world over — which destroyed his key argument — which is that thorium has not succeeded because governments are beholden to dirty energy.
My comments were removed.
Then of course the coup de grace came when I discovered that Sorenson was behind a thorium start up.
‘I realized… like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God… the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.’
You say he was a Wall Street creature at one point? Well that would explain it — in every crisis there is opportunity for some.
Solar hot water heaters are viewed positively by almost everyone, but I think this view is based on EROEI calculations, which can be misleading. The real issue is installed cost, including financing costs, necessary upkeep, and how long they can be used. If they leak and are on your roof with a tank in your attic, that could be an issue as well.
There are three kinds of solar hot water:
(1) Solar thermal heating for swimming pools. This seems to be the biggest use. The alternative is swimming in a cold swimming pool. I don’t see a point in pushing hot water for swimming pools.
(2) Solar hot water heaters to supplement tank heaters for places where it does’t freeze, like Florida and Hawaii. These seem to be reasonably cost effective, especially where electricity costs are high, but it may require a big front-end investment. I saw figures of $4,000 to $5,000–not sure what that buys, with installation.
(3) Solar hot water heaters for places it freezes. These are more expensive–$10,000 or so, before rebates. These don’t do much when it is cold and snowy. The articles I see says it is not cost-effective unless natural gas prices are sky-high. http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/doing_the_math_on_solar_water_heaters.html
I expect solar thermal works well in China and India, where one unit can service several users, and where freezing isn’t an issue. People wouldn’t expect their water to be heated beyond the solar hot water heater either, so there would not be the double cost. Also, installing it when the building is built would remove a lot of the hassle.
Solar thermal is highly effective in colder latitudes. Especially when you get higher up and there is more solar in the winter due to less cloud cover. There are a couple of different types of solar thermal. Solar thermal air, which I know can cost a few hundred for your own efforts and materials to a few thousand but that with antifreeze in the system can keep your house above freezing in the winter. What I find most humorous about solar water thermal is that it is based upon the assumption that we have gallons and gallons of clean drinking and showering water that will continue to be pumped to our homes for the purpose of heating and showering. I think that is the erroneous assumption. You would be better off installing solar thermal of any sort and using it as supplemental heating. These can be installed in a thermosiphon manner so you don’t actually need a powered pump. That is more complex but doable. If you want passive cold weather data for homes I would recommend looking at the University of Waterloo’s research. They have been working on such for years now and have a substantial body of work that includes Canadian winter testing.
Thanks!
I think that is an issue. Our biggest issues in the future will be (1) clean water to drink, (2) food to eat, that has been stored if necessary, and cooked and otherwise fixed for our needs, and (3) heat in cold climates. I am not sure that trying to preserve warm showers for the future really ranks up there in the top issues, especially if we are talking expensive solar thermal installations, and may need to move (because of food, jobs) anyhow. But if solar thermal can provide supplemental heating, it would meet a basic need.
” Solar thermal heating for swimming pools. This seems to be the biggest use. The alternative is swimming in a cold swimming pool. I don’t see a point in pushing hot water for swimming pools.”
These are actually quite useful tools, in that they can often be picked up very inexpensively. People with too much money (pool owners!) decide to “go green” and install them, not realizing that Tainter teaches us that every complexity comes with its maintenance cost. Then they get tired of them, or they develop a leak, and they dispose of them cheaply.
They make great outdoor showers, and are good for moving heat around, such as supplemental heat for a small greenhouse. In non-potable applications, you can put anti-freeze in them. Ones with tiny leaks can be fixed (carefully!) with a hot air gun and some old plastic scrap.
On the down side, they are not very efficient, and they put your water in contact with low density polyethylene, which has all sorts of nasty stuff in it. They were not intended for potable water, and probably don’t comply with potable water standards.
But sometimes, they are free. Salvage skills may become valuable.
Israel’s prime minister backs Kurdish independence
Binyamin Netanyahu claims creation of Kurdish state would aid in formation of alliance of moderate powers in Middle East
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/29/israel-prime-minister-kurdish-independence
Another piece of the puzzle — which would appear to fit with the bigger picture in which Israel would like to see chaos in the middle east in order to further their agenda of additional land grabs.
I have to chuckle when I read this part — “The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has voiced support for Kurdish statehood, taking a position that appears to clash with the US preference to keep sectarian war-torn Iraq united.”
Typical US – Israel rhetoric —- just like when Obama puts on his sternest face and insists that Israel stop taking more Palestinian land — then when it comes up for a vote at the UN what does Obama do?
Of course he vetoes any sanctions
And the MSM does not tell us about that… because the spin masters want us to believe that the US – Israel relationship is not hand in glove…
The Systemic Sources of Geopolitical Turmoil: Instability, Fragmentation, Resource Wars
Charles Hugh – Smith:
Hmmm… their conclusion is that this all eventually turns out rosy — that we get a better world in the end…. yet they fail to explain how….
I beg to differ….
Pingback: CAS: A Distillation of Chris Martenson’s Work | thePOOG
This takes the insanity to another level — maybe Kevin Costner should be hired on as the spokesperson!!!
See the video: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/06/china-replicates-empty-manhattan/
Just what the world needs…another Manhattan.
I remember when Bill Clinton was President a front page article of the “Boston Globe” warned China not to develop like the United States.
I suppose the desire is so great, reason is not part of the decision making process.
Like someone stated here, this is not too difficult to figure out.
Think it is a little late in the game to change the outcome now.
Yep, insanity…and people won’t change until they are forced to change.
Reblogged this on amanakda and commented:
I want to imagine something sustaianble that works on all levels, spiritual, pysical and mental.
I have a dream — too — but I always come back to the fact that 98% of the food that feeds 7.2 billion people is produced using oil and gas inputs — and the supply of cheap oil and gas is over — and the dream turns into a nightmare
Hi,
Gail you seem to be picking up in part on the idea of surplus energy; the idea behind Tim Morgan’s blog http://www.surplusenergyeconomics.com/
Rather than expound his ideas I suggest anybody interested in economist/mathematician’s take on the real world read his blog.
best Peter
Actually, I am not picking up on the idea of surplus energy. I am talking about cheap energy, which is fairly different.
Looking at the front pace of Tim Morgan’s blog, I think he has the story wrong–he is telling the EROEI–net energy story, which is not the story I am telling. There is very little substitutability among types of energy. It is more that we add together energy of different types, and add in new ones as they come along. There may be some areas of overlap, but it is very easy to assume solutions that don’t exist.
I thought this Tullet Prebon paper “The PerfectStorm” by Tim was very good.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
What is your opinion?
The Tullet Prebon Report is indeed very good. I would have some disagreements with precisely what he says about the path forward. He shows a lot of Charlie Hall’s material regarding the path forward without crediting Charlie Hall. I understand that Charlie Hall was thinking about suing over the issue. I don’t know if anything ever came of it, though.
There is a lot of good material in the rest of the report, and I don’t really agree with Charlie Hall on the last part anyhow.
Peter,
I know I responded to you earlier, but I forgot that Tim Morgan is the author of the Tullett Prebon report. He may have some worthwhile things to say. He seems to have access to quite a bit of data. A direct link to his blog is http://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com
His forecast of the future would likely be quite different from mine, though.
Summer is here. We all know what that means, Christmas will be here soon. I feel in the Christmas spirit already. Isnt that wierd?
I have a bad habit at Christmas, I overspend, and give away too much. That doesnt do anyone any good.
After reading all of KESARs posts on permaculture you know what I want for Christmas, a greenhouse. The neighbor has a greenhouse and I am so jealous. What housewife wouldnt want a greenhouse? My neighbors vegetables are beautiful. I think ANYBODY would understand that a greenhouse would be a great addition to a home. Wouldnt you agree KESAR? Rhetorical question no need to reply.
I hope my penmanship is more better than some of the savages on this blog! Still I wouldnt be suprised or upset if this post got deleted after a week or so because of my penmanship. Im working on it! No need for anyone to reply to this post.
TaTa
Josephine
I think for things that are long-term sustainable. I don’t think green houses are long-term sustainable–but everyone makes his or her own choices. I suppose you can put a piece of board over glass pieces that break.
Josephine,
It’s nice to be mentioned in the context of permaculture but I am not even close to expert in this area, although learning the stuff and hope to use it one day. Gail is right – greenhouse is rather modern stuff with low durability and high heating requirements during winter time. Nice to have but far from permaculture principles, especially in climate where I live.
All the best with greenhouse anyway,
kesar
Dear Gail and All
Why Throw Rocks at Chris Martenson?
Many commenters here like to throw rocks at Chris Martenson. First, let’s look at a couple of accusations:
Claim: Martenson has drunk the kool-aid on fracking.
Actuality: Martenson has recently produced an article entitled ‘US Shale Oil Miracle Disappears’
Accusation: Martenson believes in thorium.
Actuality: Martenson may believe in thorium, but he evidently doesn’t believe it is going to reduce energy costs. His Crash Course counsels us to be prepared for high energy prices. In addition, see this article describing a new nuclear plant in China which can use, among other feedstocks, thorium oxide:
http://peakoil.com/alternative-energy/nuclear-heated-gas-producing-superheated-steam
The most general claim is that he is trying to put a positive spin on a bad situation. That claim requires us to do two things.
First, we have to recognize that Quality of Life is not entirely defined by how much fossil fuels we burn, but has a dominant component which is related to our subjective experience of the world. I think my quality of life peaked at about the age of six, when I had access to very few fossil fuels. In a recent interview, Alan Savory, who is an octogenarian, says he is happiest sleeping under a tree in Africa. If he sleeps inside in his hut, it has no real doors and no windows. To those who cannot visualize a life without control of lots of fossil fuels, I think Martenson and I and Alan Savory and Jesus and Mohammed and the Buddha probably have little to say to you.
Second, we have to look at the specific actions Martenson recommends to survive the coming crash. These start at 45 minutes into his Accelerated Crash Course:
Recognize that Peak Energy is very close and will stop physical growth,
Continuing to count on increased physical consumption with a population growth of 50 percent is ‘no plan at all’.
We must prioritize.
Consequently, we are at a great turning point for humanity.
What Chris and his family did:
Moved to find a more supportive community
Began to grow food
Shifted wealth toward health and home
Action items Chris recommends:
Decrease exposure to fragile systems that deliver energy, food, and water
Take control of your life. You can achieve more control, fulfillment, and prosperity than you probably have right now.
Invest in practices that increase your quality of life.
Work to achieve financial, physical, and emotional resilience.
Concluding Recommendations
Invest in community
Preserve purchasing power as best you can. Some gold and silver. More non-financial assets.
Reducer fossil fuel dependency. Perhaps add some solar hot water.
Eat local. Healthier and tastes better.
Emergency readiness.
Improve your health.
I frankly don’t understand how anyone can quarrel with any of these. The devil will always be in the details…whether solar hot water makes sense for you, whether you should move to find community, whether planting perennials in the yard is a high priority, etc., etc. But I think that Martenson’s list should be plenty to get anyone started.
If you are the kind of person who thinks that the rigidity of ISIS in executing ‘moderates’ is a noble example, then I suppose you might get all worked up about thorium. But the proof will be in the Chinese plant…not anything said on this blog.
If you believe that life with a lot fewer fossil fuels must necessarily be horrible, or that Mad Max is the only possible outcome of a Crash, or that you prefer to put your efforts into Wine, Women, and Song right now (the grasshopper strategy) rather than work toward the future (the ant strategy), then there really isn’t much to discuss.
Don Stewart
Let’s examine Martenson’s position on thorium — I would note that my comments debunking this nonsense he posted have been removed http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/79398/kirk-sorensen-detailed-exploration-thoriums-potential-energy-source
They say thorium has not happened because the PTB are wedded to dirty energy — one of the key points of my rebuttal was that the PTB have invested hundred of billions if not trillions to solar energy R&D and subsidies…. this one point completely destroys the entire premise of the article…
It was deleted — along with other comments including links to articles by scientists who are experts on thorium who state it is not ever likely to produce nett energy.
Which leaves me wondering if Sorenson is raising funds for a thorium scam investment — and if this article is a paid placement by Martenson — so I go to my friend google and looky looky what we have here:
“Another company to watch is Flibe Energy. It’s a private start-up created in May by Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA engineer who dedicated his life to promoting Weinberg’s work with thorium molten reactors. There’s no telling if the company will ever become public or profitable”
http://www.investmentu.com/article/detail/23840/thorium-the-future-of-nuclear-power#.U7CMULGxt5E
And here is how totally clued out they are — “Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is not a new technology. It has been around since the 1980s. It was never commercially viable, because the cost was much too high relative to the price of oil. What happened? Why did we suddently begin fracking? Because as the price of oil rose, it began to make economic sense to frack for oil.”
I of course gave them all barrels on that one — which is when they crawled under a rock and sucked their thumbs and said — go away you bad bad man — you are so bad
INDEPENDENT US OIL PRODUCERS SPEND $1.50 DRILLING FOR EVERY $1.00 THEY GET BACK
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/dream-of-u-s-oil-independence-slams-against-shale-costs.html
SHALE DRILLERS FEAST ON JUNKE DEBT TO STAY ON TREADMILL
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-30/shale-drillers-feast-on-junk-debt-to-say-on-treadmill.html
SHAKEOUT THREATENS SHALE PATCH AS FRACKERS GO FOR BROKE
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-26/shakeout-threatens-shale-patch-as-frackers-go-for-broke.html
DREAM OF US OIL INDEPENDENCE SLAMS AGAINST SHALE COSTS
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/dream-of-u-s-oil-independence-slams-against-shale-costs.html
THE FRACKING PONZI SCHEME
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insead/2013/05/08/shale-oil-and-gas-the-contrarian-view/
WHY AMERICA’S SHALE BOOM COULD END SOONER THAN YOU THINK
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/06/13/why-americas-shale-oil-boom-could-end-sooner-than-you-think/
SCIENTISTS WARY OF SHALE OIL AND GAS AND U.S. ENERGY SALVATION
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131028141516.htm
U.S. SHALE OIL BOOM MAY NOT LAST AS FRACKING WELLS LACK STAYING POWER
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale-oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power
As for moderates in ISIS or ISIL or whatever they call themselves — there are no democratic loving moderates anywhere to be found http://www.dawn.com/news/1115589/all-this-talk-of-syrian-moderates-is-a-bit-extreme
Of course CNN will tell you that these are freedom fighters — democracy seeking white knights — this is load of utter bs.
When you invade, torture, play off different tribes and religions against each other, when you drone innocent people or any people for that matter when you are not at war with the, when you support Israel and their heinous crimes against the Palestinians, when you overthrow democratically elected governments such as the Mossadegh govt in Iran, and then you install a murdering torturing bastard like the Shah and train his thugs SAVAK to terrorize Iranians, when you install dictators and steal the resources of people and throw anyone who makes a peep into a dungeon…..
Guess what?
To every reaction there is an equal reaction — and you are not going to get koombaya, hand holding moderates (ha – the head of ISIS and Martenson singing koombay — on the MTV music awards — maybe Geldoff the fool can join in along with Bono)…. who will ask — please suh — can you please be kind to us — can you please give us a little civility… a scrap of bread perhaps — may we vote?
No — you are going to get murderous beasts — who would salivate at the chance to get a knife to the neck of an American — any American — and use it….
When you have spent some time in the Middle East or North Africa speaking to people who have felt the wrath and hypocrisy of the west — feel free to come and talk to me about moderates —- I have been there many times — and there is nothing but hatred — justifiably so.
I could go on — and on — and on — and on —- on this topic — but I will leave it there.
Still, it didn’t need American intervention to establish those behaviour patterns: they’ve been established for over a thousand years in Islam alone. Just dip into the history of those peoples – it’s a hoot. Ornamenting the walls of ones city with the heads of the enemy was only recently given up, and seems likely to be coming back into fashion, along with crucifixion…… And didn’t every Celt like to have the head of an enemy or two over the door? Ideal Home Exhibition, 50 BC.
Of course you are correct — however many of us seem to believe the propaganda that the US is somehow different — a beacon of democracy and light in a dark world — the global policeman seeking out and destroying evil
The US is no special country — it is just as dark as what came before it — and what will come after. Nothing more — nothing less.
However I still believe we need to expose and stand against the darkness — because if we don’t the darkness will consume all of us….
Do we think for a single second that the PTB would not — if permitted — revoke the freedoms that we enjoy — freedoms others have fought and suffered and died to establish over the centuries — and put us under the yoke and in the dungeons?
It is a very slippery slope….
I am always amused by the fools who say ‘I don’t mind that the NSA monitors and records my every communication – I have done nothing wrong’ It’s like the lamb lining up for slaughter saying ‘I don’t mind that the butcher has put his knife to my neck’
Of course at the last minute both the fool and the lamb will realize how wrong they were — but by then its too late.
Well, perhaps the problem is that once many people did in a way believe in the US: for instance during WW1 and just after it seemed morally superior to Britain, France, Austria, Germany, etc – all hopelessly corrupt and power-hungry, happy to drag Europe to destruction.
In every crisis, there is opportunity… I don’t think the US has ever been a white knight… whatever they have done in WW1 and 2 — was done in self interest… as in the self interest of the elites/Deep State (not in the interests of the people — the people do not matter)
“Which leaves me wondering if Sorenson is raising funds for a thorium scam investment”
Careful… you may be straying into libel territory.
Stick to facts, and your life will have less strife.
‘wondering’ is not ‘stating’ so libel is not an issue…
Note that I have posted an article that indicates he is behind a start-up that is involved in thorium – and we also have this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flibe_Energy
So yes — now I am stating — with full evidence — therefore not libel.
So maybe Martenson can bring on the CEO of Chesapeake and they can gush over how we have 100 years of oil…
Poor Chris — I’ve busted his matrix…. planning to remove the pay wall anytime soon so we can get at all those secrets to survival?
“planning to remove the pay wall anytime soon so we can get at all those secrets to survival?”
This makes me curious about what you do, Paul, to earn your keep. You seem to disparage people who spend time gathering information and seeking remuneration for it. To me, that’s a time-honoured profession: teacher. But in today’s “information age,” no one seems to want to pay teachers any more. “Just google it.”
Perhaps someday soon, teachers — gatherers and disseminators of information — will once again be revered and honored — and fairly compensated.
Jan
I tend to agree. People don’t value, or really listen to, information, – wisdom even, – that they don’t pay for – in money, or even by sacrifice of time, effort, etc. Or one can pay in respect and veneration I suppose….
Jan – I am an entrepreneur and a sometimes investor in start-ups — I am also a small scale farmer — I am also a bit of an adventurer.
Let’s approach this issue another way.
Let’s say I had a product — call it X. I claim — without any scientific evidence to support the claim — that X can create a substitute for oil using plain tap water — and that I can produce the equivalent of one gallon of gasoline for 10 cents.
I approach Gail and I say hey Gail — wanna make $50,000 + some options in the company that owns the rights to X? What I need you to do is endorse this by writing wonderful things about it on your site.
And Gail says — hmmmm — sounds interesting — tell me more.
So I tell her about X — and she says — wow — that’s quite the product you have there — but I am not sure I want to put my name on this because there is no evidence to support your claims — and surely if this product did what you claim it did you would not need me to support it — you would just go to a venture capitalist and he would give you many millions — or you could go to the US govt and say hey — I can solve the energy problem — and they would make you the king of any medium sized country of your choice.
Well yes Gail — you have a point — let’s say I give you 500k and double up on the share options…
And now we are starting to talk real money — Gail starts to think of buying a farm in a remote area of Costa Rica — and provisioning it for the bad times ahead….. so she says well— what does it matter — we are all screwed one way or the other — so she says — buddy, make it an even 1M and we have a deal.
You drive a hard bargain Gail — let’s do it!
So Gail and I collaborate on her next column with a working title of ‘Is This the Miracle We’ve Been Waiting For?’
The article gushes about how great X is — and about how it can save the world — and how the world is ignoring X because they are in the pockets of the oil companies.
And that goes live on Finite World (and various other media) — and nobody is allowed to question the article — all negative comments are removed.
So I am very happy — my spin is powerful — I have herded the sheep and they are true believers — and not only that — they are going to give me their money — oh joy oh bliss the hot money is flooding into my coffers — thank you Gail – thank you everyone — my dreams have come true!!!
And now that I am flush with the cash of all the wonderful little people who are pulling 401k cash out and sending it to me with love letters — I am living large
Hmmm….. what should I pay myself — how about 5 million a year? — and of course I will need a private jet — and an entourage — and an office with a view — oh yes I need to jet off to Hong Kong and London and Singapore and the other financial centres — and stay in the best suites — I need to portray an image of success —- so that I can solicit more money for the development of X.
But there is one deep dark secret I harbour — since I am a scientist — I know that X is a joke — I know that X cannot save the world — I just made up a nice story (I was originally planning to claim fracking would save the world but the guy at Chesapeake stole my idea) so that I could get people to give me their money so that I could live large.
But it is a story with a happy ending — Gail gets to live happily ever after on her Costra Rican farm — and by the time the SFC catches on to my huge act of fraud, I am down in New Zealand with Loyd and the rest of the good ol boys from Wall Street enjoying the good life while the world burns to the ground everywhere else.
And all those little people who gave me the money they could have used to perhaps buy some shovels and a green house — plant their own little gardens — or just to enjoy the final days of BAU with a few extra glasses of wine and some nice dinners …..
To hell with them — if they are that stupid then they deserve what they get — and after all — this is all about ME — I am a master of the universe (and Bernie Madoff is my idol!)
“The representations made in this short story are not meant to portray any real persons or products — any resemblance to any real persons and products is coincidental”
Congratulations. You’ve just described about 98% of internet media, modern media, PR and marketing. Oh and how Wall St. works these days.
Very few ask real questions. Very few ask the scientists and engineers questions and publish that. And we wonder why the average bear is scared and lost.
Indeed — that is the formula.
But should that mean we pat people on the back for getting on the bandwagon of bullshit…. because everyone else is doing it … and because everyone needs to eat.
I won’t — instead when I see a scam artist in action I will call them out — because they are eating caviar and drinking champagne at the expense of people who worked hard for their money — and who are probably not particularly sophisticated or experienced investors.
Most of the people with wild ideas don’t have two nickels to rub together. They don’t have money to give to bloggers, certainly not big amounts. Even if they do, the influence of the bloggers is not that great.
I realize that there are a lot of different people writing on the Internet, and I imagine that there could be much smaller scale things going on. But I don’t suspect of the folks I know of being in this business. The general press will frequently write up press releases of something that sounds promising–in fact, that is where they get a lot of their “news”. Why should these people pay blogger to write stories, when the general press is so open to hyping any half-baked idea that comes along?
The MSM does not usually get paid directly in cash to publish what are effectively press releases — but they do get paid.
I have some experience of how this works — if you want to spin an idea you hire a PR agency — their fees are absolutely massive — what you are paying for are their ‘relationships’ with the MSM — there are ‘understandings’ — for example — if the media agrees to publish a press release there will often be ad dollars tied to this
Also there is a more subtle method of getting stuff published — MSM are constantly organizing events for ad agency and PR people (basically these are bribes in the form of trips, tickets to sporting events etc…) — they need to compete with each other to ensure that ad dollars come their way — to think that they do not also agree to publish bogus stuff from these agencies in order to massage relationships and increase the odds that the media buyers will recommend them to other clients — well that would be naive…
Not everyone may agree with Chris, but there are certainly worse choices a person can make.
It’s no so much that I disagree with him — because I am not sure what he really thinks
From what I can see it seems that his platform is for hire as evidenced by the fact that he loaded up the thorium guy without indicating that the guy had huge interests in a thorium start-up … and then deleting comments that exposed the nonsense that is thorium….
Does he really believe thorium has potential? I have no idea.
My issue with him is that he is using this crisis to make money… what’s with creating a web site to help people cope — and then sticking the info behind a pay wall?
Dear All
For a very good interview with Chris Martenson yesterday, brought to you free of charge on his website, take a look at:
http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/86004/iraq-oil-coming-wealth-transfer
Very frank discussion of what is in the news right now, and how that needs to be interpreted by reference to the larger picture.
Don Stewart
I listened to quite a bit of this. I agree with quite a bit of what he says.
One place he gets the story wrong is with respect to what happens, when we hit the discontinuity–big debt defaults and deflation or hyper-inflation. He says that the productive assets–factories, power plants, roads, etc. are all in place. They just change ownership–citing Weimar Germany. He implies that everything can continue to operate as in the past. Perhaps that was true in the past, when the world structure stayed operational, and there were plenty of cheap fossil fuels that could be extracted by the rest of the world to fix Weimar Germany’s problems.
The problem this time is different. While the productive assets are there, what is missing is the cheap oil and the world outside infrastructure to hook everything back together again. “Renewables” are very dependent on the rest of the system. They are not long lasting, and they don’t throw off enough energy profit to keep governments of any kind operating. So they basically don’t fix the system, or keep it together any longer than without them. In fact, they may contribute to the financial failure of countries like Spain and Greece.
Dear Gail
I think it depends on how one sees the collapse playing out. You are quite confident in the scenario you have picked. Other people have picked other scenarios. I’m not real sure what Nicole Foss is thinking now, but as I remember her scenario from half a dozen years ago, the first collapse was the financial system. Collapses of other systems, such as the climate, the production of fossil fuels, the nitrogen cycle, etc. followed some time after the financial collapse. Chris is literally correct, I think, when he says that the 2007-8 collapse was a financial collapse, the main import of which was to shift assets from the public to the banks through the medium of government purchase of bad paper from ‘the banks’. As it played out in places like Greece, it also took public assets and sold them to the highest bidder.
What about the collapse of 2015? Will it be a repeat of 2007-8? Or will it be something new, involving more systems collapsing than merely the financial system? For example, will Chris’s property be seized by governments or thugs as one of Dmitry Orlov’s Stages of Collapse happens? Will some of Chris’s assets become worthless as some of those non-finacial systems collapse? (For example, beachfront property will become valueless as the oceans rise with climate change. Or a well which requires an electrical or diesel pump would become worthless if the fuel system collapses.)
Chris’s recommendation to move assets out of paper and into real tools which can be used productively is not an adequate prescription except in the case of a rerun of 2008. If more systems simultaneously collapse, then the tools chosen to take with you into the future need to be calibrated to the nature of that environment after collapse.
For example, I was reading yesterday a description of how cheap microprocessors have become and how it costs very little to embed them in appliances. Yet it is my understanding that either storms on the sun or nuclear explosions would render those microprocessors inoperable. Therefore, buying a truck which will fun on biodiesel made on the farm, but which is controlled by microprocessors, may be a useless gesture if the environment turns out differently than we might naively expect. (Which is why I think that Jan insists on mechanical trucks).
I don’t know what Chris says about those considerations in his longer, for profit, Crash Course. If I were talking to complete novices, I would probably do what he has done in the Accelerated Crash Course and pay some attention to a rerun of 2008, simply because people now understand the implications of that crash fairly well. They may not know a lot about the roots of crash, but they can look at what happened as a result, and do some things to protect themselves against a replay.
Don Stewart
You make some good points.
“My issue with him is that he is using this crisis to make money”
We all need to earn our keep. I teach Permaculture classes. I’m “using this crisis to make money.”
The ones I think are more deserving of scorn are those who rely on passive income. I think they have a rude awakening coming. At least Chris is producing something of value for his money.
Chris has told me that people consider advice that they pay for “more valuable” than advice that everyone can get. I don’t know whether that is true or not. Chris is trying to make a living doing this, and he pays his authors something for their contributions as well. I doubt anyone gets rich from this subject. He has picked an approach of making something like half of his material available to the public, and half behind a paywall. So he doesn’t leave out the free folks completely.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-29/bulgaria-arrests-two-men-amid-efforts-to-stop-run-on-banks.html
Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said the eastern European nation has the resources to fight attempts to destabilize its financial system as it grapples with the worst run on banks in 17 years and prepares for early elections.
“The money of citizens and companies deposited in Bulgarian banks are secure and guaranteed,” Plevneliev said. “The banks will continue operating as usual. We have enough reserves, means and mechanisms to deal with all destabilization attempts and will stand behind each bank under attack.”
I think they said the same thing in Cyprus — right before confiscating cash in accounts — and limiting the amount of cash one could withdraw on a daily basis.
Bulgaria’s “finances and bank system are in a catastrophic state” — “Last week, Bulgaria sold 1.49 billion euros of 10-year Eurobonds with a 2.95 percent annual coupon, the country’s “lowest ever” in an auction, where bids more than doubled the amount on sale”
Now that’s a whole lot of crazy right there in those two statements…. the world is truly upside down when interest rates correlate inversely to risk.
Not so good!
Dear Gail and All
Here is an article describing what one would need to do to have an off-grid electric freezer. I think this is a pretty good introduction to the subject. It is on Chris Martenson’s website, but it is not behind the paywall.
http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/85978/first-grid-solar-freezer-dummies
i will just add a couple of thoughts. At the very end, the author compares the ice house at Monticello with the off-grid freezer and favors the freezer. But I think the comparison misses one of the major points. The author treats Monticello as the sort of thing one might build as a rustic cabin. Actually, Monticello was always designed to work as a plantation where hundreds of people would live and work cooperatively (albeit some of them were slaves). A more informative comparison would involve looking at the use of ice in a cooperative setting versus a lone survivalist using an off grid freezer. (Ugo Bardi posted a picture of the Florence communal ice house some time ago, as I remember).
The second point is about food preservation. I believe Paul Wheaton was talking to some old time natives in Montana, and they said they just dried everything. So…claiming no expert knowledge on the subject, it seems to me that a realistic survivalist would try to sort out the options something along these lines:
Am I better off working alone or in a group?
What is the simplest, least work, most reliable, least expensive way to preserve food?
If those methods don’t satisfy my taste buds, can I invest in things such as ice houses and enjoy more luxury?
Does an off-grid freezer really fit into a realistic plan? For example, let’s suppose that the base case is continued grid electricity, but a desire to retain frozen food if the grid goes down for a period. Around here, that is most likely to happen in an ice storm or in a hurricane If an ice storm or a hurricane takes the grid down for a week, then four days of battery backup is not enough. Dried food in contrast, will be fine.
This is not an argument against off-grid, per se. If grains are part of the plan, then a 600 watt DC rice cooker might be a very useful appliance because it excels at cooking whole grains. If one encounters a cloudy day, it is not likely to be fatal if one can’t operate there rice cooker.
The point is that one needs to think clearly about the situations one is likely to encounter
Probably there are survivalist websites that lay out the pluses and minuses much better than I have done. I just thought that this article posed some of the issues pretty clearly.
Don Stewart
So let me get this right — Martenson is supposed to be trying to help people survive the collapse that he says is coming …. a collapse that will end the economic system as we know it — that money will be of no use — gold may also be of no use — the only thing that will be of value will be food….
And he has put a pay wall between those he is trying to help — people who have no jobs — or who are struggling to put food on the table, pay the mortgage, clothe their kids — and who he is urging to prepare for what is to come (by selling them prepper gear) —— and the answer to surviving the calamity that is coming.
That really is precious.
I see that my post exposing that the fact that the guest columnist who was pumping thorium (with Martenson banging his bongo in the background singing thorium will save us m’lord….koombaya… thorium will save us m’lord — koombaya) actually has a company that is raising money for — you guessed it — a thorium startup (which was NOT disclosed in the article of course) — is awaiting moderation — hopefully that goes live soon because I have already spent the Pulitzer prize money…..
Don — I enjoy your posts on permaculture — but then you don’t ask me to pay for the knowledge you are handing out….. nor are you trying to sell me anything.
anyone with access to BBC iplayer should take time out to watch this
there’s 3 episodes, don’t miss it
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-1
Thanks for the link — but can only view if in the UK… trying to find another source… here’s a summary http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jun/28/men-who-made-us-spend-jacques-peretti
I think it was the BBC that did an excellent programme on The Men Who Made Us Fat…
That summary was a great read, and pretty much sums up how I feel about consumerism. I see the slimy Clotaire Rapaille makes an appearance. What a nasty booger that guy is! First saw him on Frontline’s 2004 episode “The Persuaders”.
Hopefully I can figure out a way to watch this. I have no idea why the BBC doesn’t allow foreigners to watch there iPlayer programs for a fee.
Persuaders is also very good..
“Before you wring your hands and diarise a week off from consumerism, swearing an oath to make your own yoghurt and wear handmade felt sandals to yoga, here’s a tip: don’t bother. As the programme shows, our entire economy depends on this machine of perpetual spending, and civilisation sort of comes to a dead end when that’s buggered”
We are so smart that we have built ourselves a death trap.
I wonder if other species refer to us as ‘those stupid barbaric humans’
Other species are doing exactly the same thing, Paul – see Volterra-Lotka cycle.
A propos ‘the trap’. I see a lot of complaining here about so many actors: politicians, beaurocrats, ‘sheep herd’ electorate, corporations and so on. In fact we are just following inescapable fate of complex adaptive system. There is no other way and even if any one would imagine it, no one is able to understand and bear the consequences. So in this paradigm all involved parties are rational, although probably not very conscious.
Please read a great interview with David Korowicz.
http://www.feasta.org/2014/03/17/how-to-be-trapped/
Kesar
Thanks, well worth reading and the issues very clearly expressed by Korowicz.
Thanks for the link — those are some brilliant insights. I particularly like:
We desire, achieve new levels of comfort and security, habituate to them, feel the anxiety of status or become aware of some new gnawing lack before the cycle of desire returns again.
Some 2400 years ago the Greek philosopher Epicurus said:
So long as the object of our craving is unattained it seems more precious than anything besides. Once it is ours we crave for something else. So an unquenchable thirst for life keeps us always on the grasp.
Report: US trained ISIL militants at secret Jordan base
http://middleeastuncovered.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/report-us-trained-isil-militants-at-secret-jordan-base/
The markets are now completely divorced from even the slightest bit of logic… see the graphs:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-28/crushing-q2-recovery-dream-1-simple-chart
And here’s a story that is sure to be dismissed by the green brigade most of whom sport the latest edition smart phones, prius cars, laptops, gaming consoles, teevees in every room, tablets, PCs, and laptops…
The devices quietly running up your energy bills http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/10920520/The-devices-quietly-running-up-your-energy-bills.html
And don’t forget the enormous amounts of energy that goes into making all these wonderful toys! And don’t forget the MASSIVE energy sucking networks required to run the internet…
Of course they go along blissfully recycling their waste believing they are doing their part in saving the earth….
Now if they really were sincere in their efforts — they’d a) have no children and b) not buy all these gadgets.
Good luck with that message — if you suggested those sacrifices — you’d be off your rocker…
And meanwhile here in Bali we have those who tell us that building with bamboo will help save the planet 🙂
Ignorance and naivety are on an epic scale across the planet — as is the level of hypocrisy.
I want my MTV…..
Civil Unrest Is Rising Everywhere: “This Won’t End Pretty”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-28/martin-armstrong-warns-civil-unrest-rising-everywhere-wont-end-pretty
Christine Lagarde – The Most Dangerous Woman in the World – IMF Advocates Taking Pensions & Extending Maturities of Gov’t Debt to Prevent Redemption
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/06/28/christine-lagarde-the-most-dangerous-woman-in-the-world-imf-advocates-taking-pensions-extending-maturities-of-govt-debt-to-prevent-redemption/
Not dangerous — just doing what is necessary to keep the hamster running…
Please kill the hamster get it over with. Let the games begin.
This is a direct link to the report that is mentioned in the second article. It is an IMF working paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff called Financial and Sovereign Debt Crises: Some Lessons Learned and Those Forgotten. It is not really Christine Lagarde making the statements, it is the outside authors.
Dear Gail and All
This will be a little essay on human nature and the limits (if any) of behavior. Are we captives of an unchanging human nature? Many of the commenters here seem to believe as much.
First, I should assure you that I am not an expert. However, neither am I stupid (my wife is wrong on that point). So treat what follows as some guy trying to figure out whether unchanging human nature dooms us to a horrible future as the oil runs out.
My first bit of evidence is the short book detailing the discussion in 2012 between Robert Hass, the poet, and E.O. Wilson, the octogenarian field biologist: The Poetic Species. On page 46 we find:
‘Fredrick Clements proposed that the way to study nature was to study the rich interactions among species in a given place, that it made sense to talk about a pond or a dune system as a community, even as a super organism. This was in the 1910’s, during the Progressive Era. Clements was a Nebraskan who went to school with Willa Cather, so he proposed a sort of midwestern Socialist nature. And then a decade or so later, another biologist, Henry Gleason, published a paper that said Clement’s ideas were nonsense. I believe the essay is called ‘The Individualistic Concept of the Plant Associations, and it argued that nature is ruthless competition among species.’
This begins a discussion which explains Wilson’s notion that all genes are, indeed, selfish, but some of them are selfishly cooperating with others (because that maximizes descendants) while others are looking out for Number One (because that maximizes descendants). Wilson has made the case for group selection as opposed to kin selection or purely individual selection. Wilson points out that humans are partially social and partially individualistic, and so our history is one of oscillating between these poles.
My second piece of evidence is Randy Jirtle’s lecture on Epigenetics and Genomic Imprinting:
Epigenetics, Genomic Imprinting, and the Effects of Nutrition
https://functionalmedicine.org/page.aspx?uid=37&id=819
This is a dense lecture for most of us. But there are two takeaways for my purposes. The first is that epigenetics can change gene expression very fast, even as the basic gene inheritance remains quite stable for many generations. And epigenetics are functions of the environment, including things such as what we eat. The second takeaway is the deleterious effects of chemicals in the environment, such as BPA, which disrupt our endocrine system and can lead to the loss of the fetus through spontaneous abortion or the birth of seriously damaged children
I don’t think that Wilson fully appreciates the fluidity of gene expression. He is, I think, from an older generation that thought that genes were fate. Genes, after all, mostly code for enzymes, which facilitate chemical reactions. But Jirtle explains how the raw existence of the gene is less important than the expression of the gene. And in Jirtle’s talk he explains how the influence of the father is toward a very large fetus, at the expense of the mother. The mother’s influence is toward a smaller fetus, or the actual dissolution of the fetus. Nature usually balances these two opposing forces and we get children who are about the right size…but I wouldn’t suggest asking a mother right out of labor about how magically wise Mother Nature is in deciding how big the head ought to be.
The point here is that all those speeches you have heard about how ‘our genes are still those of a caveman’ are true, but they give you the wrong message. There are lots of different ways to express those genes, and we control much of that expression through environment. But, ironically, we don’t control the environment in which we ourselves were conceived. Therefore, if that mythical beast The Brotherhood of Man decided that it wanted to raise better children, it would have to assure that conception occurred in the best possible environment…which isn’t necessarily the environment which makes the most money for corporations.
My third piece of evidence is the TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/uri_alon_why_truly_innovative_science_demands_a_leap_into_the_unknown?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=image__2014-06-12
I particularly call your attention to the 10 minute mark where Uri Alon begins to talk about Network Motifs, which are simple patterns which are repeated many times throughout the cell. I want you to think about social and economic relationships as being combinations of many simple Network Motifs, just as cellular relationships are combinations of Network Motifs.
A Network Motif is analogous to a gene and the enzyme the gene codes for. But are there forces in social life and economic life which are similar to Epigenetics and Genomic Imprinting which can change the selection of Network Motifs that we use to accomplish essential purposes, such as putting food on the table? If there are, then I suggest that we are looking at a receding horizon in terms of ‘unchanging human nature’.
I can put food on the table by co-operating with my neighbors, or I can try to do everything myself and share nothing with anyone. The evidence that Dmitry Orlov has assembled in terms of Communities That Abide says that the cooperative method works better. But almost all of us today see food as a purely individualistic enterprise. We get a job by being selected out of a very large pool of competing people, we maintain the job against constant competition within the company, and the company maintains itself against constant competition from other companies. We are paid in money. We go to a store which we have selected competitively and trade the money for food out of an immense array of brands which are competing with each other. There is nothing here that we would recognize as cooperation. Or, rather, the cooperation is mediated entirely by money.
In short, humans are quite capable of putting food on the table either using Network Motifs which involve explicit cooperation or with methods which involve only financial relationships. The threat to The American Way of Life is the prospect that the financial relationships will collapse and leave us woefully unprepared to cooperate.
If we go back to the Hass/Wilson discussion, we have a choice between the Clements model and the Gleason model. Permaculture and other biological farming and gardening methods use the Clements model. Industrial monocultures use the Gleason model. A biologically farmed field is full of life…a monoculture field is dead except for the chosen crop.
Not only do many of us have very rusty skills in terms of interpersonal cooperation, we also have scant skills in terms of using the natural cooperation in nature to extract a surplus to feed us.
Do we have to be this way? I think that the evidence says that we are not victims of an unchanging human nature. We can choose the environment in which our children are conceived, and we can adopt Network Motifs which favor biology rather than chemistry to produce food.
Describing how we might accomplish those objectives would take me off into a lot of personal speculation, so I will leave the argument right where lays.
Don Stewart
Excellent piece again, Don – thank you.
Even Darwin referred to co-operation as a successful tactic. Business people/right wingers often justify a selfish, competitive approach as being “Darwinian”. Very limited!
Those who wish to survive – with their nearest and dearest – will HAVE to become part of functioning, autonomous communities.
The thing I ponder most is what size communities, and how best for these communities to maintain communication/contact – while still remaining autonomous and NOT overly complex.
Why not “overly complex”?
As discussed before, complexity breeds complexity until collapse is reached.
I think you need small enough communities that “gift economies” work. In such economies, everyone shares everything they get with everyone else. This only works in small communities where everyone knows everyone else, and there are rules that basically say that you get thrown out if you don’t share everything with everyone else. Also, everyone needs to be expected to work, for this to work. Slackers need to be removed as well. There needs to be a way of keeping the community from getting to be too big as well. Unfortunately, without birth control, the methods used would not be acceptable to most people today.
Saw this news piece regarding higher fuel prices and this shows the effects we talk about:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/airfares-gas-prices-on-way-up-as-oil-hits-9-month-high-1.2682377
Airline analyst Robert Kokonis of AirTrav Inc. said higher fuel prices may force airlines to raise fares or add a “fuel surcharge” to the ticket price.
Airlines may be protected for a while from higher jet fuel prices by a rising loonie, as oil is priced in U.S. dollars.
For consumers in Canada, higher gasoline prices at the pump are already here. Dan McTeague, who watches prices for the Tomorrowsgaspricetoday.com website, says prices are headed above $1.50 a litre at pumps across Canada.
“This is going to have a rippling effect throughout the economy. People may have to grin and bear it, or they may decide, with the increase, they may have to find other ways in order to save or not spend in other parts of the economy,” he told CBC News. “That is obviously going to have a cascading effect over the next several months.”
McTeague said consumers are currently paying higher prices based on speculation rather than real events. But if the insurgency moves south, it could cut off Iraq’s oil production.
“If that is disrupted, then all bets are off. The fact is, prices will have to go up to meet the reality of disruption. OPEC’s No. 2 producer is Iraq and it’s no small player,” he said.
As usual — the great Robert Fisk — offers up some excellent insights on the middle east:
All this talk of Syrian moderates is a bit extreme
WELL, God bless Barack Obama – he’s found some “moderate” rebels in Syria.
Enough to supply them with weapons and training worth $500 million. The US Congress wants to arm these brave freedom fighters, you see.
And Obama, having sent his 300 elite Spartan lads to Iraq to help Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki fight the rebels there, needs to send help to the rebels in Syria – even though most of them are on the side of the rebels in Iraq whom Obama wants Maliki to defeat.
Confusing? You bet. So first steps first. Who are the “moderate” rebels whom Obama wants to train and arm? He doesn’t name them – and he can’t, because the original “moderates” whom America swore to arm (with the help of the CIA, the Brits, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey) were the so-called “Free Syrian Army”, mostly composed of deserters from Assad’s government forces.
But the FSA, briefly beloved of John McCain until he discovered a pro-Al Qaeda fighter sharing a photo-op with him in northern Syria, has decomposed.
Its men have gone home, switched to the bearded Islamists of the Nusra or Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham (ISIS) or re-deserted to the government army and taken up arms for Assad again. Some freedom fighters!
They weren’t given enough weapons, we are told. Now they’ll get more. And no doubt sell them – as they did the last lot. For it is a sad fact of war that whenever a gun crosses a border, it represents not loyalty but cash.
Give an FSA (Free Syria Army) man – if you can find one – an anti-aircraft missile and it will be sold to the highest bidder. In all the civil wars I’ve covered, I’ve never seen a weapon in the hands of a militia which hasn’t bought it from someone else. In a humiliating interview on Channel 4, the British defence secretary admitted that weapons given to Syrian rebels had fallen into the hands of the bad guys. How do you monitor all the guys whom you give a gun to? Send them off with a personal drone to make sure they don’t sell it?
Besides, how do you actually find a “moderate” these days in Syria’s war? The Islamist rebels fight to the death. They are no “moderates”. And – accursed facts now intervene – these are the very same Islamist rebels now threatening the Iraqi state.
THINGS GET MORE CONFUSING: And just to make things even more confusing, Maliki has just been thanking Assad’s boys for air-raiding his own rebel enemies on the Iraqi-Syrian border on the grounds that Syria and Iraq are “friends”.
So now to our own real friend, the Department of Home Truths. What’s left of the FSA has been fighting the Islamist Isis forces. So have the Kurdish militias in northern Syria. So have a few village militias. And the Syrians have a suspicion that this is Obama’s half-baked plan to arm the anti- Islamist Syrian rebels to fight the pro-Al Qaeda rebels and thus – indirectly keep both the Assad and Malikiregimes in power.
The problem is that Obama must do this without revealing that the Syrian-Iraqi battle against Wahabis is one and the same war, that Assad’s Syrian army – using Russian jets – is struggling against exactly the same enemy as Maliki’s Iraqi army, also soon to be augmented (if we are to believe Maliki’s blather to the BBC Arabic Service) with Russian jets.
In other words, Assad not only has the public support of Moscow; he has the private support of Washington (and therefore, of course, of Israel).
Why else would the White House say that the money for Syrian “moderates” would help “counter terrorist threats” – “terrorist” being Assad’s description of his enemies.
But of course, Obama must keep calling Assad a “brutal dictator”. Difficult to explain all this on Fox News, of course. So just keep repeating the word “moderate”. Over and over again.
That is indeed very confusing — first Assad had to go (not sure why…) and now the US is supporting him…
Putin summed up US foreign policy quite well recently:
Russian President Vladimir Putin strongly criticized the U.S. Tuesday while defending the movement of Russian troops into Ukraine, likening U.S. involvement to lab experiments on rats.
“I think they sit there across the pond in the U.S., sometimes it seems … they feel like they’re in a lab and they’re running all sorts of experiments on the rats without understanding consequences of what they’re doing,” Putin told a group of reporters. “Why would they do that? Nobody can explain it.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/vladimir-putin-ukraine-speech-104219.html#ixzz35tv4ccHp
I have my own take on this — the US is like a cornered rat — the petrol dollar is vapourizing before the Deep State’s eyes…. and they are confused, desperate and have no idea what to do.
That’s what usually happens when empires end… that and bread and circuses (NFL football, Dancing with Stars, Facebook, 241 pizza with giant soft drinks — the modern day equivalent)
All signs of an overextended “Empire” that is frayed and largely out of the influence of the “Masters of the Universe”.
I remember reading about the Late Roman Empire and as the borders and outer areas of the State were being overrun by Barbaric Hordes, the citizens of Rome petitioned the Emperor at his new residence of Ravenna in Italy (more secure than the City of Rome) to continue the “games” and “events” in the Colosseum!
Just shows how the “Public” will be react in today’s breakdown we are seeing.
I am amazed at all the attention and resources devoted to “Sports” in this nation.
The new stadiums costing upwards to a Billion Dollars (largely at public expense) are viewed as “economic development”)!
Amazing the human condition has changed very little, if at all, in 2000 years.
huh??? Russia sells jets to Syria and Iraq. KSA attacks Syria and Iraq. Russia, US, Israel, Iran side against KSA. Say what!!! Is KSA going down by global agreement?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2014/06/27/be172f43-cf98-4677-8e6d-4d64a5ae5e1d_story.html
Long WaPo article about Russia and Iran supplying aircraft to Iraq (and maybe even flying them), yet not one quote or “sources say” about what Washington thinks about this slap in the face.
Presumably Iran is still re-supplying Syria by plane via Iraqi airspace, and US drones overhead too. Must be pretty crowded up there.
Rusty Russian junk, suprised it can get off the ground.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=77e_1389637750
“Looks as Russia, US, Israel, Iran side against KSA.” This would be obvious if KSA would be trying to control Iraq (just as nobody helped Saddam after he invaded Kuwait, while many countries participated in the war against him with money, soldiers and logistics).
In the other hand, many players have an interest destabilizing their neighborhood, especially Iraq who is (or was) the worst threat to them: KSA and Israel understand that the US military support will weaken and eventually disappear, so it’s better to start fragmenting the surrounding structures, starting by the strongest one. The US allows and participates in this strategy, because this is the path that allows BAU keep working for long: remember they know US forces capacity will get a big crunch in very few years.
Israel is somewhat supporting Syria? Not entirely. The point is things must not fall apart so quickly.
Iran doesn’t need a so much balkanized neighborhood because Iran is very strong, but they interests in Iraq had not been entirely discussed. Anyway, they can’t just go and take over, because this would be a case to get nuked.
The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough—and that time wasn’t far off—people were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filene’s. And Borders. And on and on.
Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. It just happened that the second Jeff—Bezos—called me back first to take up my investment offer. So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea; people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality—Bezos’ great insight). Cybershop didn’t make it, just another dot-com bust. Amazon did somewhat better. Now I own a very large yacht.
But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz35tAyqxES
Interesting article — one of the key problems we are facing is that wages do not keep up with the price of oil increases… which puts us in a death spiral as people can afford to buy less stuff….
Hanauer suggests a minimum wage of $15…. that would obviously drive wages up across the board….
Gail — do you think such a policy might allow us to continue BAU for longer? Or would that just result in some sort of toxic side-effect such as hyperinflation?
There are two issues
1) mal-distribution of wealth leading to a death spiral of a smaller and smaller economy
2) declining total wealth due to declining cheap energy (rising energy cost)
A high minimum wage might have some impact on the first but will have no impact on the second. It is not even clear to me that it has a positive impact on the first. It might just lead to increased robotization and self service with increased unemployment.
If we cut off jobs that are marginal, less than $15/hr, do we not just speed up the concentration of wealth to only those who contribute more than $15/hr?
Only the government can afford to pay workers $15/hr to produce $8/hr of value. It is just another form of welfare. How can a government that borrows 50 cents of every dollar it spend afford this new spending?
Well, we we need to cut off our Red State comrades.
Lucky we productive progressive on the Left Coast have a bit of compassion:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/26/republican-states-most-dependent-government_n_5035877.html
The “takingest” states, in a tie, are Mississippi and New Mexico, according to the analysis. Both states take about $3 in federal spending for every $1 contributed in taxes. Both states are highly dependent on federal funding as a percentage of state revenue. And New Mexico, especially, has lots of federal workers.
The state with the lowest return on taxpayer investment is South Carolina. Its citizens pay $1 in taxes per capita for every $7.87 in federal funding received.
Sound like the free and sovereign state of South Carolina needs to succeed. Leave the millstone to care for itself. That is the whole point of a union of free and sovereign states they can leave? It is not one nation indivisible.
Without energy, the South will go back to its agrarian past, a cultural backwater.
Can you imagine Atlanta without AC?
It will return to a city of 50,000.
But agree, eventually places like California will not be able to support the states not pulling their weight.
Too harsh. Tall ceiling 12 feet the heat rises. Covered porches all around. The south shall rise again.
A very readable piece—thanks for the link.
However, Hanauer makes a glaring error, in suggesting that we could repeat Henry Ford’s idea of upping wages in order to buy the goods we produce—ad infinitum.
Goods represent embodied energy, no matter what the product
Ford’s cars contained all the energy required to produce the raw materials and fabricate them into shiny cars. His workers didnt buy cars, they bought energy. The point being that it was virtually free energy so Ford could afford to pay his workers more than that energy factor was worth. So they spent the difference on buying his cars, under the illusion that that difference factor would always be available—cheap energy=high wages=purchasing power.
Times have changed, The reason we cant repeat Ford’s formula is that theres no cheap energy left
Now the formula is Expensive energy=low wages (by comparison)=low purchasing power.
Paying workers $15 or $1000 an hour won’t increase the energy flowing into the system, and that is the critical factor that’s sinking the economy. There would be more coloured bits of paper to pass around, but without energy, their actual value would be zero leading to hyper inflation and economic collapse.
Odd though that Hanauer should believe that money has actual value
tinyurl.com/oa854gt
End
Exactly. In effect Ford’s workers. and the American ‘middle class’ which developed, were rather inexpensive in the context of the whole system, even when well-paid. But to them, it felt like prosperity and seemed to promise permanence. A great delusion only made possible by ignoring the energy context.
I’m inclined to feel that populist dictatorships or ‘democratic’ semi-dictatorships, will arise from the efforts of the masses to regain that prosperity of the 1950’s and 60’s: anyone promising it to them will get votes, and the individualistic raw capitalist message is dying in Europe and the US.
It bore fruit for many, but it’s now rotting: the next stage is shaking the bare branches in the hope that they will bear fruit again…..
I doubt many people at all will understand the true position.
I didn’t get it myself until relatively recently, when I started researching the subject.
Food and fuel just sort of appeared.
Trying to broach the subject in general conversation would indicate that I’m still in the minority
Memo: From Nick Hanauer
To: My Fellow Zillionaires
You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud. But I saw pretty quickly, even back then, that many of my customers, the big department store chains, were already doomed. I knew that as soon as the Internet became fast and trustworthy enough—and that time wasn’t far off—people were going to shop online like crazy. Goodbye, Caldor. And Filene’s. And Borders. And on and on.
Source: Forbes;
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Realizing that, seeing over the horizon a little faster than the next guy, was the strategic part of my success. The lucky part was that I had two friends, both immensely talented, who also saw a lot of potential in the web. One was a guy you’ve probably never heard of named Jeff Tauber, and the other was a fellow named Jeff Bezos. I was so excited by the potential of the web that I told both Jeffs that I wanted to invest in whatever they launched, big time. It just happened that the second Jeff—Bezos—called me back first to take up my investment offer. So I helped underwrite his tiny start-up bookseller. The other Jeff started a web department store called Cybershop, but at a time when trust in Internet sales was still low, it was too early for his high-end online idea; people just weren’t yet ready to buy expensive goods without personally checking them out (unlike a basic commodity like books, which don’t vary in quality—Bezos’ great insight). Cybershop didn’t make it, just another dot-com bust. Amazon did somewhat better. Now I own a very large yacht.
But let’s speak frankly to each other. I’m not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I’m not technical at all—I can’t write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future. Seeing where things are headed is the essence of entrepreneurship. And what do I see in our future now?
I see pitchforks.
At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99 percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.
If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.
Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.
Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world. What everyone wants to believe is that when things reach a tipping point and go from being merely crappy for the masses to dangerous and socially destabilizing, that we’re somehow going to know about that shift ahead of time. Any student of history knows that’s not the way it happens. Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand. That’s the way it always happens. If inequality keeps rising as it has been, eventually it will happen. We will not be able to predict when, and it will be terrible—for everybody. But especially for us.
***
The most ironic thing about rising inequality is how completely unnecessary and self-defeating it is. If we do something about it, if we adjust our policies in the way that, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression—so that we help the 99 percent and preempt the revolutionaries and crazies, the ones with the pitchforks—that will be the best thing possible for us rich folks, too. It’s not just that we’ll escape with our lives; it’s that we’ll most certainly get even richer.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#ixzz35t9WWDzS
“It’s not just that we’ll escape with our lives; it’s that we’ll most certainly get even richer.”
That Porter Stansberry-style stuff, if you buy their products now, you can do a Joe Kennedy & ride out the storm on easy street, while masses of people are in soup lines & “Hoovervilles”, with some FDR-style “social engineering” to help them out?
Can some folks stay in their gated communities, & fly in their bizjets, with major breakdowns in civil order?
I doubt we’ll be dealing with some temporary situation like the Great Depression — we’re looking at a complete “paradigm” change, here.
bizjet flights ride on the commercial enterprise of everyone else.
aircraft infrastructure must collapse without communal support think—- fuel supplies–maintenance, airports and so on
same applies to gated communities, they must have fuel/food input, sewage out like everybody else, not to mention healthcare.
guards on gated communities have always been the first to turn on their employers when the money runs out/loses its value
when money loses its value, even the koch bros are on the same footing as everybody else
I think most of these guys do not grasp that this time is truly different. There will be no pieces to pick up this time around.
But since there is not much else they can do they may as well dance while the music plays — but I must say — they are in for one hell of a rude awakening when there are no chairs in the room when the music stops.
Tipping points are an interesting study. In his book ‘Red Nile’, Robert Twigger relates how his wife, an Egyptian journalist, – completely misread the events in Cairo leading to the end of Mubarak. ‘It’s just going to be another demonstration, nothing exciting about this one ‘ she said: next day – anarchy. Sudden change, apparently out of nowhere.
Although with Egypt nothing ultimately changed — the US/Israel puppet Mubarak — was exchanged for another puppet…
The Think Tanks are definitely looking closely at Egypt as a model of how to put down the unrest that is coming to the US.
It goes like this:
If the people rise up — bash them hard and fast — break them — and make them crave authoritarianism — because only that is what brings stability — change = chaos and starvation — a firm hand may not produce prosperity — but it ends the chaos
I believe this is the model — but it will break down quickly because there will be no food available after the SHTF. When I was in Egypt last year I met one of the student leaders — he spoke of a ‘hunger revolution’ — a revolution where people are driven to crush the PTB at any cost…
Egypt is not there — yet…. We will all be there — at some point
Paul
Yes, Egypt is a fascinating study, where the politics and economics are not so obscure as in Syria and Iraq. Mubarak, then Morsi, and now A General running kangaroo courts to crush the opposition, with the economy supported in every way by neighbours. No happy exit for Egypt.
Shutting Off Water To 150k Residents – Ukraine? No, Detroit!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-27/shutting-water-150k-residents-ukraine-no-detroit
Decomplexification in progress. The same thing as with “renewables” and grid. Less people pay bills->the higher rates for the rest (high fixed cost of insfrustructure maintenance) -> higher bills -> etc… death spiral.
B9K9,
The primary assumption is that any government worker will even show up when all else is in collapse, let alone follow orders. My experience down here in South Central Florida is that government workers are the most self centered, egotistical and selfish bunch I have ever encountered. That seems to hold true for all of them up the East Coast (not that anywhere else is much better but they sure are up front about it out here). For the above situations to even play out for any COG requires a lot of self sacrifice that I just plain do not see that happening. Anyone who once served in gov as an honorable thing to do have long since passed away or avoided gov service like the plague. Once the dollar proves worthless and any gov stores of food are depleted shortly thereafter it would be every man/woman for themselves, which I believe IS the Standard Operating Procedure for gov workers even without a collapse.
The other is ‘credit’ being available, I just don’t see that this gov can create any more of any value. With no oil or gold to back it, what would the military operate on? Our strategic reserves might be strung out for a year or two but who will make the replacement parts or weapons when much of our weaponry depends on foreign parts? Re-start our industrial base with robot factories? Who would finance that, failed banks or foreign competitors? Where would the cheap oil come from, Alaska? Gulf of Mexico? It took 3 years of construction to get the North Slope online after the environmental stops were taken off. By the time any other source of oil could come online it would be too little, too late.
And then no mention of systemic unrest, the gov. armed police would walk away from that. Even the military might just pack it in.
I do not doubt for one minute that everything will be tried to keep things going in gov. Maybe Gail’s timeline comes into play here with the Figure 2. Crisis Years being the COG period.
It can not possibly endure for long no matter what any remnant US Gov organization tries to keep going. In the end it will only hasten the complete collapse. It still ends no matter what.
Recall Iraq — US forces immediately seized oil related buildings as well as the fields and guarded them — and watched as looters ran wild. There’s our precedent for what US forces would likely do in the US.
Wikipedia: The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is an emergency fuel storage of oil maintained by the United States Department of Energy. It is the largest emergency supply in the world with the capacity to hold up to 727 million barrels (115,600,000 m3).
EIA: In 2013, the United States consumed a total of 6.89 billion barrels of petroleum products, an average of 18.89 million barrels per day.1 This total includes about 0.32 billion barrels of biofuels.
I doubt the masses will get any of that reserve oil — all would go towards the military — they could operate for quite some time on 727 million barrels — and no doubt there are stockpiles we are not being told about as they know what is coming…
So what do we get out of this — a brutal military dictatorship that hoards remaining reserves in order to maintain power — and everyone else is left on their own?
That looks to be the likely outcome at least for the short term i.e. as long as the oil reserves and ammo last… remember Forbes report of 1.6 Billion Rounds of Ammunition for Homeland Security…. this could last a fair while.
> “It still ends no matter what.”
Agreed, but
my reason for pointing out TPTB will try to prolong things with a war economy is to give people the opportunity of surviving by recognising the situation as it unfolds, day by day. Most people won’t quit their jobs and start rioting and looting if they think that there is going to be another pay-check coming at the end of the week, and their ration cards will get them at least some food and fuel. Similarly they won’t resort to their guns if the electricity goes off for a planned six hours overnight “to help the war effort”. People just want things to get back to normal, and the media will be working overtime in telling them that things WILL get back to normal soon.
The masses voted for “Hope” and “Change”, even when they had had 4 four years of it – unbelievable, but true. The currency isn’t backed by anything now, but people still believe in it and use it every day. In the Weimar hyperinflation, people were still using the currency when it had devalued 1,000,000%.
So when these events start happening, don’t hang around waiting for things to get better, head for the hills – preferably some very remote hills. Be prepared to live in a tent and eat off the land, like the original inhabitants used to do.
Remote is the key word.
I know it sounds callous but I am hopeful that when the SHTF this unravels very quickly — that there is no rationing of gasoline — that overnight the gas stations empty and shut.
Because that will make it very difficult for people from the cities to get to agricultural areas where many of us are making our last stands. If there is no fuel available then I expect that most people will just curl up and expire fairly quickly – no fuel means no food or clean water…
Most of the 7.2B people on the planet are doomed one way or the other…
Callousness understood, and accepted. It is important to have a plan that is resilient, so just hoping for a fast crash isn’t really enough. If you are going to make your last stand at a house at the end of a road, I think someone will find you, and it only takes one. I would recommend disappearing entirely for a month, and then re-emerge and see what’s left.
On previous articles I have suggested piling food and water onto a sail boat heading offshore and waiting for the mayhem to play out … assuming most people perish within a month or so there would be plenty of land available… and assuming you were in an area without cold winters there would likely be plenty of food available (fruit trees, wild berries, etc…)
I am tempted by that idea however it is likely we will stay put in our village here in the mountains.
Communities here are very tightly knit — each village even has its own security force — we try to integrate as much as possible — so hopefully nothing will change when the SHTF — we have have contingencies in place to provide as much food as possible to the village when things go sideways.
Paul
A lot of urban people simply can’t walk properly or very far. A very urban friend visited me here in this village, and a brief walk around the place was like a trip with a toddler: ‘Are we there yet?’ Totally out of place, Very amusing.
Maybe the future will belong to marauding gangs of hikers with proper German boots left over from the good days?
Others provided good replies, but let me just emphasize that history is replete with examples of regimes using remaining available resources in order to maintain control.
Comparing any state government – and lowly bureaucratic functionaries at that – to fed.gov is a mistake. They may look similar in form, but they function much more differently.
Anyway, as others have noted, the military will control all strategic reserves – whether it is water (they will occupy dams), oil (ditto fields & refineries), electricity (power plants, patrol grid), food (storage & processing), mfg facilities, even the roads (man checkpoints on interstates).
They will let everyone else go to the devil. You won’t be able to move/travel far, you won’t have gas for the car in the first place, you won’t be getting water, and you certainly won’t be getting any food other than what is rationed.
With that kind of organizational power & influence, how many people do you think will attempt to join? The counterpoint will be home grown responses similar to ISIS. This isn’t a mystery – all one has to do is observe what is taking place in MENA to know what is in store once the cold reality of hard resource constraints begin to wash up on our shores.
B9K9,
” mfg facilities,”? Do we still have any?
@Palloy says “The PTB will start a war and bring in a war economy. In a war economy, credit doesn’t stop, because the government tells the banks to keep lending. If a war is going on people just have to do without. Instant information exchange is only available with the cooperation of the government – if they say Twitter is down, then it is down. If they say no internet at all except for government and approved media, that’s what happens. If you don’t have a job any more, there is always work in the Army or Police. The rest of the social network will stop, but the critical sub-network will keep running, and with fuel rationing they will have plenty of fuel for the sub-network. Do you think that they don’t have a plan for this eventuality, when it is so obvious that it is coming?”
I must commend you for this brilliant summary. It describes exactly how this is going to happen. Rationing, price controls, travel restrictions, centralized information/propaganda (Bernays), suspension of civil liberties (Lincoln habeas corpus), persecution of dissidents (1917/18 sedition acts), etc, etc, etc.
Governments are nothing more than artificial organisms comprised of associations of like-minded parasites using the social institutions and legal frameworks as a means of acquiring power, control & wealth. In the abstract, yet another of many various techniques used gain a competitive advantage. And since all organisms are designed to sacrifice the periphery to save the core, vestigial resources will be used to the last to maintain the power structure. Never forget the absolute prime directive is COG – continuity of government.
Anyone who is paying attention has the script right in front of them – all you have to do is follow along.
COG = the old saying: ‘Different rider, same saddle’. The peasants of Old Europe knew what was what…..
They knew what was what because the penalty for (secular) treason was to be hanged, drawn & quartered:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered
They also knew what was what because the penalty for (ecclesiastical) treason ie heresy was to be burned at the stake:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy
What we in the “modern” world don’t quite mentally process is the level & degree of sadistic torture utilized by the PTB in order to maintain control. Because they had the advantage in size/fitness, education & nutrition, the peasants simply had no chance. The gun is the one thing that leveled the playing field, which is why we saw the advent of political freedom arise from that era.
The last thing any government wants is to lose the information advantage, which is why I assert the very, very last thing to go will be the grid. At that point, any man can be king; it will take years for warlords to gain control of local regions & consolidate power in much the same way Europe developed after the fall of Rome.
“The last thing any government wants is to lose the information advantage, “.
While the internet and social media have not brought about any nirvana, they make it much more difficult for any government to control the discussion. Even the great firewall of China is leaky, and unable to stop spontaneous discussions before they spread widely.
No need to control the discussion — the NSA owns you.
And here’s how:
We have all put something into an email or sms…. or said something in a phone conversation — which we do not want to be made public — perhaps a caustic comment about one’s wife — brother — mother in law — boss …. an extra-marital affair… nothing illegal mind you — just something that you would not want to get out.
And the NSA has that on file.
Now let’s say you decided fracking was bad — and you organized protests… the US being a fascist state — Chesapeake makes a call to the right people and says ‘we want this guy shut down’ — the NSA does a quick search of your file and comes up with a few compromising details… someone puts the word in your ear that ‘you best stop your activities or….’
This might not work all of the time — but you can bet your bottom dollar it would work most of the time.
Of course this would not be the only line of attack — as we know protestors against Israel at universities across the country are being suspended and expelled — and no doubt black marks are put onto their records which will make it more difficult to find jobs (fascism – hand in glove gov and business) — heck even those protesting animal cruelty get onto the watch list of Homeland Security.
All in keeping with the soft totalitarianism of the USA — soon to be overt totalitarianism (try organizing 100,000 people to march on Wall St and NOT allow the police to clear you out — you will see overt totalitarianism in action very quickly)
Should be “Interesting” to see the Police at the People’s March in New York City this september 20th and 21st. Bill McKibben stressed it is to be peaceful and not feature “civil disobedience and arrests”.
Wonder how long before Bill McKibben gets “marked” by those as too troublesome?
We still have a problem with the nuclear Japanese Fukushima power plant:
http://www.king5.com/news/local/Hanford-company-helping-Fukushima-cleanup-264834661.html
orkers at the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant have a problem – tens of thousands of gallons of groundwater are bubbling up through cracks in the basements of the of reactor buildings.
It is heavily contaminated with radioactive strontium. The Japanese are building large storage tanks at a rate of two per day to hold the water, but they can’t keep that up much longer.
The Kurion Company, which designs and builds products for the Hanford cleanup, has developed a mobile treatment system that will soon be handling 300 tons of that water per day.
The system, which looks like a row of shipping containers, separates the radioactive materials along with other dangerous chemicals and stores them in filters. The filters take up very little space and can then be stored safely until they are converted to a stable glass form.
Kurion was one the first U.S. companies at the scene of the Fukushima disaster and provided a similar system to treat heavily radioactive water that prevented workers from making emergency repairs.
Nobody really knows
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/world/asia/measuring-damage-at-fukushima-without-eyes-on-the-inside.html
Or at least, that is what the engineers think. Nobody really knows, because nobody has yet examined many of the most important parts of the wreckage. Though three and a half years have passed, it is still too dangerous to climb inside for a look, and sending in a camera would risk more leaks. Engineers do not have enough data to even run a computer model that could tell them how much of the reactor cores are intact and how much of them melted, because the measurement systems inside the buildings were out of commission for days after the accident
More to come as the “story” develops”
I do support Bill McKibben and 350.org in their efforts and saw this that I thought I would share with Gail’s readership.
Seems an online Master Degree Program is being offered by Green Mountain College:
POULTNEY, VT–Green Mountain College announced today that it will offer the nation’s first online Master of Science degree in Resilient and Sustainable Communities (MRSC). This two-year program, accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), will begin in February 2015 with a residency featuring Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and climate-change activist.
“If we have one need on this planet, it’s for resilient and sustainable communities,” said McKibben, “so it’s good someone is thinking hard about how the heck to build them!
http://masters.greenmtn.edu/mrsc/the-program.aspx
If I were younger and thought we had time enough to turn the ship around it seems like a purposeful program of study.
Gail:
One angle on the liquid fuels aspect I’ve been following over the past few weeks.
You may have heard in the past few months of research out of the US Naval Research Lab by Heather Willauer et al on fuel synthesis from seawater. The idea sounds intriguing: a source of electricity (the Navy is looking at nuclear reactors for this), electrolysis to product hydrogen, a vacuum- and acid-balance shift to free CO2, then feed both to a Fischer-Tropsch process to generate JP-5 (military jet fuel).
Turns out the idea’s rather older than Willauer’s bibliography suggests (her references are largely from 2000 forward), originating at Brookhaven National Lab in 1965 with Meyer Steinberg. He published a number of papers on the subject through the 1980s. Another researcher, Michael J. Driscoll at MIT is listed as advisor on engineering masters’ thesis from 1975-2009 as well, most associated with the Navy.
My thought was that Steinberg’s work was likely precipitated by concern over future fuel requirements, and the bit you mention in the 1962 report of Hubbert’s seems to bear this out: on page 139 he refers to synthesis of chemical fuels. The assumption is that nuclear power would be used, but any source of electricity from a sustainable or renewable source would suffice. I suspect this was the genesis of Steinberg’s research.
I’m not convinced this is practical. The fact that there’s been 50 years of research and yet very, very little discussion of the concept makes me wonder if there isn’t some technical limitation which prevents it being pursued. On the other hand, it sounds as if the Navy are still interested in the concept. And if it does work, you’ve got two well-proven industrial processes (hydrogen electrolysis and F-T fuel synthesis), plus the newer process of seawater CO2 separation. Navy’s numbers suggest about 50% energy recovery as fuel, modest processing plant footprint (100,000 gallons/day out of a carrier-sized plant). Cost of $3-6/gallon (I came up with $9/gallon). Not cheap, but if it works, that’s a stable price until you run out of sunlight and seawater. And it’s suitable to reasonably distributed and decentralized production.
You’re left with addressing all the _other_ problems facing humans, but it does seem to address the liquid fuels side.
As I said: there’s _very_ little discussion of theme method. Where F-T is mentioned it’s usually in the context of processing biomass feedstocks or, worse, coal-to-liquids. The GEN21 and EU renewables reports both out recently don’t mention it, it’s not in Amory Lovins’ _Reinventing Fire_, nor the WorldWatch Institute’s _State of the World 2013_. McKibben and Hienberg don’t mention it. But you _will_ find a brief mention (a paragraph or so) in the IPCC’s 2011 “IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation”: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/ Another surprising source of information is the West Virginia Coal Association. Turns out they’re interested in pretty much anything that smells like carbon sequestration. Their technical analysis of the reports I’ve seen is actually pretty good. I don’t trust their climate analysis, but these guys seem to know their carbon chemistry. See them at: http://www.wvcoal.com/research-development/us-navy-announces-3gallon-jet-fuel-from-co2.html
You might want to ask around among your energy- and fuel-savvy researchers to see what they know about this. I’m doing my own research as well.
I’ve detailed this, some additional references on seawater-based Fischer-Tropsch fuel synthesis (I’m trying to promote “SFTFS” as a common acronym for it), at my blog: http://redd.it/28nqoz
The problem with these fixes we hear about are:
– they are never imminent
– we need something now – not in 2 years or 5 years
– none of them replace oil — http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
Unless there is a technology that essentially turns a common product (e.g. tap water) into oil cheaply — then I am arrogantly dismissal of the technology solution to our problems.
That said — if we could turn tap water into sweat crude — that would not be a solution — it would lead to even greater population growth — it would also send economic growth through the roof (imagine oil at 2 bucks a barrel…) which of course would burn out our FINITE World…. even more quickly.
Unfortunately — there are no solutions to what we are facing. Just ways to delay the inevitable – and we are running out of those
dismissive….
I have run into this idea a bit. On all of these ideas, there is an inherent assumption that we can keep the economy going on a whole lot less energy than today. I am not really sure that is true. The energy provides jobs, among other things. $9 gallon is way too high, so is $6 gallon. The government needs to take a fairly big cut of the cost, even at $4 gallon.
There’s a difference between running “the” economy (what we’ve presently got) and “an” economy. What a sustainable fuel-synthesis capability would offer is the latter.
There _are_ countries which operate with a market price of $6-9/gallon (and others where it’s as little as $0.10 – $0.20). Note that that is the market price, not the production cost, and yes, I’m aware of the rather considerable distinction.
I’m trying to sort out the the EROEI of the net process, and other factors of costs implied here. Note that those costs don’t apply to all energy, but to fuel energy. Which is to say, principally transport, some industrial processes, some heat, and some material feedstocks. For net electrical, passive solar, and other energy inputs, you’re on a higher EROEI pathway. My understanding of Charles Hall’s work on EROEI and technological sustainability (and I’m communicating with him on this as well) is that it’s the net energy EROEI that matters. E.g., even today, humans expend 5-10x the energy inputs on food as are received on output food calories, but on the basis of trading abundant (for now) fossil inputs for scarce and specifically useful food inputs, it’s considered a viable transaction.
The bigger point is that in a scenario where, very specifically, transportation fuels are seen to be hugely constrained, synfuels offer an out. Perhaps not the abundance and cheapness of present fuels, but somewhere between, say, today, and 1600, where wind, animal feed, and wood fuel (as well as their harnessing technologies) were the limit of what was available.
The questions of cost, production rates, EROEI, and technological sustainability absolutely do need to be addressed. That’s what I’m looking into now.
We only have one economy. If it doesn’t run on the current price of oil, it is not at all clear than another one can be self-organized in a way that will work. When Charles Hall says talks about multiple economies with different EROEI needs, the only thing that makes sense to me is an economy of a country in Africa that runs with dirt roads, and not much infrastructure, vs. a US economy. The US would have a hard time morphing to a simply dirt road economy. There is a mythology that says we can somehow change economies, but apart from starting with an existing system that works in one part of the world, and building from it (say, a farming system that uses only a few small hand tools, wooden carts, and dirt roads), it is not at all clear that we can build a new economy.
When you refer to prices of $6-$9 gallon, the price you refer to is not the market price for everyone. What you see is the market price for private passenger auto drivers, which is a segment of the market that the government is trying to squeeze out by taxing. Taxes are lower on other things, to compensate for the high energy taxes. Oil prices are lower for commercial and government users.
When the market price that needs to be paid by the government and by businesses rises to high levels, (even current levels) but the prices don’t rise that much for coal, the countries paying the high prices lose out in the competitive market. They cannot sell their goods and services, and unemployment rates spike. It becomes hard to collect enough taxes. Economic growth slows way down. Europe is not doing well right now, and for that matter, neither is the United States.
EROEI only looks at one piece of the total picture–the energy (of whatever type) that is used to make energy, particularly oil. The other parts of the puzzle that are important are
1. Salaries that go into making energy
2. Taxes that governments need to collect to keep up their operations, indirectly coming from energy
3. Debt service costs, and the need for ever higher debt, in order to produce energy, particularly energy with high front-ended costs
4. Any costs related to plugging whatever new energy source into our current system, including changeover cost associated with the change –new electric cars, for example
5. Indirect costs, particularly for oil exporters, such as desalination plants and programs to keep citizens from revolting, that are funded by tax revenue on oil. These are not direct costs of extraction, but they are equally important, and are left out of EROEI calculations.
EROEI represents only a small piece of the problem. An exporter with huge funding needs for programs to pacify its citizens can have a problem if the oil price is too low, even if the EROEI is very high–say 60. The issue is total required price when everything is included, once diminishing returns start driving up costs. Wages don’t go up; they tend to flatten instead.
A related issue is the fact that we have already built up a huge system of roads, vehicles, pipelines, electric transmission lines, and many other things that needs to be repaired and replaced, every year, using more oil. The government has also made a huge amount of promises to others. These can only be paid if the system provides enough jobs and at high enough wages that citizens can pay the necessary taxes. We know that in past civilizations, inability to collect enough taxes was what ultimately led to collapse, when diminishing returns hit.
EROEI is too narrowly focused to measure what needs to be measured today. It was a good start, back in the 1970s, but our thinking needs to go beyond EROEI today.
EROEI is what we live and die by, there is absolutely nothing else to measure that will make the slightest difference to our future. Humans are no different than microbes or plants in that regard. If the hole I dig returns enough energy to feed, shelter and cloth me I can continue. As the whole gets deeper or further away and I expend more and more energy to live, I can continue to dig and slowly use the fat I’ve built up in the easy times or I move and find a new hole to exploit.
Humans have been depleting their holes and moving to new locations for millennia. Negative EROEI now is forcing us to live off the accumulated fat. There are no new locations to move to. The high EROEI of FF’s has enabled the expansion to over seven billion of us, it’s decline will ensure the decline of us as well. Taking from the future is what is occurring now.
Interesting comments on EROEI, I’m going to take a look to see if you’ve discussed that recently, and if not, I’d love to see more on that.
Regards what economy is preserved: my goal is that there be one with a modest amount of modern technological development. Somewhere between the 1870s and 1930s we saw much of modern life emerge (a bit more came through by the 1940s or 1950s). I was just commenting on Google+ over a 1963 fashion photograph and noting that that was over 50 years ago, but the image still looks quite modern. Another 50 years before that was 1913, before World War I! And while today we’d likely have a number of things (cell phones, credit cards) that the couple in the 1963 shot didn’t have, the macro world was pretty similar.
The question becomes: what kind of a world and economy can you support with fuel produced with 50% efficiency from electricity supplied from … PV, or CSP, or wind, or hydro? And yes, I strongly suspect the US would splinter into at best a set of regional independent states.
I’m looking to see what else I can find out about the process, just dropped a question on Ugo Bardi at G+, will see what if anything he has to say about it.
Charles Hall was pretty pessimistic — with solar PV already at 2.4:1, he sees it as too low to be viable for a technological society.
Ten Reasons Intermittent Renewables (Wind and Solar PV) are a Problem
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/01/21/ten-reasons-intermittent-renewables-wind-and-solar-pv-are-a-problem/
I do not think EROEI is the correct measure related to our current problem, which is financial in nature. The idea is sort of right, but leaves out a lot of important variables, like wages, government “take,” need for upfront funding, and cost of integrating intermittent renewables into the electric grid.
I think the idea of intermittent renewables fixing our problems is absolutely absurd. The EROEI picture puts the best possible face on the matter. A more complete assessment says the idea of using them is absurd.
The navy is not trying to boil the ocean. They only want to fuel their carrier launched aircraft using energy from the carriers nuclear reactors. They will do fine. $9/gallon is far better than the army paying $50/gallon to Haliburton.
I’m aware that the Navy’s research is limited to its own specific needs. There are likely jurisdictional and political reasons for those scope limitations (you’ll find some discussion of this by Robert Bussard in his Google Talk on the Polywell reactor (also funded by the Navy). Somewhere in this 1h32m video, sorry I don’t recall specifically where, though it’s in a general funding discussion: http://fixyt.com/watch?v=FhL5VO2NStU
That said: based on the recent US NRL reports, scaling the concept up to US-national scales of production are within the realm of plausibility. That’s $10-30 trillion capital, 2 TW generation, 35,000 mi^2 (~200 mi on a side) solar plant. But at a national scale, within some sense of reason. Compare with the $4 trillion oil exploration capex spend 2005-2012 in Steve Kopits’ February 2014 talk Gail covered earlier this year.
Or, looking at a more local scale, the carrier task force scale-of-operations the Navy contemplates is roughly applicable to a city of 100-200k inhabitants, offering 1-2 gallons/day of fuel per resident. That’s where I arrived at the $9/gallon cost. And part of the point is that this technology does disaggregate and distribute somewhat reasonably.
Even if the government can produce 1-2 gallons/day of fuel per resident at $9 gallon, the system cannot afford this cost. If all of this cost went into local wages, so that those producing the oil could buy it, we might be OK, but it doesn’t. Solar does not substitute for oil–it only produces intermittent electricity.
I’d be interested in seeing what you think the maximum sustainable cost for oil (under various scenarios) is.
There’s nothing that says this cost _couldn’t_ go into local wages — my $9/gal. estimate is based on the plant & equipment for fuel processing, but mostly the solar power provisioning. Much of the operating and maintenance of each of those would be local. Fabrication _could_ be, though that needn’t be the case. I’m not sure why the distinction of local vs. imported provisioning of the plant itself would be significant. Ownership of the plant is certainly something I’d leave open. While the fuel processing facility would likely have unitized ownership (corporate, government, cooperative, or another model), the input energy could come from sources with entirely disaggregated ownership. The critical factors there would be a grid and some form of net metering or power brokering.
Your final sentence is contradicted by what I’m presenting here: solar energy plus an electricity-to-fuel conversion process can in fact substitute for oil. That’s the whole point of this concept. It can also provide for non-intermittent electricity, if, say, you feed that fuel back into a generator or fuel cell (~40 – 60% efficiency on that last stage, possibly higher).
I expect better from you than that, really.
That’s a net storage and re-generation return of about 20-30%, but with the capacity to story tremendous amounts of energy in a small volume. The 2000 kWh a typical household uses in a month, _net of generating efficiency_ could be stored in 3-4 barrels of oil. As lead-acid batteries it would be a slightly larger proposition.
“solar energy plus an electricity-to-fuel conversion process can in fact substitute for oil.”
But it doesn’t.
In theory anything is possible (remember the theory that the Japanese would mine frozen gas at the bottom of the ocean and they would be saved?) — but theories are a dime a dozen
We need an alternative to $110 now (actually we needed that alternative quite a few years ago because every $10 bump in oil kills growth by 0.4%)
Yet all we get are theories — and in the case of solar massive subsidies — which have resulted in enough energy to power almost nothing http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bernstein-energy-supply.jpg
What we need to have to make a cheap substitute for oil (which is what we need) is
(1) Really cheap solar energy,
(2) The solar energy would need to be non-intermittent, because correcting for intermittency adds huge costs
(3) Really cheap way of electricity to fuel conversion process.
(4) We need this all now.
The approach that in theory comes close to this ideal is space solar. Because it would be far above the earth, and not subject to earth’s weather, it could theoretically produce electricity 24/7, and use extremely thin solar PV, keeping resource usage down. If (and that is a huge if) space solar could be perfected and if it could be done very cheaply, and if someone could come up with a cheap electricity to fuel conversion process, then maybe we would be in business.
This seems to be to still be a long way off.
Makes sense — in theory — but of course we need this to happen now — and I am not aware that anyone is doing anything beyond dreaming about this at present…
We are past the maximum sustainable cost of oil extraction. The prices now are not high enough for those doing the extraction.
Maximum prices are dependent on interest rates. It is only because interest rates are very low that prices can be as high as they are. If interest rates go up, prices will drop.
Electricity to fuel conversion does not work, because we cannot do anything like this cheaply enough, and cannot do it now.
The U.S. Is Supporting the Most Violent Muslim Terrorists In Order to Wage War for Oil
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/the-u-s-is-supporting-the-most-violent-muslim-terrorists-in-order-to-wage-war-for-oil.html
Bringing “Demcracy to the Middle east”, no doubt.
In the words of a fairly high profile US official made off the record a few months ago at an event I was attending —- the question was ‘Do you really think that the US foreign policy is about spreading democracy’ — the response was — with a smile: ‘well — no — but that makes things sound a lot better’
Yeah, wasn’t democracy in the ME suppose to spread like a chain reaction? I remember “Watch this drive” saying that.
Daniel Ellsberg: “Secrets … Can Be Kept Reliably … For Decades … Even Though They Are Known to THOUSANDS of Insiders”
Judges, prosecutors and journalists all know that collusion happens every day. As I noted last year:
Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was a conspiracy. The heads of Enron were found guilty of conspiracy, as was the head of Adelphia. Numerous lower-level government officials have been found guilty of conspiracy. See this, this, this, this and this.
Time Magazine’s financial columnist Justin Fox writes:
Some financial market conspiracies are real …
Most good investigative reporters are conspiracy theorists, by the way.
Indeed, conspiracies are so common that judges are trained to look at conspiracy allegations as just another legal claim to be disproven or proven by the evidence.
Read more: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/daniel-ellsberg-%E2%80%9Csecrets-can-be-kept-reliably-for-decades-%E2%80%A6-even-though-they-are-known-to-thousands-of-insiders%E2%80%9D.html
Those accusing Goldman Sachs, Dick Cheney or some other powerful people of conspiring to enrich their interests are often met with the argument that “someone would have spilled the beans” if there had really been a conspiracy.
But famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg explains:
It is a commonplace that “you can’t keep secrets in Washington” or “in a democracy, no matter how sensitive the secret, you’re likely to read it the next day in the New York Times.” These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn’t in a fully totalitarian society. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public. This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy. The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.
History proves Ellsberg right. For example:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/daniel-ellsberg-%E2%80%9Csecrets-can-be-kept-reliably-for-decades-%E2%80%A6-even-though-they-are-known-to-thousands-of-insiders%E2%80%9D.html
The Chaos In Iraq Is By DESIGN
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-26/chaos-iraq-design
And here we have yet another conspiracy theory — that has been proved true:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-26/guest-post-proof-government-economic-numbers-are-being-manipulated
Of course, low reported inflation rates => high reported inflation-adjusted GDP. So if GDP isn’t going up as a regulator would like, it is easy to fix it. Just low ball the inflation rate.
As we can see —- absolutely everything is on the table — love the cartoon at the bottom of this:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-26/nirp-strikes-spain-create-tax-bank-deposits
As you say Don, “Individual” humans are complex adaptive systems. Very roughly 5% of our genes directly code for proteins – structural (collagen etc) and functional (enzymes), with some 90%+ of our genes being regulatory -and I wholeheartedly agree our industrialised AND post-industrialised society does NOT lead to the best expression of who we are.
Add to this that (again, very roughly) we are made up of 10 trillion human cells, and around 100 trillion bacteria living in and on us, and you start to get an idea of how simplistic the notion of being a separate individual becomes.
It is not a case of humans and the environment around them (this tends to put us at the centre of existence – inaccurately in my view); it is case of “us” as parts of a variety of ecosystems.
Therefore, it is most sensible for us to think in terms of – as Gail has pointed out several times – a TRULY sustainable future for humans. We won’t survive otherwise.
I like the notion of villages operating as separate but interconnected units within an informational system that enables to live our simple, truly human lives in a simple way at a physical level, without losing the incredible sophistication of thought that information interconnectedness gives us – like this site. I don’t see any attempt to hold onto our present economic system – or recreate some facsimile of it as feasible.
I think this “interconnected villages” sort of approach would be resilient, adaptable – and could lead to a focus on humanity’s drive to explore being taken in very new directions. I hesitate to call them spiritual – but it’s in that sort of territory.
We probably need groups trying different approaches in different parts of the world, in this regard. It is not easy to know precisely what will work.
Dear Gail and All
Along the lines of Our Economy is a Network, it is also true that Our Body is a Network.
See this video. Put your cursor over the sunflower and you should see a button to activate. It is about one hour, but the topic will be challenging enough for most of us that I don’t think you can skip ahead. You need to build knowledge little by little:
Epigenetics, Genomic Imprinting, and the Effects of Nutrition
https://functionalmedicine.org/page.aspx?uid=37&id=819
I’m not going to expose my ignorance by trying to summarize, but I think you will agree that genes alone don’t explain very much. It is gene expression which is most important. I particularly call your attention to the talk at about 53 minutes where he begins a discussion of autism and schizophrenia and his slide very near the end of the talk which details those environmental factors which we know impact gene expression. You will see that much of ‘modern life’ leads to poor gene expression.
Don Stewart
Thanks! I watched quite a bit of the video. The lecturer claims that over nutrition may be a factor in the increased incidence of autism.
“Inflammation” is an issue that is behind a lot of current diseases, including arthritis, heart disease, and type II diabetes. Inflammation seems to be related to some forms of over-nutrition as well. One issue is that are bodies are not designed for “pre-digested food”–that is, food that is finely ground, so that the body has to do practically no work in digesting it. Sugars are also in this category. I expect huge amounts of animal protein are also in this category of over-nutrition as well. Vegetables are particularly good in working in the opposite direction–lots of bulk, and the nutrition is mostly nutrients other than sugars, etc.
Anyhow, I figured out the over-nutrition issue was a problem for me 20 years ago, after my children were born. As I have mentioned previously, changing my diet has been very helpful, from an inflammation point of view. But I was eating a Standard American Diet when my children were born. I suppose eating the Standard American Diet may have contributed to one son having autism, and my other son having some “issues” that are a bit in that direction. Heredity may also play a role as well, in my particular situation too. Children with two parents with advanced degrees in math are probably inclined to have characteristics that are different from the general population.
Dear Gail
Just a couple of points:
1. Jirtle says that many important chemical markers can be put in place almost immediately after conception…long before the mother knows she is pregnant. That fact puts a heavy responsibility on the ‘society’ and the sort of world it puts young women into. There is a PhD at Duke who has been researching this for several years now. A very high percentage of young women have dangerous chemicals circulating in their bodies when they conceive.
2. Jirtle is cautious about whether the epigenetic markers can be directly inherited. He says that ‘there is some evidence that the markers are directly heritable’. At any rate, this is a good opening to blame your parents…it couldn’t possibly be our own fault…at least I know it wasn’t mine…I’m not too sure about you. 🙂
3. Note the clever way Nature grows the ‘right sized’ baby. In the Genomic Imprinting section of the talk, Jirtle describes how Nature takes certain gene sequences from the mother and some from the father. The relatively new sections of the brain are predominately from the mother, while the more primitive sections are from the father. The father’s influence is to grow a very large baby in the womb. But the mother’s influence is to grow a small baby in the womb…or no baby at all. Nature has figured out how to balance the two conflicting interests most of the time. I expect a lot of spontaneous abortions are a result of Nature failing to reconcile such conflicts with a viable baby.
Jirtle doesn’t talk about reversing the epigenetic markers. I have seen ‘heat maps’ of gene expression which show that changes in environment can pretty radically change gene expression. Whether the markers are still there, unchanged, I don’t know.
Don Stewart
Hello. Thanks for making your thoughts known on this blog. Your thoughts are interesting, and much of your thinking is logical and systematic.
I just wanted to confirm, however, that the degradation and collapse that you predict, is based solely on diminishing production rates of fossil fuels in the near future. There are many blogs predicting collapse, but there are equally as many scientists, engineers, researchers and government agencies depicting abundance. How does the layman go about sorting the charlatans from the altruists? Who has the “real” information on which to base a plan for the future? A vexing question indeed.
For instance, we keep seeing reports that, despite the “pick the best fruit first” principle, there is an abundance of fruit yet to be picked. Perhaps not as easy as it once was, but still nothing too hard to get at. These reports pervade the media, like the link below:
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/06/26/shale-gas-boom-driving-fear-out-of-market-goldman-sachs/?__lsa=4037-0996
The question then becomes, who is honest and who is lying? Alternatively, does anyone know the truth?
Your thoughts?
Thanks.
If you look around a room and cannot tell who the mark is, the mark is you.
I am not out trying to sell anything. A lot of these other folks either are trying to sell something directly, or are trying to get contributions, by telling a story that they feel their readers would like (not for profits) or their advertisers would like (for profits). I pay not to have advertising on this site, and don’t ask for contributions.
I have been writing about these issues for a long time, since at least 2007, and haven’t changed my story much at all. (For several years, my posts appeared only on The Oil Drum, where I wrote under the name “Gail the Actuary”.) If you would like to read some very early posts of mine, these are a couple:
Our World is Finite: Is That a Problem?
Peak Oil and the Financial Markets–A Forecast for 2008 I predicted the severity of the 2008 recession, and many of the effects.
My work has gained the attention of quite a few academics. I have spoken in academic conferences and actuarial conferences. I also have a number of peer-reviewed articles, including Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis, published in 2012. Science Direct says it has been cited 21 times so far. (Google has a higher count.)
Drum roll please…. ladies and gents … it is once again time for….. the grand list of facts that destroy the shale oil myth… presented by …. nobody … no sponsor… no whored MSM printing press releases from Chesapeake … nope — all you get here are the facts:
INDEPENDENT US OIL PRODUCERS SPEND $1.50 DRILLING FOR EVERY $1.00 THEY GET BACK
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/dream-of-u-s-oil-independence-slams-against-shale-costs.html
SHALE DRILLERS FEAST ON JUNKE DEBT TO STAY ON TREADMILL
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-30/shale-drillers-feast-on-junk-debt-to-say-on-treadmill.html
SHAKEOUT THREATENS SHALE PATCH AS FRACKERS GO FOR BROKE
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-26/shakeout-threatens-shale-patch-as-frackers-go-for-broke.html
DREAM OF US OIL INDEPENDENCE SLAMS AGAINST SHALE COSTS
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/dream-of-u-s-oil-independence-slams-against-shale-costs.html
THE FRACKING PONZI SCHEME
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insead/2013/05/08/shale-oil-and-gas-the-contrarian-view/
WHY AMERICA’S SHALE BOOM COULD END SOONER THAN YOU THINK
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/06/13/why-americas-shale-oil-boom-could-end-sooner-than-you-think/
SCIENTISTS WARY OF SHALE OIL AND GAS AND U.S. ENERGY SALVATION
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131028141516.htm
U.S. SHALE OIL BOOM MAY NOT LAST AS FRACKING WELLS LACK STAYING POWER
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale-oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power
“The question then becomes, who is honest and who is lying? Alternatively, does anyone know the truth?”
Surely if you read through all of the above you will have your answer — the key thing to remember is — follow the money — that will tell you who is lying.
That said — shale oil is the only thing between us and utter catastrophe — so Drill Baby Drill — but don’t expect 100 years of shale oil… we’ll be lucky if this ponze keeps going till 2018 http://seekingalpha.com/article/2286123-when-might-north-american-oil-production-peak)
Thank you.
One more.
http://www.postcarbon.org/reports/DBD-report-FINAL.pdf
Just read and decide yourself.
Gail
I notice that since you gave your talk at Age of Limits Conference, the number of commenters has expanded quite a bit from the “usual crowd”. How much has your traffic increased?
I have noticed a lot of new commenters too. Readership is up at least 50% from last year–more than that if one counts that I haven’t been trying to get articles at quite as fast a pace this year as last year. The Oil Drum stopped publications about Sept 2013, and that sent more readers this way. There are many sites copying my posts, including Zerohedge recently. Resilience has published recent articles. (They don’t publish anything unless you ask them to, and I hadn’t gone through the effort of filling out their application on each article. Other sites just copy.) I get referrals from Facebook (several groups), Linked-in and Twitter too. Other folks “retweet” my articles.
Yes but if you notice the people who used to come here originally are now gone…how can you constantly soak up all this doom and gloom…it is like you are reliving Cormac Mcarthy’s “The Road” every day. That can’t be healthy even if you are right you are wrong to not be in the moment with your friends and family. The brain can be programed in a myriad of ways but this seems like a bunch of cancer patients sitting around and discussing how horrid there last days will be and all the ways they will die… And don’t kid yourself you are selling something you are just not getting $$ for it………
Hey, this has become funny at some moments, and for the family and friends… It’s them who will end coming here, rather than the other way
Maybe they are here but stopped commenting, as after awhile the comments cover the same subjects over and over. Gail how are the unique views on your original articles going?
Unique views follow pretty much the same pattern as total views.
Seems strange — a lot of people are repeat viewers so I would have thought the total views would be far in excess of the uniques.
I must visit 100x or more per month so that’s 1:100 right there…
I view comments on the site through e-mail. Do I count as a “viewer” on site statistics?
Ah — that would explain it then… if you don’t actually land on the site then you wouldn’t get counted.
I doubt you are counted as a viewer on site statistics.
WordPress.com jetpack will count subscribers differently than viewers in email subscriptions. Google Analytics will not capture email subscription views.
I am saying the trend is the same, not the numbers the same.
She said the same pattern, not the same figures
I come here for the truth — rather than the MSM for pablum…
I think most people come here because if one was to immerse in the MSM propaganda one might go mad reading their lies day after day.
I also visit Zero Hedge and subscribe to a number of financial newsletters — because they at least attempt to get at the truth — where as the MSM is populated by pressitutes regurgitating edicts from various ministries of truth.
The truth is not much valued these days — it is in fact derided because most people (including you obviously) prefer to be soothed to sleep by Pollyannas…
At the end of the day 1+1=2… not 3…. but if you want to believe it is 3 then that’s your prerogative…. but just because others pursue the truth — it’s best not to mock them…
Unless you are going to change your handle on this site to Sarah Palin.
I am not mocking the “truth”…If there is nothing that can be done so be it….If that is your belief it would be better to close up shop and head out, rather than spend thousands of hours disputing ideas on how others soften the landing… maybe there is a low carbon lifestyle the world will take on…we just don’t know…I have been a believer and follower of peak oil since 1986; I am not a newcomer to this idea. I just don’t like to give up and attack people who are trying to solve the greatest challenge known to mankind……..I don’t profess to have all the answers nor do I dispute any claims here—just like to keep an open mind.
I most definitely am open-minded … and I would very much like to see a solution —- but I cannot comprehend how we are never going to get something that performs all these critical functions http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
Therefore I am resigned to the fact that civilization as we know it is over. That when the fat lady sings this will be her last song.
In the meantime I find it stimulating to observe and discuss the great central banking experiment aimed at keeping the hamster going a little longer — it is rather fascinating to see the incredible creativity being expressed — truly magnificent genius at work to have kept this thing going for so many years! — there should be a Nobel prize for the best idea of the year that kept the hamster spinning on his wheel.
I am also interested to understand the psychology of people who are aware of what we face and how they are dealing with having that knowledge — and how they are preparing.
I don’t see the cancer patient analogy at all at play here — I do see some fairly high level intellectual activity occurring.
I doubt more than a few thousand people — if that — on the planet have a truly deep understanding of this situation — not because others can’t — it’s because they don’t want to. Many of those who do are on this forum — making it a bit of a magnet — because one certainly cannot raise these topics at a dinner party — without sucking all the happiness out of the room.
That is a good list of petroleum products that is linked to http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
Jennifer,
seeing that there is a big difference between some people living of the land by hand power, and 7+ billions doing the same is not being pessimistic, it’s accepting a fact.
“if you notice the people who used to come here originally are now gone”
Some of us are too busy doing something about it to have much time talking about it.
This is the first time I’ve had time to get on here in 36 hours, and gadzooks — hundreds of new messages!
I do not mean this as a slight to anyone posting here, but if half the time spent on the Internet were spent planting perennials instead, our problems would be greatly ameliorated!
has there been any comments on the possibility of increased american oil exports? If this raises the price of WTI then this could stimulate the production of american unconventional oil for a little while longer.
Increased American oil exports has to do with finding refinery space for very light crude oil (close to natural gas liquids). Oil from shale formations is mostly of this type, and some refineries are not equipped to handle it. It is almost like water in consistency, and quite explosive.
There is also a more general problem with too much oil going to Gulf Coast refineries, because the US has cheap natural gas (compared to other countries) and natural gas is used in “cracking” long hydrocarbon chains into short ones. Because of the low natural gas price, US refiners can give a better deal on refining heavy oil than anyone else. Thus the Gulf Coast refineries are attracting a lot of heavy oil from elsewhere to be refined, in addition to the extra light stuff from the US.
Because of the excess amount of oil going to US Gulf refineries, gulf refineries have been able to offer a lower price for the oil than they would if truly a world market prevailed. So removing this ban will indeed tend to raise US oil prices toward the world price. Also, the profit picture for these oil producers will be a little better, if they can indeed get a better price on crude from over-seas refiners. So, as you say, it may encourage shale drillers to stay in business a while longer. (But it won’t fix their basic debt problem.)
Part of the effect of allowing crude oil exports is likely to be on the profits of refiners. To the extent that the selling price of oil products already reflects world prices, but refiners have been able to pay below world prices for the oil they are purchasing to refine, refiners have been able to earn above-expected margins. US Refiners will lose this advantage, if now sellers of the very light oil can choose among world refineries to sell their oil.
The Wall Street Journal has had a number of articles
Rulings on Oil Exports Roil Industry, Washington
What is Condensate? Introducing America’s New Oil Export
Dear Farm Porn Addicts
Expanding a little on my comments about grains. For those of you seriously considering getting into grains…or just those getting bored waiting for the collapse (or revolution), this site is as good as it gets in terms of Farmer Porn….well, maybe a close run to pictures of attractive young women wielding broad forks…Don Stewart
http://onescytherevolution.com
LOL. You’re the best Don
Great site Don
I was speaking to a carpenter who worked in Europe and visited romania where he said the remote farmers still cut hay with scythes — apparently Monsanto is trying to put an end to this barbaric practice — as well as other sustainable farming efforts…
How sad is this — this Devil from Hell is trying to destroy one of the few remaining reservoirs of farming knowledge — at a time when industrial ag is on its last legs….
http://www.theblacksea.eu/index.php?idT=88&idC=88&idRec=1131&recType=story
Brilliant, Don
always a lot of talk about the grim reaper on here
Dear Don
I much prefer what a friend calls ‘Hunting Dog Porn’ – well-bred, shapely, beasts of the chase in interesting poses – but you have tempted me. What is life without variety, after all?
Thanks, I really liked the mowing videos. I think I lost a pound or two just watching them!
My lower back is going into spasms just from watching the video. I do remember my grandfather using a scythe to cut his yard.
I’m getting a my-grain headache.
JMG, wrote an excellent blog entitled “The Broken Thread of Culture” and it hits close to home as many years ago I once lived in Dade County, FL and now I reside in SW Florida. It basically shows how civilizations rise, mature, decline, then fall. Which leads into a Dark Age. This time with what we have done to ourselves with the industrialization of society, things could be totally different.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-broken-thread-of-culture.html
when Rome collapsed, it didnt affect Indian or Chinese civilisations
Now everywhere is interlocked by energy/money systems
Exactly!
We are all deeply immersed in and are committed and/or being indoctrinated from birth into a human constructed, artificial ecosystem, enabled by finite energy supplies. There are several generations now of people who have been born into this artificial ecosystem and know no other way of life. This is now a global ecosystem and the fuel supplies will soon be exhausted. Without energy inputs, the artificial ecosystem we have built will quickly fall apart. Many billions of people will be cut off from any possible way of surviving; and, no skills or resources to survive with either. I see no way around this impending disaster. Levels of infectious diseases will surely spread additional burdens on even those that have survival skills. I hope and pray the system holds together longer than Gail is forecasting.
and i thought i was a doomster
…or another way to put it is. Industrial society has become too domesticated and it’s been done on purpose by the central planners. Which is why if things play out in the future it could all be different this time. Back when you had civilizations collapse they were toughened and hardened to bounce back. Now it the local Supermarket or convenience store is closed people freakout like we saw when the Govt EBT system temporarily went down and people were grabbing anything they could from Walmart stores.
no—we all demanded our share of what was essential the dividend from fossil fuel.
planning and planners were a result of available energy—you cannot ‘plan’ infinite suburbs without fuel to put in the cars needed to make them sustainable—which of course they aren’t, but nobody knew that when Levitt was building his towns
People have been CONDITIONED by the central planners to become more domesticated and are willing participants. That’s how central planners achieve their power. If you want a job it’s typically in a city and many municipalities in the US frown on and make it illegal to grow your own, provide your own energy source and even collect rain water. As the system continues the govt is making sure you rely on them.
Choice does not exist — all choices are made for us… see Edward Bernays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiKMmrG1ZKU (also see Mad Men)
I know about Bernay’s and his skills as a PR genius. I stand by what I said that central planners purposely worked the system to put human civilization in this predicament. Some choose to go along for the ride and others do not, while others are born into the existing system. Then there are those who try and buck the system and can’t because laws have been put in place which make such activities illegal.
“you cannot ‘plan’ infinite suburbs without fuel to put in the cars needed to make them sustainable—which of course they aren’t, but nobody knew that when Levitt was building his towns.”
Bullshit – you’re smarter than this. Humans have always known about resource constraints, including fossil fuels. WWI was initiated over control of MENA oil reserves – the Germans had gain mfg dominance, and were getting closer to developing a land network from Europe to Iraq, so the British had to act fast in order to nip that in the bud. Read some of Churchill back when he was defense minister before WWI.
It has always been about party now, pay later. During the go-go 50s & 60s, the oil majors already knew the depletion rates. US hit peak in 1970, and need the OPEC crisis in ’73 to increase the price per barrel sufficient to make the Alaska north slop economically viable.
Basic information about core data like financial assets/loans, energy inputs, mfg output, trade, population (census), food production & military capabilities are ***ALWAYS*** known by governments. Take a look at the first departments and institutions set up in 1790 by the new US government: all designed to collect the information listed above in which to manage the organizational infrastructure.
I for one am sick & tired of the lame old “who coulda known?” excuse. They ALWAYS know – this shit ain’t rocket science or difficult, abstract concepts. It’s easy, basic stuff, which is why everything is couched in secrecy laws, private agreements and media control so as not to clue in others. It’s nothing more than a typical mafia operation using force & fraud in the guise of coercion and ‘omerta’ to allow insiders to profit and take advantage.
We often criticize the world for being engrossed in facebook, twatter, dancing with stars…. but let us not forget that we have legions of people across the planet who have been well trained in the art of farming — a skill that they will need if they are to survive…
If you are unable to find the time or money to buy land and start a permaculture operation — or you just prefer an easier way out I give you … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FarmVille !!!!!
That sounds about right….
I suppose “models” can’t factor this in their parameters:
http://fcnp.com/2014/06/25/the-peak-oil-crisis-iraq-on-the-precipice/
ISIS now has control of one of three major refineries in Iraq which supplies the motor fuel and oil for power stations for the northern part of the country. Lines are already forming at gas stations. The ISIS controls the Euphrates and will likely gain control of the Haditha power dam which supplies 360 MW to the national power grid. With control of the river dams, reduced flows of water could make life very difficult in southern Iraq before the summer is over. It is doubtful if the thousands of foreign oil workers that are expanding and overseeing Iraq’s oil production would stick around too long. Some non-essential-to-production foreigner oil workers are already leaving the country or moving to safer areas.
Another facet of last week’s developments is that the insurgent forces in Anbar province are getting very close to Baghdad’s airport. All it would take would be a few of the howitzers they captured from the Iraqi army and air travel into Baghdad could be restricted
This confirms some points Gail made earlier
Thank you for your article, Gail, and others who made contributions!
I wonder just how much “imported” expertise is in Iraq to support oil extraction/shipping. If indeed these experts are fleeing the country doesn’t that mean a drastic cut back in oil exports?
Thanks! Tom Whipple who writes Falls Church News Press column is amazing. He also sends out daily news collections for ASPO-USA, plus twice weekly summaries of the current oil situation. He is on vacation for a couple of weeks now, but still writing the FallS Church column. It is possible to get on the mailing list for Tom’s daily updates and weekly summaries using this form http://aspousa.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e230969c7ec1dec75cc347eaf&id=e824447fc6 Since he is on vacation, it will take a couple of weeks to get started.
Another favorite of mine is Gwynne Dyer and his insight of foreign affairs.
His latest take on the Iraqi situation. Seems the dynamics may have “stabilized” for now with the groups consolidating their positions for now:
http://www.straight.com/news/670386/gwynne-dyer-time-iraq-take-tranquillizer
” the borders of the three successors to the current state of Iraq, Kurdish, Shia Arab, and Sunni Arab, have already been drawn, with the important addition that the Sunni Arab successor extends across the old international frontier to include eastern Syria as well. These changes will not be reversed: the Shia-majority rump of the former Iraqi state that extends from Baghdad to Basra does not have the strength to restore the old centralized Iraq.
Is this really such a disaster? Not for the Kurds, obviously, and not really for the Shia Arabs either: they still have all of their own territory (i.e. Shia-majority territory) and most of the oil. Nor will the Baghdad government which still rules that territory need U.S. air power to save it. (U.S. President Obama has just been stalling until that became clear).
The problematic bit is the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. They are clearly delighted to have shaken off the corrupt and oppressive sectarian rule of President Nuri al-Maliki, but for the near future at least they will have to contend with the unappetizing prospect of being ruled instead by the incorruptible but brutally intolerant leaders of ISIS.
It should be borne in mind, however, that even now the great majority of the armed men who have created this new Sunni proto-state are not ISIS fanatics. Most of them are either tribal militiamen or former members of the Baathist-era army that was dissolved by the invaders after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. They belong to organizations that have real political power, and they vastly outnumber the ISIS fanatics.”
What will happen in the long run…?
Maybe the US should not have hung Saddam Hussein….
MAYBE? The Neo-Cons were planning the invasion fro a long while before 9/11 and that gave then a green light to do it. The absolute gall of Cheney to come out in a recent public statement of ridicule of President Obama’s handling of this event is beyond “bad manners”. Apparently, like in the former Yugoslavia a “strong man” was needed to hold the parts together.
I just hope we do not see another blood bath of ethnic cleansing like we did in Serbia.
The United States will have no pity from me at all. I live here and am prepared to endure the suffering that will fall upon us because of the policies of our so-called “leaders”.
I wish to thank you, Paul, for all your contributions. It awakened me to the lies our financial sector is pulling over our eyes.
I just went on ebay and looked up a 50 million mark German coin and this proves that inflation once started can get out of control very easily:
http://markmywordspr.com/mark/12067161
These financial experts have ignored there is no free lunch!
Project for the New American Century
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. established in 1997 as a non-profit educational organization founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. The PNAC’s stated goal is “to promote American global leadership.”[1] Fundamental to the PNAC were the view that “American leadership is good both for America and for the world” and support for “a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.”[2][3] With its members in numerous key administrative positions, the PNAC exerted influence on high-level U.S. government officials in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush and affected the Bush Administration’s development of military and foreign policies, especially involving national security and the Iraq War.[4][5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Paul Wolfowitz – PNAC and the ”New Pearl Harbor”
In their defining document ”Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” written in September of 2000, a full year before the 9/11 attacks, they acknowledged:
”Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. …”
One year later, that event would arrive…
http://www.newsofinterest.tv/video_pages_flash/politics/misc_neocon_globalist/wolfowitz_pnac_nph.php
Conspiracy theory of course…
They’re Lying To Us, Part 2: GDP > US Economy Shranks Nearly 6%
Today the US took its next-to-last stab at calculating First Quarter GDP, and the downward revision was impressive even by recent standards. It now appears that the economy, well, here’s how Bloomberg puts it:
U.S. Economy Shrank in First Quarter by Most in Five Years
The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter by the most since the depths of the last recession as consumer spending cooled.
Gross domestic product fell at a 2.9 percent annualized rate, more than forecast and the worst reading since the same three months in 2009, after a previously reported 1 percent drop, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. It marked the biggest downward revision from the agency’s second GDP estimate since records began in 1976. The revision reflected a slowdown in health care spending.
And this, believe it or not, is still an unrealistically positive spin on the actual numbers. The Consumer Metrics Institute (CMI) specializes in finding the truth in the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ statistical fog, and here’s a telling paragraph in CMI’s longer, must-read report:
And lastly, for this report the BEA assumed annualized net aggregate inflation of 1.27%. During the first quarter (i.e., from January through March) the growth rate of the seasonally adjusted CPI-U index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was over a half percent higher at a 1.80% (annualized) rate, and the price index reported by the Billion Prices Project (BPP — which arguably reflected the real experiences of American households while recording sharply increasing consumer prices during the first quarter) was over two and a half percent higher at 3.91%. Under reported inflation will result in overly optimistic growth data, and if the BEA’s numbers were corrected for inflation using the BLS CPI-U the economy would be reported to be contracting at a -3.51% annualized rate. If we were to use the BPP data to adjust for inflation, the first quarter’s contraction rate would have been an horrific -5.62%.
That’s right, the government is assuming that inflation is running at a rate of 1.27%. To anyone who eats (beef, eggs, and citrus prices are up 9%, 5%, and 22%, respectively, in the past year) or drives (gasoline is at record highs in many states) this seems just a tad on the optimistic side. As CMI noted, MIT’s Billion Prices Project, which monitors real-time pricing across the Internet, is rising at a nearly 4% rate, which for most people probably feels more accurate.
So why is Washington using such deceptive inflation numbers when calculating GDP? Because 1) it makes the economy look bigger, which makes US economic policy look more effective and its architects more competent, and 2) they can get away with it. Most media accounts of this and other economic statistics simply repeat the headline number without considering how it was calculated, so what the government says is exactly what most people hear. Only in the sound money community is this debated, and that’s far too small a forum to affect general perception.
But an effective lie is still a lie, and this one is a whopper.
http://dollarcollapse.com/inflation/theyre-lying-to-us-part-2-gdp/
After Stockman’s article and this one, I should look at what inflation is really doing.
That is scary stuff. Big economic contraction! Wow, so much pressure on every front now. With the situation in Iraq and China’s debt and Ebola outbreak in Africa and now this terrible economic news. Just making my head spin. I hope things can stay together longer.
A long while past in the late 1980’s. i enrolled in a “Public Economics” graduate course at FIU in Miami. Of course, economic models were one main feature we studied. Several times I would entertain the idea perhaps we should “minimize” instead of “maximize”,, primarily in resource allocation and consumption. Though my instructor was from a foreign country (Turkey) and older, this was beyond any bounds of contemplation for consideration. Perhaps. instead of focusing on the material aspect of enrichment, i suggested we focus of the internal enrichment, such as, creating poetry, art and communication exchange among different cultural perspectives.
Needless to say, this did not garnish too much support in the classroom.
Of course, one nation has Bhutan and there is a Global Happiness index
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/kyodo-news-international/140618/japan-help-bhutan-measure-national-happiness
the index
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/
Be that as it may, some folks did wake up that other measurements could be considered in well being
The main problem with most economic models is the same as with mathematical theories in general : modelers often seduce themselves into thinking that mathematics and nature are the same thing. Many fail to recognize that all mathematical systems are tautologies : in computer terms, garbage in, garbage out. That is why, in the quite different fields of astrophysics and quantum mechanics, the models must be constantly adjusted to account for new information. A couple of decades ago, no one imagined that 96% of the cosmos (i.e., dark energy and dark matter) was beyond our ken, because the math didn’t predict it. Today even the best attempts at M-Theory as an umbrella for the seven main String Theories fall far short of its goal of being a “Theory of Everything” (TOE). Yet if you ask most mathematicians, they will still tell you, in effect, they “know” that math and nature are identical. The same is true of most economists, who tend to be “Newtonian” in their thinking. Rather than designing the “infinite-growth” abstractions preferred by politicians, many macroeconomists would be better off using models which draw on examples from nature (e.g., the petri dish). Not that this would change the popular mind, which prefers fairy tales. But it might at least nudge us a little more toward governmental policies which are non-suicidal.
You are right. Thanks!
In additions, there are models involved, even when people don’t think about it. Engineers when designing nuclear power plants (or most anything else) list of the things that they think of that could go wrong, and figure out safety features that should be sufficient in the worst condition that they can think of. The problem is that they really can’t think of everything that could go wrong. Human error plays a role in a lot of problem. So does later inadequate funding. These aren’t things the modeler will think of.
Gail,
I have been thinking about your comments about the cost advantages of warm countries where houses can be made more cheaply and without need for heating. I have lived in several very warm countries, and now reside in central NY state. Heating and insulating the house certainly poses a challenge, but I do think that there are some countervailing advantages to a cooler, seasonal climate. For example, malaria and other tropical diseases would not survive the winters here, and I think that the winters may also keep down some agricultural pests that are more of a problem in warmer places. Water availability seems to be generally greater in cooler places. Outdoor work is less debilitating in cooler weather; and dealing with cold (by hunkering down, wearing extra clothing and/or making a fire, even without having a costly house) can be easier than dealing with oppressive heat. I realize that some of these factors have to do with quality of life rather than strict cost-competitiveness in a global economy. Looking forward, with more localized economies and with climate change perhaps having a greater impact in hotter areas, I think that cooler places may have increasing advantages.
Some good points — I guess it depends how cold and how hot the place is…
My priority has been remoteness — and availability of water.. in keeping with that we have our place in Bali is in a tropical rainforest — and we have some acreage in a rainforest climate in the interior of BC…
Leaning towards staying in Bali — but we just signed on to build a small rustic pioneer log cabin on the BC property — and I am working on teaming up with a local permaculture expert to let them farm that property (that way if we need to move there it will already be producing).
One thing we did with the BC property is go for the highest level of financing we could on the house — because I don’t think we will ever have to pay this off … Interest rates are wickedly low at around 3%… (I tried to get ZIRP but apparently I am not too big to bail heheh)
Nobody can say I am not doing my part to keep the hamster running — I just threw him a steroid laced debt bone to feed on… I wonder if I could get a vehicle no money down … hmmmm….
With the benefit of fossil fuels, there is no doubt that cool countries are better. Burning wood to heat and make metals tends to lead to deforestation, unless the populations are very low. Without fossil fuels and wood, not so good in the winter.
As I’ve pointed out in other posts, check your atlases—the great civilisations of the world arose roughly between the tropics, tending towards the northern land mass, for the simple reason of sun heat being freely available. Which is why eskimos never built cities.
Arctic cities exist now only because we have the means to pump in fuels. When we don’t those cities will die
we spread into colder latitudes only by appropriating the energy-mass of other species, whether trees or animals….. its still energy mass we burned to sustain ourselves.
Gail – your key point seems to be that a shrinking economy will cause the network of the economy and thus civilisation to fail. But what if QE plus a wartime reindustrialisation halted the shrinkage?
QE has already demonstrated its ability to halt credit shrinkage since 2008.
WW2 has demonstrated the ability of our society to undertake rapid re-industrialisation from civil equipment to military equipment (cars to tanks etc) and a ration system for other essentials etc etc.
This program seems vastly more likely to be implemented by TPTB than the ‘stand by helplessly and watch it collapse’ program.
It can only be implemented however ‘once war is declared’ ie: it becomes widely accepted that peak oil has occurred and contraction is the future. Society will undoubtedly accept the required fall in living standards and knuckle down to the new paradigm. We have decided to go to war many times before – and that is about sacrificing lives – not just living standards.
There would have to be global agreements to manage this process because for example, excessive QE in a single country will destroy that currency or lead to hyperinflation yet all will have to do excessive QE. So a global agreement can implement price controls and prevent the descent into currency or trade wars.
1. War these days surely would involve nuclear weapons — so that means end of the world as we know it
2. Supply chains are global now — so a major war would destroy supply chains — and plunge the world into total chaos
Rather than delaying collapse I suspect a big war would accelerate the process of collapse
MAD still exists, so resource wars won’t involve nuclear weapons. A War Economy though, allows for: rationing of fuel, allieviating one serious bottleneck; jailing of dissenters (Sedition Act 1918); limits on reporting in the MSM; forced employment of alienated young men on the streets in the armed forces or war production; increased powers for the Administration/Police/Homeland Security/NSA. It sounds so good for TPTB that that must be Plan B.
I expect rationing (expect by price) would be difficult, if there is any substantial drop in supply. Diesel is what business runs on. Who is to say which businesses get diesel? Hopefully agriculture, to run their big equipment, and trucks to deliver food. But how to keep supply lines in place? We can stop diesel for school buses, and “distillate” used for home heating, perhaps–but such actions would cause hardship for some. Someone would need to make decisions on how diesel rationing would work, and how to issue ration coupons. If we stop school buses, mothers will not have “free” daycare for their children, so will have trouble continuing with their jobs.
Gasoline is used by a variety of users–police, ambulances, sales people, some business use (trucks monitoring oil wells, for example) and plain old consumers. Who should be given priority? If business use is cut, jobs will disappear. Oil production may drop. It all gets to be very complex.
I don’t know about the US, but in Australia there is the Liquid Fuels Emergency Act, which is Federal legislation, mirrored in all States and Territories. The Federal Energy Minister chairs a Council of State Energy Ministers, and may co-opt representatives of fuel refiners, importers and retailers.
The legislation says that when an emergency is declared, “essential services” vehicles must display their stickers, and “discretionary users” will receive their ration cards (that are already printed and distributed to regional centres). Fuel may only be purchased by odd-numbered ration cards on odd-numbered days, pay first, then fill. Vehicles must not queue on the roads, Police will monitor this and handle disputes at pumps. Suppliers will comply with the decisions of the authorities over supply deliveries. On and on its goes.
They have obviously thought about it, and have a plan they think will work, so I’m sure it is the same in the US and everywhere, whether it has been made public or not.
When the SHTF I suspect strategic reserves will be used — but only for purposes related to crowd control.
The general public will not see an ounce of gasoline – what would be the point of rationing to the masses? It’s not like we crash then recovery — when we crash this is over — so why waste what little is left on the hoi polloi?
I think some underestimate what happens when this thing topples over. It is the end of what we call civilization — it truly is.
The production of oil will stop – because the economy will stop — and the complex mechanisms required to extract, refine and distribute oil will bust — the deflationary spiral that hits means a death spiral in the job market — nobody will be able to afford fuel (or anything for that matter) — oil companies will collapse as the price of oil craters — and the oil will stay in the ground.
Don’t take my word for it — this is a far more comprehensive explanation of how this unravels http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Trade-Off1.pdf
So when this hits countries will have strategic reserves — surely they will save it for ‘strategic’ purposes i.e. defending TPTB from millions of very hungry, pissed off people whose expectations of living large have just been shattered against a brick wall — and who are looking for scape goats…
That might last for a while — but eventually those tanks of petrol will run dry — and then martial law will fall apart… then you get mayhem … then once that settles down — you get the Mad Max scenario or what is known as the reign of the thugs.
At least that was the situation in Afghanistan until the Taliban took over.
I agree totally with the Korowicz theory, but the disruption will take weeks or months to spiral totally out of control. Meanwhile the authorities will implement these sorts of rationing plans, in stages so as not to frighten the masses. So rationing will start at 5 gallons per week. Got to allow the media time to explain to everyone how patriots will support these moves, and how it is only temporary. It will get to zero later.
It would make a lot more sense if there was a war to justify it, so before the imminent financial crash, a war will have to be started. Hmmm … spoiled for choice really, but let’s say Russia. And there has to be a causus belli – no problem, a major Russian cyber-attack (can’t give you the details for security reasons, obviously).
How would the people react? They would try to go on Twitter, obviously, but I’m afraid Twitter is down due to the cyber-attack, Facebook too, and RussiaToday/Ria Novosti/ITAR-Tass. But don’t worry, CNN is still up, and they say we are beating the Russians hands down, and rationing will soon be lifted and everything will be back to normal soon, in fact better than before.
Will the public accept it? What choice do they have, with heavily armed police guarding all the gas stations? Anyway, I’m glad they are keeping order as I haven’t got my weekly ration yet.
I wouldn’t count on any of the things you are expecting to happen. Why would they ration gasoline? To what purpose? So you can drive to the Walmart and clean out what’s left on the shelves?
Remember – the elites do not give a damn about you — they will be looking after number one — and that means using whatever resources are left to keep you outside the gates.
Why do you think even the smallest of towns in the US are arming their police forces with military gear? Why do you think Homeland Security has done this? http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/
I have no doubt we will be left on our own — there will be no UN agency to help — our governments will not help — they will not have the means to help.
Hedge accordingly as the saying goes
Palloy, when credits stop, the global trade stops. When global trade stops, you cannot even get a toothbrush or toothpicks because those are made in China. The many machines that make the machines that makes the toothbrush may not work. Globalization is a killer. If this is 1960s, then it will take weeks or months or years to collapse. Now, with instantaneous information and extremely globalized supply chain, I am not so confident.
Correct — in 2008 shipments were left rotting on the docks in China — because when you get a credit crisis nobody thinks they are going to get paid — the only credit freed up in 2008 was that the central banks guaranteed all transactions.
If they don’t do that the global economy would have remained seized up — store shelves would have emptied — and they would have remained empty.
I am not so sure the central banks can do this again — they have already thrown the kitchen sink at this — CONfidence in their ability to right the ship — will dissipate as the economy craters in spite of their massive efforts.
You are talking about in a normal economy, but TPTB are not going to sit back and watch while the whole system collapses around their ears, are they? So they will start a war and bring in a war economy. In a war economy, credit doesn’t stop, because the government tells the banks to keep lending. If there are no new Chinese tootbrushes or iPads, it doesn’t matter because there is a war going on and people just have to do without. Instant information exchange is only available with the cooperation of the government – if they say Twitter is down, then it is down. If they say no internet at all except for government and approved media, that’s what happens. If you don’t have a job any more, there is always work in the Army or Police.
The rest of the social network will stop, but the critical sub-network will keep running, and with fuel rationing they will have plenty of fuel for the sub-network. Do you think that they don’t have a plan for this eventuality, when it is so obvious that it is coming?
TPTB are already doing everything they can — and there is a slow motion collapse happening right before our eyes in spite of what they are doing.
I think the belief that ‘they’ can do something about this — that ‘they’ will not allow this to happen is misplaced — when the next shoe drops they will be out of bullets —
No doubt we will go into some sort of crisis management situation (martial law) — but that will not hold for long — this will unravel and nobody will be able to anything to stop it — all the power, wealth and armies of the world will be rendered impotent.
The fact that we are seeing absolutely insane policies (29 trillion pumped into the stock market by central banks!!!) on an epic scale leads me to believe that TPTB know there is no tomorrow — they will pound this as hard as they can now because they know when this tumbles — it’s game over.
Palloy, it is different to compare our present situation to WWII. We are too globalized. When we talk about toothbrush, think about it, for just a simple toothbrush, does your county, area, state or even country has the machine, raw material and know-how to make it? I think it is very tough viewing that the machine may be from China, the raw materials, which is petroleum-based may be from Middle East and the plastic from some other countries. If it is difficult for a toothbrush to be made, forget about making more complex stuff like semiconductors or cars…
When there is a serious war going on, people have to do without toothbrushes, new gadgets and cars. They are lucky if they have food and water. Read up about WW2 austerity where the actual war was happening, not in US.
When rationing is imposed in the USA, on energy, we have an interesting situation developing.
By the time the point of actual rationing is reached, there will have been obvious signs of it coming, and people aren’t stupid in guessing what it will mean. Already ‘open carry’ seems to be a growing thing in parts of the USA, so put the two together and you have a ‘threat’ to your existence—which essentially is what having no fuel means, in basic terms—faced by people openly carrying firearms to ‘protect’ their way of life. Add to that the ‘stand your ground’ laws and you have a recipe for a growing disaster, where fuel supplies will have to be protected by the police or military.
Or are my predictions just too crazy on this.?
“Gasoline is used by a variety of users–police, ambulances, sales people, some business use (trucks monitoring oil wells, for example) and plain old consumers. Who should be given priority?”
My child like mind always envisioned that farmers and food distribution would get 100% priority.
I dont think ‘big wars’ are possible now, not on the scale of ww1 and 2
wars can only be fought with resources available, thus waterloo for instance, a decisive battle that affected the world for a century, was fought in a day, simply because they didnt have the means to prolong it.
there was a winner and a loser—and the survivors went home
100 years later, and the production of steel and explosives and oil had become an industrial process, and was virtually limitless. so men in the front line kept getting munitions delivered by people who ran war factories for profit on both sides, thus millions died, rather than thousands
Now there just isn’t sufficient oil to sustain war on that scale. This is why we are having asymmetric wars where a few thousand zealots can bleed a nation dry in fighting unwinnable wars on the other side of the world. No ‘declaration of war’… no peace treaties, just interminable battles erupting unpredictably, destabilising the world in pursuit of energy sources.
this will go on, but into a future where the battles are fought over food and water.
nevertheless, they will accelerate collapse because people will be too busy fighting to survive, to survive.
Good answer. In a not so distasnt future wars will be worked out on a machete basis
Machetes worked well in Rwanda, which probably set a velocity record for genocide.
Lots of political hacks ( sorry I couldn’t resist ).
I’m sure everyone will have heard by now the brilliant news that Obama is going to fund the Goodies in Syria? Providing them with arms. What could possibly go wrong?
Looks as a bloody festival starting
I also heard that since he is going to hand more cash to the heart eating team — that he is also sending over a 40ft container of Heinz Ketchup (gotta be Heinz… so that John Kerry gets paid) ….
Heinz goes best with this http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0c9_1368347673
The US economy shrank by 2.9% in the first quarter. Are we in a position to do all of the things you indicate?
thisrobert,
I don’t think we can go to a war economy. We have over extended our debt and no wiggle room to create more without severe distortions and disruptions in the economy. We have exported all our manufacturing base, so weapon parts would need to be produced here in new factories (robotic). How can we finance that? We can’t finance mining and oil exploration as it is. Our oil imports would be cut off (let alone essential minerals), hence a contracted economy more than it is now. QE is already showing up in inflation in essentials; food, electricity, gas and even water. Make work or munitions/war jobs that pay worthless dollars that don’t buy enough to live on won’t remake an industrial powerhouse. As Paul states in his thread, another long war will surely do us in.
I don’t think we have the resources to wage a major conventional war.
When Might North American Oil Production Peak?
Summary
At the Plains All American Pipeline analysts’ day a scenario of slowing U.S. crude production growth was presented and discussed.
Under PAA’s forecast by 2017 and 2018 up to 90% of new production will go to offset declines from existing well production.
Midstream Oil MLP organic growth may be challenged within 3 years.
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When Might North American Oil Production Peak?
Jun. 25, 2014 2:02 PM ET | 7 comments | About: Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. (PAA)
Disclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More…)
Summary
At the Plains All American Pipeline analysts’ day a scenario of slowing U.S. crude production growth was presented and discussed.
Under PAA’s forecast by 2017 and 2018 up to 90% of new production will go to offset declines from existing well production.
Midstream Oil MLP organic growth may be challenged within 3 years.
While there are many opinions on the future volumes of North American oil production, we recently took notice of estimates put forth by a company which has significant exposure to these estimates, Plains All American. “There are visible challenges on the horizon…” PAA stated at the their Analyst Day, which should be noteworthy to those looking to establish long term MLP positions with oil exposure.
For its 2014 Analyst Day on June 5 the Plains All American Pipeline LP (PAA) management team opened the presentation with the company’s overview and analysis of the North American crude oil market. Some interesting data in the crude projections point towards slower growth prospects for crude focused, midstream MLPs if the forecasts come close to being correct.
The future of U.S. crude production is of major interest to PAA. Currently the company generates 75% of revenue from crude midstream operations. PAA has a history of steady dividend growth, primarily fueled by capital growth projects, despite volatile production conditions.
Crude Production Growth to Flatten
The PAA management team gathered information from a range of sources to put together a five-year North American crude forecast. From a production level of 11.5 million barrels per day in 2013, production is expected to increase each year to reach 15.4 MMbls/day in 2018. PAA has assumed that the current regulatory framework for fracking and exports will remain in place over the next several years and realized crude prices will support the current level of development in the future. Over $90B of annual capital is currently deployed to support onshore lower 48 production according to PAA. Management anticipates that rail, boat/barge will move 1.8MMBbls/day (or 46%) of the new production by 2018 due to a lack of pipeline infrastructure.
Much more here http://seekingalpha.com/article/2286123-when-might-north-american-oil-production-peak
Interesting. This doesn’t seem to reflect debt limits, either, and assumes, “realized crude prices will support the current level of development in the future”.
Nobody (except you Gail) seems to realize (or perhaps they don’t want to…) the pernicious effects of expensive oil…
If you scroll down the page there is a graph that demonstrates a 314% increase in the price of oil since 2000. http://www.mauldineconomics.com/ttmygh/the-slip-n-fail-mutts
How many times does one have repeat ‘lots of oil left — but the economy can’t run on 100+ oil’ before people get it…
Of course the evidence of that is that we are printing trillions of dollars to try to offset the impact of 100+ oil….
I guess nobody wants to go there — because for most — to do so — would be very stressful… ‘The Road’ awaits…
Paul, that website is amazingly good. Thanks.
Grant Williams is one of the best analysts out there — worth reading some of his archives – these are particularly good http://www.mauldineconomics.com/ttmygh/never-the-twain http://www.mauldineconomics.com/ttmygh/what-if
I’ve sent along some of the stuff from this site — and related comments — but they seem to not want to go there — Williams is very switched on so surely he understands the cause of all of this (see his chart with the 300%+ oil inflation)
At the end of the day he makes money by running money — so if he gives his audience the punch line now — he’s out of biz…
Only heretics say cheap oil is the problem 🙂
Paul, from that article you linked is this poem regarding the Fed referred to as the Slip ‘n’ Fall Mutts:
There isn’t a bubble in equity prices,
Nor housing, nor bonds — there will be no surprises.
The Slip ‘n’ Fail Mutts have their eyes on the ball,
There’s no need to worry, there’s no need at all.
But wait just a second here, what if they’re wrong?
What if they’ve had no idea all along?
The tech bubble fooled them, the market got caned,
remember when Ben said subprime was “contained”?
These people are clueless I’ll venture to say,
Not that they’ll listen (to me, anyway).
But time after time when they face a new bubble,
They never once think they’re the CAUSE of the trouble.
This time, however, the Mutts are in peril,
And Citi, and Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Merrill.
Inflation/deflation, the argument rages
For pages and pages (and pages and pages).
The argument’s moot, though — there’s no point engaging,
The Mutts have no hope in the war that they’re waging
They’ve bitten their tails and that means just one thing:
Somewhere a fat lady’s starting to sing.
The pain from the bite is now making its way
From the tail to the brain — it’ll get there one day.
A matter of time now? A fait accompli?
Inflation is coming believe me — you’ll see.
Try as they might (they can use all their tools)
Inflation is going to clobber these fools.
And when it arrives there’ll be no ifs or buts;
Time will be up for the Slip ‘n’ Fail Mutts.
I am not so sure that the tech bubble or housing bubble fooled them…
I believe they are purposely orchestrating these bubbles because this is the only way they can keep the hamster running…
There is no way in hell that Yellen does not see the massive bubbles around the world — I am sure they sit in their meetings and say ‘what can we do to stop the world from deflating’ — and send their think tank minions off for answers…
The fact that they are doing pretty much the same thing they did that lead to the housing bubble — the only difference being the scale is exponentially greater — leads me to believe they know exactly what they are doing — they know it will blow up at some point — but in the meantime they do whatever they can to keep BAU ongoing.
They are like firefighters who are starting blazes all across the country — then rushing in to put them out before they get too big…
Eventually of course they will fail — and it will all go up in flames
Why is it that you understand this process, and I understand this process, and many of the fine folks over at ZH understand this process, but so many others seem to think of it as some gigantic mystery?
Banking has successfully convinced people that they are responsible, conservative caretakers of the public weal who take in deposits, and then issue loans to credit worthy debtors. ***Nothing could be further from the truth*** In reality, they simply make book entries to credit debtor accounts, and then debit the respective asset base (ie loans receivable) for the same amount. It’s prima facie fraud, yet it is endorsed by governments because it give them an (initial) strategic advantage in resource acquisition & military preparation.
There is practically NO limit (given sufficient population/territory/resource growth) to the amount of credit that can be issued which in turn becomes part of the aggregate monetary system. They can, and have, blown bubbles in select(ed) asset classes since the first clever banker figured out the scam 10,000 years ago. Only when the exponentially exploding complexity begins to overwhelm the system to they revert to the tried & true solution: war. War destroys the paper trail, provides a ready explanation amongst all the confusion, and resets the casino for the next round.
I suspect that many are not capable of grasping those realities…
But even more so — I think that people refuse to believe that the real powers in the world are ultimately completely self-serving pricks who think the average person is little better than a bug — they have no problem with squashing you or I — if it means more for them.
A friend of mine with connections to such people in the US mentioned once that they referred to the non-elites as ‘the little people’ —- the rest of us are just riff raff who know nothing — they of course know everything — that is why they are in the “elite” — because of this they should be the ones making the decisions — democracy only leads to populism and bad policies.
Of course they are unable to self-critique and see that they too have their own populism — policies that look after their interests at the expense of all of us — the ultra wealthy are the biggest welfare queens on the planet.
And most people still believe their ‘democratic’ government has the power — that they call the shots — and that they (in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary) are of and for the people — that although money buys influence that overall the system is not completely rigged — the ultimate power still rests with the people
I present as evidence of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections#mediaviewer/File:Voter_turnout.png
I would suggest that this is changing — slowly — people are beginning to see that they really have no power whatsoever…. doesn’t matter if you vote someone out the next person will be equally corrupt.
And I would also suggest that enough people have had enough of this — that is when we will get a tipping point from soft totalitarianism to vicious brutal totalitarianism.
Of course the PTB are preparing for this — and not only in America —- it’s not only the NSA that has Big Brother capabilities — it’s happening everywhere —- Germany, Australia, Canada etc etc etc… it is of course illegal under most constitutions — but is anyone doing a single thing to stop it?
Of course not — if I am a politician I want to be on the winning side — therefore I will kiss the right ass — I will not rock the boat… I will not vote to stop the control measures that are being implemented to deal with the Global Spring that is coming.
Nice poem. But is the problem inflation or widespread debt defaults, leading to failed banks?
Hi Gail
Your reply post on climate change modelling won’t let me post, so I will reply here.
My post was to someone who said climate computer models were essentially of no value and wrong….. I replied that they forecast trends.
Further to that statement, even if emissions stopped tomorrow there is still so much residual anthropogenic GHG in the atmosphere the warming effect will still continue.
As for predictions, I don’t think they work unless one earns a living at it and I would need a crystal ball.
I believe unsustainability of the human system is here and being manifested. The timeline indicates finance as the first hurdle. Resource depletion and climate change feed into the financial unsustainability.
But fundamentally I do believe modelling is of use, because in the absence of complete catastrophic collapse, governments will still need to make decisions that are climate related.
“governments will still need to make decisions that are climate related”
¡Ay, caramba! Governments do not represent people; they are merely channels of acquiring wealth, power & control. Therefore, any decisions they (attempt to) make will be based on political considerations alone.
I will admit to modifying my proposition upstream (with regard to awareness) to note that it may be applicable to only 3-5% of the population with IQs above 125. Therefore, the larger base will be manipulated in the classic manner of creating (artificial) divisions along religious, ethnic, regional, educational and income lines to divert and energize select groups in which to deflect blame.
This will be an entirely political process, whether it is focused purely on secular grounds for “pragmatic progressives”, or incorporates traditional ecclesiastical components to scoop up large market segments of those who believe in artificial sky god(s).
So, to clarify the respective “tells” one should be on the alert to detect in order to sense that the great game is afoot, perhaps we can break it down into these discrete components:
1. the intelligent – they will understand what is going on and make certain preparations – if only mentally – similar to the many discussions that take place on this blog;
2. the drones/proles – they will be whipsawed between government proposals and religious fervor; watch for more excited claims and proposals eg “drill baby, drill”
3. the lumpen – just stay out of their way; don’t go into the inner city, and watch for any mass movement into the ‘burbs
I do enjoy #2 items:
US storage of natural gas is due to winter
US will supply all of EU and Ukraine with natural gas this coming winter
Libya is coming back online
Iraq will ramp up
KSA has excess capacity
60,000 immigration seeking children just showed up no active participation by any one
bank appointed rulers of Greece, Italy are democracy
coup rulers in Egypt deserve military aid because of Israel
China becoming the major consumer of Russian FF is no big deal
US is energy independent
US will be energy independent soon
5% contraction of economy is due to winter
immigration is a right of anyone who shows up
unemployment is 6%
ACA is not a tax
you are free
China is the enemy
Russia is the enemy
really wish we had edit make that shortage not storage
The nazi party of Ukraine are freedom seeking democrats
There was no color revolution in Ukraine
Nice list – don’t forget selective “outrage vectors” expressly designed to elicit emotional responses across the entire political spectrum. The process appears to be automated so that a new, pre-arranged divergent controversy and/or emergency is submitted to the public square on a regular, recurring, almost bi-monthly basis. ZH of course thrives on exposing these stories, but if they didn’t exist, ZH wouldn’t have a business model.
By controlling media channels, the herd’s nutritional requirements of ‘informed participation’ is supplemented with a constant diet of false narratives, rendering the poor little things helpless to the point that they simply do not have the slightest clue. Imagine, just for a moment in a make-believe fantasy world, that the information presented here by Gail was actually part of the daily dialogue of a functioning representative government. LOL
Agreed, number 3 is a worrying outcome.
Gail, Paul, ordinaryjoe, ck. out the final revision of Q1 GDP!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-25/gdp-disaster-final-q1-gdp-crashes-29-worst-2009-far-below-worst-expectations
GDP Disaster: Final Q1 GDP Crashes To -2.9%, Lowest Since 2009, Far Below The Worst Expectations
Well, here comes the final Q1 GDP revision and it’s a doozy: at -2.9%, far below the -1.8% expected and well below the -1.0% second revision, it is an absolute disaster, and is the worst print since Q1 2009.
This is with the official inflation rate. If we used ShadowStat inflation rates this would be a 5% contraction of the economy. That is impressive.
“If we used ShadowStat inflation rates this would be a 5% contraction of the economy.” Yeah edpell, it’s almost a given govt. numbers are a crock as all those numbers they spew have to be adjusted to reflect reality.
I like how the govt. initially tells us GDP grew by .1%, then on the 2nd take later it drops to -1%, then on the 3rd and final attempt they sheepishly belly up to the bar with the actual truth which is -2.9%
Funny thing is I don’t remember them ever doing those numbers in the other direction, i.e. lowest % first. They started off with a super low positive number, then admitted it was a negative %, then gave us the skinny. “We won’t hit them with the actual number until the 2nd qtr. in June once we’ve had enough opportunities through the manipulated MSM to cheerlead projected much better GDP growth in the 2nd qtr. Then we cross our fingers and hope the better weather reverses the braking velocity of money.”
Yes I had seen that nearly 3% catastrophic drop — add to this the US gov recently changed the way it calculates GDP which apparently adds 0.5% … so in reality yes — the situation is far worse than the 3%…
Of course the US GDP would completely collapse without the massive stimulus measures which include boosts to housing — subprime car loans — massive student loan volumes etc…
This is an economy running on vapour…
Yeah, they changed GDP Paul by adding 500 billion a year for get this – drum roll……the illegal exchange of street drugs. So it’s illegal to sell certain drug, but what the heck if those enterprising people on the street are selling a product then why the heck not add in a little to make GDP seem like it’s more than it really is. I mean for goodness sakes, who back ten, twenty years would have ever thought things would get so desperate post peak oil (2005) that this kind of item would be added. Italy just did the same thing but also added in for prostitution. The situation is obviously getting more desperate.
Oh I forgot about that addition …. what I was referring to was an announcement a year or so back that indicated they were revising GDP numbers going back many years and changing the way they calculate it — which added half a point across the board….
That one guy- the golden jackass- Jim Willy is it? says the drug $ being laundered are the only thing keeping the banks afloat. Maybe its appropriate to add it to GDP. While in no way condone it it seems more real than the derivitives being added to GDP – both ways.
Question – if it is harmful to lie, why not just say it grew at 1% rather than have it in negative territory ?
If the lie is too blatant all credibility is lost.
Also they may have some other policy measures they want to deploy — and they need to point to something bad (but not too bad) to justify rolling them out.
And finally if they lie and say growth is reasonably good then there are expectations that will go along with that — as in more jobs, higher incomes etc…
David Stockman is highly credible — he was the ultimate insider and turned on the GOP and turned on them — he also has plenty of venom for the Dems… so he is objective.
Does anyone really think inflation is under 2%? I think it was Grant Williams that said it’s more like 10% per yr using the older measurement parameters… Without a doubt it is closer to 10 than 2 that is for sure…
-5.6% GDP makes sense to me — keeping in mind a good chunk of GOP is related to stimulus such as subprime auto loans…
This will end badly
From my standpoint, I think the sheeple will not matter. Even to those working in the finance, they believe everything that is given out without any questions. I have had some dinners with the bankers and they insist that Greece is “full speed ahead” in their recovery. I told them how they know and they answer – the statistics say so… So, it looks like nothing is taken with a large spoonful of salt ! So, why bother, if I want to lengthen BAU, I would like lie through my teeth…
i refer to individuals like that as — stupid smart people
Rumor is that the government moved some things around so that the next GNP report, right before elections, will show high growth.
Good point!
weather 🙂
Thanks! I hadn’t seen that. I found the Wall Street Journal article on the subject. It says,