I approach the subject of the physics of energy and the economy with some trepidation. An economy seems to be a dissipative system, but what does this really mean? There are not many people who understand dissipative systems, and very few who understand how an economy operates. The combination leads to an awfully lot of false beliefs about the energy needs of an economy.
The primary issue at hand is that, as a dissipative system, every economy has its own energy needs, just as every forest has its own energy needs (in terms of sunlight) and every plant and animal has its own energy needs, in one form or another. A hurricane is another dissipative system. It needs the energy it gets from warm ocean water. If it moves across land, it will soon weaken and die.
There is a fairly narrow range of acceptable energy levels–an animal without enough food weakens and is more likely to be eaten by a predator or to succumb to a disease. A plant without enough sunlight is likely to weaken and die.
In fact, the effects of not having enough energy flows may spread more widely than the individual plant or animal that weakens and dies. If the reason a plant dies is because the plant is part of a forest that over time has grown so dense that the plants in the understory cannot get enough light, then there may be a bigger problem. The dying plant material may accumulate to the point of encouraging forest fires. Such a forest fire may burn a fairly wide area of the forest. Thus, the indirect result may be to put to an end a portion of the forest ecosystem itself.
How should we expect an economy to behave over time? The pattern of energy dissipated over the life cycle of a dissipative system will vary, depending on the particular system. In the examples I gave, the pattern seems to somewhat follow what Ugo Bardi calls a Seneca Cliff.
Figure 1. Seneca Cliff by Ugo Bardi
The Seneca Cliff pattern is so-named because long ago, Lucius Seneca wrote:
It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.
The Standard Wrong Belief about the Physics of Energy and the Economy
There is a standard wrong belief about the physics of energy and the economy; it is the belief we can somehow train the economy to get along without much energy.
In this wrong view, the only physics that is truly relevant is the thermodynamics of oil fields and other types of energy deposits. All of these fields deplete if exploited over time. Furthermore, we know that there are a finite number of these fields. Thus, based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the amount of free energy we will have available in the future will tend to be less than today. This tendency will especially be true after the date when “peak oil” production is reached.
According to this wrong view of energy and the economy, all we need to do is design an economy that uses less energy. We can supposedly do this by increasing efficiency, and by changing the nature of the economy to use a greater proportion of services. If we also add renewables (even if they are expensive) the economy should be able to get along fine with very much less energy.
These wrong views are amazingly widespread. They seem to underlie the widespread hope that the world can reduce its fossil fuel use by 80% between now and 2050 without badly disturbing the economy. The book 2052: A Forecast for the Next 40 Years by Jorgen Randers seems to reflect these views. Even the “Stabilized World Model” presented in the 1972 book The Limits to Growth by Meadow et al. seems to be based on naive assumptions about how much reduction in energy consumption is possible without causing the economy to collapse.
The Economy as a Dissipative System
If an economy is a dissipative system, it needs sufficient energy flows. Otherwise, it will collapse in a way that is analogous to animals succumbing to a disease or forests succumbing to forest fires.
The primary source of energy flows to the economy seems to come through the leveraging of human labor with supplemental energy products of various types, such as animal labor, fossil fuels, and electricity. For example, a man with a machine (which is made using energy products and operates using energy products) can make more widgets than a man without a machine. A woman operating a computer in a lighted room can make more calculations than a woman who inscribes numbers with a stick on a clay tablet and adds them up in her head, working outside as weather permits.
As long as the quantity of supplemental energy supplies keeps rising rapidly enough, human labor can become increasingly productive. This increased productivity can feed through to higher wages. Because of these growing wages, tax payments can be higher. Consumers can also have ever more funds available to buy goods and services from businesses. Thus, an economy can continue to grow.
Besides inadequate supplemental energy, the other downside risk to continued economic growth is the possibility that diminishing returns will start making the economy less efficient. These are some examples of how this can happen:
- Deeper wells or desalination are needed for water because aquifers deplete and population grows.
- More productivity is needed from each acre of arable land because of growing population (and thus, falling arable land per person).
- Larger mines are required as ores of high mineral concentration are exhausted and we are forced to exploit less productive mines.
- More pollution control devices or higher-cost workarounds (such as “renewables”) are needed as pollution increases.
- Fossil fuels from cheap-to-extract locations are exhausted, so extraction must come from more difficult-to-extract locations.
In theory, even these diminishing returns issues can be overcome, if the leveraging of human labor with supplemental energy is growing quickly enough.
Theoretically, technology might also increase economic growth. The catch with technology is that it is very closely related to energy consumption. Without energy consumption, it is not possible to have metals. Most of today’s technology depends (directly or indirectly) on the use of metals. If technology makes a particular type of product cheaper to make, there is also a good chance that more products of that type will be sold. Thus, in the end, growth in technology tends to allow more energy to be consumed.
Why Economic Collapses Occur
Collapses of economies seem to come from a variety of causes. One of these is inadequate wages of low-ranking workers (those who are not highly educated or of managerial rank). This tends to happen because if there are not enough energy flows to go around, it tends to be the wages of the “bottom-ranking” employees that get squeezed. In some cases, not enough jobs are available; in others, wages are too low. This could be thought of as inadequate return on human labor–a different kind of low Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) than is currently analyzed in most of today’s academic studies.
Another area vulnerable to inadequate energy flows is the price level of commodities. If energy flows are inadequate, prices of commodities will tend to fall below the cost of producing these commodities. This can lead to a cutoff of commodity production. If this happens, debt related to commodity production will also tend to default. Defaulting debt can be a huge problem, because of the adverse impact on financial institutions.
Another way that inadequate energy flows can manifest themselves is through the falling profitability of companies, such as the falling revenue that banks are now experiencing. Still another way that inadequate energy flows can manifest themselves is through falling tax revenue. Governments of commodity exporters are particularly vulnerable when commodity prices are low. Ultimately, these inadequate energy flows can lead to bankrupt companies and collapsing governments.
The closest situation that the US has experienced to collapse is the Depression of the 1930s. The Great Recession of 2007-2009 would represent a slight case of inadequate energy flows–one that could be corrected by a large dose of Quantitative Easing (QE)(leading to the lower cost of borrowing), plus debt stimulus by China. These helped bring oil prices back up again, after they fell in mid-2008.
Figure 2. World Oil Supply (production including biofuels, natural gas liquids) and Brent monthly average spot prices, based on EIA data.
Clearly, we are now again beginning to experience the effects of inadequate energy flows. This is worrying, because many economies have collapsed in the past when this situation occurred.
How Energy Flows of an Economy are Regulated
In an economy, the financial system is the regulator of the energy flows of the system. If the price of a product is low, it dictates that a small share of energy flows will be directed toward that product. If it is high, it indicates that a larger share of energy flows will be directed toward that product. Wages follow a similar pattern, with low wages indicating low flows of energy, and high wages indicating higher flows of energy. Energy flows in fact “pay for” all aspects of the system, including more advanced technology and the changes to the system (more education, less time in the workforce) that make advanced technology possible.
One confusing aspect to today’s economy is the use of a “pay you later” approach to paying for energy flows. If the energy flows are inadequate using what we would think of as the natural flows of the system, debt is often used to increase energy flows. Debt has the effect of directing future energy flows in a particular direction, such as paying for a factory, a house, or a car. These flows will be available when the product is already part of the system, and thus are easier to accommodate in the system.
The use of increasing debt allows total “demand” for products of many kinds to be higher, because it directs both future flows and current flows of energy toward a product. Since factories, houses and cars are made using commodities, the use of an increasing amount of debt tends to raise commodity prices. With higher commodity prices, more of the resources of the economy are directed toward producing energy products. This allows for increasing energy consumption. This increased energy consumption tends to help flows of energy to many areas of the economy at the same time: wages, taxes, business profitability, and funds for interest and dividend payments.
The need for debt greatly increases when an economy begins using fossil fuels, because the use of fossil fuels allows a step-up in lifestyle. There is no way that this step-up in lifestyle can be paid for in advance, because the benefits of the new system are so much better than what was available without fossil fuels. For example, a farmer raising crops using only a hoe for a tool will never be able to save up sufficient funds (energy flows) needed to pay for a tractor. While it may seem bizarre that banks loan money into existence, this approach is in fact essential, if adequate energy flows are to be available to compensate for the better lifestyle that the use of fossil fuels makes possible.
Debt needs are low when the cost (really energy cost) of producing energy products is low. Much more debt is needed when the cost of energy extraction is high. The reason more debt is needed is because fossil fuels and other types of energy products tend to leverage human labor, making human labor more productive, as mentioned previously. In order to maintain this leveraging, an adequate quantity of energy products (measured in British Thermal Units or Barrels of Oil Equivalent or some similar unit) is needed.
As the required price for energy-products rises, it takes ever-more debt to finance a similar amount of energy product, plus the higher cost of homes, cars, factories, and roads using the higher-cost energy. In fact, with higher energy costs, capital goods of all kinds will tend to be more expensive. This is a major reason why the ratio of debt to GDP tends to rise as the cost of producing energy products rises. At this point, in the United States it takes approximately $3 of additional debt to increase GDP by $1 (author’s calculation).
Figure 3. Inflation adjusted Brent oil prices (in $2014, primarily from BP Statistical Review of World Energy) shown beside two measures of debt for the US economy. One measure of debt is all-inclusive; the other excludes Financial Business debt. Both are based on data from FRED-Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
Clearly one of the risk factors to an economy using fossil fuels is that debt levels will become unacceptably high. A second risk is that debt will stop rising fast enough to keep commodity prices at an acceptably high level. The recent slowdown in the growth of debt (Figure 3) no doubt contributes to current low commodity prices.
A third risk to the system is that the rate of economic growth will slow over time because even with the large amount of debt added to the system, the leveraging of human labor with supplemental energy will not be sufficient to maintain economic growth in the face of diminishing returns. In fact, it is clearly evident that US economic growth has trended downward over time (Figure 4).
Figure 4. US annual growth rates (using “real” or inflation adjusted data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis).
A fourth risk is that the whole system will become unsustainable. When new debt is issued, there is no real matching with future energy flow. For example, will the wages of those taking on debt to pay for college be sufficiently high that the debtors can afford to have families and buy homes? If not, their lack of adequate income will be one of the factors that make it difficult for the prices of commodities to stay high enough to encourage extraction.
One of the issues in today’s economy is that promises of future energy flows extend far beyond what is formally called debt. These promises include shareholder dividends and payments under government programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Reneging on promises such as these is likely to be unpopular with citizens. Stock prices are likely to drop, and private pensions will become unpayable. Governments may be overthrown by disappointed citizens.
Examples of Past Collapses of Economies
Example of the Partial Collapse of the Former Soviet Union
One recent example of a partial collapse was that of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) in December 1991. I call this a partial collapse, because it “only” involved the collapse of the central government that held together the various republics. The governments of the individual republics remained in place, and many of the services they provided, such as public transportation, continued. The amount of manufacturing performed by the FSU dropped precipitously, as did oil extraction. Prior to the collapse, the FSU had serious financial problems. Shortly before its collapse, the world’s leading industrial nations agreed to lend the Soviet Union $1 billion and defer repayment on $3.6 billion more in debt.
A major issue that underlay this collapse was a fall in oil prices to the $30 per barrel range in the 1986 to 2004 period. The Soviet Union was a major oil exporter. The low price had an adverse impact on the economy, a situation similar to that of today.
Figure 5. Oil production and price of the Former Soviet Union, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015.
Russia continued to pump oil even after the price dropped in 1986. In fact, it raised oil production, to compensate for the low price (energy flow it received per barrel). This is similar to the situation today, and what we would expect if oil exporters are very dependent on these energy flows, no matter how small. Oil production didn’t fall below the 1986 level until 1989, most likely from inadequate funds for reinvestment. Oil production rose again, once prices rose.
Figure 6 shows that the FSU’s consumption of energy products started falling precipitously in 1991, the year of the collapse–very much a Seneca Cliff type of decline.
Figure 6. Former Soviet Union energy consumption by source, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy Data 2015.
In fact, consumption of all fuels, even nuclear and hydroelectric, fell simultaneously. This is what we would expect if the FSU’s problems were caused by the low prices it was receiving as an oil exporter. With low oil prices, there could be few good-paying jobs. Lack of good-paying jobs–in other words, inadequate return on human labor–is what cuts demand for energy products of all kinds.
A drop in population took place as well, but it didn’t begin until 1996. The decrease in population continued until 2007. Between 1995 and 2007, population dropped by a total of 1.6%, or a little over 0.1% per year. Before the partial collapse, population was rising about 0.9% per year, so the collapse seems to have reduced the population growth rate by about 1.0% per year. Part of the drop in population was caused by excessive alcohol consumption by some men who had lost their jobs (their sources of energy flows) after the fall of the central government.
When commodity prices fall below the cost of oil production, it is as if the economy is cold because of low energy flows. Prof. Francois Roddier describes the point at which collapse sets in as the point of self-organized criticality. According to Roddier (personal correspondence):
Beyond the critical point, wealth condenses into two phases that can be compared to a gas phase and a liquid phase. A small number of rich people form the equivalent of a gas phase, whereas a large number of poor people form what corresponds to a liquid phase. Like gas molecules, rich people monopolize most of the energy and have the freedom to move. Embedded in their liquid phase, poor people have lost access to both energy and freedom. Between the two, the so-called middle class collapses.
I would wonder whether the ones who die would be equivalent to the solid state. They can no longer move at all.
Analysis of Earlier Collapses
A number of studies have been performed analyzing earlier collapses. Turchin and Nefedov in Secular Cycles analyze eight pre-fossil fuel collapses in detail. Figure 7 shows my interpretation of the pattern they found.
Figure 7. Shape of typical Secular Cycle, based on work of Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov in Secular Cycles.
Again, the pattern is that of a Seneca Cliff. Some of the issues leading to collapse include the following:
- Rising population relative to farmland. Either farmland was divided up into smaller plots, so each farmer produced less, or new workers received “service” type jobs, at much reduced wages. The result was falling earnings of many non-elite workers.
- Spiking food and energy prices. Prices were high at times due to lack of supply, but held down by low wages of workers.
- Rising need for government to solve problems (for example, fight war to get more land; install irrigation system so get more food from existing land). Led to a need for increased taxes, which impoverished workers could not afford.
- Increased number of nobles and high-level administrators. Result was increased disparity of wages.
- Increased debt, as more people could not afford necessities.
Eventually, the workers who were weakened by low wages and high taxes tended to succumb to epidemics. Some died in wars. Again, we have a situation of low energy flows, and the lower wage workers not getting enough of these flows. Many died–in some cases as many as 95%. These situations were much more extreme than those of the FSU. On the favorable side, the fact that there were few occupations back in pre-industrial days meant that those who did survive could sometimes resettle with other nearby communities and continue to practice their occupations.
Joseph Tainter in The Collapse of Complex Societies talks about the need for increasing complexity, as diminishing returns set in. This would seem to correspond to the need for increased government services and an increased role for businesses. Also included in increased complexity would be increased hierarchical structure. All of these changes would leave a smaller share of the energy flows for the low-ranking workers–a problem mentioned previously.
Dr. Tainter also makes the point that to maintain complexity, “Sustainability may require greater consumption of resources, not less.”
A Few Insights as to the Nature of the Physics Problem
The Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to work in a single direction. It talks about the natural tendency of any “closed” system to degenerate into a more disordered system. With this view, the implication is that the universe will ultimately end in a heat-death, in which everything is at the same temperature.
Dissipative systems work in the other direction; they create order where no order previously existed. Economies get ever-more complex, as businesses grow larger and more hierarchical in form, governments provide more services, and the number of different jobs filled by members of the economy proliferate. How do we explain this additional order?
According to Ulanowicz, the traditional focus of thermodynamics has been on states, rather than on the process of getting from one state to another. What is needed is a theory that is more focused on processes, rather than states. He writes,
. . . the prevailing view of the second law is an oversimplified version of its true nature. Simply put, entropy is not entirely about disorder. Away from equilibrium, there is an obverse and largely unappreciated side to the second law that, in certain circumstances, mandates the creation of order.
We are observing the mandated creation of order. For example, the human body takes chemical energy and transforms it to mechanical energy. There is a dualism to the entropy system that many have not stopped to appreciate. Instead of a trend toward heat death always being the overarching goal, systems have a two-way nature to them. Dissipative systems are able to grow until they reach a point called self-organized criticality or the “critical point”; then they shrink from inadequate energy flows.
In forests, this point of self-organized criticality comes when the growth of the tall trees starts blocking out the light to the shorter plants. As mentioned earlier, at that point the forest starts becoming more susceptible to forest fires. Ulanowicz shows that for ecosystems with more than 12 elements, there is quite a narrow “window of viability.”
Figure 8. Illustration of close clustering of ecosystems with more than 12 elements, indicating the narrow “window of viability” of such ecosystems. From Ulanowicz
If we look at world per capita energy consumption, it seems to indicate a very narrow “window of viability” as well.
Figure 9. World energy consumption per capita, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2105 data. Year 2015 estimate and notes by G. Tverberg.
When we look at what happened in the world economy alongside the history of world energy consumption, we can see a pattern. Back prior to 1973, when oil was less than $30 per barrel, oil consumption and the economy grew rapidly. A lot of infrastructure (interstate highways, electric transmission lines, and pipelines) was added in this timeframe. The 1973-1974 price shock and related recession briefly brought energy consumption down.
It wasn’t until the restructuring of the economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s that energy consumption really came down. There were many changes made: cars became smaller and more fuel efficient; electricity production was changed from oil to other approaches, often nuclear; regulation of utilities was changed toward greater competition, thus discouraging building infrastructure unless it was absolutely essential.
The drop in energy consumption after 1991 reflects the fall of the Former Soviet Union. The huge ramp-up in energy consumption after 2001 represents the effect of adding China (with all of its jobs and coal consumption) to the World Trade Organization. With this change, energy needs became permanently higher, if China was to have enough jobs for its people. Each small dip seems to represent a recession. Recently energy consumption seems to be down again. If we consider low consumption along with low commodity prices, it makes for a worrying situation. Are we approaching a major recession, or worse?
If we think of the world economy relative to its critical point, the world economy has been near this point since 1981, but various things have pulled us out.
One thing that has helped the economy is the extremely high interest rate (18%) implemented in 1981. This high interest rate pushed down fossil fuel usage at that time. It also gave interest rates a very long way to fall. Falling interest rates have a very favorable impact on the economy. They encourage greater lending and tend to raise the selling prices of stocks. The economy has received a favorable boost from falling interest rates for almost the entire period between 1981 and the present.
Other factors were important as well. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 bought the rest of the world a little time (and saved oil extraction for later); the addition of China to the World Trade Organization in 2001 added a great deal of cheap coal to the energy mix, helping to bring down energy costs. These low energy costs, plus all of the debt China was able to add, allowed energy consumption and the world economy to grow again–temporarily pulling the world away from the critical point.
In 2008, oil prices dropped very low. It was only with QE that interest rates could be brought very low, and commodity prices bounced back up to adequate levels. Now we are again faced with low prices. It looks as if we are again at the critical point, and thus the edge of collapse.
Once a dissipative structure is past its critical point, Roddier says that what is likely to bring it down is an avalanche of bifurcations. In the case of an economy, these might be debt defaults.
In a dissipative structure, both communication and stored information are important. Stored information, which is very close to technology, becomes very important when food is hard to find or energy is high cost to extract. When energy is low-cost to extract, practically anyone can find and make use of energy, so technology is less important.
Communication in an economy is done in various ways, including through the use of money and debt. Few people understand the extent to which debt can give false signals about future availability of energy flows. Thus, it is possible for an economy to build up to a very large size, with few realizing that this approach to building an economy is very similar to a Ponzi Scheme. It can continue only as long as energy costs are extremely low, or debt is being rapidly added.
In theory, EROEI calculations (comparing energy produced by a device or energy product to fossil fuel energy consumed increasing this product) should communicate the “value” of a particular energy product. Unfortunately, this calculation is based the common misunderstanding of the nature of the physics problem that I mentioned at the beginning of the article. (This is also true for similar analyses, such as Lifecycle Analyses.) These calculations would communicate valuable information, if our problem were “running out” of fossil fuels, and if the way to mitigate this problem were to use fossil fuels as sparingly as possible. If our problem is rising debt levels, EROEI and similar calculations do nothing to show us how to mitigate the problem.
If the economy collapses, it will collapse down to a lower sustainable level. Much of the world’s infrastructure was built when oil could be extracted for $20 per barrel. That time is long gone. So, it looks like the world will need to collapse back to a level before fossil fuels–perhaps much before fossil fuels.
If it is any consolation, Prof. Roddier says that once new economies begin to form again, the survivors after collapse will tend to be more co-operative. In fact, he offers this graphic.
Figure 10. F. Roddier view of what happens on the two sides of the critical point. From upcoming translation of his book, “The Thermodynamics of Evolution.”
We know that if there are survivors, new economies will be likely. We don’t know precisely what they will be like, except that they will be limited to using resources that are available at that time.
Some References to Francois Roddier’s Work (in French)
THERMODYNAMIQUE DE L’ÉVOLUTION “UN ESSAI DE THERMO-BIO-SOCIOLOGIE” -The Thermodynamics of Evolution – Book, soon to be translated to English. Will at some point be available from the same site in English.
Roddier writes:
This is a talk I gave at the CNAM (Paris) on December 2, 2013. The title is:Thermodynamique et économie ; des sciences exactes aux sciences humaines
In this talk, I show that Per Bak’s neural network model can be used to describe an economic system as a neural network of agents exchanging money. The paper gives a brief explanation on how economies collapse.
The other talk is one I gave in Paris on March 12, 2015, for Jancovici’s Shift Project. The title is:
La thermodynamique des transitions économiques
A video of this talk is available on the web at the following address:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-qap1cQhGA
In this talk, I describe economy in terms of Gibbs-Duhem potentials (akin to chemical potentials). Money flows measure entropy flows (with opposite sign). The cost of energy plays the role of an inverse temperature. I show that economic cycles are similar to those of a steam engine. They self organize around a critical point.
I was listening to NPR news this morning and they said that China has shutdown one of their major oil producers because of low demand and low oil market prices. Could this be a sign that we’ll see this spread to other oil producing nations in the near future?
I forgot to add that it was because they lost 1-5-1.9 billion dollars last year.
I would strongly recommend listening to the BBC radio 4 segment (below)
on The Rise and fall of American Growth by Robert Gordon, scroll the programme through to 24m.50sec for the start of this item
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070h6ws
He sets out very clearly why there’s no growth, and puts forward the certainty that the UK is headed for an pre-1700 economy, and why Personally I think it’s everybody.
Thanks! Didn’t think the player would work. Used to get the “not available in your country” message but it’s playing.
Come on guys, everything is awesome! Kick the doom to the curb and join the in crowd…
In 100 years, humans may live in underwater spheres and subterranean skyscrapers
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/smartthings-future-living-report-on-how-homes-will-look-in-100-years/
And don’t worry about the knowledge that humanity has amassed disappearing without a trace. Problem solved…
This tiny glass ‘Superman memory crystal’ stores 360TB for eternity
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/data-storage-technique-packs-360-tb-data-glass-disk-eternity/
All is well is Delusistan! (using this term under fair use if that’s ok FE)
I understand that Delusistan is being considered as a new word addition to Webster Dictionary 2016 edition….
Lessons from the imploding population in Slovakia:
“Pravda daily on page 7 on Wednesday reports on an unusual murder in which an 82-year-old woman appears to have been beaten to death by the 71-year-old mother of her former daughter-in-law. (…) It was discovered that the victim and her alleged attacker had known each other for a long time. The son of the victim was once married to the daughter of the accused, but they divorced 15 years ago.”
http://195.46.72.16/free/jsp3/search/view/ViewerPure_en.jsp?Document=..%2F..%2FInput_text%2Fonline%2F16%2F02%2Ftbtbex2h0au.dat_095100.1%40Fondy&QueryText=
Not to diminish the importance of this, but what does it prove exactly? Are you observing a pattern of behaviour across a braod spectrum of the population? This attack is anecdotal at best and could happen anywhere at any time.
I do agree that in general tempers will flare and old buried rivalries will resurface among neighbours when stress levels increase. Where I live elderly inhabitants are known to attack neighbours on occasion over property boundaries being violated and so on. They like to use whatever weapons they have handy – sickles, hoes, pitchforks…
Dear Rick Grimes,
the interesting thing about the abovementioned case are the facts about the family relationships: mother and her daughter vs. mother and her son. The mother of a son is attacked by the mother of a daughter, where the the son of the victim is a former husband of the daughter of the alleged murderer. I.e. firstly, the marriage implodes (the divorce) and then the mother of the daughter kills the mother of the son (so the possible consequence can be that he is alone now… like the woman with her daughter…). The life in the mountains is hard.
I have read about another interesting case of implosion today: The Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic faces a serious distraint from its own judges:
http://spravy.pravda.sk/domace/clanok/383904-svecova-sa-snazi-zastavit-exekuciu-sudu/
The worrying thing is this attacking and undermining of the social structures that keep the society functioning by the persons in charge themselves.
Just typical village life, resentments fester for decades……..
Yes, the real village life is not idylic. But the situation during the population implosion seems to be different: instead of the fights for the territory and resources during the population explosion, we have the fights for human resources during the population implosion…
Further interesting facts around this murder are following: the village is the smallest one in the given mountaineous district of Slovakia, the first Slovak poetess (the wife of a Lutheran priest) was born in that village and, according to the criminalists, such an old woman committing murder was a fact they have not encountered in their career before.
Clearly, the need of the old woman to have a son by her side in such a “dying” village must have been something that could provoke the aggression of another woman, who was the mother of the daughter formerly married to the son of this murdered woman. It seems to be a very probable version.
Another interesting village, where the first important Slovak woman prose writer, Bozena Slancikova-Timrava, a daughter of a Lutheran priest, was born, is Polichno. In 1990, i.e. immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Slovak man killed 4 Roma people there. But he was not sentenced, it was found that this hunter shooted in self-deffence protecting himself in his home and behaved in an amok.
Nowadays, this village of Polichno, is described as the village of widows: one third of the population of the village are widows:
http://www.topky.sk/cl/10/99050/Polichno–Tam–kde-vladnu-vdovy—
And as regards the abovementioned village of Potok, where the recent murder happened, alread in the 17th-18th century, the 2 Jewish sisters had an roadside inn for travellers there.
https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potok_(okres_Ru%C5%BEomberok)
This cruel (man-like behaviour) of women under the harsh conditions seems to be really determined by the lack of the men who could protect them. The Russian women are also a good example of this.
Oh boy, is that ever true! Once you scratch the surface, there’s nothing idylic about it.
zzzzzzdxfcioNew post by François Roddier, about Economics.
http://www.francois-roddier.fr/?p=376
As it’s not that long, I’ve slightly corrected the auto-translation:
“87 – A little bit of Economics”
“Economists would like to make the economy an exact science similar to physics. In this purpose they are trying to establish mathematical relationships between measurable variables. Unfortunately, the choice of these variables is very poor. They seem to be limited to two. One is the time that is clearly defined. The other is the currency unit, formerly linked to the gold standard, but that is rather poorly defined today, and seems to fluctuate uncontrollably.
We have seen that human society is a dissipative structure. It is modeled as a network of agents exchanging information. From a strictly economic perspective, the exchanged information is the currency. It seems we have enough here to lay the foundation for a true economic science. Can we apply the results of Ulanowicz to the economy ?.
We run from start into a fundamental problem with the concept of dissipative structure. By definition, they are in a stationary state, that is to say they do not evolve. Unfortunately we actually are interested in their evolution. How to do? In fluid dynamics, it is assumed that the evolution of a cyclone is slow enough for us to further define the temperature and the gas pressure at each point. This is called local thermodynamic equilibrium. When measuring the state of an ecosystem, it is implicitly assumed that this state does not change significantly during the time of the measures. The assumption appears valid given the measurement accuracy. What about the economy?
Economists generally solve the problem by defining the state of an economy on the scale of a year. This natural choice averages out seasonal fluctuations (but can cause problems in the highly fluctuating case of financial economics). So what would be the equivalent of the order parameter α of Ulanowicz? If we define the information as given by the currency, then the stored information is capital. This information is usually stored (memorized) in a bank account. Normalized at a maximum equal to 1, α is the fraction of annual income that is capitalized in order to yield a return the following year.
The quantity α is a random variable whose realization is known only at the end of the year i. The expression of α by Ulanowicz shows that (i) can also be considered a Bayesian estimator (1) for the probability of profit for the year i + 1. In this sense, α (i) provides for the following year an information α (i + 1) which is an average of α (i + 1) = -α (i) .log α (i). The quantity α (i + 1) is called the capital income. Economists put it in the form α (i + 1) = r.α (i) where r is the return on capital. We see that the expression of Ulanowicz involves a capital return of the form r = -log α. This may seem surprising because it is infinite at the origin. We will see that this is actually the case in reality.
If the capital income is reinvested every year, we have what is called a compound interest income, which is characteristic of autocatalytic processes. Once reinvested capital income becomes a new capital α (i + 1) = r.α (i) term of a geometric series of ratio r. It is indeed a cascade of events typical of self-organization processes. We know that these cascades are triggered by random fluctuations, here by losses or accidental gains averaging zero. A zero average gain can be considered an accidental income without capital. Its yield is infinite. When this gain is invested, it can lead to more or less significant a cascade of events and can create fortunes. This is the basis of the capitalist system, often called “American dream” in which anyone is supposed to have a possibility to become rich.
[Paragraph edited by Gail to match later comment by Stefeun] “The expression of Ulanowicz implies that there exists a critical value α = 1/e (37%) for which the ratio r = -log α of the series is equal to 1. Then the capital income just compensates the expenses and keeps the capital constant. When α is less than 1/e, the ratio r for the increase is greater than unity, so that the capital grows every year. In the case of a country, we talk about economic growth. When α is bigger than 1/e, the ratio r for the increase is less than unity and capital decreases. When there was money creation, that is to say that the capital was borrowed from a bank, then it can not be repaid and that’s bankruptcy, hence the terror of economists in idea of an economic decline.”
Any economic system, nation or company seeks to maximize income from its capital to grow it. We see that there is a limit beyond which capital no longer icreases and even decreases, the critical point is characterized by the dimensionless number 1/e. It seems that one can generalize this result to any dissipative structure (2). It will adapt to its environment in order to maximize the information received, until the information it stores no longer increases and even decreases. It has then reached the critical point. It memorizes as much information than it clears out. This implies that the critical point is a point of maximum energy dissipation. We know that a dissipative structure is constantly hovering around the critical point in search of the maximum (article #21).
(1) A Bayesian estimator (or Bayesian inference) estimates the probability of an event from those of previous events.
(2) Considered as a network of agents exchanging information.”
http://www.francois-roddier.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Ulanowicz.jpg
“zzzzzzdxfcio”: Sorry, my cat…
Ha! I was wondering if it was that. My cats do the same. Looks like they speak the same language. Maybe they’re up to something?
Sorry again, I have to re-post the seventh pragraph, after correction, because many signs and words were missing (let’s blame my cat again, even if I should have re-read more carefully):
“The expression of Ulanowicz implies that there exists a critical value α = 1/e (37%) for which the ratio r = -log α of the series is equal to 1. Then the capital income just compensates the expenses and keeps the capital constant. When α 1/e, the ratio r for the increase is less than unity and capital decreases. When there was money creation, that is to say that the capital was borrowed from a bank, then it can not be repaid and that’s bankruptcy, hence the terror of economists in idea of an economic decline.”
Sorry once more, I have to repeat the operation after replacing the signs “inferior to” and “superior to” by words, otherwise considered as html language (I’ll keep on blaming the cat all the same).
“The expression of Ulanowicz implies that there exists a critical value α = 1/e (37%) for which the ratio r = -log α of the series is equal to 1. Then the capital income just compensates the expenses and keeps the capital constant. When α is less than 1/e, the ratio r for the increase is greater than unity, so that the capital grows every year. In the case of a country, we talk about economic growth. When α is bigger than 1/e, the ratio r for the increase is less than unity and capital decreases. When there was money creation, that is to say that the capital was borrowed from a bank, then it can not be repaid and that’s bankruptcy, hence the terror of economists in idea of an economic decline.”
Economies are akin to a hill of silicon beads, or a hill-o-beans. Eventually they collapse under their own weight. Growth was easy during the construction of the hill but adding more adds to instability not the opposite.
And then there’s human nature. Unless you factor that into the overall equation it’s pointless trying to measure this or that as if the system is static and behaves according to some kind of universal law. The growth of the system as a whole may be predictable in some ways and possibly the peak and decline, but at the human level, you’re either winning or losing at the game of life and that’s all that matters to most people.
And yet people still think the overall system can be overhauled and saved…
INTERNATIONAL: Christopher Pissarides, a Nobel Laureate, argues for UBI at the World Economic Forum at Davos
http://www.basicincome.org/news/2016/02/international-christopher-pissarides-a-nobel-economist-argues-for-ubi-at-a-debate-in-davos/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmumRUGXQhQ
Are these “experts” living in Delusistan?
don’t worry
he’s only taking the Pissarides
Thanks for that one. Made my day!
Humans are a product of the Maximum Power Principle (MPP) and its correlate the Maximum Entropy Principle (MEP). Basically these principles explain that dissipative structures will arrange themselves to maximize energy flow and entropy. Even human “morality” is a behavioral feature meant to arrange humans in such a way as to maximize power and entropy. The only problem is that humans have escaped the ecosystem just like cancerous cells and are applying the MEP and MPP against the ecosystem and its resources gradients/fossil fuels.
Once humans are done and the old ecosystem is basically dead, a new one will arise to maximize energy flow within the new constraints (acidic ocean, overheated atmosphere). Since humans are unconscious and each one seems intent on maximizing their energy flow an conversion of the ecosystem into waste, they will eventually be SOL. Pursuing wealth at the expense of the ecosystem is suicidal. I don’t see how humans escape this basic feature of dissipative structures since they are mostly under the influence of a brain that has evolved for billions of years under the MPP and MEP.
a point i try to put over
that true altruism, in a collective context, is the gift of the well off
“I don’t see how humans escape this basic feature of dissipative structures since they are mostly under the influence of a brain that has evolved for billions of years under the MPP and MEP.”
Exactly – we don’t. There isn’t any escape from the trajectory launched millions (billions?) of years ago when the first single cell organism absorbed/ate its neighbor and experienced the rush of energy surplus. It’s been an arms race ever since with the result we see today.
OK, now that we’ve settled that, what does one “do” about this immutable fact? Well, basically there’s two options:
– Continue to observe, kibitz and otherwise while away one’s time theorizing, describing & critiquing the situation;
or
– Transform oneself into a nihilistic PTB completely unbound by the conventional morality imposed upon the clueless
98%.
Once you understand that the PTB know perfectly well what is occurring, and which of whom have also concluded there isn’t any possible escape, then everything, and I mean everything, logically falls into place. In this state of being, since everything now makes perfect sense, it becomes a trivial exercise to front-run future policy decisions and major strategic events.
I’m a biologist/naturalist type and always wanted to figure out why humans are destroying themselves and the ecosystem. I think I’ve satisfied myself. I think I’ll turn to more mundane matters like making sure my children are mostly insulated and out of the way of the coming reckoning. Ninety-nine percent of people will carry on in automatic mode given to them by evolution, never questioning their own motivations or the likely outcome of their unrestrained behavior. All I can say is I’m sorry it turned out this way.
‘making sure my children are mostly insulated and out of the way of the coming reckoning’
I am curious … how will you do that?
Magacancer,
Yep. Sucks.
I am waiting for the B9K9 Hedge Fund to launch …. I’d like to ride the coat tails….
“Humans are a product of the Maximum Power Principle (MPP) and its correlate the Maximum Entropy Principle (MEP).”
MJ, that’s precisely accurate. What’s worse is there is no lower gear. It’s pedal to the metal until bust. I saw a really simple example of this when I was just 8 and it stuck in my mind. Out trick or treating, the three of us boys came across a house with a basket of candy bars with a sign saying take one candy bar for each person. Not just junk candy, but the good stuff. The first question was: Should we take just one? That was followed by one of the three of us starting to scoop candy bars into his bag, followed by the others including myself doing the same until it was empty. As we finished one bar fell on the porch and we all dived for it. That in a nutshell is humans. When presented with a resource, the first thoughts are restraint, followed immediately by all out greed. The only way to reduce all out greed is regulation, but as we can see the actual final result of humankind has been to tee off on the planet to an extent that we are consuming resources as if there were numerous planets, not just this one.
Stilgar
Amusing. I used to be amazed how well-fed middle and upper-class people would rush at the free food at weddings, graduations, etc. Did they not have homes and fridges?!
We are all trying to live like Arab tribal chiefs. When Agatha Christie was at a tribal feast in the 1930’s in Syria, she noted three levels of consumption:
1/ The Sheikh and VIP guests: first choice from great platter of rice and meat. Best pieces of meat served to VIP’s by Sheikh himself.
2/ Second-level tribesmen: the platter still has lots of good pieces of meat on it, and they are all very happy.
3/ The rest: they just get to eat the rice, with some gravy. That’s Life…….
xabier, you’re referring to hierarchy, and that I understand and agree with, however I was referring to our innate predilection for accelerating resource consumption. For example; If you drive into the interior of Oregon the mountains are clear cut. I mean there is a constant vista of clear cut mountains of some very big stumps. Boreal forest razed to the stumps. Whales were hunted to near extinction before strong enough and long enough efforts reduced greatly whaling and some species have come back like the California humpback. But numbers of whales pale in comparison to what they once were, not unlike many larger species. Take for example mining. Some of those trucks they use to transport material are as big as probably possible. Northern Atlantic cod has been fished to the point of what is apparently at least for the short term a permanently smaller population. Machinery, cranes, everything is built to maximize resource extraction. We are racing without much consideration for where that leads. Catton called it phantom capacity, the act of depleting resources as if there was a capacity available that far exceeds what’s actually there.
Stilgar
Insatiable expansion and destruction is distressing to contemplate I agree.
As animals, we reach a sense of repletion and satisfaction in food consumption: one literally can’t eat any more. Even a dog will eventually stop wolfing it down.
Also, like the Grade 2 people in my tribal example, the second best can be quite satisfying, as the stomach is still full.
Perhaps the answer is a money system and psychological immaturity: I know someone with tens of millions who recently declared that he wanted more and more and more.
With money, as opposed to food, there is no possible sense of repletion and a corresponding fear of a potentially total loss: it can after all vanish like snow as the 1930’s showed.
Didn’t a Roman say that ‘since money came into the world, men have been mad’?
I’m afraid that very few people can even see the environmental destruction they wreak for what it is, and of course the rich live far away from it.
Two things come to mind:
(1) It is really the increase in energy consumption that produces this return. Because of diminishing returns, over time, it tends to take more and more investment to extract the same amount of energy to be consumed (or to extract a barrel of oil).
(2) Debt approximates 350% of GDP, and the debt to GDP ratio tends to increase year after year. Thus, the investment comes from a huge increase in debt. In a sense, we do not have a system using real capital; there is just more and more debt-based capital. The interest rate paid on the debt becomes very important in determining the return on the debt-based capital.
Shouldn’t these things be considered in perhaps a more advanced form of the model?
This is related to the article Stef links to. Demand declines first, prices falls later.
(And the US crossed the event horizion around 2011)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-18/markets-ignore-fundamentals-and-chase-headlines-because-they-are-dying
“For example, U.S. inventories are building and freight shipments are declining in the U.S. as retailers cite falling demand for goods as the primary culprit. Official retail sales numbers for the holiday season of 2015 have come in flat. When one takes into account real inflation in prices, consumer sales are actually far in the negative. According to the more accurate methods the U.S. government used to use in their calculations of CPI in the 1980’s, we are looking at annual price inflation rate of around 7%. Price inflation does not necessarily equal improved sales. Energy usage has been crushed since 2008. Despite a growing population and supposedly a growing economic system, oil consumption in 2014 according to the World Economic Forum dropped to levels not seen since 1997.”
“The bottom line, however, is that in our current crisis demand is the driving force and supply is a secondary issue. Supply is NOT the driving force behind the volatility in oil markets. Period.”
I agree. It is a demand problem. It would help a lot if the workers of the world could afford the output that today’s economy is producing. When the workers live in India, Philippines, and other low-wage countries, they can hardly afford anything. When workers are replaced by robots, the robots buy nothing at all–they may use a little electricity.
taux de production d’entrophie = rate of entropy production
(google translate)
I get the feeling that something was lost in the translation.
No Richard,
the translation is right (maybe I sould have done it myself before posting…).
IMHO (I won’t pretend I’ve fully understood this article), the confusion comes from inside/out of the dissipative structure.
The dissipative structure lowers its internal entropy, and thereby “produces” entropy that is evacuated outside of it, into its environment (and eventually modifies this environment, which in turn forces the structure to continually adapt).
‘Metals strengthened on signs of an improving outlook for China’s economy as the government stepped up measures to stabilize growth’
Interpretation: China is building more ghost cities….and piling more bad debt….
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-17/lead-drops-as-stockpiles-at-six-month-high-signal-ample-supplies
Gotta keep the train speeding towards the edge of the cliff…
I wonder what would happen if we just applied the brakes and handed everyone a sandwich…
Some people are still pushing for this…
Free Money for All: A Basic Income Guarantee Solution for the Twenty-First Century
http://www.basicincome.org/news/2016/01/free-money-for-all-a-basic-income-guarantee-solution-for-the-twenty-first-century-by-mark-walker/
Can the ECB create money for a universal basic income?
http://www.basicincome.org/news/2016/02/no-money-for-basic-income-ecb-qe4people/
IRELAND: Fianna Fáil to promise every citizen €188 every week
http://www.basicincome.org/news/2016/01/ireland-fianna-fail-to-promise-every-citizen-e188-every-week/
FINLAND: Over Half of Citizens Support Basic Income
http://www.basicincome.org/news/2016/01/finland-over-half-of-citizens-support-basic-income/
The human ability to imagine utopia is powerful. Even as the train hurtles down the line towards the broken bridge…
The train wreck at the end of the universe…
Nice! Quite the mental image.
I just can’t figure out how these “experts” manage to keep a straight face. They must know a thing or two and yet their job has become one of gradually opening the morphine valve. No pain, no gain takes on a new meaning.
No, they are as clueless as jellyfish about it all. No offence to jellyfish…
I think it’s the future, Rick. The current world economy is so dysfunctional today, being as it is beholden to corporate interests. The economy is also, as Gail has repeated, reached it’s peak between 1965 and about 1970 At that time we started into resource overshoot and it is gaining momentum every day. We disguise it with credit creation, which just takes from the future, leaving us headed for penury. The slope is only downhill.
The population is poorly served by the economy as it stands and resentment will continue to spread. Governments will be forced to provide enough money for these people to survive, forced to act to keep the show on the road. In a way this is futile, but it has to be attempted. It’s easy for the central governments to pay for welfare etc., as long as we still have the grid to manage the accounts. Eventually of course it will still fall over as the finiteness of the planet cannot be changed.
Saudi has fallen for the building scam as well
building cities in deserts with no means of support and no reason to be there, other than ”commercial ideas” or somesuch nonsense
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-03-20/saudi-arabia-plans-100-billion-mega-city-help-end-its-oil-dependence
the insane theory behind this is that energy-soaking cities will magically become energy producers once they are built and inhabited.
These cities are like puposeless theme parks that no one really wants or needs to visit. The chinese ghost cities do get some tourism, but I’m not sure that its enough to make it a sustainable business model in and of itself.
Maybe China and the Saudis would have been better off simply building real innovative theme parks that people around the world – that still have some disposable income – would flock to.
On the other hand…
South Korea’s $660 Million Robot Theme Park to Open in 2016
http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/south-koreas-660-million-robot-theme-park-to-open-in-2016/
That was written in 2014. Can’t find any progress reports since then. There was a ground breaking ceremony and a website… and not much else.
Aren’t the Saudis investing in massive desalination projects to supply their desert cities?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Saudi_Arabia
The Saudis are one of the most vulnerable nations in the world.
Their rulers can only race on ever faster, trying to placate their millions of unemployable young men, while maintaining a level of repression to satisfy a religious ideology dating from the 7th century.
If they try to change course they’re screwed on both counts.
Right now they have to use a third of their oil not just to keep themselves alive, but maintain the standard of living they now see as rightfully theirs (who wouldn’t want aircon in 50.C heat?)
That proportion is going to increase dramatically
As the price of oil drops, so their output of it has to increase to sustain their new “normality”. But they are selling not just a finite resource, but their future. Saudi oil cannot last longer that 20 years—probably less than that, certainly not much more.
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2015/07/02-saudi-energy-subsidies-hino
Reading the above article, one can only wonder where the Saudis will be importing their oil from?. Truth is of course that there won’t be any ‘other sources’ even if they have any money to buy it with.
Long before then, as the vice of deprivation begins to tighten, their young men are going to realise that their unforgiving desert is going to reclaim its own. Faced with the employment choices of goat herding or camel trading they will go into panic/denial, and starting fighting one another. The stage is already set for that, with Sunnis and Shias living uneasily in different areas of the country, each ready to blame the other for their misfortunes, brought on by selling their oil to the infidels in return for the weapons necessary to commit mass homicide.
Warfare is on their borders right now, and with the inevitable decline of oil power, the Saudis will have no resources with which to resist the incursions of other factions such as ISIL. With no worthwhile supplies of oil to keep them there, the US fleet will sail away from Bahrain and leave them to engage in their favourite pastime of slaughtering each other, while the price of US oil will rise (for a while anyway) in the face of middle east shortages.
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.”
— Sheikh Rashid Bin Saed Al Maktoum
The realisation of the reality you post is a schadenfreude moment to savour. Considering the wreckage the Saudis have strewn across the MENA, their comeuppance can only be wished speeded up. The USA will have it’s turn later, for similar reasons, also let it happen soon!
schadenfreude on all mankind – the cancer of the planet
I don’t think Shadenfreude works like that. You’ve got to be pretty much outside.
the problem with ‘wishing it all to happen and get it over with’—will manifest itself at the precise moment when your lightswitch fails to work, your grocery store is empty and your fuel station has nothing to sell you.
that is when the products of the fan are going to hit you personally—and me too of course.
None of us will be on here offering views and opinions, but climbing frantically towards the lifting stern of the Titanic construct we call civilisation.
Our problem will be not that there are too few lifeboats, but that there are none at all.
Superb stuff! Just needs a visual
http://listupon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Titanic-Sinking.jpg
Norman, superb post!
There’s a woman near me that has a sizable herd of goats and sheep. I’ve been wondering how much bigger we could make the herd in a post BAU situation – how much milk, cheese and meat could be extracted for use by the whole community. It’s as good a supplemental strategy as any don’t you think?
thanks Rick
Problem as I see it is one of ‘ownership’ and holding on to what you’ve got.
unless your neighbour is over-endowed with altruism, the herd will be hers to profit from
(our original concept of trade and profit came about after we enclosed land and bartered its products for necessary goods).
Not that ‘property’ will last long post BAU–because exchange based on fairness cannot exist in the chaotic situation.
There will inevitably be straight choices:–You have a starving family—she has a fat goat.
She wants “cash” for it–still believing that money is a relevant medium of exchange long after the facts prove that to be wrong. The choice is–do you simply take, or let your kids starve?
Or maybe she recognises the severity of the situation and decides not to sell any of her produce. Her first priority is to her own family after all.
Or you have a less fortunate community 5 miles up the road—or a small city 20 miles away with 100000 people living there.
With a breakdown in basic law and order, your small community farm would be swept clean in a day
Saudi Arabia has massive overhead costs, with a need to import all of its food, desalinate water, and air condition cities. How can it compete with countries like Angola, Philippines, and India, with much lower overhead?
and there is no work ethic.
Dear Finite Worlders
Behind a pay wall, Chris Martenson and Charles Hugh Smith talk about many problems. They ask ‘how much direct exposure to sub-prime mortgages did the banks really have in 2007-8’ and ‘how much direct exposure do the banks currently have to sub-prime autos and the energy sector?’ Neither knows, but some crude arithmetic hints that things might be worse now than back in 2007-8. Leads to a discussion about the great danger of the dominant role of the financial sector in the economy. For example, General Motors makes its money, not by making cars, but by making loans. Discussion about the lines of credit to oil companies which the banks foolishly extended back in October, and how the lawyers are probably trying to figure out how to cancel them.
They discuss what would happen if debt essentially went away. Chris thinks GDP would look like Greece…maybe down by 50 percent. Charles thinks maybe a fall by one third.
Heretically, both men think that a crash would be a ‘good thing in a sense’ because the enormous distortions which currently exist have to be removed…and a crash is the only way to remove them. Charles always says that ‘risk can be moved around, but it can’t be eliminated’.
Charles ends the discussion by saying that taxing his money by one percent won’t persuade him to enter into the folly that the Fed is promoting.
Don Stewart
And people pay for that? Wow.
F#ck, we’re doomed…
+++++++++
All this talk about Russia being able to continue to pump oil post BAU and we have forgotten that oil is pretty much useless unless it is refined…
How does an oil refinery work?
How is crude oil transformed into everyday usable products?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdLVzXf7v5E
You’d really have to be in a serious dream world to believe that all of this is gonna happen post BAU…..
They could make gasoline and other products like kerosene in the 1880s with primitive technologies. They will be able to make such products long after all of this high tech computer aided production has gone away. Its not that hard. Build cracking towers and add some heat.
InAlaska, are you literally in Alaska? What type of aircraft are you flying up there? I read about your engine failure experience and was curious. I’m a fellow aviator who wants to take a break from the doom and talk about something fun for a moment.
Don B.
Yep, I do live in Alaska, but I keep where to myself. I fly a Piper Supercub and a Cessna 185. Have used planes for work and personal living as for many years I have lived off the road system and the independence of being able to fly yourself to the city for groceries or to see a doctor is pretty important. I was flying the Cessna over the middle of nowhere when my engine began to stutter and cough. It was about to quit and I started to panic when the checklist mantra went through my mind: Fuel switch, mixture rich, carb heat, mags, primer. On the first one, I switched the fuel from left tank to both and zoom, the engine perked right up and I was able to return to the airport and get a mechanic to look at it. I would have surely crashed and burned had I not kept my head.
Did you run the left fuel tank dry? That’ll teach you to leave the fuel tank selector on both.
They also have to keep the oil coming out of the ground…. and you either do that at large volumes … or not at all….
Oil extraction is high-tech…. no longer like this:
http://lariverrailroads.com/oil_industry/gusher_coalinga.jpg
The low hanging fruit is gone. And we don’t have the ladders necessary to get to the high hanging stuff….
There isn’t enough oil of that type left in North America to run a sausage factory, let alone any kind of BAU.
” Its not that hard. Build cracking towers and add some heat.”
Cat cracking is a relatively complicated process that only took hold in the US in the 1940s. I got a tour of the cat cracker at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Refining
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_catalytic_cracking
But you are right, the process which makes oil into useful products is not complicated, mainly oil needs fractional distillation to make it useful.
Yep, its pretty simple technology at its base. We’ve just added many layers of complexity to it as the oil industry grew into what it is today. Not saying we can keep BAU going, but you can still get oil out of the ground in small amounts and make fuel out of it.
I am not sure who “you” refers to, in ‘you can still get oil out of the ground in small amounts and make fuel out of it,’ even without BAU. Most people need a banking system to pay employees. They also need refineries, and electricity operating 24/7. It also helps to have customers to pay for the oil, and replacement parts when machinery breaks down. If you want replacement oil, when existing wells deplete, you need a whole lot more.
‘a whole lot more’ as in you really need BAU…. otherwise forget about petrol….
Exactly!
Nigeria’s illegal refineries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e3_bkKwgQY
Doesn’t look complicated, but of course efficiency is very low.
Cool.
However you still need to get the oil out of the ground ….
http://www.mining.com/web/unsightly-expensive-pump-jacks-may-thing-past-better-divergent-technology/
One of the big cost drivers operating an oil well now is the maintenance of the rods that hang below the pump jack. So the pump jack on the surface moves up and down all day and there’s a metal rod that hangs all the way to the bottom of the hole and actuates the pump.
Now no well is drilled perfectly straight and the more deviated the well is drilled the more costly it is to operate because that rod is rubbing and fatiguing down the wellbore. So every place, as the well gently spirals down to say 1500 meters, that the rod touches the side of the tubing,is eventually going to wear and break.
There is also the issue of lubricants: http://www.jetlube.com/pages/Oil_Gas_Pump_Jack.html
http://www.jetlube.com/images/JumpJack_Schematic.jpg
OIL & GAS – PUMP JACK GREASE & LUBRICATION GUIDE
Hinge & Pin Points back of Walking Beam:
Arctic or Jet-Plex EP
Central Bearing Assembly:
AP-5 or Jet-Plex EP
Horsehead Wireline connection points:
Arctic or Jet-Plex EP
Wireline:WRL
Stuffng Box & Polished Rod:
Prime Mover rotating shaft and pulley/ assembly:
Arctic or Jet-Plex EP
Belt Assembly:
Crank Pin Assembly:
AP-5 or Jet-Plex EP
Equalizer Beam & Bearings:
AP-5 or Jet-Plex EP
Nuts & Bolts on the Counterweight and all other threaded assemblies:
Kopr-Kote IND or 550 Extreme
Well Head assembly: TF-15
Surface Casing:
TF-15 or Run-N-Seal
Intermediate Casing:
Run-N-Seal or API-Modified
Production Casing & Tubing:
Run-N-Seal or API-Modified
When BAU ends. The oil that is in the ground. Will remain in the ground. Forever.
Not all of it. There are still places where it seeps out of the ground naturally. Scoop it up, refine it, put it in your dune buggy. Stop being so absolute, ya coot.
Can you show me some places where oil still gurgles out of the ground — perhaps Ma and Pa Kettle’s back yard?
As far as the dune buggy… don’t count on that… you need more than petrol to run a dune buggy… you need transmission oil… brake fluid… etc…..
EoM…. as usual… another excellent article http://www.endofmore.com/?p=1464
thanks Eddy—I’m kickstarting my blog again after a long break doing other stuff
glad you liked it.
+10
Excellent read.
Let’s define Europe post-Rome as ‘when the sewage didn’t move’………? Medieval kings and queens were forever building nice pretty toilets for themselves, only to find that the waste channel just got blocked up (great job that, cleaning them out, father to son, no doubt).
The wheeled-vehicle fascination which you often return to is puzzling but centuries-old.
When carriages spread in late 16th-century England the rich couldn’t get enough of them. Romans, too, loved their chariots and even Celtic chieftains went crazy for war chariots – why?
It’s most childish, or do I mean child-like? Or maybe magpie-like: ‘a shiny thing and it’s mine, all mine!’? If they are rare, OK, but sitting in a huge jam….?
wheels have always been an expression of superiority–“Look at me—I ride in luxury–while you as a mere peasant are condemned to walk”
To afford a horse/horses, plus coach, driver, stables and so on was always the ultimate expression of luxury
Oil changed all that—everyone could suddenly afford a set of wheels, we all became superior beings, lords, princes–status depended on the set of wheels you could afford.
You can very easily transfer the same thinking to tanks and other military hardware (the logical progression from war chariots).
Sewage wasn’t moved unless wheeled vehicles moved it (the night soil carts) or you had a high walled castle where everything dropped into the moat.
That didn’t change until we had pumps, (wheels again) to shift it.
Unfortunately, over the last century, we have come to think of wheels as the support system and providers of our lifestyle–which is why in every discussion about our inevitable “downsizing” , without exception, the “wheels factor” is always built into our imagined future.
You can check that out—“Will i still be able to get to work?” is a classic refrain you read all the time.
As long as we have powered, wheeled transport, our prosperous future is assured, hence the Elon Musk fantasy of electric cars for everyone. Musk is undoubtedly intelligent, but has utterly ignored the basic fact that wheeled motorised vehicles can only function:-
1….. within a hydrocarbon based environment
and 2… if there is a purpose for their existence.
The act of commuting to work and back doesn’t provide income, it consumes a necessary part of it by burning finite fuel. Yet the vast majority look on the ability to move around as the factor that of itself creates ongoing wealth.
Once a ‘downsized’ situation begins to seriously affect us, then jobs will vanish, and with no jobs, vehicles will be irrelevant. Put simply, there will be no reason and nowhere to go in one.
Remember that every job, no matter how exalted or humble, exists because someone, somewhere back down the line is enabling fuel to be produced and consumed to support it
My my, a lot of doom posts today. Why doesn’t Paul (re) post any ZH articles that mention the recent 1k Dow short squeeze? I guess they don’t meet the objective of whipping up excitement with dark forebodings of an imminent financial crash & accompanying collapse of global trade?
I understand that many/most commenters @ OFW came up through the various professional ranks. That is, they were trained be cogs in the wheels of industrial civilization, thereby performing their assigned roles as useful, contributing members of society.
However, since they were never exposed to (nor expected to concern themselves with) important principles pertaining to governance, the subject of societal decay & loss of order is a fascinating new topic to be explored with endless repetition.
News flash – these subjects are neither new nor a surprise to those who were trained from their earliest days in prep school. Rather, they are deeply ingrained truths that cause an instinctual reaction – let’s say second nature – among the governing class. In other words, they are savants at managing populations, regulating commerce and making the hard decisions necessary to maintain order & control.
I keep saying this, but as history has clearly shown, all one needs is bread and circus. GMO foodstuffs will ensure no one goes hungry, while iDevices will/do deliver real-time trivialities to amuse the dunces ie the 98%. For added measure, just to complement Huxley, Orwell’s all pervasive, full-spectrum security state shuts the door on any possible revolt.
Every day my portfolio increases in value; every week I get to choose where to travel to next (Xabier, maybe I’ll see you in Madrid next month); and every day I have decide if I would rather go for a jog, bike ride or just hang out by the beach.
The reason I was able to carve out this lifestyle is because I long ago I was able to understand how the world really works: there will ALWAYS.BE.INFLATION as long as the bankers, MIC and deep state are in control. It really is that simple – it’s what their power, wealth & prestige are based upon. Lose that foundation, and they lose their heads.
So, here’s some free advice: please quit with the imminent doom nonsense. This sucker has hundreds of years to cycle down and reduce the 98% back to the serfs they have always been. In the short-term, that is our life spans – we’re going to see more net-migration to fuel real-estate price escalation, more trivial, all pervasive entertainment, and more frankenfoods that deliver core nutrients & calories.
You can either keep complaining, dream/wish for sudden collapse, or grow up, get smart and start winning. It’s your choice to make.
This whole discussion is taking on the tone of “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”
“I keep saying this, but as history has clearly shown, all one needs is bread and circus. GMO foodstuffs will ensure no one goes hungry, while iDevices will/do deliver real-time trivialities to amuse the dunces ie the 98%. For added measure, just to complement Huxley, Orwell’s all pervasive, full-spectrum security state shuts the door on any possible revolt.”
How will the bread, circuses and surveillance state be provided with declining energy? If it works out that way, great. Don’t you think it would be good to have a backup plan, in case the bread and circuses suddenly come to an end?
‘Every day my portfolio increases in value’
Perhaps you should start your own hedge fund — because the hedge fund industry is getting shredded ….
Did you know that Michael Burry was a surgeon — then started playing the market and discussing strategies… and was given I believe it is 10M to manage by someone who was following his comments on a finance blog?
He’s now worth over a billion dollars….
Hedge funds on average have returned 0.4 percent this year through November, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-31/another-hedge-fund-shuts-down-sab-capital-returns-all-outside-money
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/01/11/the-era-of-hedge-fund-dazzle-has-peaked/
When the music stops — there will be no GMO, no electricity, no oil and your portfolio (and mine and everyone else’s) will be worth less than a can of beans.
Everyone,
“Hedge funds on average have returned 0.4 percent this year through November, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”
I found a little account with roughly $25000 that I had forgotten about that was sitting in an investment fund that was sending my statements to a wrong address. They finally found me and sent me an accounting. It was tracking the S&P and few other ETFs. It made $23 dollars in 2015. So, making money in the stock market either takes extraordinary luck, criminality, or insider knowledge.
Im starting a new ETF. DOOOOM
Holdings
Smith and wesson inc 20%
APMEX 20%
Old yeller liver vodka inc 10%
Mountainhouse dried foods 10%
Pall water filtration 10%
Winchester amunition 10%
Acme shovel inc 10%
Heritage seed 10%
For those wishing to invest in a SURE THING please send funds to
Doooom
PObox 642389
NY NY
I reckon if I had shed full of cigarettes, I could last a fair while so long as I could keep them secret. Trade a few or a packet now and again, not to the same person. Like everything though post collapse, security and/or secrecy will probably need to be a priority. In this world right now and very soon after they become hard to get, booze, cigarettes, drugs and toilet paper maybe in very high demand.
and fresh fanblades post SHFT
or SHTF even
Artist’s rendition:
Lol they will be sticky that’s for sure.
even better would be tea and coffee.
noooo—cigs are bad for people’s health
Too slow.
Razor blades too, or even better get a Razorpit, which can sharpen razors — and offer sharpening as a service.
“Ulavowicz (whose article I quoted) is one of the authors of the article you are quoting (Is our monetary structure a systemic cause for financial instability?) The solution proposed is multiple currencies operating at the same time. Roddier also backs this solution.
I have hard time supporting this solution. Don’t you need governments to back the various currencies? Doesn’t adding different currencies for different kinds of transactions just make the system more complex?”
Gail, I didn’t read this article but something looks bizarre. Do you mean you favor the creation of an esperanto currency or just that you back the continuation of pretro-dollar?
The discussion is about adding new currencies to supplement existing currencies. One reason for doing this might be to have an alternative, if the Euro fails.
I am only expressing some doubts about some proposed or new currencies.
http://zfacts.com/p/461.html
Looks like the national debt just recently past 19 trillion without much MSM fanfare. 2.8T has been stolen from ‘The People’s’ social security payments. I’m figuring the O admin. will do what they can to delay the debt surpassing 20T until the next presidency.
This is good news. Debt must forever be increasing.
Don’t be surprised if one day it is on quadrillons
Worst Earnings Letdown Since Crisis Add to Europe Stock Woes
Europe’s earnings season is only half-way through, but so far even stable profit generators are showing signs of capitulation.
Banks, industrial companies and even health-care companies are surprising the market with the widest earnings misses since even before the financial crisis. Analysts are dialing back their 2015 outlooks — they see zero income growth for Stoxx Europe 600 Index members on average, down from an estimate of more than 4 percent three months ago.
This echoes what has been the frustration of stock investors for most of the past five years: unlike in the U.S., Europe’s profits just aren’t growing. Analyst downgrades have outnumbered upgrades almost every week since 2011, according to a Citigroup Inc. index tracking such changes. And traders are losing faith in the global economic recovery, dumping growth-dependent shares for defensive stocks deemed more immune.
http://assets.bwbx.io/images/itrwejT2_4VM/v2/-1x-1.png
More http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-17/worst-earnings-letdown-since-crisis-adding-to-europe-stock-woes
Listening to the accompanying video and the bit about Glencore…. something is definitely happening behind the scenes to keep that company from being junked…. I base that on the copper price and the fact that the actor presenting the story is so cheerful.
Dear Finite Worlders
I hope my essays on school systems using David Denby’s book gave you some idea about why the society which turns oil into useful products is so expensive.
Here is another example, this time from farming. Please take a look at the video here:
http://soilcarboncoalition.org/infiltration
What you will see is that a holistically grazed (rotationally grazed) pasture in South Dakota infiltrates water from a thunderstorm very rapidly. Consequently, there is little to no runoff, and erosion is minimized. The water is also stored in the soil, since the soil structure is good and there are plenty of microbes making glomalin. Across the fence is a conventionally grazed pasture. You see less biodiversity, poor soil structure, and very slow infiltration of water. In that conventionally grazed pasture is a section of recently planted corn, on which glyphosate was sprayed as a weed killer. This section has the worst infiltration of all.
Now take a look at the latest and greatest ideas in gene editing:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-02-17/crispr-is-coming-to-agriculture-with-big-implications-for-food-farmers-consumers-and-nature
Some of the sales pitches around this are that ‘we can continue to use glyphosate’ and ‘we can breed drought resistant varieties of plants’. Well…glyphosate is a carcinogen. Glyphosate also kills the soil microbes that make the glomalin… so continued use of glyphosate is not necessarily a ‘good thing’. And let’s go back to that infiltration test. Isn’t glyphosate use a contributing factor to the bad effects of the drought to begin with? So, because we are using bad agricultural practices, we have to irrigate. And because we use glyphosate, we have to irrigate even more. Meanwhile, we are poisoning ourselves.
Does this story ring any bells when you compare it to Denby’s schools? I hasten to add that Denby won’t necessarily draw the same conclusions I do. I see both of these schemes as thermodynamic dead ends…we cannot energetically afford them.
Which doesn’t mean that humans CANNOT do intelligent genetic editing. We have inherited a third of our human genes from microbes. Only a very religious creationist can believe that gene editing is a new thing. It’s been going on for billions of years. But if humans are going to use the tool intelligently, we are going to have to confront the realities of energy limitations. Solutions which fight Nature are likely to be dead ends.
Don Stewart
Meanwhile… in Realitystan…. these are the types of fellows who will be on the loose post BAU…
it is an unfortunate fact of life that young men enjoy killing people
And if you read the Roman accounts of tribal wars, young and old women liked to stand and watch and shout for their team. ‘Better a dead husband than a coward.’
If you watch professional sports — particularly the more violent ones … you can observe this tribal behaviour….. blood lust….
Have these sports provided a benign outlet for these violent tendencies…. not just for the participants but the fans as well…
One could easily imagine a team of NFL players exhorting their supporters to join them to sack an opposing city…..
I was once reading that women are looking for men they think would even risk beeing killed to protect her and her children. I bet this causes a lot of suffering because women tend in this way to the more aggressive males…
Eye-opening stuff! You have to wonder how each subset of our species reacts when things take a turn. It’s not just the mercs, but the vets, cops, rangers, hunters, poachers, and everyone else. Then there’s the prison population…
If order breaks down, “regular” people start to test the rules to see what they can get away with. After the first days of looting are over, anything goes. The domesticated veneer starts to wear thin and feral instincts return to the fore.
Then the coping mechanisms begin to manifest…
I sometimes wonder how celebrities will fare. I can’t imagine that being a high profile and instantly recognisable individual of any stamp will be all that helpful from a survival standpoint. It’s going to be surreal…
Here’s a real life documented event that took place in 1969 of what some people did in a very short period of time once the cops were out of the picture. It took place in during the meaty curve of the oil age, so obviously when the cat’s away the mice will play. Don’t let the 3 million in damage make it seem small, because back then that was a lot of money. Our rent in Sausalito for a 3 bed/2 ba house with garage was $150 a month. To rent that today would be $3500-4500 a month.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840236,00.html
Canada: City Without Cops
Friday, Oct. 17, 1969
“Montrealers discovered last week what it is like to live in a city without police and firemen. The lesson was costly: six banks were robbed, more than 100 shops were looted, and there were twelve fires. Property damage came close to $3,000,000; at least 40 carloads of glass will be needed to replace shattered storefronts. Two men were shot dead. At that, Montreal was probably lucky to escape as lightly as it did.”
Now imagine that occurring today in somewhere like New Jersey – boggles the mind. All that modern day infrastructure and no restraint – it wouldn’t take long before all hell broke loose.
“If order breaks down, “regular” people start to test the rules to see what they can get away with.” That’s exactly it, Rick. It’s the same kind of behavior that allows corporations to clear cut a forest if there are no regs, or start scraping the crust to move the overburden to get at coal or pouring toxic waste into fresh water streams. People quickly lose their inhibitions and stop self regulating when they see other people doing whatever the heck they want for profit or lust.
Dramatic Photos Of Chaos And Looting During New York’s Notorious Blackout 37 Years Ago Today http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-nyc-blackout-2014-7
http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/53c04d00eab8ea83170ec68b-480/ap7707140393.jpg
Good points…. when people see everyone else engaging in a free for all — they will often join…
I am in a farming community — there is a town of about 10,000 about 10km from here — there is another city of 50,000 or so not much further away ….. they will be into the shops first…. then they will be making their way to the farms looking for food.
There will be a lot of them …. they will be difficult to stop….
The people we pay to protect us–the police, fire services, medics etc, can only function on the surplus energy of our economic system
Glad somebody else has pointed out that our ‘downsized’ future—ie one where the necessary energy to support our infrastructure will be absent—will NOT be full of courteous gentle people tending their veggie plots.
The future is not going to manifest itself as a minor inconvenience. Remove our protective services, and the wolves will instantly emerge. Not everyone obviously, but it only takes a small proportion to wreak havoc and chaos and begin to destroy the cohesion of society
In the UK North west this winter, services were overstretched and almost the first people to turn up after severe flooding were looters. They had to be driven off by law abiding citizens.
But what if it was SHTF time? —One day it will be.
In the UK we dont possess guns, but you can be sure the bad guys do.
I leave it to readers’ imagination as to what follows next
I have an exceedingly vivid imagination. In some ways, it’s a curse.
That’s why I’m out in the Hebrides…
Harry Gibbs,
“I sometimes wonder how celebrities will fare.”
If you’re a hot chick celebrity you’ll do well. The guys will be killed.
When a man who would formerly have been considered a good, law-abiding citizens sees his children and wife starving …. I suspect he will do ‘whatever it takes’ to put food on the table….
I have been reading a great deal about what happened in Bosnia — a situation that turned ordinary men (and women) into ruthless killers….
What is coming will be far worse than the war in Bosnia…. they still had food…
They had better start their rampage BEFORE they run out of fuel, food and water. Most of the fat western people will be overwhelmed and waiting for the government to send help. A lot are old, a lot are young, a lot are infirm and a lot are female and the majority think that food is manufactured at the supermarket, including meat and milk……..that’s where they’ll likely gather, while their water lasts. So IMHO, mainly in the initial stages, it’s being able to outrun the other bloke, when the bear charges. Just an opinion though and good for discussion only. Anyone’s idea is just about as good as another.
They didn’t wait in Montreal…. nor New York… when the lights went off they were into the streets smashing and looting….
When the shops are emptied … Mr DNA will instruct the hordes to go to where the food is …. a tank of petrol is good for around 700km….
I very much doubt that everything will stop like the flick of a switch. Electricity will be the last to go. Until then supplies will be consumed, while tv and radio tells them to stay calm and do what the captain says.
Remember 2008 — when the dam bursts… it bursts…. the financial system goes first of course… and in very short order world trade stops …. massive layoffs ensue…. the panic begins… the power will not stay on for very long…
It did not take the power to go off to set up massive movements of people onto the streets when the Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire….
There is plenty of pent up anger at the elites around the world —- when all is perceived as lost – the pitchforks will come out….
“I very much doubt that everything will stop like the flick of a switch.”
A month is a very short span of time, in the grand scheme of things.
No tv or internet to keep people mesmerised. It’s like cutting an umbilical cord or stopping a drug habit on the spot but with no methadone to fill the gap.
Withdrawal symptoms can lead to some very nasty behaviour…
2008 is brought up all the time. What parts of the world was affected? In Sweden nobody really noticed. Maybe real estate dropped 10%. No jobs lost.
In 2008 we were literally days away from complete implosion…. global trade had stopped …. because financial institutions were essentially insolvent…. the only reason things got back on track was because the Elders agreed to back stop all financial transactions — if you had a Letter of Credit for a shipment — the central banks agreed to back stop the counter party…. that provided the CONfidence to the supplier to release the shipment…
Then of course that was followed by trillions of QE ZIRP and other stimulus….
At some point … we’ll come out the other side of the eye of the storm… and the Elders will be powerless to do anything.
…..and stop with the isolated incidents in New York and Montreal to make a point, it’s stupid and likely to scare the kids.
The kids should move to Delusistan if they don’t like Realitystan. I hear that if you just declare you are a wishful thinker — they give you a passport.
The power is not going out for a day — it is going out forever…. and it is going out everywhere….
It is perhaps because FE does not have children that he doesn’t consider such points.
We all know what human nature is, it’s nothing to get excited about.
Why diminish the courage of others when we can increase it?
Best to concentrate on the good, while being well-informed and wary.
Gentle as the lamb, smart as the serpent……
If I had children I would not introduce them to this site.
This is not the place for children — nor is it a place for those who prefer sugar coatings and happy endings.
Xabier, have you ever written something to publish?
You’re right. We can’t know for sure what the outcome will be and so far we’re referring to limited local events that were relatively easily contained by the existing failsafes.
But since we’re exploring most likely scenarios, the evidence and a healthy dose of logic points to short to midterm breakdown of existing order. Beyond that, when things settle down, a new order is established but it’s probably a stretch to associate any kind of ideals of organised society to the new paradigm. What follows is something that hasn’t existed before.
People’s minds are filled with an inordinate amount of delusional junk. I suspect that mental illness will reign supreme in the New World. And there won’t be any factories churning out copious amounts of Abilify…
But for the sake of argument, lets say some kind of order can be established, at the local level or above. What’s likely to emerge is a system that mimics the Stanford Prison Experiment and the related Stockholm syndrome effects…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
This is probably what happens anyway in any run of the mill autocracy but I can see how this model would naturally emerge in societies of all sizes where accountability has become a thing of the past.
If these kinds of situations arise, the only hope for the “inmates” comes in the form of an uprising and replacement of the abusive dictatorship with a benevolent philosopher king or queen.
The Stanford Experiment is nonsense. In real life, if guards abuse prisoners, prisoners murder the guards. If you push people hard enough, they will push back. Perhaps if a bunch of Alpha males are all made guards, and Beta males all made prisoners, that will work. Or males with male pattern baldness as guards, and eunuchs as prisoners. Even the Janissaries had the gall to make demands of the Sultan, however.
I suggest you read this outstanding book — http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59661.Shah_of_Shahs
It will give you an understanding of why people do not fight back — in this instance it explains how Savak created an intense culture of fear — that permeated every word… every movement….
One of the best books I have ever read
“It will give you an understanding of why people do not fight back ”
Well obviously it did not work, since the people, without any visible external provocation, and while not starving, revolted against the regime. They sound like a smaller, less effective version of the Stasi. Could be an interesting lesson in failure, however.
It worked for a very very long time….
But that is not the point of reading this book — it conveys how fear can be used to cow people just like beaten dogs….
Of course because we are animals not really any different from dogs…. you can beat us into submission … but some day …. we might snap back….
“It worked for a very very long time….”
22 years does not seem to me a very, very long time …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
But heck, if a totalitarian government could hold things together for an extra 22 years after the collapse of global trade, sign me up.
I suspect if you were living under Savak for 22 years…. you’d change your mind on this
You’re nonsense.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes. There are plenty of closed environment situations in real life where prison guard syndrome manifests. As if I really have to point this out to you but here goes anyway…
funnily enough – prisons!
mental institutions
the military
prostitution
sweat shops
narcotics operations
and then there’s Guantanamo and Abu Graib…
All glaring examples of abusive closed environments. And no, its almost impossible for people to retaliate in these situations. The psychological abuse alone takes care of that.
Yes, real abusive situations happen in real life. However, a bunch of college students doing a simulation is not the same thing as real life. The Prisoner’s Dilemma, for example; actual prisoners doing the experiment defect far less often than the students. Their perspective is quite different; in real life, snitching has consequences; you don’t just get off while the other guy takes the fall.
Why did the Syrians revolt against their government? Was it because they weren’t abused enough?
‘Why did the Syrians revolt against their government?’
The Syrians did not revolt against their government — the people revolting against Assad are funded and armed by the CIA — most are foreign mercenaries otherwise known as ISIS….
Of course there are always disaffected people in a country who would be willing to join such an invasion as the CIA always requires a domestic puppet to take the thrown — so many would be vying for that position…..
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad
Perhaps you have a better example to make your point?
I do wonder how the CIA is able to succeed in some places – mostly Islamic places, but a few others – and yet fail in others such as Venezuela and Cuba.
Thinking about it some more, I think the reason that guards, soldiers, police, etc may abuse their power is that they are confident that either they will not be caught, or will not be punished if caught. So perhaps a key step is to ensure that they are as traumatized and fearful as the general population.
Diminishing the “us vs them” mentality and preventing tight knit groups from forming may also help. Rather than having specialized police, it may be better to have most members of the society serve as law enforcement one day a week, and shuffle who is patrolling with who on a regular basis.
I have thought of a couple of alternative methods that come to mind, in trying to maintain an orderly society during a prolonged degrowth phase. One is the proactive or reactive, selective or universal castration of young men. Due to hormones, they seem to be far more prone to risky and violent behaviour than the general population. Of course, if done on a universal scale, mass sperm banking would be needed.
A third solution is the “have a day where everyone gets punched in the face” from the Peruvian Takanakuy Festival:
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/video/takanakuy-part-1
They seem to have very low rates of violent crime. Besides the Unabomber Manifesto, I think this is one of the other big influences on the Novel & Movie, Fight Club. In order to reduce the risks of brain damage, death, blindness, and dental damage, bare knuckle fighting could be replaced with Canadian Boxing.
Lots of support for that idea, Matthew. Here’s just one;
http://rielpolitik.com/2016/02/01/cover-up-washingtons-secret-war-in-syria-uncovered-by-vladimir-odintsov/
Fast Eddy and xavier, et. al.
“If I had children I would not introduce them to this site.This is not the place for children — nor is it a place for those who prefer sugar coatings and happy endings”
I consider my 3 boys to be my greatest strength. When I first started visiting this site, they were young and I was protective. Now its been years and they are all teenagers, young and strong and smart. They’ve seen this site, and others, and heard me ranting and seen me prepping. We talk about it and not much sugar coating. They aren’t weirdo prepper kids, though. They are smart and like all kids they figure things out for themselves. They are not afraid of the future because they are the future. Whether its long or short, life is fun and precious for them. They know what’s coming and I have a feeling I’ll need them more than they’ll need me. I’m sorry for those who don’t have children.
Funny…. I feel sorry for those that have children…. to have to watch them starve …. suffer with disease…. violence… possible enslavement…..
Best decision I ever made.
Children are also of course huge contributors to global warming….
Mathew, you make some good points but I was specifically referring to closed situations where people would have a hard time finding a way out. Even if things could be turned around at some point, the suffering would still have to be endured for the duration of the tyranny no matter how long or short.
On a larger scale, we have North Korea. Why haven’t we seen widespread revolt there? According to your theories, it should have happened long ago. Or are people there happy with their lot? How much indoctrination does it take to accomplish such a feat?
As far as castrating the men goes… you first!
with N Korea–it’s a matter of energy availability and balance
Right now, the masses are cowed by the police and military minority, who are well armed and well fed. This “Praetorian Guard” has been a common factor with all despotic regimes. They answer personally to the “Emperor”, in return for a priveleged lifestyle. (energy input)
Eventually, the control system will collapse. Once it degrades past the point where this guard can no longer being sustained, they will turn on their emperor.
“On a larger scale, we have North Korea. Why haven’t we seen widespread revolt there? According to your theories, it should have happened long ago. ”
Maybe the difference is the level of trauma; people that are sufficiently oppressed do not uprise, and only people that are somewhat oppressed but not enough, do.
Or maybe people rarely / never revolt on their own, and it is only the stimulation from an outside instigator that leads to revolt – primarily America through the CIA. Maybe the KGB helped instigate the revolt against the Shah.
I suspect you are right ….
In Bahrain the majority Shia are protesting daily — you don’t see this on the news — I had a stopover there a few years ago and had no idea what was happening until I left the airport and saw helicopters everywhere — black convoys of SUV’s — military check points..
I thought WTF is going on here — this is like an Orwell novel…. an overt police state….
I asked a cab driver to take me to the protests — which he did at his peril as the authorities confiscate cars for taking foreigners anywhere near these activities…
He was beyond caring …. and explained to me that these protests are nothing new — as a young university student he ruined his future by participating — he was tortured (and had the scars to show) and forced to state that he was Hezbollah — he was thrown out of university and is stuck driving a cab….
And like clockwork out came the protesters following afternoon prayers banging on pots and throwing stones…. day after day … year after year….decade after decade….
But the Khalifa family remains in power…. because nobody is arming the Shia…. they are no threat….
For now.
Alaska, good to see how you and your kids are coping with degrowth. I suppose your wife is on the mood as well. My kid is only six, but as long as he grows it’s becoming more difficult to address many issues. But it’s unavoidable: last week he made many questions as “how is x made”, and the usual answer was that it’s made from oil. Hope I’ll get a situation as your’s.
Grimes, won’t be surprised if we all end up as North Koreans
If you have six minutes to spare, I highly recommend this “interview”…
The scene takes place a couple years post BAU. The lead character – Rick Grimes – has been living on the outside with everything that that entails – extreme hardship, death around every corner.
The interviewer has been living in a closed community with solar power, organic food, walls for protection. She got lucky and has no idea what its really like on the outside…
It’s an interesting interview, RG, but I find it difficult to believe the woman’s community would allow Rick in with all those weapons, let alone into an interview in which she has no protection. Also, that video camera still works? Computers still work to receive the video data to burn a disc? Where are new discs purchased? When I drive down at night to our mailboxes, if there is a woman there she hurries up, gets in her car and leaves fast and that’s in a community where crime is rare. Makes me feel dangerous but really I’m just there to get my mail, but it’s a window into the fear people feel. But this woman will walk right up to this guy while he has a machete on his belt?
But as far as the conversation goes, it’s a pretty good exchange of information about their respective lives. Even though she lives in a walled off community, she had to exile three men that didn’t fit in for one reason or another. He describes people on the outside measuring people by what they can take from them – that’s most likely what it would be like. Weak or poorly defended people would not last long as all their food and stuff would be taken. Not sure though that walls will stop people post collapse. Even if a wall is 20 feet high with barbed wire it’s easy to make a ladder to scale it and avoid the wire with a piece of plywood or rug. If it’s electrified then tilt a long metal pole on to it and let it ground/short out. Unless there are 24hr guards with guns stationed on the fence, it won’t hold out marauders.
Correct about security Stilgar: when there were problems in Argentina, the rural properties were most at risk as without police the crooks could settle down to a mini-siege at their own leisure. Probably the most important thing is an alarm -dogs need no electricity -so you can run away!
Thanks for those wall-scaling tips, Stilgar.
The story does cover a lot of the issues you mentioned that are not immediately apparent in this scene.
The walled community has plenty of its own weapons and an armoury. The new arrivals were reluctant to give up their weapons at first but after the decision is made they all do as it is not permitted to carry weapons within the walls.
Other than that, these kinds of communities in the show are always protected by round the clock lookouts, traps and so on.
The interviewer is taking this risk because she now realises that the outside threat is increasing and her community is not prepared for it. The new arrivals were spied on and assessed before being deemed eligble to join the community. They showed some positive qualities and that was enough to consider them for the post of security enhancement.
Suffice to say that it doesn’t go too well for either party…
There’s no reason why a camera wouldn’t still work after a year or so. Remember they have their own electricity. Batteries and other supplies are plentiful due the massive sudden die off of most of the population. Anything that’s needed is aquired through planned raids into “the wild.”
I agree that walls don’t amount to much post BAU. I suspect that people may not be able to stay behind them for very long anyway.
With the MSM … nothing is as it seems…
Beheading of James Foley: Media Spies Put All Journalists in Danger
With a number of print publications folding their operations, there has been a mushrooming of web-based news outlets. The Global Post, based in Boston, was able to send freelancer Foley to costly assignments in Libya and Syria.
A subscription-based news website, which once only had 400 subscribers, is not only able to send someone like Foley off to cover wars but is able to maintain an international correspondents’ staff of 65 in high-cost cities ranging from Moscow and Jerusalem to Tokyo and Nairobi. Some uncomfortable questions must be asked.
For example, from where does Global Post actually receive its funding?
And, why does it find it advantageous to embed its freelancers with U.S. military units and CIA-financed Islamist insurgent groups? Looking back over the last 65 years encompassing the CIA’s use of journalists as agents, the answers to these questions become all too apparent.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/beheading-of-james-foley-media-spies-put-all-journalists-in-danger/5397917
Bernie is going to fix everything. Feel the Bern!
I will vote for trump if he is in
Bernster if he is not
And Jill Stein (who doesnt smoke koombyah she mainlines it) if neither is in
Sucker for a nice bum I guess
Im a single issue voter
Whoever seems less likely to turn my habitat into a glowing radioctive wasteland I vote for them
Here’s why oil is below 30 again….
Over the past four years, there has been very little change in Russian or Saudi crude output—especially compared to other major oil-producing nations:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/the-glaring-problem-with-oil-giants-production-freeze-chart
Prepper Tip of the Day: Buy extra belts – or a spool of strong string that can be cut off in pieces to make belts —- when collapse comes all of your clothes will soon be far to large — because there will be little or no food.
Book Recommendation: for those who believe we will be one big happy family post BAU — that vicious cruel men will not take centre stage — I suggest you listen/read this account of the Bosnian War…. there are intimate accounts of the savage men involved in this conflict… the hatreds stirred up by crazed leaders…. keep in mind this was fought over territory – resources — as each side tried to get the biggest piece of the pie when Yugoslavia broke apart….
This is coming your way x 1000000 when BAU is gone — 7.3B people fighting over next to nothing.
http://www.audible.com/pd/History/My-War-Gone-By-I-Miss-It-So-Audiobook/B006GF73CG
“Prepper Tip of the Day: Buy extra belts – or a spool of strong string that can be cut off in pieces to make belts —- when collapse comes all of your clothes will soon be far to large — because there will be little or no food.”
I recommend going to your nearest farm supply and buying a roll or two of bailer twine. At around 5 feet for one cent, it is a really cheap, multi-use tool, and several thousand feet of it can last quite a while. Just store it out of direct sunlight.
Dear Matthew Krajcik and All
If you are worried about food after collapse, I suggest you take a look at what the real off-gridders live like:
http://growyourowngroceries.org/extreme-agri-tourism-off-the-grid-with-the-tarahumara-indians-chapter-10/
These guys are remote, so they grow all their own food…on land the Mexicans gave them because the Mexicans considered it worthless. Nevertheless, they do wear some clothing that obviously comes from town. You will also see a shed roof made with no nails, but it does have some cast off metal for a roof.
Think about Marjorie’s statement that she feels like a bloated whale standing with these people. Yet Marjorie is one of the healthier Americans, and her health has improved considerably since she started growing her own groceries.
The Indians are not particularly ‘noble’. Put them near a town and they eat the same junk as everyone else. Their rates of diabetes and heart disease and other chronic diseases is very high for the part of the tribe that lives in Arizona. When your choice is what you can grow in a poor land, the diet tends to be monotonous, but healthy.
But, after a collapse, there likely won’t be any Big Food companies, and no Big Chemical companies, and very few Celebrity Chefs on television shows. Pay attention to the nixtamalization of corn.
Don Stewart
I prefer this — absolutely 0 contact with BAU for 7 decades…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt2AYafET68
Looks like fun!
very moving and humbling to watch
Yes, well worth taking half an hour to watch, and a well balanced presentation.
An antidote to the more poisoned and pessimistic views of human nature which some seem to delight in.
Also get baling wire, and a tool to cut it. It has multiple uses
FE,
A Canadian activist named Paul Chefurka operates a website of the same name. Though he doesn’t update his web space anymore, if you take the time to look him up you will find archived dozens of very interesting articles (including one on economies and energy – was going to present that one to Dr. Piled Higher and Deeper). Anyway, you will find his views and suggestions for dealing with the inevitable that we understand to be true – the outer or inner paths. In her interviews, Gail speaks in terms of an inner path through her faith and through friends and community. I’m not religious, but that’s not really necessary to reach an inner peace of sorts – a little Zen Buddhism. if you will. I think it’s the only path left available to us. Anything else is just is outer path futlility often chosen by the greenies, permies and assorted Koombya club members. No point driving yourself nuts over this. Come to terms with it at an inner conciousness level if you are able. For what it’s worth.
NZ is a place I have always wanted to see. My work took me to many parts of the world, just never NZ. It doesn’t strike me as a place of warlords though, but rather a place to escape to.
Don B
Fast Eddy,
My comment in reply to your pepper tip. Don’know why it took up a topic space of it’s own.
Found it http://www.paulchefurka.ca/
No NZ is not generally perceived as a place of warlords….. however it is no verdant utopia either….
The people of NZ are no different than people elsewhere —- when resources are short — Mr DNA will kick in …. and previously agreeable people will become less agreeable…
I have seen it already during the long hot dry summer — arguments down the hill about sharing of the water supply that runs from the spring above us….
Normally very cordial people who would not harm a fly — at loggerheads — with others having to step in to mediate….
Keep in mind this is happening during times of plenty — nobody is being forced to survive off of what they grow…. the shops are open …. people have money…..
And these are the nice people — there are violent bike gangs in New Zealand — there are cops and military men — when central control goes will these types decide to run their own little local fiefdoms ….
History says yes….
We shall see.
Ok ill bite. Heres my prepper tip of the day, figure out how to take care of your butt hole now. No pulling your shirt over your head like cornholio is not good enough! Guess what if you dont take care of that end of things it can and will create life threatening problems. So figure out your sans TP system now. The standby that much of the 3rd world uses, a bucket of water and a VERY soft brush works just fine.
Already considered…. no need for TP if you have gravity fed water and this:
http://img.alibaba.com/img/pb/219/825/618/618825219_282.jpg
If the global economy would collapse tomorrow, wouldn’t there still be nations like Russia with plenty of oil, natural resources, water and farmland to maintain a fairly good living standard for the Russian population ?
The Russians would of course need to defend their borders against masses of hungry people. But the collapse would still be worse in nations that are net importers of oil.
Russia is today in a mode of becoming a self-sustained economy. Much of the collapse that is being discussed here, I read a year ago in an interview with a Russian high official Nikolai Patrushev.
I sometimes wonder if the Russian aggression isn’t a way to force the West to isolate Russia from the world, which is actually exactly what Russia hopes to be… isolated from the coming global collapse.
All countries are linked together. For example, Russia doesn’t make computers, and in fact, no country by itself makes computers. Computers are used in all steps of oil extraction and refining. Computers use practically trace amounts of many different metals. It isn’t possible (without a huge amount of planning and equipment) to recycle old computers into new computers. For a while, it may be able to cannibalize old computers, and use those parts to swap out for broken ones. But over the long ten, this won’t work. It is our high-tech world that makes continuation of our current system impossible.
Gail, did you see a possibility in the aspect of the criticality of a dissipating structure that it can fall back to a previous historic state or do all systems go on and decay after a criticality collapse ?
i think that Joseph Tainter talks about a country that had added an army, and later decided to do away with that army. That might be an example of an economy that takes a step backward. And I would expect a hurricane could lose force as it goes over a narrow isthmus, and gains it back once it is over the sea.
But once a big change is made, say from powering transportation with horses to powering transportation with cars, it is pretty much impossible to go back. The economy has reorganized around the new system. The changes to go back would be vary large. If nothing else, all of the outstanding debt makes it hard to go back. It likely couldn’t be repaid.
Gail, respectfully, I think there are a lot of unsubstantiated assumptions in your argument that a nation can’t do anything in the modern world because it is inexorably linked to every other nation. Russian, in particular, is good at and has a long history of bootstrapping itself upward without relying on anything but its own vast interior resources. I am not a big fan of Russia, but if anyone could do it, they could. For example, a tool and dye industry is all a nation needs to begin the manufacture of spare parts. Another, look how long Cuba was able to keep its 60 year old fleet of antique automobiles going until the recent detente. You can make spare parts out of lots of things and you can find workarounds. The Apollo 13 astronauts made a C02 scrubber with socks and duct tape. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. Not to be polyannish but I think the interconnectedness argument and the spare parts argument is pretty thin. Maybe at first these things would be obstacles, but then very smartly would be overcome.
BAU – or BAU Lite – or whatever you are alluding to Russia MUST have cheap oil.
We are out of cheap oil. That is why we are collapsing.
Yet you somehow think a country like Russia can magically overturn the rules of physics and rebuild something resembling what the world is like now?
Have you read Korowicz?
When this unravels total hell breaks lose — you won’t be able to buy a toothbrush — you think the Syria situation is crazy — just wait till 7.3B people are starving — and angry — when ethnic hatreds are inflamed by populists … when there is nobody left to step between the factions….
But you think Russia will figure out a work around…. Russia is for some reason special….
This begs the obvious question — if there is a work-around …. then why collapse at all?
Why can’t we just keep on chugging along?
You are not being optimistic – you are ignoring reality — you are engaging in extreme koombaya… what you envision defies logic — it is just plain not going to happen.
Face it Don — you are a dead man walking. I am a dead man typing. Your kids – your grand kids…. everyone you know — is going to die — and if anyone you know survives – they will wish they were dead.
Sorry to bust the bubble – I would like there to be a way out of this as much as you do — but there is no way out…. you and others are interrupting the wake….
Have a glass of whiskey and enjoy the final months…..
Korowicz:
Our local needs depend on the global economy
Our basic and discretionary needs are dependent on a globalised fabric of exchange. So too is our ability to exchange our labour for the means to pay those needs. The conditions that maintain our welfare are smeared over the globe.
We have adapted to the stability of globalising growth over the decades. Our skills and knowledge have become ever more refined so as to contribute to the diverse niches within the global economy. The tools we interact with — computers and software, mobile phones, machines and payment systems — maintain our productivity. So too do the supply-chains that feed us, provide inputs to our production process and maintain the operation of the systems we depend upon. Our productivity also depends upon the global economy of scale, not just those reaped by our direct customers, but also the conditions that support their economic activity in the wider economy. We are all of us intertwined. For this reason we can say that there is no longer any wholly indigenous production.
Source:
http://fleeingvesuvius.org/2011/10/08/on-the-cusp-of-collapse-complexity-energy-and-the-globalised-economy/
Is is also possible to lissen to Korowicz!
https://soundcloud.com/doomstead-diner/david-korowicz-part-1-lock-in
https://soundcloud.com/doomstead-diner/david-korowicz-part-2
https://soundcloud.com/doomstead-diner/david-korowicz-part-3
from the doomsteaddiner.net
Saludos
el-mar
Korowicz > Tradeoff is mandatory reading for anyone pursuing a Doomsday PeeHdee.
Dear Fast Eddy,
I definitely like your clarity of mind, but at times I feel you are far too pessimistic. It is not that your arguments don´t make sense. I think you get the picture right in all its ruthlessness. But, I also think we cant have 100% accurate predictions. Current situation is completely different from all we met before… and that is also a reason to hope for some different outcome. Collapse is lost-lost strategy that benefits no-one. That is at least a reason to hope for something else, at least there might be a window of hope. I am not meaning wallmart forever, just some kind of slow collapse that could eventually stabilize itself at some over medieval level. That might be wishful thinking, but I find it far more encouraging than your “we are all dead no matter what” message that you usually deliver.
No question current economy can´t go on forever, but I can also think of other kinds of economy, where precious resources are not waste for fun. An economy that would make the trip to our destination is possible (sustainability). The only question is if we, as an spices, are smart enough to make the journey. I think we are not, but i hope that the desperation of the moment can force us to make the right decisions.
I have moments when I slip into a form of delusional wishful thinking where I look for solutions no matter how fantastical. It’s perfectly normal behaviour, to be expected once a certain level of understanding has been reached.
When a rat is cornered, it looks for a way out. It may grind down its claws on a brick wall until they are bloody. Or it may launch itself at the threat in a futile attack. Just because there are options, it doesn’t mean that the rat gets out alive.
The Manhattan Project led to nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations. It was carried out in secret until the big unveiling. That was 70 years ago and even now only 20% of America’s electricity is made with nuclear.
If a more promising project was unveiled today, it would have to revolutionise the world of energy and do it in a lot less time.
Something similar would have to happen in the world of economics. Even if a global reset was to happen, you would still be looking at massive population reduction. That’s not what I would call a successful outcome by any means.
Whichever way you look at it, disaster looms.
There are actually some things that are certain …. death for instance….
I look at this situation about the same as I do a situation where you have a raw egg — and are standing on a 10 storey building — there is nothing below the building and nobody around for miles —- there is only a cement parking lot below the building — you drop the egg.
You can wish – you can pray — you can hope that super man flies in and snatches the egg — you can throw all logic out the window and believe that this egg is indestructible — because you don’t want the egg to smash you can bring yourself to believe just about anything….
But the egg will smash. That is guaranteed.
1+1=2. Black is not white. Up is not down. Humans cannot breathe mustard gas. Pigs cannot fly. Lead cannot be turned into gold
That’s how I look at this situation — this is not based on one or two or three or even 5 facts. It is based on overwhelming evidence…
Look at what the Elders are doing — they are essentially guaranteeing the collapse of the global economy — it’s as if 2008 were 1929…. instead of the Great Depression happening the central banks just said ‘we won’t have this’ — let’s just push the market higher…. let’s do ‘whatever it takes’…..
Obviously that is not a solution – it just makes things worse when the piper comes to be paid….
Such actions will smash BAU to pieces.
The Elders know this. So why are they doing it? It is because they know there is no next act.
They are sticking an atomic bomb into the centre of BAU in order to keep BAU running for a few years more…. this goes beyond ‘blowing up the village in order to save it’
Surely that in itself is evidence of how hopeless the situation is…. even if oil were not the problem — what they are doing guarantees scorched earth….
I feel that the Elders push for BAU because it is BAU that guarantees their privileges. Strangely enough they are working for the collapse of the system. That is a nonsense from the common interest point of view. That’ss why I feel, that there are solutions to this issue that can physically be implemented, but I also doubt that we will be smart enough to opt for those solutions. Nevertheless in the critical moment, maybe some critical decision will be taken to stabilize the global financial system, on the expenses of the Elder´s interest. I always felt that the beast is the fractional reserve banking. It has taken us to where we are now. The beast should be killed before it dies taking everything with it.
I am sorry. The way the economy grows is the addition of energy products. The only way these can be financed is by debt. It is necessary that money be made out of nothing. Whether or not a fractional reserve banking system is involved is irrelevant. In fact, as I understand the issue, the rise we are seeing now is not the result of fractional reserve banking–that is not really the issue.
Admittedly, a lot more than the extraction of energy products is being financed by debt, and some of these energy products that are now being financed are unaffordably expensive. With all of these issues, debt is rising a lot faster than GDP.
Right now, though, oil prices are too low. That means we need a greater, rather than smaller, increase in debt to keep the system from collapsing. We don’t have a good way out. The debt we are now adding is like a Ponzi Scheme.
This ponzi scheme is very clearly explained by Michael hudson;
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/17/the-federal-reserve-and-the-global-fracture/
I bought his book a while back. He has some useful things to say.
Do you like having a car? Do you like having a job that earns you money so you can buy food and stuff in shops? Do you like being able to go to a doctor and have access to medicines?
Do you like not living in a straw hut and not having to heat your food over a fire?
BAU has guaranteed your privileges — the Elders have done a fabulous job in providing for all of us in the first world.
You are one of the winners. Rejoice
How’d you like to swap places with someone in Ethiopia or some other country that the Elders did not include in the winning team.
“Have a glass of whiskey and enjoy the final months…..”
I expect that you will be here saying the same thing this time next year and the year after that.
Sorry to bust *your* bubble, but there are at least a dozen ways besides power satellites to solve the problems.
. . . . though some of them are a bit strange.
pre-industrialisation, our infrastructure ran on what might be described as “blacksmith technology”.
Think about that—everything metal had to be fabricated by heating ore, then beating the hot metal by hand into a required form.
Imagine something as basic as a nail being made one at a time, how limiting that would be to constructing anything else.
On a relatively small scale molten metal could also be poured into moulds, but on nothing like the production scale that supports our current economic system.
Reading the above comment in despair—“all a nation needs is a tool and die system to manufacture spare parts”
A Tool and Die system, is effectively the same principle as a blacksmith’s hammer—but exerting hundreds or thousands of tons of force to shape hot or cold metal.
You cannot create such a system without the ability to cast metal on a very large scale, (to make the “tools”) then have sufficient power to shape metal (also complex castings) into precise contours needed–(to make the “dies”)–then have the constant energy input to bring them together.
Yes, it’s possible to make “one” of almost anything, but our civilisation doesn’t function on single items, it runs on billions of repeated identical items.
Cuba was a closed environment where “blacksmith technology” could keep a fleet of cars going for years, but only on ‘diminishing returns’ and because they had reasonably sound cars to work on in the first place. They were fighting entropy.
input of raw energy at a sustainable level allows technology to develop and improve.
Technology of itself, no matter how innovative, can never create energy.
Our world economy has organised itself around the “certainty” of constant and increasing availability of energy. We know no other way now, and we cannot go back to a previous “pre industrialised” existence, without a great deal of trauma, no matter what the ‘downsizers’ say. I’ve tried to explain the reality of downsizing here:
http://www.endofmore.com/?p=1464
To try to drive home the truth, that our future is not going to be an era of minor inconvenience, but something beyond our imagining.
Trauma might seem a very mild, inoffensive word, but it means that of our global population of 7.4 billion, about 6 billion don’t have much of a future, because a billion people is roughly the sustainable population of a pre-industrial world. “Reworking spare parts” isn’t going to change that. The real trauma will come as those billions realise the party’s over, and fight to save their personal existence.
Thank you for that sobering dose of reality!
Some people are clinging very tightly to their hopium pipes. I know how hard it is to let go.
“Cuba was a closed environment where “blacksmith technology” could keep a fleet of cars going for years, but only on ‘diminishing returns’ and because they had reasonably sound cars to work on in the first place. They were fighting entropy.”
The raw resources of Cuba and the raw resources of Siberia are quite different.
“You cannot create such a system without the ability to cast metal on a very large scale”
You think there are no tools and materials in Russia? I’m pretty sure the previous poster is referring to existing capital, not creating new machinery from scratch post BAU.
“Yes, it’s possible to make “one” of almost anything, but our civilisation doesn’t function on single items, it runs on billions of repeated identical items.”
If you have the energy, raw materials, skilled labour, and equipment, you can use the tool and die to make stamping machines, etc to mass produce the common components like nails, screws, ball bearings, etc.
I don’t think anyone is expecting a rapid resurgence of globalization post-BAU.
I just think there will be too many other things to occupy people in the short term post BAU. Widespread panic does wierd things to people, especially when the rescue teams are also panicking!
The advanced production techniques you guys are talking about require very high levels of organisation which are readily available when things are on the up and up. When everything breaks down and support systems disapear it’ll be almost imposible to organise any meaningful activity beyond small groups.
Russia and Siberia may be a huge reserve of resources but it’s useless unless you have a functioning economy and are able to keep the trains running. I very much doubt that any of these very complex systems will be functioning after a specific period post BAU.
Even obtaining and transporting the ore to make a sword post BAU would represent an uphill struggle not worth pursuing.
“Russia and Siberia may be a huge reserve of resources but it’s useless unless you have a functioning economy and are able to keep the trains running.”
It seems to me that to some extent, Russia has been preparing for this since at least the 1970s, if not earlier. Other than semiconductors and integrated circuits, what other products do they need from the outside world?
Do you claim that they need the 1s and 0s of the global financial system, that without a web page telling them they have money in their accounts, people will be unable to get out of bed and work for pieces of paper from the government that can be traded for food or necessities?
I’m sure they must have plans in place already in case they are cut off from the global banking system, and they must expect that they may be cut off from the Internet. The more the West tries to isolate them as part of this current resource grab / spreading democracy, the more prepared they will be for total collapse.
I have a stable that was built with no nails at all.Only wood, but roof tiles. But even the romans could make roof tiles….
The “interconnectedness argument and the spare parts argument” is… everything!
And it applies to absolutely every aspect of our modern lives, not just industrial equipment. Once this interconnectedness is disturbed on a global level, then every nation will be suffering their own form of isolation. No nation will be able to prop up any other.
The way I see it, far bigger and more immediate concerns will revolve around the supply of food and water to millions of people in cities.
Messing around with socks and duck tape may apply to the remaining population after the first and second waves of reduction have taken place. But it’s of little consolation.
Said well…..+10
If you look at Cuba, you will find that there are not very many automobiles of any kind operating there. The spare parts are imported from overseas–not directly from the US. (I agree, though, that Russia could make its own spare parts–they have ancient vehicles operating there as well.)
The roads in Russia are mostly deplorable–now, before a major downturn. It is hard to pretend you have roads, even if you can fix up old automobiles. Fixing up old drilling rigs can “sort of” work, for a while. The problem is that the new fields being added have challenges of their own. I think you are kidding yourself if you think that a few fix up old drilling rigs will solve the problems of oil that is terribly cold and hard to drill and transport. Nothing seems very hard, until someone has to figure out all of the details.
Thank you, I’m starting to get the picture. This high-tech globalized world with millions of nods are in a state of interdependence, where all nods depend on each others function. The collapse will more or less bring down the entire system at once.
There is a study about complexity, a study about the interconnected financial system that also point in this direction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgbqXsA62Qs
Or maybe you are stuck in the progress trap?
“”Øyvind, how come it’s impossible to go from cars back to horses when it was perfectly possible to go from horses to cars, and there was a very elaborate and expensive infrastructure around horses and horse transport that somehow got replaced? The answer, of course, is that you’re letting the myth of progress do your thinking for you. You don’t make the transition all at once, any more than cars replaced horses all at once, and so the ordinary depreciation of the infrastructure that has to be replaced does much of the work for you. The only “high tech trap” exists in the minds of those who can’t see outside of the very narrow tunnel of progress.” – John Michael Greer
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.no/2016/02/retrotopia-back-to-what-worked.html?showComment=1455778101569#c7007581677983401052
I’d hate to be a horse when 7.4B hungry people — with hundreds of millions of guns … are on the lose…
Cat, dog, chicken, deer….. child?
Yes and it took thousands of horse years to get them to the stage we had them, just over a hundred years ago. Bullocks, mules, donkeys, draft horses require breeding, training and pasture, the apparatus they pull requires iron, artisans, energy to construct and expertise. That could all make a comeback over several hundred or thousand years……..if we survive the myriad of consequences built/pent up by the industrial world.
“If the global economy would collapse tomorrow, wouldn’t there still be nations like Russia with plenty of oil, natural resources, water and farmland to maintain a fairly good living standard for the Russian population ?”
That depends on whether Russia is able to domestically produce all the parts for its electric grid, oil production, vehicles, trains, etc.
“I sometimes wonder if the Russian aggression isn’t a way to force the West to isolate Russia from the world, which is actually exactly what Russia hopes to be… isolated from the coming global collapse.”
It does seem like since the 1970s, the Russian government has embraced the inevitable end of the current system instead of rejecting it like in the West. They seem to have invested quite a bit in preparing for the end of the world – the metro and metro-2 subway systems, the giant underground city in the Urals, developing breeder reactors, research into spirulina, using algae to produce oxygen to support humans, solar power from space, etc.
I would dispute the statement regarding Russian aggression, as it seems to me more the West pushing in and surrounding Russia than the other way around.
Exactly, Russia is being subject to a classic policy of encirclement and containment with the aim of reducing the Russian Federation to subservience, destroying it as even a regional power, and hopefully engineering the break-up of the federation. Then land and resources are up for grabs and a puppet government can be put in place.
On the positive side, Russians seem quite tough mentally. Certainly, without any oil and gas most will die very rapidly in winter, but a huge loss of population will to them just be more of the same. The classic Russian stove on the other hand runs on very little wood and is a great heater.
Most people seem to be unaware that heating and fuel for cooking everywhere pre-fossil fuels largely came not from the felling of old-growth trees, but collecting fallen wood in the summer months and also the use of furze and thorn-clippings dried over the summer (and of course peat.) Bread ovens were heated by faggots of twigs in England, where timber as such was generally reserved for the gentry. Collecting this fuel was done by women and children and called ‘sticking’in England.
Unfortunately… this has happened:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Maddison_GDP_per_capita_1500-1950.svg/320px-Maddison_GDP_per_capita_1500-1950.svg.png
Oops… wrong link…
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/resources/ewfigure1_tcm77-272548.png
That’s the change in UK population since they swapped kindling for coal and oil…. 60M will do a good number on the remaining forests….
xabier +++
Russia will be energy-less … like the rest of the world. Energy extraction requires a financial system — it requires all the machinery of BAU to be in place — it requires spare parts – computers – mining machinery and smelters to make the parts etc. etc etc…
Russia will be no different than any other place post collapse…. although they do have a lot of large forests to burn….
I was going to make the same points. Thanks for saving me the trouble.
Yes and the example of Cuba being continually put forth as an example of a closed system is absolute BS. Cuba was never under a dome, ships and planes arrived and departed daily. A country in isolation is when borders are closed. ports closed, roads closed, airports closed…..no telecommunications……no nothin’. That’s what is likely in varying degrees and in varying timeframes until isolation truly becomes the reality. Who survives and how, under those conditions is probably more to do with luck than preparedness.
Oh, luck is a factor that is not talked about often enough! Because it’s not something that we can have direct control over. And yet I feel it will play a bigger role in your chances of survival than anything else. Even the most prepared prepper may fall foul to overwhelming odds because they find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the other hand, the biggest believer in BAU may survive longer than anyone because they just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Preferaby on vacation on a lush desert island. All the fish and coconuts for me!
China is stepping up support for the economy by ramping up spending and considering new measures to boost bank lending.
The nation’s chief planning agency is making more money available to local governments to fund new infrastructure projects, according to people familiar with the matter. Meantime, China’s cabinet has discussed lowering the minimum ratio of provisions that banks must set aside for bad loans, a move that would free up additional cash for lending.
Officials are upping their rhetoric too. Premier Li Keqiang said policy makers “still have a lot of tools in the box” to combat the slowdown in the world’s No. 2 economy, days after People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan broke a long silence to talk up confidence in the nation’s currency, the yuan.
And to ram the message home, the biggest economic planning agencies on Tuesday promised to reduce financing costs as they rein in overcapacity. Throw in a record surge in lending in January and a picture emerges of an administration determined to put a floor under growth.
“Policymakers are battling to prevent any further slowdown, which could escalate into a hard landing,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Singapore. “These additional measures will act to boost liquidity in the banking sector and increase local government spending on infrastructure development.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/china-turns-on-taps-and-loosens-screws-in-bid-to-support-growth
Excellent!!!
Dear Finite Worlders
Pretty frequently here there is discussion of conspiracies. Less often there is talk about the necessity for independent thought and action. And the teachers in David Denby’s book are striving for some coherence, but also some variation (the Goldilocks principle).
Some of you may have participated in the demonstration of synchronized clapping of hands which emerges in an auditorium. Here is a similar demonstration of purely mechanical metronomes:
http://managingwholes.com/synchronize
The challenge, in my opinion, is to get the optimum balance between coherence and independent action.
Don Stewart
I was just wondering. Are you hoping to apply all of this wisdom before SHTF or some time after the gates of hell are opened?
Because, from where I’m sitting, not many people are interested while BAU remains intact and as things go south pretty much everyone will have other things on their mind.
There’ll be plenty of coherent action post BAU and a fair bit of indendent action too, but possibly not of the type that you have in mind…
Rick Grimes
There is an old cemetery near my house, abandoned in the woods. There is a modest obelisk with the inscription : she hath done what she could. So, first, I try to do what I can, both for myself, my children and grandchildren, and others.
I have no illusion about a majority of people doing anything other than following the path of least resistance. But there are people who ‘get it’. I try to be part of that society. I’m less physically active in that society since I retired from the farm, but I still get active in certain ways. I think I will garden until the day I die.
As for the Finite Worlders, many seem to want to ignore any possibilities. I tend to agree with Nate Hagens that ultra-doomerism is just an excuse not to do anything. I do see that a few things that I have said have made an impact on some people…not necessarily readers of this blog.
It’s also fun for me to continue to learn, and to connect the dots. For example, I am currently involved in a Carbon Farming initiative. It is pleasing to me to be able to put together the infiltration demonstration in South Dakota with the capitalistic wet dream of gene editing and notions of thermodynamic limits to see that much of what is likely to happen will be a disaster. It is also pleasing to examine David Denby’s experiences in the classroom in the light of thermodynamic limits and to think about how Nature could do something for a hundred million years that we seem unable to accomplish today. It’s not comforting to discover these things and articulate them…but it is interesting.
Don Stewart
Don – yes – good to so something if it takes your mind off the situation ….
The thing is…
We ‘ultra doomers’ are here because we have already examined all the options and determined after much thought — that there really is no hope.
7.3 billion people and virtually no food — that is what we are facing. Violence, disease on an epic scale for those who might survive. Spent fuel ponds. No electricity. No petrol. This is not the Great Depression – this is not a world war…. this is not an Ethiopian famine – this all of these x 1,000,000… it is well and truly an unthinkable situation …
It is the bacteria in the cup and the sugar has all been consumed….
It’s like we are standing on a beach — and before us is a 20,000 metre wave approaching — the options are to try to run from the wave — or grab another beer from the cooler…. and sit down with your friends and family — and enjoy the final minutes….
Yes it is a sad situation – particularly for those who have children.
But rather than flail about fretting and trying to imagine impossible solutions…. is it not more dignified to take a page out of the book from the Titanic — put on our dinner clothes — order up a bottle of champagne — and listen to the band play — as if this catastrophe were not happening?
Don
Fair enough. We all do what we must – not only to survive, but to stay sane!
There appears to be a problem with our ability to pin down exactly how things will progress from now on. Some feel that the situation is utterly hopeless. Others not so much. Some believe that things will wind down gradually leaving plenty of time for adjustment to novel approaches… the responses to claims of BAU Lite point out the difficulties downsizing would entail.
When we hear the phrases… “I find it difficult to see…” or “It’s hard to believe…” that is a sign that many assumptions are being made and that a substantial amount of doubt remains as to how things will unfold. Everyone has their theories, but the truth is that no one has actually seen it yet and we won’t know until it actually happens.
For me, a much higher level of certainty needs to be reached before declaring that it’s all over for everyone and that it’s time to bolt the door. Even so, I align myself with a fast collapse scenario because it appears to be the most likely given the way our world works.
I do allow some room for miraculous unknowns but again since you can’t really know what these are or where they would play out it just adds to the guessing game.
I will add, that like FE, I don’t have children, so it may influence my views somewhat. I’m not much of a farmer either but I’m prepared to milk as many goats as it takes to stay alive for as long as possible.
I do have nephews though and I see the children living out their lives all around me. From that perspective, I think every moment we have is precious no matter how long we live.
Rick Grimes
There are several key questions which need answers:
*Is BW Hill correct that oil has passed a mid-way point, after which point it will never make energetic sense to go out and put new oil production in place?
*Or are those who think that rising oil prices are all that are necessary to resuscitate the oil industry?
*Is Gail correct that declining GDP NECESSARILY leads to collapse of all supply chains?
*Or are Chris Martenson and Charles Hugh Smith on the right track when they anticipate a decline in US GDP of 33 to 50 percent? With what disappears being mostly a lot of stuff we can do without…such as the financial behemoths which have arisen in the last 40 years.
*Is collapse from AGW already baked into the cake?
*Or can carbon farming save us? (Eric Toensmeier has a book coming out on Monday, discussing in some detail how we need to go about carbon farming.)
*Is it necessary to get ‘top down’ direction to save ourselves?
*Or is the change only possible with bottom up initiatives?
*Are humans necessarily non-sentient, merely reacting to programs which somehow emerge from genetic material?
*Or are humans malleable creatures who can adjust to a wide variety of environments. (Such as the Dancing Rabbit commune in Missouri where people live apparently happy lives on less than 10,000 dollars per person).
*Is more high-tech the solution to all problems? e.g., gene editing, colonies on Mars, geoengineering, fusion reactors
*Or is the encouragement of deeper thinking and feeling the solution? e.g., the sort of education favored by David Denby
I tend to agree with Nate Hagens that the only sensible place to invest your efforts is in those ‘humanistic’ solutions which lead us to reasonable lives consuming a lot less energy but using the abundant energy available from photosynthesis and passive heating of Earth.
Don Stewart
Don, I appreciate your and Rick Grimes recent postings. It’s nice to see a bit of humility about our ability to predict the future. The only thing that seems likely about the future is that we will be surprised.
On the subject of this blog, “finite world,” back in the 70s Dr. Peter Vajk dug into the mass of FORTRAN code behind Limits to Growth. He was interested in seeing what clean low cost energy would do to the model. Eventually this became a book “Doomsday has been canceled.” Pollution is much less of a problem with energy from space, and with enough energy, we can recycle everything. It’s not obvious how many people the Earth could support with lots of clean external energy, but it’s a substantial multiple over the current population.
Vajk’s book never developed the following of Limits to Growth. It is an interesting psychological/evolutionary question why doomsday memes spread so well in humans populations.
I reckon there will be no room for ivory tower ideas post BAU…. if there is anyone still around it will be a daily war to stay alive… to find enough to eat … to keep warm…. to fend off those who will be trying to take what you have….
I don’t see any children emerging as concert pianists post BAU….
Dear Finite Worlders
I want to expand a little on my previous note about the cost of running the society which uses the oil. I will use David Denby’s book ‘Lit Up’ as a reference.
Denby is describing a classroom in a poor section of New Haven, CT:
‘On May 9, two weeks after the Read Around, Miss Zelensi tried to start a class discussion of the books’ common themes. But Anika, the girl with the quickest responses in class, suddenly burst out, ‘I want to read!’ A little startled, Miss Zelenski asked how many students would rather read than talk; most of them raised their hands. That’s when the silent reading period began, and it lasted for twenty minutes; it would have lasted longer, but Miss Zelenski finally broke it off and began a discussion. The silent reading of a book they had chosen was the students’ victory, and it was hard-won. School had started in September. It was now May. It had taken eight months, five classes a week with Miss Zelenski, eighty minutes a class for the students to get to this point. At the beginning of the year, most of the class had been unwilling to read at all.’
Miss Zelenski, the teacher, has 17 years of formal education. But she says that she learned most of what she needs to know as a result of working as a cocktail waitress putting herself through college.
So the first thing I would like for you to notice is the enormous cost involved in getting these student to actually read.
Denby observes: ‘These students knew a lot about families, about love and the absence of love, about loyalty and betrayal, and a great many other things. They knew how to take care of younger children, and they were perceptive about the character of the people around them. They knew whom to trust, they knew about their neighborhoods, how to stay safe. They demanded fairness; they had a very active sense of justice—not in the legal sense, necessarily, but in all the relations of life….But many of the students lacked necessary information—facts, for want of a better word. When wars took place, how American politics worked, who were the country’s great men and women, how a bank did its business, what, exactly they had to do to get into the professions or get any kind of good job—general information about how the world worked. What they experienced every day was shaped, in part, by political and economic forces they were barely curious about. They also lacked the rich vocabulary of students who had been frequently read to when they were children, and had then developed reading habits of their own.
the students didn’t openly claim the privilege of being individuals. Mere survival came first.
the complicated tangles in these teenagers’ lives, making them strong and weak at the same time, spiraled back a generation or two.
the students came into tenth grade with an ardent and detailed belief in fairness. But the complications of morality extended the concept of fairness into a changed understanding of life. They puzzled over the fascinating pages of Ishmael Beah’s book in which he and other boy warriors had been liberated from army service by UNICEF and put into a gentle rehab facility—only to wind up hating it. The boys missed the companionship of war, the adrenaline high of live fire. It was impossible to understand such things with a simple division into right and wrong.’
Describing the teacher:
‘She wanted the students to flourish. They needed information, they needed morally informed instruction in the ways of the world. They needed to be able to read themselves and other people. She didn’t protect them or condescend to them by giving them easy assignments…combined literature and ethical inquiry.’
Now for my little essay. What the teacher is trying to do is train children to flourish in a world which has defeated their parents. Since parents are Nature’s way of imparting guidance to children, the teachers are trying to accomplish an unnatural task. And it is very costly for society. It is costly if the teachers fail, and it is costly if they succeed against the odds.
I don’t know whether one describes our current version of capitalism as ‘complex’ or just as ‘complicated’. In either case, it is hard for someone raised in a neighborhood where you just don’t go out after dark to succeed in the larger world. Contrast with a hunter-gatherer society. Children naturally learn how to survive from the daily work with their parents. Hunting with some gathering for the boys, mostly gathering for the girls. It’s not that hunting and gathering is less complicated than capitalism…one can make the argument that the hunters and gatherers know far more facts about the world than modern people. The problem is that capitalism has created an underclass which is incapable of passing the traits needed for success down to their children. So we throw money and people at the problems, with scant success in the broader scheme of things.
The chapter closes as a school superintendent, who came from Bloomberg’s operation in NYC, decides to break the three year school up into 3 one year schools. I don’t know how that turned out, but I don’t think that moving the deck chairs on the Titanic is going to make a lot of difference.
If we come back to ‘how much does it cost to run the society which can turn oil into useful products’, we get some idea why the answer is so shockingly high.
Don Stewart
We don’t live in the “real” world. We are a domesticated species. Everything we teach our children has to do with “survival” in the theme park that we’ve created for oursleves. Not much of that will remain once the illusion gives way to the real world outside these secure walls.
And if things DO go that way, kids in the new world will immediately see through any bullshit that you try to indoctrinate them with. Threir eyes will be wide open.
Just when it looked like big player oil producers might collude on reducing output to reduce supply to increase price, low and behold, the deal for now has apparently fell through.
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/oil-prices-turn-negative-as-saudi-russia-deal-disappoints-20160215-00326
‘Oil Prices Turn Negative as Saudi, Russia Deal Disappoints’
“Oil prices gave up their early gains on Tuesday, after investors expressed doubt that a preliminary agreement by four of the largest producers to steady output would ease the supply glut.
The market had been up as much as 6% after Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar agreed to freeze production at levels which are already high. But they said the deal is contingent on other producers joining, and investors and analysts doubt that will happen.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy
WTI back under $30
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=dow
Even though oil is staying low, the Dow has jumped back up to 16,196 from last week’s low of 15, 650. Today it was up +222 as some investors and corporate buybacks are buoying the market up. 16,000 pts. seems to be the psychological barrier on the way down from a high in May 2015 of 18,350. Even though China is on the ropes, Europe is stagnating and emerging market economies are contracting, the US seems to be holding steady, at least for now. Should be fun to watch as this situation unfolds.
SoftBank to repurchase up to $4.4 billion of own shares in biggest buyback
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-softbank-buyback-idUSKCN0VO0NO
The snake devours its own tale. This orgy of stock buybacks is hardly a recipe for long-term corporate success, and tanking profits suggest the game is up. This article is from October 2014:
Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index really love their shareholders. Maybe too much. They’re poised to spend $914 billion on share buybacks and dividends this year, or about 95 percent of earnings, data compiled by Bloomberg and S&P Dow Jones Indices show…
Buybacks have helped fuel one of the strongest rallies of the past 50 years as stocks with the most repurchases gained more than 300 percent since March 2009. Now, with returns slowing, investors say executives risk snuffing out the bull market unless they start ploughing money into their businesses.
“You can only go so far with financial engineering before you actually have to have a business with real growth,” Chris Bouffard, chief investment officer who oversees $9 billion at Mutual Fund Store in Overland Park, Kansas, said by phone on Oct. 2. “Companies have done about all that they can in terms of maximizing the ability to do those buybacks.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-06/s-p-500-companies-spend-almost-all-profits-on-buybacks-payouts
Apple – IBM buybacks…. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-16/buybacks-must-continue-aapl-ibm-unveil-major-debt-issuance-fund-shareholder-friendli
Dear Finite Worlders
I would like to comment on the charge that mentioning ‘thermodynamics’ in the same sentence with ‘economics’ is a sure sign of sorcery, rather than science.
Let’s start with some numbers that Peter Donovan of the Soil Carbon Coalition put together.
7 Generations of Sunlight
Power in terms of watts per square meter of Earth’s surface, averaged over a full year, day and night, all latitudes, and all seasons.
340 w/m2…reflection, atmospheric absorption, transmission to surface
160 w/m2…surface absorption…producing wind and currents
80 w/m2…evaporation of water… producing soil moisture, erosion, and deposition
0.25 w/m2…photosynthesis…producing carbohydrates, biomass
0.22 w/m2…respiration…producing behavior and cognition in all organisms
0.0002 w/m2…knowing that we know… producing language and beliefs
0.000001 w/m2…awareness of how we know…which can free us to shift our beliefs and behaviors
The fact that we do know that we know, and we are aware of how we know should make us wary of fundamentalist interpretations of genetics and of strict application of thermodynamics to economic and social systems.
For example, in David Denby’s excursions into the tenth grade schools, and particularly the ‘challenging’ teacher in Manhattan, he finds the students asked to grapple with issues that he suspects they simply haven’t lived long enough to really understand. He is not complaining that the teacher is making a pedagogical mistake (the teacher’s results speak for themselves), but he thinks that the students answers to the questions will likely change as they get more experience living.
The question Denby raises is similar to the issue about the cost of education at Duke…or more generally, how much does it cost to maintain the economy that can use the oil to make useful products?
How much does it cost the society and the parents to raise a child with the experiences which will prepare it to wisely spend the .0002 and the .000001 w/m2? If you are calculating the cost, is it simply a matter of working out the calories of food required to power the brain? Or is it a case of building what Denby calls the child’s ‘soul’? And your answers will be vastly different.
IF you think that actual living is the cost of a mature ‘soul’, then the cost in power will be much higher than what is simply required to power the brain. And that is directly analogous to the current suspicion of several people that our society simply costs too much to support our oil habit. Thermodynamics can be, I think, very useful in getting some approximations of the size of the challenge. Working out the solutions and making the changes is quite a different question. And solutions and changes are what will ultimately shape our society and economy…or fail spectacularly.
Don Stewart
I think it is not a matter of having not experienced something. If you want to make a student loan, it could be good to ask someone who has done it. So information passing to “unknowings” might save much more enegry than letting them make “the same mistakes” again. On the other hand, what youth makes different IS actually to make the same mistakes again. sigh.
The question is, the same problem might lead to diffenernt answers as time goes on So you need to ask the same questions with a fresh mind. In my youth for example startup financing did not exist. I had a very tough start get my business going…
Relax….this just reported on Blomberg
China’s stocks rallied the most in three months, led by technology and industrial companies, after data showed the nation’s banks doled out a record amount of loans in January.
The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 3.3 percent to 2,836.57 at the close, paring its decline this year to 20 percent. PetroChina Co. advanced 2.6 percent. New yuan lending jumped to 2.51 trillion yuan ($390 billion) last month, beating analyst estimates. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng China Enterprises Index extended Monday’s advance. The yuan weakened after having its biggest gain in more than a decade.
Policy makers are expected to release a package of measures to ensure economic growth is in a reasonable range this year, the Economic Information Daily reported, citing unidentified people
We are STILL in CONTROLL
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-16/china-s-stocks-rise-as-financial-oil-companies-spur-rebound
Whatever it takes
Do NOT pay attention to the detail…or the silly fellow behind the curtain
China Created More Debt In January Than The GDP Of Norway, Austria Or The UAE
Tyler Durden’s pictureSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 02/16/2016 07:58 -0500
The world let out a collective gasp of shock last night when the PBOC announced that in January, China had created an absolutely gargantuan CNY3.4 trillion in new total debt (Total Social Financing) – or about $520 billion – more than 50% higher than expected, of which CNY2.1 trillion was in the form of new loans
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-16/china-created-more-debt-january-gdp-norway-austria-or-uae
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE
“China’s stocks rallied the most in three months, led by technology and industrial companies, after data showed the nation’s banks doled out a record amount of loans in January.”
Last ditch desperate loan bonanza to juice markets to eek out as much GDP growth before accepting inevitable post debt bubble global deflation economic contraction.
I think in the end we will arrive at infinte debt, infinite concrete parking lots and infinite cars etc and with zero nature. I already claimed here that this is a necessary evolutional step to conquer the stars because people will have to live as avatars in a machine for centuries to travel long distances. Economy professors will like that.
PS:
“If a country could just print as much money as it wanted, and at the same time, preserve the external purchasing power of its currency, clearly there would be no poverty in the world…we would have all done this,”
from automatic earth / Stewart Paterson, portfolio manager at Tiburon Partners
We can all live on pixels!
The crisis is pushed off a bit further.
I can’t understand the title of this blog.
Julian Simon showed comprehensively why the Earth’s resources are effectively infinite back in the early 1980s – and he has been shown to be correct by all the later history. And yet this blog does not even seem to recognise this fact…
I hope you forgot to add the sarc tag…. because if you are serious then I am quite amazed that you even know how to type with an IQ that is surely low double digits….
What Simon claimed (from memory) is that the earth’s resources are infinite in the sense that some oil (for instance) will always be too expensive to extract. I’m not altogether sure how useful this is, but it does predict a situation which will make itself known in advance. With imagination, we may then be able to think of alternatives.
More interesting is what he demonstrated: That there is no easy way to discover when this situation is upon us because our tools (our knowledge) are insufficient.
Many have concluded correctly that shouting ‘peak oil’ etc. every decade or so is counter-productive; the boy who cried ‘wolf’. Taken together with the utter shambles of Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, this is almost certainly the case for vast swathes of people who now can’t give a damn about any of this.
A shame because of a sham.
“Julian Simon showed comprehensively why the Earth’s resources are effectively infinite back in the early 1980s”
Do you believe we can consume ever exponentially rising amounts of all resources, forever? Exponentials are kind of hard to get your mind around – 4 percent growth is no big deal, right? An easier way to visualize this is in doubling times. 72 / 4 = 18, so a sustained average of 4 percent compounding growth means doubling every 18 years.
Do you think we can consume 200 million barrels of oil per day by 2034? 400 million barrels per day by 2052? 800 million barrels per day by 2070?
How about population? Can we have 14 billion people in 2034, 28 billion in 2052, and 56 billion in 2070?
We currently use nearly 50 million square kilometers of land to grow food – can we use 400 million square kilometers of land for food production in 2070? The entire surface of the Earth is only ~510 million square kilometers for reference.
If you have a way that we can grow infinitely within the bounds of the planet Earth, please share.
Quite – one day a lot of it will be gone. But… when?
The real question is (as ever) one about the limits to our knowledge. The complexity of variables governing human society is not even remotely understood. Those in the past who have either tried to predict gloom (such as Malthus and Ehrlich; and the recent ‘financial meltdown by 2013’ blokes); or Utopia (such as Marx) have one and all shown themselves to be charlatans whose claims were frequently worse than guesswork.
The solution is: keep your nerve, avoid idle speculation about ‘peak oil’ or ‘melting ice caps’ (etc.) and press for common sense conservation/anti-pollution law whenever possible. Oh, and more railways
‘one day a lot of it will be gone’
It will never be gone — when the financial system collapses – the oil that is in the ground – will stay in the ground — forever.
hydrocarbons will never be ”gone”
our civilisation exists on the margin between the cost of extraction and the point of use
as that margin gets tighter, so our ”economic system” will slow down (its doing that already) and eventually stop.
At that point we will be unable to extract any more from the ground
Nevertheless the denial warfare will go on, until no one has the means to fight any more.
We live on the earth. The earth has a finite number of atoms, and thus of molecules. It is finite.
Number of Earth’s molecules grows each day, as meteorites hit 🙂
The Earth is continually losing atmosphere to space. Blown away by the solar wind, never to return.
When the 2nd law of thermodynamics is applied to “economics” then you know you have witnessed the birth of a pseudoscience.
Not really, energy is the thing that powers civilization. That statement is absolute, final, non-negotiable. It’s as good as an axiom. Think about energy across all dimensions, think about energy from differing points of view. If you hold a PhD you should understand that as you reason by first principles. I’m surprised you’re unable to. What do you hold a PhD in?
The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel.
The fundamental fact of energy commonality is often obscured by the use of different units to describe and measure different forms of energy. For instance, food is measured in nutritional calories; work can be measured as kilowatt-hours (kwh); and fossil fuels tend to be expressed as gallons (of gasoline or distillate fuel), barrels or tonnes (of oil), cubic feet or cubic metres (of natural gas) and tonnes (of coal). But these differing calibrations should not be allowed to disguise the fundamental commonality of all forms of energy.
As an example, if you have an ageing demographic, say Japan, where we know more people are dying than being born, meaning their population is in decline etc. We know there are less workers in the system supporting an ageing demographic. We know younger people have more energy than older people, this is basic physics. We know older people aren’t as economically active as they age, they don’t spend as much, they tend to save more, they continually suffer atrophy, both mental and physical. The phenomenon of deflation, diminishing returns, entropy, atrophy from an energy perspective makes sense. Not enough energy across all forms into any given system = lights out.
Sustainable energy in all its forms, across different dimensions, is our single greatest challenge of the 21st century.
You confirm my position.
That PhD is one in physics & math and, yes, I happen to know a thing or two about thermodynamics.
I think it iis reason by analogy. It is not meant as a one to one equality.
Ed, wrong side of bed? What’s with all the passive hostility and you feeling the need to shove titles, qualifications down one’s eyeballs?
You’re fighting with the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, David MacKay et al. Remember we’re all smart Ed or else we wouldn’t be doing the things we do in life, not that I feel the need to share that intel with you or others here. That said, I also (hope at least) I know a few things about “physics & math” as you put it, but don’t feel the need to “peacock” strutting my stuff on the catwalk in order to gain attention/respect. Would Feynman have done that? I think not, although he had little time for dumbos.
“Sustainable energy is our single greatest challenge of the 21st century” EM
“Energy is the thing that’s powered civilization” BG
I’ve had many wonderful, thought provoking discussions with the likes of say, David MacKay former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Dep’t of Energy & Climate Change. If you check out his creds they stack up and yes we’ve covered 2LOT, EROEI.
If your “position has been confirmed” then please, share that confirmation like “adults” and we can discuss, of course I might be quite wrong in my assessment of reality and it’s many interactions, I still don’t really know the world very well. In fact the deeper I go, the less sense it all makes.
Please continue to post comments here. I’d be interested to hear your take on these issues from a pure physics and math perspective and in reading the responses.
For example, since you appear to believe the connection between physics and “economics” to a tenuous one, what in your opinion would be a better way to try to understand our current predicament?
Do you think that technological innovation can overcome our current economic woes? And if so, in what way?
Ed, I wonder if you would consider going over the math and models for power satellites?
David MacKay had good things to say here:
http://withouthotair.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/solar-power-from-space.html
But the rough plan needs a lot of checking.
hkeithhenson at gmail dot com
Ya – and while you are at it perhaps you can weigh in on my Jules Verne Project – the one where we drive a pipe to the centre of the earth and tap into the extreme heat to power mega power plants.
Is that feasible?
Yes and you don’t need to drill to the center of the earth.
Whether you can finance your cunning plan to bring cheap energy to the entire world is another matter entirely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
Ya but geothermal of that nature is not very reliable — my understanding is that you can drill in one spot and it goes cold 10 years later…
If you go right to the centre of the earth you have endless heat…. and the thing is …. if you get this right you can drill from anywhere on the planet – not just where the crust is thin!
Imagine the entire earth like a big piece of swiss cheese…. pipes driven into each and every one of them….
I wonder what would happen if we sucked all of the heat out of the centre of the earth through such tubes?
We need a PeeHdee to work the models…..
You need a fossil fuel system to do all of the drilling. And then the place you drilled gets cold, so you need to drill again.
Drilling next to an active volcano is good for sustainable heat. The major problem is that no one wants to live next to an active volcano. You need to convert the output to electricity (by boiling water) and then use long distance transmission lines to where the people actually live.
Why doesn’t your name show up in Google or Linked-In then?
Another PhD physicist chiming in: While energy analysis can give us some insight, we are looking at human actions,stressed by energy issues. Venezuela has no lack of energy — just an abundance of human folly. Donald Trump is a product of a society pressured by resource issues. However we had Mussolini and others arose when we still had easy resources. .
Stored energy, plenty of stored energy, useless if not released.
Only the energy flows are meaningful.
interguru
Exactly.
After all, let’s not forget that the current ruler of Venezuela actually campaigned for election with a small stuffed bird on his shoulder, which he claimed served as a medium for the spirit of the deceased hero, Chavez. Or actually was Chavez, I could never quite make sense of the reports. I suppose one would have to ask the voters……
Fast collapse is scary? Not really, compared to human nature.
Our Lenins, Stalins, Hitlers and Maos are waiting in the wings, I am quite sure.
Hitler promised a 1000 year Reich—it lasted just 12—cos he ran out of fuel
People like Trump are promising the same thing—infinite eternal prosperity–if only we remove those responsible for the basic problems
The rhetoric correlates exactly
Let’s not forget the ever popular Pol Pot.
Of course Pol Pot…. who came to power after the US blasted a formerly peaceful country into the stone age….
Whatever it takes…. (for us to live large)
There are some exceptional participants in the educational system with talents that I never had or will have. There is a dark side of accepting the knowledge givers as masters and their download unconditionally. That unconditionality also seems to be key to success in the academic world.
Living for too long in the cush artificial world of academia really seems to produce a belief that that is indeed the world as it is. And when a truth comes along that is outside of the box it is attacked as heresay. Why is it that the same training that develops such exceptional talents also creates such close minded asses?
The system is broken down into tiny areas of knowledge. Each group puts together models of how the system works. Also, faculty are encouraged to publish a lot, and previously published work is deemed “correct.” The system is guided by financial grants, showing what kinds of outcomes governments and others would like to see. The result gets to be a lot of beliefs that are close to fairy tales that are passed on, and develop a life of their own. Political parties pick up one or another set of wrong beliefs and adopt them as the foundation of their belief system.
+++++!
Can you give us your ivory tower view on what is wrong with the theory?
Or should we all just kowtow to your PeeHDee?
And btw – I have a PeeHDee too — a PeeHDee in Doom – from the University of Doom.
Does that impress you? Does it intimidate you? Shall I pluck a hair and post it to you?
Slow down Eddy, slow down.
I can envision you up in the ivory tower… with your slide rule … furiously scribbling formulas… preparing to issue an edict….. I can’t wait!
Dr Doom has spoken!
I was both impressed and intimidated. In a good way!
Economics already was a pseudo science, so I don’t know what you are talking about.
The only Ed Zuiderwijk I find on Google seems to be a Team Leader at Castle Craig Rehab Hospital. My guess is that you have a Ph. D. in Psychology, and specialize in treating addiction problems. With such stellar credentials, it is hard to see what special expertise you might have in the physics of energy and the economy.
My guess would be here http://www.astro.uva.nl/static/research/theses/phd/ej-zuiderwijk.pdf
I’ll sell him a loan of my authentic titles for only 50 euros per piece per hour.
Jeremy,
Viscount of the Andes
Emperor of Oceania
Yeoman of the Jaguar People
Knight of the Order of the Armadillo (with Octopus Tentacles)
Keeper of the Amazonian Dream-Chambers
Aztec Minister for Astral Travel and Skull Decoration
Obersturmbannstationmaster of the Galapagos Underground
Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of Hobbits.
I think he’s genuine, prob a Theorectical Physicist and/or Astonomer, so Astrophysics. Managed to dig up some elusive Ed Zuiderwijk PhD stamped scientific lit on neutron stars from the ESO Scientific Group Geneva https://www.eso.org/sci/publications/messenger/archive/no.19-dec79/messenger-no19-18-21.pdf
Economics is a little harshly described as a ‘pseudo science’, for it does make testable predictions. One law that has never been falsified is Say’s Law: ‘No bid without offer’; and one law that has been conclusively falsified is the Marxist theory of value. No matter what ‘essence’ of labour ‘inheres’ to the product, if no-one will buy it, it’s worthless.
One of the reasons for its failure is that mainstream economics, rightly, models desire; it thus needs underpinning from Psychology and Sociology; but these enquiries are yet to even get off the launch pad. Laziness and dogma mark all social science; but none worse than Sociology
Well yes, we’ve been saying Econ101 is dismal and chaotic. No one on here that I’m aware of ever claimed it to be a science where predictable universal laws could be found? We know there are many unknown unknows and that’s how it’s going to stay in so far as we know it.
That said, we do know we’re stuffed without different forms of energy being pumped into the system. You don’t need a PhD in physics to figure that out.
This “theoretical” astrophysicist guy comes on here, trolls without giving an explanation opening up for debate.
You know that’s not how it works.
It’s funny because these similar “experts” said to the likes of Elon Musk, “forget it, you don’t have the experience to build a rocket company, get into space.” etc….
Yes, he’s done with $1 billion what NASA couldn’t do with $27 billion.
Rough quote: “Beware anyone that shoves titles and creds into your face to gain respect.” Richard Feynman
Musk is one thing that they have right though:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-09/tesla-loses-more-4000-every-car-sold
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-07/amazon-tesla-tumble-10-correction-fantasy-stocks-all-red-2016
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-21/tesla-bonfire-money-printers-vanities
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-10/tesla-releases-fresh-batch-epic-non-gaap-gobbledygook-stops-reporting-free-cash-flow
I suspect we’d find the same with respect to his space rocket plan if we looked under the hood…
I would have thought economics gets off lightly with Pseudo science. Insiders like Paul Samuelson call it “an old fashioned religion” Steve Keen describes mainstream economics as “dangerously deluded”, Kurt Cobb says these types “treat the physical world as a candy store open 24/7”
It’s reason enough to be suspicious of all mainstream classical economics.
I agree with you about sociology, but try Googling for “sociology evolutionary psychology.” Times are changing, and psychology and sociology might become a somewhat firmer base for economics.
It makes sense when you think about the various disciplines and how they’re connected.
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Psychology (one mind)
Sociology (many minds interacting)
Finance
Economy
Geopolitics
When I attempt to conduct a scientific inquiry I try to use objective observation. I feel this is one of the cornerstones of science. I feel Gail uses every effort to try to incorporate empirical observation in her technique.
If anything is pseudoscience it is the economics that has made several layers of assumptions.
The very first layer is a assumption of infinite resources but the economist are unable to use basic empirical observation to see that the basic premise of their paradigm is unsound.
When I see someone with “credentials” like your makes a sweeping generalization like yours about Gails work I find it quite repugnant. It is not only because you are unable to acknowledge truth. It is also because you betray the effectiveness of science by your statement when you are supposedly a representative of it. Lastly it shows what insane creatures humans really are and why we soon be extinct, and I find reminders of that somewhat depressing.
I understand Ed’s problem with economics. If it is science, it’s supposed to make correct predictions, and the record for economists has been a bit wide of the mark. Still, I think Gail is going in the right direction. Psychology isn’t any better, but a lot of it has improved recently with working an evolutionary viewpoint into it. Some places like the London School of Economics just abandoned Freud for EP.
Most social “science* in which economics is included, is based on unsupported theory, i.e., like much of psychology it really doesn’t have a foundation under it. That’s unlike biology which has chemistry for the fine details and evolution to wrap it together.
I think a new formulation of economics could be done based on ecology. A million years ago, the ecosystem and the economy were pretty much the same thing.
Before humans developed an absolute need for cooked food, and because of this requirement, were able to raise their replacement rate above 1.0000, I would agree with you that the ecosystem and ecology were pretty much the same thing. That break-away came a long time ago, perhaps 1 million years ago, but it could be more or less.
+1
I’m in Awe at Just How Fast Global Trade is Unraveling
China, Japan, Canada, US, even Germany — exports are in a death spiral….
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/02/15/im-in-awe-at-just-how-fast-global-trade-is-unraveling/
Things are moving quite fast: in the Spanish province where my family live they are now talking about laying off 40% of workers at the big VW plant – or take a huge pay cut. Just a month ago they were assured all jobs were totally safe and substantial new investment was on the way. Cheap workers, too.
Good luck to your family members in these hard times!
Shock and Awe may be rising as marketable commodities… again.
>>>Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe
Things aren’t going well!
Ed
Look at second section, history of ‘residency’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residency_(medicine)
Most residents lived in the hospital. They were abused then, and are still abused. It is nice to see that some traditions haven’t changed!
Don Stewart
Ed
Early history of Trinity College in Durham, NC. Later became Duke.
https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/uarchives/history/articles/durham-move
Notice that faculty and students lived on campus, despite the ‘brave new century atmosphere’.
Don Stewart
More student professor interaction sound good to me.
Carbon dioxide, CO2, is another input that plants use, besides sunlight, to meet their needs.
Right. I didn’t mention that humans need oxygen, either.
BreakingNews from Zero Hedge:
Historic 1st!
UAE offers FREE oil to India!!!
FREE haha!
Zero Sum to global war.
They’re paying for oil storage space with oil, not unlike paying dollars to store stuff in a locker. Everything has a price but it’s not free.
So nice to be back on here. I couldn’t use my computer for about 2 days because of some stupid Chinese software that had attached itself to the hard-drive. Then I got prompted by the virus protection to see if I wanted to download LionSea software, so figured that’s what was stopping me from getting on the net. Looked up that software, which is a scam, found it in programs and when i went to uninstall it informed me that company was connected to my computer and did i want to uninstall anyway – yes – gone, deleted it, then shut down the computer then rebooted. Voila, back on the net! So look out for that stupid software.
Welcome back my man! Take your cyber security serious dude. I deepscan my eyes and ears into the digital world once a month to ensure no stuxnets are on the rampage takign me out of action. It’s a war out there.
Valentine’s day wish
Check this out
http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/oil-can.gif
The Economic Collapse Blog is reporting that a military exercise in Saudi Arabia called Northern thunder involves 350000 Saudi Troops, 20,000 tanks, 2450 War Planes, 460 Helicopters and the nations of Jordan, Bahrain, Sudan, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Oman, Quatar, Malasia.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/ The empire is not going to let Syria fall to Russia and Iran quietly.
If they cross the border Russia will have to use tactical nuclear weapons. Not good.
That is a lot! Also, deflects attention away from Saudi Arabia’s other problems.
When there isn’t enough bread and circuses to keep the population happy, then it’s time for a short, victorious war.
Sad to say, but Fast Eddys NZ option looks better and better over time, but too late to jump to that wagon if not having a good pile of cash to move over and possibility to get permanent visa. However I did not see any verification about the size of the troops practising in other sources. If the size is true, then I think it would dwarf easily any NATO exercise in size I have read of.
I am not so sure about that… but if you do think NZ is the answer… check this out http://www.wwoof.co.nz/
I think you can get a 6 month working holiday… You could embed yourself with a commercial organic grower — free accom — free food — just need to help on the farm…..
Definitely dangerous times, but the numbers are totally unrealistic. Divide by ten (or more) and you might be in the right ballpark.
I only counted 22 tanks….
Yes, I actually counted them.
There was another column in the distance, so maybe another 22, and a couple of support vehicles and several tankers.
Nice targets for all the TOW missiles, the USA has already sent to different fractions in syria. They are very effective as you can see on youtube.
You can see it because the US has asked to upload a video for every usage !
Sounds like a gathering of professionals: I am sure they excel at torture and extortion, but soldiers? No. Hasn’t the Saudi campaign in the Yemen been a laughable failure?
And who sold these thugs their toys? We did.
Michael Snyder of the economic collapse blog does some good work, but his outlook is heavily influenced by his literal belief of biblical text, especially Revelation.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/the-most-important-thing
From his perspective, his purpose is to convert as many people as he can to the christian sect that he belongs to. Having studied biblical prophesy, the most profitable way to achieve this goal is to literally put the fear of god into people’s hearts on a daily basis. The threat of apocalypse is always near. Become a born again christian and you shall be saved etc etc
Just read the above link and judge for yourselves whether someone like this can be a trusted source of unbiased reporting.
Crazy…
I have a question… What do I am doing here? It seems I am the only no OECD (even if Paul Eddy has some trouble understanding it, which I’d take as a symptom)
Why is it there are no Asians, or MENA, or other kind of people talking about this kind of things? Gail, has any Japanese or Korean ever landed here and commented?
Things look different in different places. For example, take a look at this:
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/
Things that are unspeakable in western media are the official speech in Russia. Of course, I suppose this is intended to show to Russians and others that the West is not reliable generally speaking. I was very surprised when a friend recently told me he saw Keiser Report in the Argentinean state owned free broadcasting system. I see now that retransmitting RT was a part of a big deal Kirchner did with Putin half and a year ago (whose core was the supply of UO2 after the closing of the facilities we had, as I told here at that moment). The new gov is generally described as a “US puppet”, but RT is still broadcasted. Wonder what will happen
Christian, I think a big part is the fact the blog is in English. We have posters from all five of the five eyes. But it is odd no Indian posters, plenty of people English fluent there.
There was a Malaysian engineer who used to post some terrific comments here, taking issue with those who imagine a ‘pared down’ version of our current system is possible. I can’t recall his handle…
He was -or is – ‘CTG’, if I recall rightly.
Yes CTG…. it is unfortunate that he does not participate any longer….
Right Xabier,
he was talking mostly about the complexity and brittleness of the supply chains, with detailed examples for electronics.
Would’ve liked to see that input. Another strike against the BAU lite camp. Electronics just says it all. Even military hardware has components manufactured all over the world and then assembled wherever convenient, sometimes by potential enemies. Those supply chains are increasingly fragile but it applies to absolutely everything in our product saturated world.
There are a dozen comments by CTG here:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/08/06/making-sense-of-the-us-oil-story/comment-page-2/
Thanks!
“Why is it there are no Asians, or MENA, or other kind of people talking about this kind of things?”
It could be there are many people on several blogs discussing this, just not in English. Gail has previously gone to China to talk. Her articles are re-posted on several other websites, so lots of discussions happen elsewhere. Lots of people probably just don’t comment. There are probably quite a few offline groups discussing these types of issues. I mean, by this point, quite a few people are familiar with the overall ideas of peak oil and limits to growth.
They may be watching but not commenting because they don’t feel confident enough with the language….
Gong hei fat choy Chinese people if you are here….
There is a Spanish Facebook group that often discusses my posts in Spanish. There are translations of my posts into several different languages as well.
I hear on radio that many Norwegian teenagers get better grades in written English than in Norwegian, especially those adicted to online video games. So probably Norwegian is a too small language to survive in the long run.
It depends which direction we go. As long as there is a trend toward globalization, small languages of countries that are well plugged in to the globalized network will tend to disappear.
Once globalization fails, and in fact, local transportation is only by foot or using animals, then the trend will be toward more local languages and dialects, I expect.
Always found a little puzzling that there is apparently no Asian or African fellows comemnting here. I guesstimate some 61,51% people commenting on OFW are from english-speaking countries, 37,49 % are non-british europeans, and 1% latin americans.
In respect to non-english speaking europeans, it’s also strange that we have mostly people from France, Spain, Scandinavia plus three or four central-east european countries. Where are the italians, for example, or the dutch, the greek, etc? Dumbfounding, i think. Well, in any case, it doesnt matter.
Perhaps the English speaking participants are the only people with enough leisure time to join the discussion whilst everyone else is simply working their arses off just to keep their heads above the water?
Good answers, thanks. I recall CTG, and MG is from Slowakia (still European)
JMS’s guesstimate looks somewhat accurate. But Alaska is wrong, people here tend to have more free time than firstworlders. So many people speak english now, while it is obviously easier if it is your mother tongue it doens’t fix the question. Gail, I know the spanish blog you refer to, it’s Turiel’s. It’s good, I’d say OFW and he’s are far away the best two blogs on the matter in the whole world.
I only speak english, spanish and french, but it doesn’t really seems to be any important site in other languages, despite Gail is translated. Even in german, japanese, russian or chinese. It still puzzles me to some extent
Perhaps Russians tend to think the State will someway take care (as much as possible), given the issue is officialy not denied and land is given to people for free.
Chinese could rather tend to not think at all…
All Germans speak english, but perhaps they tend to be underrepresented here
Japanese?
And perhaps it is not surprising Arab is not used to blog on this issues, given they have a special stand regarding oil
If commenters speak English well, we may not have any idea where they are from.
I know that female commenters often disguise the fact the fact that they are female. Foreigners may not want to emphasize the situation either.
“I know that female commenters often disguise the fact the fact that they are female”.
I could never imagine such a thing, because you are a woman yourself
Women often choose names that do not have a sex to them.
I discovered that quite a few foreign readers think I am male. The name Gail is not a common name, and can be used by either sex. Thee are enough photos around of me to clarify the matter.
China Exports Drop in January as Trade Surplus Swells to Record
Exports drop 11.2%, imports fall 18.8%, leaving record surplus
A slide in China’s exports in January was eclipsed by an even bigger tumble in imports, leaving a record trade surplus for the world’s biggest trading nation.
Overseas shipments declined 11.2 percent in January in U.S. dollar terms from a year earlier, the customs administration said on Monday, compared with a 1.4 percent drop in December. Imports extended a stretch of declines to 15 months, tumbling 18.8 percent, leaving a record trade surplus of $63.3 billion.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-15/china-s-exports-drop-in-january-as-challenges-flow-into-new-year
Building an Autobahn for Bicycles
, Germany opened the first three miles of what will soon become a 62-mile bicycle highway that will connect 10 cities along the western part of the country. Unlike traditional bike lanes that are either on the same road as car traffic or adjacent to it, the new bike highway in the Ruhr region will be 13 feet wide, include passing lanes for cyclists of all speeds and will cross major roads by underpass or overpass.
One of the biggest questions with any new bike infrastructure project is whether it will get regular use. In the case of the Ruhr region’s route, all signs point to “yes.” The route passes within 1.2 miles of nearly 2 million local residents, which could take as many as 50,000 cars off the road every day, according to a study from regional development group RVR.
And this could be just the beginning for similar “bike autobahns” in Germany. Frankfurt has approved plans for a 19-mile path south to Darmstadt, and Munich has approved a 9-mile route into the northern suburbs. Additionally, both Nuremberg and Berlin have launched feasibility studies to assess the practicality of building dedicated bike highways to link surrounding suburbs.
The Netherlands is also famous for its cyclist-friendly infrastructure, where an estimated 31 percent of all travel happens by bike. Their roads are some of the most bike-accessible of any nation in the world, with traffic lights that are timed according to the pace of bike traffic, as well as bike highways connecting much of the country
https://blueprint.cbre.com/building-an-autobahn-for-bicycles/?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral
When peddle power is the means of transportation
Where will the calories come from to fuel the biological motors?
Ahhh, there is always a catch….maybe those refugees will provide ricksaw trips for some rice and beans…just a thought.
All that pedalling will be charging banks of car batteries after your local electrician has rigged up racks of pedal powered generating stations made from old bikes. Pedalers receive credits for hours pedaled and are revered as valuable members of the community.
Japan GDP drops 1.4% in fourth quarter
Latest blow to Abenomics shows consumers still reluctant to spend
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e9ba29a0-d37c-11e5-829b-8564e7528e54.html
Hyperinflation is not imminent … collapse however is….
Dear Finite Worlders
I am always interested when somebody expresses a truth with incisive and memorable language. I found the following in Albert Bates blog today:
‘In his documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore observed that during the Bush Recession when the auto industry laid off much of its workforce and shut down most of its lines, it wasn’t because it could not make and sell cars. It was because the Bank of America would no longer loan it money to upgrade its production lines. Mexico is able to extend the illusion of development only as long as someone loans it money. The same is true of the United States.
What if the banks would or could no longer loan money? That day may be nearer than most economists believe, but then, predictions of peaks, or a systemic crash, are a risky proposition.’
The unwillingness to loan money is an explanation I had not previously thought of as a cause of Seneca Cliffs. While stripper wells are probably financed by cash flows, big operations are financed by loans. If the loans dry up, then everything changes very rapidly. The US automobile industry collapsed very quickly in 2009 as credit disappeared…until the government stepped in. Is it likely that Wall Street will stop the flow of money to the oil companies? How quickly could that bring BAU to a halt? It’s hard to say, since the dominant paradigm is still Keynesian and Economics 101 with supply and demand curves and elasticities and such. Very few people want to think about systemic issues, such as thermodynamic tipping points for oil, or Limits to Growth for the broader economy.
I have lunch once in a while with a guy who sells insurance. He has known for at least 10 years that I believe that insurance company promises won’t be fulfilled. If the subject veers in an uncomfortable direction, he covers his ears. He tells me ‘If I listened to you, I couldn’t do my job’ (which is selling ‘guarantees’ of future income). As Albert says, predictions that the public is going to suddenly wake up are hazardous.
Don Stewart
‘What if the banks would or could no longer loan money?’
Or what if all the entities borrowing money are insolvent… as is happening in Italy…. this is truly insane….
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/02/14/italys-banking-crisis-spirals-elegantly-out-of-control/
‘Whatever it takes…..’ at some point won’t be enough
As I read this article the Central bank is continuing to buy up bad loans so that the can continue to issue new ones. There seems to be no end to this process. The end game is that the world economy continues to contract in spite of whatever insanity the Central banks involve themselves with.
If Shanghai closes down Monday it means the central bank cartel has lost control
. Rainy days up here on the west coast of Canada and too early to get going in the garden but plenty of time to do some thinking: There was two captains, one was taught and prepared for any disaster and he trained for it regularly the other captain had little or no emergency training and what ever he was taught certainly wasn’t part of his recurrent training. As you might expect the highly prepared captain performed brilliantly when confronted with disaster and is now a national hero and his movie is due out shortly. The other captain was not only unprepared but actually caused his disaster and is now one of most reviled citizens of Europe! I’m referring to Captain Sullenberger the pilot who dead sticked his Airbus onto the Hudson river so skillfully that everyone survived and captain Schttino who ploughed his ship the Costa Concordia onto the rocks in Italy. If ever evidence is needed that being prepared and trained in emergencies I think these two are good an example as any. From my own flying experience when I encountered my first and only engine failure itwas first cognitive dissonance cuts in ” this isn’t really happening” and if that last more than a few seconds your doomed but training kicks in and you become robotic (and highly focused) and save the day. I expect the same thing will happen when TSHTF. My suggestion is to have a check list just like a pilot so you can act methodically and give you and your family it’s best chance
jarvis,
Yes, you are right. I, too, have had an engine failure while flying and acted both automatically and with great focus to resolve the issue. The only reason I survived is that my training allowed me to overcome my cognitive dissonance. However, there is no replacement for checklists in any human endeavor under stress. That is why the most professional of pilots all use checklists even though they are highly skilled, highly trained and confident people. Human error makes fools of us all from time to time. Use your checklist during the apocalypse and you’ll do better than without it!
Jarvis
Exactly and well, put those two cases say it all: while even the best people can be overwhelmed by circumstances, there is no excuse for not preparing for eventualities in a professional and logical manner. This also brings peace of mind, to some extent.
Not only check-lists and routines, but adaptability.
A friend of mine was training Gurkhas in Norway when he was in British special forces:
‘Today, we’ll do ‘Controlled Ice Descent’. And over the edge he went, but he messed up and hurtled to the bottom in a far from impressive manner.
But not at a loss, he immediately shouted up to them:
‘Right: ‘Ice Rescue’! And the men swung into action.
As they say, “Fortune favors the prepared!”
I like the very last Roddier’s slide on Earth energy potential, this night/day, cold/hot potential is what is there for people to utilize, in fact many are doing it already as we speak. This current version of civilizations went nuts thinking it can or must for some crazy reason do it better/faster/sooner, well looking around that mess that didn’t pan out, hopefully at some future inning people will finally get it more or less right..
Gail are you familiar with Tim Garrett – you have very similar thermodynamic models – hear this interview from last week. http://kkrn.org/broadcasts/1220
Thanks for the link. I have corresponded with from time to time. His job is as a climate scientist, so he tends to believe that we will burn all of our fossil fuels before we “run out.” So, to date, we have thought very differently.
The blurb says,
So this is more “Climate change will kill us” stuff, based on the belief that all fossil fuels everywhere (or perhaps only nearly all) will eventually be burned. Perhaps I should send him a link to my current article.
As you and some of the commenters here know, it’s the cheap oil that is going away. There may always be expensive-to-extract-and-refine oil on this planet, but our future civilization will no longer be able afford to produce it. Right now, we are awash in formerly expensive to extract oil that was bought with a credit card on the future (promises made) that cannot be paid off. Now the banks are wise, so are no longer extending credit, at least as much as before. That could lead to more expensive oil prices if the demand was not already reciding in step with a decrease in supply . Only time will tell.
Indeed if you search for that book on Google — you will get literally hundreds of articles that contain the words fraud, forgery, etc…. (forgery is actually not an ideal word to use to discredit something as it implies the document was copied of an original that is authentic…)
What does Don Draper say to do when you have been exposed….
Deny Deny Deny……Deny, Deny, Deny, Deny, Deny….. Deny some more…. keep Denying….
What’s the axiom about lying? Tell the lie enough times and people will believe you…..
When you control the MSM it is actually quite simple to get the entire world to believe just about any lie….
Remember WMD and Iraq? Did you believe Iraq had WMD? I did not — but I’d say that 99% of the people I know believed that lie….. and they thought I was nuts when I questioned the narrative…
I am questioning the narrative again now — and you are suggesting I am a crack pot.
How amusing. It’s to be expected…. 🙂
I’ve made my case – it’s as air tight as it can be without someone from the group that runs the world appearing on 60 Minutes and explaining what I have just explained to you.
Well actually they have already done that:
“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, … The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.” Nathan Rothschild
Feel free to bumble along in ignorance.
@Fast Eddy
“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, … The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.” Nathan Rothschild
That fact of that supposed “quotation” cannot be substantiated. In any case, what person with hidden power would want to expose their hidden power – or motives. It’s ridiculous! Did George Dubya say, after 9/11, “I go to the Middle East because I am a Machiavellian and there’s where the great prize – oil – is to be found!” ? No – he claimed he was protecting democracy against terrorists.
“I’ve made my case – it’s as air tight as it can be without someone from the group that runs the world appearing on 60 Minutes and explaining what I have just explained to you.”
No, you haven’t – this one group you call “the Elders” is not a cohesive unit at all. Even the Bilderberg group isn’t impressive enough to claim that title. The clear fact is that your phraseology in this case is taken from anti-semitic texts, beloved of reactionary Russians and later of the Nazis. So you are tainted by association. Not everything you say is wrong – but you have this tick about “the Elders” which is a myth and a K-0-n-S piracy theory. You do speak some truth but not in this case. On this issue you have the braggadocio of the dilettante. At times, you are what we in the North of England call a “gobsh1te” – an entertaining one for all that, but a gobsh1te.
“Feel free to bumble along in ignorance.”
Now there you speak of yourself. I have dissected your nonsense, but still you prevaricate with your empty phrases.
Here’s a link by Matt Mushalik. Go to the link to see the graphs, with the summary below:
http://crudeoilpeak.info/world-outside-us-and-canada-doesnt-produce-more-crude-oil-than-in-2005
Summary and conclusion:
Outside the US and Canada, the world is in peak oil mode for more than 10 years now. There are many events which have brought about this bumpy production plateau. The sequence of these events has never allowed oil production to grow much over a longer time. We have seen the predicted negative feedback loops when oil production gets harder and more expensive. The end result of this phase is a weakened financial system with more debt and many government budgets in deficit.
The response to peaking conventional oil production was money printing and unconventional oil. In typical US style huge amounts of material, equipment and labour were mobilised to extract shale oil from tight rocks, a last resort after US production had declined since 1970. Skilfully designed propaganda of the oil industry employed the media to spread the news of an energy revolution. The objective of becoming independent of oil imports and thus beat OPEC excited the whole US nation. But it was overdone. The light shale oil – not your average crude oil – could not all be absorbed by US refineries and ended up in inventories. In a strange way, market forces did not work.
Later than expected US shale oil is peaking now. The latest case is the Chesapeake stock slump. If oil prices stay low for a longer time, oil production will ultimately go down and 2015/16 may be the global peak. Price spikes will be certain, further damaging the financial system. And then we have the Middle East. The sinkhole around Syria is widening month by month. There is no way a revived US shale oil industry could compensate for any losses when fights start in the Persian Gulf.
that’s the point I’ve been banging on about for years now, the Persian gulf is the world oil spigot. Once fighting starts there in earnest, I mean full on war between states, then the global economy goes into a tailspin.
The bottom line is that the USA uses around 18mbd, but produces only 10Mbd
E of M, regarding fighting in the Persian Gulf in earnest, now Turkey is shelling into Syria and the Saudi’s seem poinsed to get involved. Seems as though Syria has become ground zero for settling long held simmering differences in the Middle East. Much of the place looks like Stalingrad 1942 with many of their citizens either been killed or have exit stage left via Greece, so I suppose if they have to go at it, it’s as good a place as any. For the Saudi’s sake and everybody else’s I hope Ras Tanura doesn’t get targeted as retribution for involvement in Syria.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-14/road-world-war-iii-turkey-shells-syria-second-day-saudi-warplanes-arrive
The USA Saudi Israel Turkey alliance can not allow A Russian, Iran, Hezbollah victory and subsequent strength in Syria. This would be the end of the alliances hegemony. Nor can Russia, Iran, Hezbollah allow the aforementioned alliance to take the last piece in the ME , Syria. It would spell the start of continued isolation and ultimately their end.
While the commentators over at ZH would have you believe that Putin has the “high moral ground” the truth is their is no high moral ground. Our species does not posses morals. What mothers fattened by free energy admonish their children ‘you must learn to share” has never been been given the effort it takes to spit by adults. All we are is force.
This is inevitable because resources are finite and we possess no morals. This is a fight for survival over remaining resources. Many here have said that nuclear weapons will not be used because it doesn’t benefit anyone. It is perhaps true. If NATO comes into it, they can take Syria and perhaps Russia will show the maturity to take a licking and not pull a knife.
Make no mistake however what is at stake is survival. When you fight for survival if someones got a knife usually it gets deployed. I see the probability of nukes and all the secret weapon technology that we don’t know about being deployed as quite high.
‘While the commentators over at ZH would have you believe that Putin has the “high moral ground” the truth is their is no high moral ground. Our species does not posses morals. What mothers fattened by free energy admonish their children ‘you must learn to share” has never been been given the effort it takes to spit by adults. All we are is force.’
Absolutely 100% correct.
Our wonderful Koombaya world is built upon the murder and pillaging of the weak —- and if we were to try to share with the weak (beyond the token change into the Unicef box at the check out) then that would put us in a position of weakness and we’d be quickly in the have-not camp.
Putin is on no moral high ground – he is looking after his team’s interests — if he were to crush Team Elders — does anyone think that their life would improve — does anyone think the world would suddenly be a kinder gentler place?
No goddamn way.
Its hard to understand how Syria has ended up being so important. They don’t really have oil except that they seemed to be a conduit for oil to be extracted from the Middle East. I would probably argue that Russia does have the moral high ground, because their motive is to protect Assad and the Syrian nation state. The U.S. Turkey, Saudis, and Israel have no other motive than to destroy nation states and populations in the Middle East and create conduits to extract oil. Because the west is still so powerful they will turn Syria into another Libya/Iraq. In the long term it is just one more step in the collapse of the industrial world. Saudi Arabia has been at the center of the Petro Dollar system for a long time and they still have a great deal of power, although their weapons come from us.
A key member of the western alliance got their ass kicked by Hezbollah in 2000 and 2006. This is intolerable to the western alliance. Syria is the conduit through which all of the resources Hezbollah need to survive flow.
This is what the conflict is about and everyone realizes it would have been better to let sleeping dogs lie but the gate was open and the cow is out now. If Russia/Iran/Hezbollah keep Assad in power by fighting together as allies you can bet your bottom dollar that Hezbollah will have some real top notch arms in the future. With todays weapons technology it doesnt take a very big or expensive unit to put ordnance on target when its only a couple 100 kilometers away. These wont be the joke improvised bottle rockets that have been launched out of the west bank. Another intolerable fact is that Assads men are mostly Sunni while Hezbollah is Shia and they are fighting side by side against the Saudi Turkish supplied Jihadist. The Sunni Shia conflict is key to further creation of chaos and a power vacuum intended to be filled by as FE puts it “team elders”. Sunni Shia fighting together against team elders is very very worrisome, it is another factor why the west cant back down. On the other side Hezbollah knows they are toast if their link to Iran is cut. Russia and Iran know they are isolated if this link is cut. They dont need a crystal ball to know that they will get picked off sooner or later if they are isolated.r. RusIraHez cant back down eithor. Ultimately that little nation to the south of Lebanon will win any regional conflict with over 1000 nuclear weapons and excellent delivery capability but its a real bitch using nukes that close to where you live.
Both teams with their backs up against the wall and the two minute warning has sounded.
These reasons are why the conflict was initiated in the first place. It has nothing to do with whats good for “the people” or morals. Our species while giving lip service to the idea of morals has always just used force in their actions. Force against other species,our own species and the environment. Our actions have always been force regardless of what philosophical dreams are floating thorough our heads.
“They don’t really have oil except that they seemed to be a conduit for oil to be extracted from the Middle East.”
While there are likely other side reasons, the primary is likely natural gas. Right now, Europe is dependent on natural gas from Russia. The Middle East would profit at Russia’s expense if a natural gas pipeline connected their gas to Europe. America’s benefit seems to primarily be weakening Russia.
Oil has no problem being moved by tankers through the Suez Canal, since it is already a liquid at ambient temperature.
If you look at this web page, the US’s total production is about 15 million barrels per day, and its consumption has recently been a little over 19 million a day, suggesting net imports of a little over 4 million barrels per day.
Net imports can be found on this sheet. The have been falling rapidly. Even 2015 is down from 2014.
“If you look at this web page, the US’s total production is about 15 million barrels per day,”
If you include Canada’s production as part of American production.
“and its consumption has recently been a little over 19 million a day, suggesting net imports of a little over 4 million barrels per day.”
If you don’t count Canada’s consumption as America’s.
America produces closer to 11 or 11.5 million and consumes around 19 million. Canada produces around 4 million and consumes around 2.4 million. Together, they produce around 15 million and consume around 21.5 million, for a net shortfall of 6.5 million.
There are various definitions of oil and petroleum products. “Crude oil” is the narrowest one. The 19 million barrels a day of “consumption” uses the broadest definition. It includes crude oil, condensate, natural gas liquids, and “refinery expansion” (which is not worth much, in a sense, but does go into consumption). Look at the links I gave you. I was not including Canada.
On secret–don’t use “barrels” to compare imports and exports. Barrels are a volume measure. You want a heat measure, like British thermal units.
Volume measures of coal are a problem as well. Use heat measures instead.
Wow for some reason it did not scroll correctly. Sorry. That is a massive gain in American domestic production. Closer to 22.5 million production including Bermuda and Mexico. No wonder prices are diving so hard.
No wonder that Saudi Arabia doesn’t think that they should fix the problem we started.
Ed
Relative to previous discussion about fast vs. slow collapse. Here is Rockman at Peak Oil…Don Stewart
The big and old heritage fields still produce for two reasons. First the obvious: they have a huge volume of residual oil reserves…hundreds of billions of bbls. That’s because they contained trillions of bbls originally. Recoveries vary greatly… 10% to 60%+.
Second, they can produce that residual rather cheaply…as little as a few $’s per bbl. But do so much slower then originally. Like producing 1,000 bopd and no water but today producing 1,000 bbls of FLUID per day but with 98% water. IOW 20 bopd and 980 bwpd. But there are many thousands of those wells. Yes: US shale wells came on at many hundreds of bopd. None the less the AVERAGE US oil well TODAY produces less the 20 bopd.
So in the US we have hundreds of thousands of old wells producing millions of bopd very cheaply at a rather slow rate and depleting very slowly. Long after all of those 1,000+ bopd shale wells are plugged and abandoned and after all those Deep Water GOM fields that came on at 200,000 bopd are abandoned there will still be thousands of very old wells making 10 bopd or less.
Provided we can keep the system going. Provided the truck can pull up every week and collect those barrels. Provided a refinery is available to refine the oil, and has electricity 24/7 so it can operate. Provided grocery stores are open, and all the other things we expect to keep operating, so the owners can take the steps they need to keep the system going, like order replacement parts. Provided banks keep operating. And so forth. As long as BAU exists, these wells–and quite a few other wells–can keep operating. The problem is keeping BAU operating.
Dear Finite Worlders
I want to add one more thought on 10th graders and technological addiction and learning to stand on your own two feet…the goal of the first class that Denby observes.
At the close of his talk in Hawaii, Nate Hagens answers some questions. One is ‘Can these college freshmen really understand all this?’. Nate responds that all of the students understand. Then he adds that ‘whether they will be able to weave for themselves a coherent life in light of what they intellectually know remains to be seen’. You will find that same concern laying, sometimes dormant, in Denby’s book.
OK, now that these 10th graders have been given a glimpse into The Brave New World, how will they react? Fortunes can be made by surfing the waves of delusion skillfully…how did the Kardashians get so rich? Being a ‘real’ human is going against the grain, and may pay as poorly in dollar bills as Bill Dow’s market garden. Can a person find the satisfactions that Bill found in ‘doing the right thing’?
These are profound questions, and how the college freshmen and 10th graders will deal with them remains to be seen.
Don Stewart
Don, Have these youngsters read George Orwell’s riveting account of his depression travels in his book “Down and Out in London and Paris”. Hard times equal strange days.
Vince the Prince
Down and Out is not part of the required reading.
The goal is NOT to prepare the kids for an economic crash, although the teenagers are probably very much in tune with that issue. Denby comments that all of them seem to see the world as a darkly competitive place where there are many applicants for each job. Denby thinks that the sense of optimism which might have permeated a high school in 2005 is now gone. Also, the interest in politics is very low…apparently because they think nothing will change regardless of who is elected.
I have not finished reading the book. In Mamaroneck, NY, which has a fancy campus for its high school, with mansions bordering Long Island Sound, the effort is simply to get the kids to read. Studies show that only a third of the kids read the assigned books, instead relying on internet summaries. So the Mamaroneck school takes measures to foster reading at whatever maturity level the kids are at…from dystopian to romance to serious history to social analysis and everything in between.
The New York City magnet school is very much driven by the teacher, who is trying to get the kids to read books he chooses in order to develop mature abilities to dissect situations and not be excessively swayed by crowds. So he foments discussion by challenging them…why did you say what you just said? do you have any evidence that you are right? where does it say that in the book? etc.
Two very different approaches. My sense is that the schools are somewhat at a loss to really understand what to do under the onslaught of a shallow society, which does not encourage independent thought and certainly does not encourage critical thinking.
The girls in the NYC class are critical of the exclusion of female authors. The teacher, in private conversation with Denby, says that he is aware of the problem, but then ticks off his reasons why he has done what he has. For example, assigning Kate Chopin gets into female sexuality, which is a taboo topic for many parents. Apparently it’s fine to have violent books, just not books that hint around that women enjoy having orgasms. I don’t think it would bother the kids at all, but maybe the parents would cause trouble?
My daughter, who is 40 and sees patients, says that there are a couple of underlying problems. First, the nuclear family has just disintegrated. She saw a patient yesterday who is distraught because she is divorcing her husband and has three children which she thinks she cannot raise alone. Second, the pressure on kids is extraordinary. Part of that derives from the increased bureaucratic dominance of education, and partly from the understanding the kids have of the poor state of the economy.
One of the girls in the Manhattan school works three separate jobs, besides going to 10th grade. And here is a teacher poking and prodding her to come to a deep understanding of The Scarlet Letter.
My daughter thinks that these classic works are too separated from the actual lives of the kids. They spend too much time trying to figure out the twisted sexual mores of the Puritans…which the kids see as museum items with little relevance to themselves.
I have been mulling over a different approach, involving Complex Systems as the analytical device. But that idea is not ready for the light of day, yet.
Don Stewart
Don, thank you for the detail explanation and set me right It is a shame that this title is not on their list, for it is of high value in the psychological aspect of what they will no doubt expect. Orwell was a prolific writer and essayist. I recommend reading his short story of his Burmese Imperial service for the British empire. “Shooting an Elephant”,
In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people — the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter.
…And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant….
der men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.
Those that wish can read the whole version here
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/elephant/english/e_eleph
Thanks for sharing this. You are blessedly self reflective.
Vince the Prince
New York City public schools are 12 percent white, 40 percent hispanic, 32 percent African-American, and 16 percent Asian.
The Beacon magnet school that Denby studies is 52 percent white, 24 percent hispanic, 16 percent African-American, and 5 percent Asian.
Quite a few of the children are a mixture of these categories. For example, one of the girls father is Puerto Rican and her mother is Dutch. But the mother and father no longer live together.
I have no idea whether the passage you cite is helpful, incendiary, or irrelevant to the kids. My suspicion is that many of the texts that we used to think were important are just not relevant any more. The girl with the Puerto Rican father and Dutch mother, neither of whom are particularly available to her, and her mother thinks school is a waste of time, and she is overweight, and she works three jobs besides going to school, and some of the kids in the lunch room make fun of her…what do you think is most relevant to her?
Don Stewart
Matthieu Auzanneau (OilMan) has a new post talking about 2015 being the year of peak-oil and reaching the physical limits of growth:
http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2016/02/11/2015-risque-detre-lannee-du-pic-petrolieret-des-limites-physiques-de-la-croissance/
At the end of it, he shows graphs by Jean Laherrère about the strong -and seemingly reinforcing- correlation between the price of the barrel and the (inverted) value of the dollar vs other currencies:
http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/files/2016/02/laherrere-dollar-inverse-WTI.png
Beyond the correlation, which in itself must have a profound meaning, arises the question of causality: which one is leading the other, or is it yet another parameter?
Stefeun
Hill’s model is frequently criticized by some people because it doesn’t use ‘inflation adjusted’ historical data. Hill responds in several ways:
*The inflation adjustment can be manipulated by the governments.
*The correlation coefficients are better with unadjusted data.
*Therefore, the conversion to dollars should be at the conclusion, not the beginning.
I am not sure, but it looks to me like the graphs you display are the unadjusted for inflation numbers. I think they are better for diagnostic purposes.
Don Stewart
Don,
I found the Laherrère paper where the charts are from, see p.29 (sorry it’s in French):
http://www.clubdenice.eu/2015/Jean_LAHERRERE.pdf
He doesn’t precise if it’s inflation adjusted but I don’t think so, and don’t see why, as the USD is valuated “against major currencies”.
Laherrère doesn’t tell much about this correlation, except it would have begun in 2003 (why??).
If the majority of oil buyer are outside the dollar zone and the price of oil stays constant then when the value of the dollar goes up the number of dollars needed to buy a barrel of oil goes down. This seem like nothing more than the changing value of the dollar.
The total dollars the Saudis are collecting is changing a lot, even though their barrels exported are not changing much at all. You don’t need much of a drop in demand to reduce prices by a lot.
Its called the Petro Dollar. All other currencies fail first and then the dollar fails. Steve Ludlum has been teaching on this for some time. Debt is issued in dollars. The dollar is only worth what it is because it is tied to the dollar. When the value of oil reaches zero, so does the dollar.
Correction; the dollar is only worth what it is because it is tied to oil, obviously.
The dollar is only worth what it is because it is tied to oil. When the value of oil reaches zero, so does the dollar.
And when that day arrives
For, when you are
approaching poverty, you make one discovery which outweighs some of the
others. You discover boredom and mean complications and the beginnings of
hunger, but you also discover the great redeeming feature of poverty: the
fact that it annihilates the future. Within certain limits, it is actually
true that the less money you have, the less you worry. When you have a
hundred francs in the world you are liable to the most craven panics. When
you have only three francs you are quite indifferent; for three francs will
feed you till tomorrow, and you cannot think further than that. You are
bored, but you are not afraid. You think vaguely, ‘I shall be starving in a
day or two–shocking, isn’t it?’ And then the mind wanders to other
topics. A bread and margarine diet does, to some extent, provide its own
anodyne.
And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I
believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling
of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down
and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs–and well, here
are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off
a lot of anxiety,
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100171.txt
From George Orwell, “Down and Out in London and Paris”
Online in the link above…recommended reading for us all because we are reaching poverty ever so slowly….best be prepared psychological for it as well.
When Orwell was very ill in Paris, in a public hospital as a pauper, the treatment he received was more or less unchanged from that prescribed in the 17th century: not at all pleasant.
Even in the 18th century, English doctors thought the French physicians brutal and callous in their treatments, although the hospitals were remarkably clean even then.
This goes beyond poverty — to starvation, suffering …. death will be most welcome…. a relief…
Fast Eddy, Hope you are keeping a journal yourself, and perhaps edit it somehow to a coherent readable story. It may be of value to the survivors.
Oh, BTW, xabier, yes that was a gruesome episode of his book and he, himself, was aghast at the British system of handling those that were jobless and on the dole.
Pointless moving place to place for meals and such in a derogatory fashion. They easily could have provided a means to be productive, such as, food growing.
Seems men, at least, in England found a close shave a necessity, even when down and out.
Hope I do not revisit those time myself, but you never know. There was a rich fellow on TVee that actually today goes hoboing for months on end. For some reason seems to enjoy the life.
Here is another example
http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsiehs-home-in-a-trailer-park-2015-7
A retail CEO worth $840 million lives in a Las Vegas trailer park
Says feeds his creativity.
Here’s Charles Hugh Smith’s version of collapse;
http://rielpolitik.com/2016/02/15/das-kapital-the-opaque-process-of-collapse-by-charles-hugh-smith/
In my view, Charles Hugh Smith just doesn’t understand how different the current situation is from prior situations. He probably doesn’t understand very much of the current situation either. Hr needs to read some of David Korowicz’s books, in my opinion.
Yes – this is the go to document re what collapse looks like http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
Actually I prefer the term Implosion.
Charles is like Stockman and Roberts and Zero Hedge and Wolfstreet very good at identifying the symptoms…. but none of them understand the disease.
And because they do not understand the disease they are unable to understand what the outcome will be.
I wasn’t suggesting he’s on the money, just adding his name to the doomsters like we are here.
I don’t think it will let go at once. There may be a succession of Seneca cliffs, each one adding to the mess.
He’s not very specific….. and he won’t be … because he is one of those who likes to leave people with a bit of hopium so they keep coming back.
Gail on the other hand does not offer hopium – but nor does she spell out what the end looks like — some very effective fence sitting
But I suspect that her thinking is in line with those of us in the collapse camp (rather than the fade camp) with the end result being famine, disease, deprivation, violence and horrific suffering…. and possible extinction
That’s pretty much the only outcome when you have a massive population overshoot that depends on oil to survive — and the oil is going to stop flowing.
You’d really have to draw long and hard on the Hopium Pipe to believe this is not what is in store for us
Thanks for pointing this out. I know I had observed earlier that the end of QE was associated with falling oil prices. The end of QE was also associated with a rising dollar. It therefore made the price for oil relatively more expensive in the countries whose currencies were falling, so we would expect some of the correlation we are getting.
I would point out a couple of things:
1. The issue we are dealing with is a many commodity prices falling, at somewhat the same time. So we be seeing some of the same phenomenon, even when commodities are not priced in dollars. Part of the problem may be that China’s yuan has tended to follow the dollar closely. It may need to be lower, and that may be part of the problem as well. Part of what we may be seeing is the low demand for Chinese goods, because of the high yuan. This tends to happen at the same time as the high dollar.
2. Jean Laherrère zero-bases oil prices, but not US dollar relativities to currencies. Thus, he can pick fits that look very good, especially recently. But the amount of the dollar relativity changes might be quite small, compared to the magnitude of the price fluctuations. To some extent this effect is to be expected–even a small increase in demand can cause commodity prices to soar, and even a small drop in demand can cause a big drop in commodity prices. We just need to understand that this is at least part of what is happening.
Yes Gail,
I went through Laherrère’s paper and saw there is quite a lot of attempts to compare different parameters, and scale adjustments to get nicer graphs. So this -apparently close- correlation is probably not as telling as it seems at first glance.
By the way, here’s an auto-translation of an excerpt from Matthieu Auzanneau’s latest article:
“However, there appears ” compact relationship ” between economic growth and growth in the quantity of fuel poured into the great global economic machinery. The compactness of this relationship is slowly explored and interpreted , particularly through the potentially groundbreaking research of the French economist Gaël Giraud, dizzying reflections of the equally French physicist François Roddier or the American blogger Gail “The Actuary ” Tverberg .”
I noticed that even two side-by side graphs seemed to have different scales to them, to make them fit better.
There is also a difference between what is the long-term cause of the problem, and what is the “trigger” that causes demand to suddenly be a little bit lower. I think what we are seeing now may be a trigger-like effect. Also, the rising dollar really represents a change in US interest rates relative to the interest rates of other countries. We know that interest rates affect demand, and thus prices. In fact, even a small change in demand can result in a big change in price.
Dear Finite Worlders
A few notes about Simplicity.
Darryl Walker, Bill Dow’s companion for the last decades of his life, remarks as follows:
‘He clung to the old pathways, many admirable and worthy, but his resistance to certain new things, like emailing chefs his weekly produce list, was absolutely unshakeable and rigid. When we first met, Bill assured me, with his characteristic grin, that he was ‘flexible, adaptable, and agreeable’. I was to learn the irony of that grin and to discover that he was at best cautious, and at times the opposite of flexible, if not intractable. Yet that same grin charmed many a lady friend, including me.’
In contrast to Bill Dow working in his market garden and carefully selecting from the smorgasbord of modern technology, we can look at the book Lit Up by David Denby, the movie critic for The New Yorker. Denby takes it upon himself to visit three and a half 10th grade English classes, to observe some teachers and students who have made it onto his radar as doing something different.
I want to highlight the story that begins on page 49. The teacher in an Upper West Side magnet high school in a dingy building, is teaching using Brave New World as a stimulative. The class begins by estimating the amount of time the students are spending hooked into electronics. It works out that, if these students live to be 80, they will spend 30 years hooked to electronics (they will spend 20 years asleep). The class is uncomfortable with the results. The teacher asks them to go on a media fast for 2 days. The only exception is that if they need to use the computer to complete a class assignment, that is OK. Most students cannot last 48 hours without their media. I won’t try to recount all the effects, but they are closely paralleled by Sherry Turkle’s observations in Reclaiming Conversation.
Many of the students rapidly become bored in the absence of electronic stimulation. Turkle observes that one of the promises of the phones is that ‘You need never be bored again’. One student who does manage to unhook is a rower, and she rows every day.
Contrast students in NYC who have few physical outlets with Bill Dow and his market garden. What do you do in NYC if you aren’t hooked into something artificial? If you can row a real scull on actual water, that is something precious. But most have nothing physical which needs to be done. Bill Dow would say that they are captives of ‘the service economy’. On a market garden, there is ALWAYS something that needs to be done. The ‘to do’ list is never finished, just postponed until tomorrow.
The symptoms as the students try to break away from the electronics is either the same as or at least a close parallel to breaking a drug addiction.
As the teacher and Sherry Turkle both claim, the trick is to use technology, but not let the technology use you. For example, the teacher assigns essays as homework. But he requires that the students email him with their thesis statements. So he is using the power of email to make sure that they have a forceful and interesting thesis before they spend a lot of time writing and editing. That is efficient and effective use of email.
Bill Dow COULD have emailed his chef clients. But Bill found a lot of value CONVERSING with his clients. Emails short-circuit the valuable information exchange between chef and farmer. Bill made a point of visiting and talking with his chef clients at the end of every farming year. His daily and weekly conversations on the telephone were part of a seamless year-long conversation. Darryl Walker did not, I think, really understand that.
Don Stewart
Don has been posting here for a long time, he has gained everyone’s utmost respect. If you can get past your homophobia, you may actually gain knowledge by reading his contributions.
Have you ever tried Abilify? I understand that it can make everything feel better….
The use of “dear” is an old-fashioned writing convention. Nothing to do with being gay, or patronising. So, let’s hear your take on the unfolding doom instead, shall we? 🙂