Back in 1776, Adam Smith talked about the “invisible hand” of the economy. Investopedia explains how the invisible hand works as, “In a free market economy, self-interested individuals operate through a system of mutual interdependence to promote the general benefit of society at large.”
We talk and act today as if governments and economic policy are what make the economy behave as it does. Unfortunately, Adam Smith was right; there is an invisible hand guiding the economy. Today we know that there is a physics reason for why the economy acts as it does: the economy is a dissipative structure–something we will talk more about later. First, let’s talk about how the economy really operates.
Our Economy Is Like a Self-Driving Car: Wages of Non-Elite Workers Are the Engine
Workers make goods and provide services. Non-elite workers–that is, workers without advanced education or supervisory responsibilities–play a special role, because there are so many of them. The economy can grow (just like a self-driving car can move forward) (1) if workers can make an increasing quantity of goods and services each year, and (2) if non-elite workers can afford to buy the goods that are being produced. If these workers find fewer jobs available, or if they don’t pay sufficiently well, it is as if the engine of the self-driving car is no longer working. The car could just as well fall apart into 1,000 pieces in the driveway.
If the wages of non-elite workers are too low, they cannot afford to pay very much in taxes, so governments are adversely affected. They also cannot afford to buy capital goods such as vehicles and homes. Thus, depressed wages of non-elite workers adversely affect both businesses and governments. If these non-elite workers are getting paid well, the “make/buy loop” is closed: the people whose labor creates fairly ordinary goods and services can also afford to buy those goods and services.
Recurring Needs of Car/Economy
The economy, like a car, has recurring needs, analogous to monthly lease payments, insurance payments, and maintenance costs. These would include payments for a variety of support services, including the following:
- Government programs, including payments to the elderly and unemployed
- Higher education programs
- Healthcare
Needless to say, the above services tend to keep rising in cost, whether or not the wages of non-elite workers keep rising to keep up with these costs.
The economy also needs to purchase a portfolio of goods on a very regular basis (weekly or monthly), or it cannot operate. These include:
- Fresh water
- Food of many different types, including vegetables, fruits, and grains
- Energy products of many types, such as oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium. These needs include many subtypes suited to particular refineries or electric power plants.
- Minerals of many types, including copper, iron, lithium, and many others
Some of these goods are needed directly by the workers in the economy. Other goods are needed to make and operate the “tools” used by the workers. It is the growing use of tools that allows workers to keep becoming more productive–produce the rising quantity of goods and services that is needed to keep the economy growing. These tools are only possible through the use of energy products and other minerals of many kinds.
I have likened the necessary portfolio of goods the economy needs to ingredients in a recipe, or to chemicals needed for a particular experiment. If one of the “ingredients” is not available–probably because of prices that are too high for consumers or too low for producers–the economy needs to “make a smaller batch.” We saw this happen in the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. Figure 1 shows that the use of several types of energy products, plus raw steel, shrank back at exactly the same time. In fact, the recent trend in coal and raw steel suggests another contraction may be ahead.
Figure 1. World Product Consumption, indexed to the year 2000, for selected products. Raw Steel based on World USGS data; other amounts based of BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2016 data.
The Economy Re-Optimizes When Things Go Wrong
If you have a Global Positioning System (GPS) in your car to give you driving directions, you know that whenever you make a wrong turn, it recalculates and gives you new directions to get you back on course. The economy works in much the same way. Let’s look at an example:
Back in early 2014, I showed this graph from a presentation given by Steve Kopits. It shows that the cost of oil and gas extraction suddenly started on an upward trend, about the year 1999. Instead of costs rising at 0.9% per year, costs suddenly started to rise by an average of 10.9% per year.
Figure 2. Figure by Steve Kopits of Westwood Douglas showing trends in world oil exploration and production costs per barrel. CAGR is “Compound Annual Growth Rate.”
When costs were rising by only 0.9% per year, it was relatively easy for oil producers to offset the cost increases by efficiency gains. Once costs started rising much more quickly, it was a sign that we had in some sense “run out” of new fields of easy-to-extract oil and gas. Instead, oil companies were forced to start accessing fields with much more expensive-to-produce oil and gas, if they wanted to replace depleting fields with new fields. There would soon be a mismatch between wages (which generally don’t rise very much) and the cost of goods made with oil, such as food grown using oil products.
Did the invisible hand sit idly by and let business as usual continue, despite this big rise in the cost of extraction of oil from new fields? I would argue that it did not. It was clear to business people around the world that there was a large amount of coal in China and India that had been bypassed because these countries had not yet become industrialized. This coal would provide a much cheaper source of energy than the oil, especially if the cost of oil appeared likely to rise. Furthermore, wages in these countries were lower as well.
The economy took the opportunity to re-optimize. Part of this re-optimization can be seen in Figure 1, shown earlier in this post. It shows that world coal supply has grown rapidly since 2000, while oil supply has grown quite slowly.
Figure 3, below, shows a different kind of shift: a shift in the way oil supplies were distributed, after 2000. We see that China, Saudi Arabia, and India are all examples of countries with big increases in oil consumption. At the same time, many of the developed countries found their oil consumption shrinking, rather than growing.
Figure 3. Figure showing oil consumption growth since 2000 for selected countries, based on data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2016.
A person might wonder why Saudi Arabia’s use of oil would grow rapidly after the year 2000. The answer is simple: Saudi Arabia’s oil costs are its costs as a producer. Saudi Arabia has a lot of very old wells from which oil extraction is inexpensive–perhaps $15 per barrel. When oil prices are high and the cost of production is low, the government of an oil-exporting nation collects a huge amount of taxes. Saudi Arabia was in such a situation. As a result, it could afford to use oil for many purposes, including electricity production and increased building of highways. It was not an oil importer, so the high world oil prices did not affect the country negatively.
China’s rapid rise in oil production could take place because, even with added oil consumption, its overall cost of producing goods would remain low because of the large share of coal in its energy mix and its low wages. The huge share of coal in China’s energy mix can be seen in Figure 4, below. Figure 4 also shows the extremely rapid growth in China’s energy consumption that took place once China joined the World Trade Organization in late 2001.
Figure 4. China energy consumption by fuel based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.
India was in a similar situation to China, because it could also build its economy on cheap coal and cheap labor.
When the economy re-optimizes itself, job patterns are affected as well. Figure 5 shows the trend in labor force participation rate in the US:
Figure 5. US Civilian labor force participation rate, based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, as graphed by fred.stlouisfed.org.
Was it simply a coincidence that the US labor force participation rate started falling about the year 2000? I don’t think so. The shift in energy consumption to countries such as China and India, as oil costs rose, could be expected to reduce job availability in the US. I know several people who were laid off from the company I worked for, as their jobs (in computer technical support) were shifted overseas. These folks were not alone in seeing their jobs shipped overseas.
The World Economy Is Like a Car that Cannot Make Sharp Turns
The world economy cannot make very sharp turns, because there is a very long lead-time in making any change. New factories need to be built. For these factories to be used sufficiently to make economic sense, they need to be used over a long period.
At the same time, the products we desire to make more energy efficient, for example, automobiles, homes, and electricity generating plants, aren’t replaced very often. Because of the short life-time of incandescent light bulbs, it is possible to force a fairly rapid shift to more efficient types. But it is much more difficult to encourage a rapid change in high-cost items, which are typically used for many years. If a car owner has a big loan outstanding, the owner doesn’t want to hear that his car no longer has any value. How could he afford a new car, or pay back his loan?
A major limit on making any change is the amount of resources of a given type, available in a given year. These amounts tend to change relatively slowly, from year to year. (See Figure 1.) If more lithium, copper, oil, or any other type of resource is needed, new mines are needed. There needs to be an indication to producers that the price of these commodities will stay high enough, for a long enough period, to make this investment worthwhile. Low prices are a problem for many commodities today. In fact, production of many commodities may very well fall in the near future, because of continued low prices. This would collapse the economy.
The World Economy Can’t Go Very Far Backward, Without Collapsing
The 2007-2009 recession is an example of an attempt of the economy to shrink backward. (See Figure 1.) It didn’t go very far backward, and even the small amount of shrinkage that did occur was a huge problem. Many people lost their jobs, or were forced to take pay cuts. One of the big problems in going backward is the large amount of debt outstanding. This debt becomes impossible to repay, when the economy tries to shrink. Asset prices tend to fall as well.
Furthermore, while previous approaches, such as using horses instead of cars, may be appealing, they are extremely difficult to implement in practice. There are far fewer horses now, and there would not be places to “park” the horses in cities. Cleaning up after horses would be a problem, without businesses specializing in handling this problem.
What World Leaders Can Do to (Sort of) Fix the Economy
There are basically two things that governments can do, to try to make the economy (or car) go faster:
- They can encourage more debt. This is done in many ways, including lowering interest rates, reducing bank regulation, encouraging lower underwriting standards or longer term loans, taking out greater debt themselves, guaranteeing debt of non-creditworthy entities, and finding new markets for “recycled debt.”
- They can increase complexity levels. This means increasing output of goods and services through the use of more and better machines and through more training and specialization of workers. More complex businesses are likely to lead to more international businesses and longer supply chains.
Both of these actions work like turbocharging a car. They have the possibility of making the economy run faster, but they have the downside of extra cost. In the case of debt, the cost is the interest that needs to be paid; also the risk of “blow-up” if the economy slows. There is a limit on how low interest rates can go, as well. Ultimately, part of the output of the economy must go to debt holders, leaving less for workers.
In the case of complexity, the problem is that there gets to be increasing wage disparity, when some employees have wages based on special training, while others do not. Also, with capital goods, some individuals are owners of capital goods, while others are not. The arrangement creates wealth disparity, besides wage disparity.
In theory, both debt and increased complexity can help the economy grow faster. However, as I noted at the beginning, it is the wages of the non-elite workers that are especially important in allowing the economy to continue to move forward. The greater the proportion of the revenue that goes to high paid employees and to bond holders, the less that is available to non-elite workers. Also, there are diminishing returns to adding debt and complexity. At some point, the cost of each of these types of turbo-charging exceeds the benefit of the process.
Why the Economy Works Like a Self-Driving Car
The reason why the economy acts like a self-driving car is because the economy is, in physics terms, a dissipative structure. It grows and changes “on its own,” using energy sources available to it. The result is exactly the same effect that Adam Smith was observing. What makes the economy behave in this way is the fact that flows of energy are available to the economy. This happens because an economy is an open system, meaning its borders are permeable to energy flows.
When there is an abundance of energy available for use (from the sun, or from burning fossil fuels, or even from food), a variety of dissipative structures self-organize. One example is hurricanes, which self-organize over warm oceans. Another example is plants and animals, which self-organize and grow from small beginnings, if they have adequate food energy, plus other necessities of life. Another example is ecosystems, consisting of a number of different kinds of plants and animals, which interact together for the common good. Even stars, including our sun, are dissipative structures.
The economy is yet another type of a dissipative structure. This is why Adam Smith noticed the effect of the invisible hand of the economy. The energy that sustains the economy comes from a variety of sources. Humans have been able to obtain energy by burning biomass for over one million years. Other long-term energy sources include solar energy that provides heat and light for gardens, and wind energy that powers sail boats. More recently, other types of energy have been added, including fossil fuels energy.
When energy supplies are very cheap and easy to obtain, it is easy to ramp up their use. With growing supplies of energy, it is possible to keep adding more and better tools for people to work with. I use the term “tools” broadly. Besides machines to enable greater production, I include things like roads and advanced education, which also are helpful in making workers more effective. The use of growing energy supplies allows growing use of tools, and this growing use of tools increasingly leverages human labor. This is why we see growing productivity; we can expect to see falling human productivity if energy supplies should start to decline. Falling productivity will tend to push the economy toward collapse.
One problem for economies is diminishing returns of resource extraction. Diminishing returns cause the economy to become less and less efficient. Once energy extraction starts to have a significant problem with diminishing returns (such as in Figure 2), it is like losing energy resources into a sinkhole. More work is necessary, without greater output in terms of goods and services. Indirectly, economic growth must suffer. This seems to be the problem that the economy has been encountering in recent years. From the invisible hand’s point of view, $100 per barrel oil is very different from $20 per barrel oil.
One characteristic of dissipative structures is that they keep re-optimizing for the overall benefit of the dissipative structure. We saw in Figures 3 and 4 how fuel use and jobs rebalance around the world. Another example of rebalancing is the way the economy uses every part of a barrel of oil. If, for example, our only goal were to maximize the number of miles driven for automobiles, it would make sense to operate cars using diesel fuel, rather than gasoline. In fact, the energy mix available to the economy includes quite a bit of gasoline and natural gas liquids. If we need to use what is available, it makes sense to use gasoline in private passenger cars, and save diesel for commercial use.
Another characteristic of dissipative structures is that they are not permanent. They grow for a while, and then collapse. Later, new similar dissipative structures may develop and indirectly replace the ones that have collapsed. In this way, the overall system is able to evolve in a way that adapts to changing conditions.
What Are the Likely Events that Would Cause the Economy to Collapse?
I modeled the system as being like a self-driving car. The thing that keeps the system operating is the continued growth of inflation-adjusted wages of non-elite workers. This analogy was chosen because in ecosystems in general, the energy return on the labor of an animal is very important. The collapse of a population of fish, or of some other animal, tends to happen when the return on the labor of that animal falls too low.
In the case of the fish, the return on the labor of the fish falls too low when nearby supplies of food disappear, and the fish must swim too far to obtain new supplies of food. The return on human labor would seem to be the inflation-adjusted wages of non-elite workers. We know that wages for many workers have been falling in recent years, because of competition from globalization, and because of replacement of human labor by advanced machines, such as computers and robots.
Figure 6. Bottom 50% income share, from recent Piketty analysis.
Besides the problem of falling wages of non-elite workers, earlier in this post I mentioned a number of other issues that make the wages of these workers go less far. These include growing government spending, and the growing costs of education and healthcare. I also mentioned the problem of rising debt, and the increased concentration of wealth, as we try to add complexity to solve problems. All of these issues make it hard for “demand”–which might also be called “affordability”–to be sufficiently great to allow commodity prices to rise to the level producers need for profitability.
Prices Play a Very Important Role in the Economy
The pricing system is the communication system of the economy, as a dissipative structure. One use of energy is to create “information.” Prices are a high level form of information.
One big area where prices come up is with respect to the whole portfolio of products needed on a regular basis, which I mentioned earlier (water, food, energy products, and mineral products). In order for the system to continue working, the prices need to be both:
- Affordable by consumers
- High enough for producers to cover their costs, including a margin for taxes and reinvestment
Now, in 2017, prices are “sort of” affordable for consumers, but they are not high enough for producers. Oil companies will go out of business if these low prices persist.
Back in 2007 and 2008, we had the reverse problem. Prices were high enough for producers, but too high for consumers (especially non-elite workers). This is a big part of what pushed the economy into recession.
We noticed back in Figure 1 that quantities of energy products/goods tend to move up and down together. A similar phenomenon holds true for prices: commodity prices tend to rise and fall together (Figure 7). The reason this happens is because when the world economy is moving swiftly forward (higher wages, more building activity, more debt), demand tends to be high for many different types of materials at the same time. When the economy slows, prices of all of these commodities tend to fall at the same time. Inflation tends to fall as well.
Figure 7. Prices of oil, coal and natural gas tend to rise and fall together. Prices based on 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy data.
If prices cannot rise high enough for producers, it is likely a sign that wages of non-elite workers are already too low. The affordability loop mentioned earlier is not being closed, so prices cannot stay up at a high enough level to maintain production.
Most Modelers Overlook the Fact that the Economy Is an Open System
Most energy models are based on one of two views of the world: (1) fossil fuel energy supply will eventually run short, so we must use it as sparingly as possible; or (2) we want to reduce the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible, because of climate change. Because of these issues, we want to leverage the fossil fuel energy we have, to as great an extent as possible, with energy that we can somehow capture from renewable sources, such as the solar energy or wind. With this view of the situation, our major objective is to create “renewables” that use fossil fuel energy as efficiently as possible. The hope is that these renewables, together with the actions of governments, will allow the economy to gradually shrink back to a level that is somehow more sustainable.
Implicit is this model is the view that the economy, and the world in general, is a closed system. Our current government and business leaders are in charge; they can make the changes they would prefer, without the invisible hand causing an unforeseen problem. Very few have realized that the economy cannot really shrink back very much; past history, as well as the nature of dissipative structures, shows that economies tend to collapse. The only economies that have at least temporarily avoided that fate have shifted toward less complexity–for example, eliminating huge government programs, such as armies–rather than yielding to the temptation to add ever more complexity, such as wind turbines and solar panels.
The real situation is that we have a here-and-now problem of too low wages for non-elite workers. Commodity prices are also too low. Intermittent renewables such as wind and solar are thought to be solutions, but it is well-known that intermittent renewables cause too-low prices for other types of electricity generation, when added to the electric grid. Thus, they are likely part of the low-price problem, not part of the solution. Temporary solutions, if there are any, are likely in the direction of cutting back on government expenditures and reducing regulation of banks. In fact, with the election of Trump and the passage of Brexit, the economy seems to again be re-optimizing.
We also know that dissipative structures do not shrink back well, at all. They tend to collapse, instead. For example, you, as a human being, are a dissipative structure. If your food intake were cut back to, say, 500 calories per day, how well would you do? If you could not get along on a very low calorie diet, how would you expect the economy to shrink back to a renewables-only level? Renewables that can be used in a shrunken economy are scarce; we don’t have a huge number of trees to cut down. We cannot maintain the electric grid without fossil fuels.
The assumption that the economy is a closed system is pretty much standard when modeling our current energy situation. This occurs because, until recently, we did not understand that the self-organizing properties of inanimate systems were as important as they are. Also, modeling of the economy as a closed system, rather than an open system, makes modeling much easier. The problem is that closed system modeling doesn’t really tell the right story. For a discussion of some of the issues associated with this mis-modeling, see the recent academic paper, Is the increased use of biofuels the road to sustainability? Consequences of the methodological approach.
GOM looking better:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Texas.jpg
Permian sure no keeping Texas going higher:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Texas.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Bakken-North-Dakota.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/USA.jpg
So no going back to the 9600000 level, I assume this scale is X1000, that’s no good?
The EIA publishes US oil production data which looks completely different than that from the peak oil religionists at Peak Oil Barrel.
Who to believe?
https://s18.postimg.org/4dnkuxgrt/Captura_de_pantalla_721.png
I don’t believe marketing people, personal experience working with them, they do stretch the truth a bit IMO. I like the tail on this curve better, at that slope it should not take long, and this is weekly data too.
Glenn,
I responded to one of your earlier posts to this article. The top of the page has a comment from Dave. About 5 or 6 pages back…
A hoot of an article on the Spectator today about the renewable energy scheme in NI.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/03/cash-for-ash-is-just-one-green-scam-among-way-too-many/
[…]
And what a great deal it offered. For every pound spent on ‘renewable’ wood fuel, the Northern Ireland government would pay you back £1.60. Even allowing for the initial capital costs of installing your eco-friendly wood-burning boiler, the potential returns were huge: at least £25,000 per boiler, per year — guaranteed, inflation-indexed for 20 years. Few questions were asked about the purpose of these boilers, which meant that canny farmers and businessmen could install them in previously unheated outbuildings and rake in the cash. Northern Ireland’s main Porsche, Maserati and Jaguar dealer, it’s said, has never seen such happy times.
Meanwhile, Stormont is skint: an already straitened budget which might have been spent on healthcare or education is now having to be spent on RHI payment obligations of around £480 million. The full cost of the scheme is £1.3 billion over 20 years at current prices, the bulk being absorbed by Westminster taxpayers.
But while focusing on the local incompetence, corruption and malfeasance of the ‘cash for ash’ scandal, we’re in danger of ignoring the bigger picture. This wasn’t a random accident of hickish local government. It was the predictable result of a foolish scheme which incentivised precisely this kind of greedy and immoral behaviour.
If you pay people a Porsche a year to burn vast quantities of wood in disused buildings, then that is what people will do. And there’s no point asking the Energy and Climate Change Secretary who introduced the RHI scheme what he now thinks of its merits . That’s because in his lucrative new life as an ex-MP, Chris Huhne is doing very nicely, thank you, raking it in as European chairman of Zilkha Biomass, a US company which ships wood pellets across the Atlantic for us to burn in our eco-friendly power stations and boilers.
Thanks to the surge in demand caused by RHI, more wood is being burned in Britain than at any time since the industrial revolution — resulting in swaths of woodland being cut down, such as Ryton Wood in Warwickshire, where 50 mature oaks, some 300 years old, were felled for ‘sustainable’ fuel. It has caused similar conservation issues in America, where deciduous forests are being felled to provide fuel for power stations such as Drax. Is that really eco-friendly?
[…]
How could they have been so daft?
Thanks, laughing now
Thank goodness for booze.
When I first moved to my home spot 45 years ago I thought the small oak trees would make good shade. I have spent much of the last two weeks with a 10,000 kg backhoe digging them up. Their roots were starting to lift my home off its foundation. While I plan to use some of the branches for mushroom cultivation (I’m paying my son in law’s brother to cut them up) the multi ton trunks will have to go some where.
In the same vein the sounding forest was clear cut for pulp wood to make paper just before I moved in. Now I live surrounded by 30 meter high pine trees. Trees are a renewable resource, it just takes a while to renew.
Of course if trees are going to wreck your foundations then you cut them down.
The problem is the loss of the natural diversity of the woodland. Here in the UK there is hardly any ancient woodland left. If you visit London then be sure to check out Trent Park at Cockfosters (end of the Piccadilly line). I studied philosophy at the Uni there and the park was one of my old haunts from childhood. The grounds used to belong to the Sassoon family, of the WWI war poet Siegfried. The Nazi officers captured during WWII were stationed there and British intelligence spied on them with mics over tea lol. There is ancient woodland there among fields, hill and lakes. If you want to visit heaven on earth then that is one place to go.
We tend to take a dim view of pine forests these days. They are not native to Britain, they are uniform and do not reflect the diversity of the ancient woodland of the island. 98% of Britain used to be woodland. We tend to cut down pine forests and to allow “paleolithic” landscapes to replace them (which is aesthetically controversial.) These days I am way out in the shires surrounded by 10s of miles of medieval fields and hedges, which is absolutely gorgeous. I could wish that I lived in the mansion at Trent park but we cant all have everything all the time. We have to count our blessings.
Myself I fear the expansion of the population that the British state is forcing on us through mass immigration to make them more money and profits and to keep the capitalist system going. It is going to trash our natural and medieval patriomony. But what can one do about it? It is an old conflict between the Romantic and the industrial. I am really quite up for a collapse of the capitalist system. I just love our rural landscape and I dont want it trashed. At least if nearly everyone dies quickly we can save our patriomony. I would willing give my life if no more damage were done to our countryside with house building. Clearly collapse is the only answer.
But when these wonderful country estates were built — were they not the equivalent of this -at the time?
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/6d/a8/ee/6da8ee82a8ee7795d7fd9b38954f9f2c.jpg
Would there not have been traditionalists who thought these mansions abominations — and insisted on staying with
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/11/25/article-2513154-19A18EF300000578-836_964x556.jpg
And then of course there would have been the ultra traditionalists way back in the day who would have thought thatch a modern industrial eyesore who wanted to stay this course
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2622/3828843871_de96a5d6fb_z.jpg
In any event – you be gone I be gone we all be gone soon enough… and Mamma Nature is going to return everything to it’s original state — she’s very patient….
Dear Gail, my reply went into automatic moderaton. Can you salvage it for me?
https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/rNNMwc0dEpBP3wmO90uSkxZlq9h1LCoVpKNeqw4pT1wOdX6a_XD1OljZ84QJp9xdkQnYsBmR4niNjvFB1lvwcMsCo9dd_4kARCJQ1oIMxw=s0-d-e1-ft#https://www.henrymakow.com/upload_images/fakepg-large.jpg
NEWS WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE?
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2012/02/the-economic-horrors-of-yemen-oi.html
http://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/war-on-yemen/1537-saudi-arabia-yemen-oil-total.html
Yemen is a very sad story!
From your article “A Yemeni economic expert disclosed that Saudi Arabia is stealing his country’s crude reserves in bordering regions in collaboration with the French energy giant, Total. ”
Its that I drink your milkshake thing…
Holy Vaca Muerta! There Is Life Beyond The Permian
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=148778&utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2017-03-08&utm_content=&utm_campaign=feature_1
http://images.rigzone.com/images/news/articles/n_148778.png
This sounds like good news for Shell !
Argentina seems the best bet, as I have stated before.
Word and image association:
Shale oil?
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
“Those will be the engines that drive the cash flows for the next several years,”
He forgot to include ‘into the red’
“Those will be the engines that drive the cash flows into the red for the next several years,”
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
You really do believe anything you read don’t you Glenn…. the bible… the MSM…
You are a good little slave Glenn…. the Elders must give you a lot of gold stars…. you are the prize sheeple…
On the bright side — if you keep this up they might even choose you as breeding stock….
Glenn the prize meathead gets to breed with the female meat heads.
Not so bad….
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RZPKbbBqpBY/maxresdefault.jpg
Shell has just flogged its oil sand ‘assets’ and written off a couple of billion barrels in reserves. The self-liquidation of the oil majors continues apace…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-09/shell-agrees-to-sell-oil-sands-operations-for-7-25-billion
I picked up on the “preparing Shell for a world of lower oil prices” comment in the article.
Lower prices are not good news!
Good for China and Europe isn’t it? For oil countries not so much.
Just an observation
Not good for either — because low prices bankrupt oil producers and then nobody will have any oil…. not even China
Hmmmm…. north sea is collapsing… tar sands make no sense without 100 buck oil…
And yet this company is finding billions of dollars to buy .. more tar sands????? From a company that is unloading its tar sands assets because they are worthless with oil at 50 bucks…
And the share price is up 8% on this ‘good’ news https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CNQ:CN
Rather odd…..
Along with its core area Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB),[2] CNRL also has North Sea and offshore West Africa fields.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Natural_Resources
Well, that’s all jolly good, but the inverse (short) REITs ETF/ETNs are still moribund low..
So, there is either a delay of reaction or at least the most visible, publicly trading REITs are being massaged from the system to go nowhere. And third option all this valuation is simply irrelevant in this advanced system virtuality of today’s in post 2008 world.
Since I don’t believe there is a story for the delay scenario anymore now, because during the 2007-8 the housing shorts were moving, slowly but moving.. , it must be either the can kicking apparatus at play or the irrelevancy factor.
Derivatives are behind all of the ETFs, among other things. At some point, we will have a major derivatives problem, I expect.
Yes, and I know (should have added) that ETFs are not serious “market moving” vehicles, big guys are using other tools, but I was surprised about the difference in volatility, e.g. real estate & REITs are still moribund, as well as the core industries like CAT, while energy companies are more agitated already, perhaps it’s the effect of the recent oil price swings. Or it could mean there are simply several layers of defense from the point of the CBs and big players, so energy companies are deemed not that much systemic anyway in this play, you can nationalize them in a minute, while distributed real estate is a bit more long term matter, also in terms of consumption proxy etc. Who knows..
Dry Conditions Spark Wildfires, Parch Wheat Across Central U.S.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-08/warm-dry-central-u-s-needs-rain-for-early-emerging-wheat
Allo Ak-bar! Allo — Allo — is dat you ak-bar?
https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder206/56675206.jpg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-09/radioshack-successor-enters-bankruptcy-as-retail-woes-persist-j01psvmv
More stores bite the dust!
An $11 trillion commercial real estate bubble is ready to rock the economy Nov. 17, 2016,
http://www.businessinsider.com/11-trillion-commercial-real-estate-bubble-ready-to-rock-the-economy-2016-11
It’s staring to rock….
http://p.fod4.com/p/media/86de65b117/ieAJQYKuQXuuMmRtaFJl_Gecko%20Rocking%20Chair.gif
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.
Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays – Propaganda – 1928
https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=thebur01-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=210201864f1a2d83ff87974998ffb5af&creativeASIN=0970312598
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/08/market-alert-us-oil-price-plunges-to-50-as-a-perfect-storm-brews.html
Price of oil drops, but for reasons I think this article fails to acknowledge and that is the rising value of the US dollar. Value of dollar goes up, price of oil goes down. The reason this is happening is for the same reason the stock market is jacking up, because this new admin. joyful heartfelt desire is to throw people under the bus to provide greater opportunity for businesses to make mo money. Less regulation, toss out Obamacare, reduce funding for EPA, raise the retirement age for social security (which is coming), less money for Medicare and Medicaid (in the works) and Wall street loves profits and hates people, so the perception is the dollar will be worth more so the value of the dollar goes up and the price of oil goes down. So it’s not a perfect storm, just plain old vanilla cause and effect.
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/516/070/f9a.jpg
‘I went to a restaurant yesterday and it was full – I don’t know what all this talk of a crisis is’
http://www.premierexhibitions.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/TITANIC%20HOLIDAY%20DESSERT%20RECIPES.jpg?itok=0JHghS1_
“Titanic’s passengers enjoyed various Edwardian dishes served in a variety of dining rooms on board the Ship… from the grand Verandah Café, to the exclusive first-class á la carte Restaurant, the second class dining area and third class saloon, delicious and elaborate meals were served. This holiday, spice up your dinner party with adding a few exceptional Titanic desserts that were featured on her maiden voyage.
Here are a few dessert recipes highlighting Titanic’s menu that you can re-create for your holiday party”, http://bit.ly/2m1PHKY
things are accelerating … on the downside…
The slow down … is accelerating
Mr DNA is processing this information – he is running the data through his primordial processors — he is considering the implications — he is sensing danger… starvation… violence… disease…
Mr DNA is getting nervous… I can feel him inside me …. he is making me feel queezy…. unsettled…. like the feeling when you’ve been sent to the principals office and you know the strap is coming out….
Calm calm Mr DNA… there there…. this is nothing …. the CBs will take care of it…. relax…. chill…
Not working – he knows this is not good — there is no convincing him this is much ado about nothing…. he feels threatened…. he is sensing he may need to act soon… he may need to take over the controls….
Dying shopping malls are wreaking havoc on suburban America
http://www.businessinsider.com/dying-shopping-malls-are-wreaking-havoc-on-suburban-america-2017-2
A Third Of All US Shopping Malls Are Projected To Close
In my recent article about the ongoing “retail apocalypse“, I discussed the fact that Sears (NASDAQ:SHLD), J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) and Macy’s Inc (NYSE:M) have all announced that they are closing dozens of stores in 2017, and you can find a pretty comprehensive list of 19 U.S. retailers that are “on the brink of bankruptcy” right here. Needless to say, quite a bloodbath is going on out there right now.
But I didn’t realize how truly horrific things were for the retail industry until I came across an article about mall closings on Time Magazine’s website:
https://www.investing.com/analysis/a-third-of-all-u.s.-shopping-malls-are-projected-to-close-as-%E2%80%98space-avai-200177990
These 19 retailers are on the brink of bankruptcy…13,216 stores to close?
http://www.thomasdishaw.com/19-retailers-brink-bankruptcy-13216-stores-close/
Well, at least Herr Trumpenfurer has some experience in the haircut department.
https://youtu.be/MMKFIHRpe7I
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-08/urban-outfitters-ceo-housing-retail-bubble-has-now-burst links to all articles can be accessed here — the comment is around 10th from the bottom of the article…
Shocking
Oil dropped about $3.00 today too. More than 5% 1-day drop. Not good.
Stall speed approaches….
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/03/08/atlanta-fed-q1-gdpnow-forecast-spirals-down-in-an-amazing-manner/
http://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/US-GDPnow-q1-2017-03-08.png
The thing is…
What can be done to reverse this – that has not already been tried?
Those GDP numbers aren’t any different than previous recent years in the US. Keep in mind those are growth percentages, that means 100% + 1.2% and then later that becomes 100% plus whatever GDP growth gets added again. The US economy is a mature one and most of the build out has been done and now all that is happening is incremental growth, but growth is still not contraction. It takes two consecutive quarters of contraction or minus GDP to meet the definition of a recession. The article is simple conjecture about what might happen.
GDP is declining — what do you not understand?
Familiarize yourself with Stall Speed – growth below 2% —
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/01/27/below-stall-speed-2016-u-s-economic-growth-matches-worst-year-since-great-recession/
Trillions of stimulus are flowing through the economy – interest rates remain at very low levels — and yet we have declining growth.
Pray tell what the Fed can do to stop this if GDP continues to decline (or remain at stall speed) — surely you can see what is happening — the economy is dying — retail is a symptom of this —- the consumer is tapped out….
The Fed has thrown everything at the situation trying to stop a decline — trying to stop a recession — so when recession does hit — what do they do?
‘The US economy is a mature one and most of the build out has been done and now all that is happening is incremental growth’
Where do you get this shit from? Do you just copy and paste from the MSM? Or do you make it up all by yourself?
Thanks to Google, we now have no worries. Schmidt says, “Big data is the “new oil” “.
Nation states will fight over big data.
FE I’ve figured out the problem with all the stores closing. They didn’t use enough Big Data!
Let them yemenis eat Big Data!
Clearly, the world has gone mad.
Non sense, when you run out of shelter/food/water, big data takes a back seat.
Sorry, I should have been more clear that Google’s Schmidt stated that “Nation states will fight wars over big data.” Of course it is nonsense.
QE floats all boats… but when QE stops working or cannot be continued due to toxic side-effects … all boats sink…..
GDP in the US is sinking towards 1%… and the Fed is going to hike rates again this month??????
Either they are being forced to hike — or hey are hiking to pre-empt a total collapse and create another crisis for the purpose of rolling some new desperate policy out…
Copied from comments on ZH – all boats are starting to sink:
It’s a complete bloodbath (whch takes a new meaning) in US as well as Canada…2016 was bad, 2017 is going to be a lot worse…all this shut just in the last 1 month…
BCBG Max Azria to shut down stores in Canada, files for bankruptcy protection
Fargo-based Vanity to close about 140 stores after filing for bankruptcy protection
Macy’s committed to closing 34 more stores as sales drop in 2016
HMV Canada To Close All Stores
After 102 years, all stores to shut:
King’s Variety to close all stores in 2017
Crocs set to close down 160 stores by 2018
Whole Foods closing 9 stores, including 2 in Colorado, amid sluggish sales
My Fit Foods closes all 8 Dallas-area stores
11 CVS stores in Chicago are closing
Savers closing 5 Chicago-area thrift stores
9News: Thrift-store chain closing all Colorado locations (Video)
Electronics retailer hhgregg to close 88 stores, including all in Maryland
Lucy Activewear will close stores and be folded into North Face brand
A Slew of Canadian Clothing Store Locations Could Close For Good
Retail chain Family Christian plans close after 85 years
Nasty Gal stores to shut their doors
J.C. Penney to close up to 140 stores, offer buyouts
Holt Renfrew to shut down hr2 in Brossard’s Dix30, Vaughan Mills
Here is a full snapshot: These 13 retailers are closing more than 1,500 stores in 2017
Is Your Local RadioShack Store Closing Soon? Let Us Know
Ian Poulter is shutting down his clothing line
LA RESTAURANT CLOSINGS
Then there is UK
Mapped: All 34 Budgens store closures and when they will shut
I live in Chicago. I can walk for 2 minutes outside my apartment building and pass 25 vacant storefronts.
I live 110 miles, by water, across the lake from you in the Coast Guard City area. Things fine here, kind of a tourist area in summer, a little north things are not so great. Donald’s got work to do there, not sure it was ever all that great.
Back in the day they helped you rebuild after the Great Chicago Fire, http://www.history.com/topics/great-chicago-fire, lots of wood and water around here.
The Hudson Bay Company found riches in the furs from our forests. The City of Chicago rebuilt itself with our timber after the great fire of 1871. During the lumbering era, Muskegon boasted more millionaires than any other town in America.
http://www.muskegon-mi.gov/community/history/
I would be willing to bet that no one looking at the rate increase is paying attention to falling oil prices already. What do they think they can possibly accomplish?
2017 vs 1984…
https://twitter.com/WakeUpMFers/status/839475960130981889/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
No point in de-gridding — the NSA already has a comprehensive file on every single person who has been using the internet since its inception….
Which makes me wonder — since the internet was developed by the US military — if one of the primary reasons it was made available to the public was to control everyone.
And then we have the retards who support this saying ‘I have not done anything wrong’ — who do not understand that they have most certainly said or written things or surfed sites — that they would not want anyone to know about….
The joke is on the Elders — they may have us by the scruff of the neck — but they will soon be dead.
https://img.clipartfest.com/8374909ba568152cfe46dabbe8b336b0_smiles-on-clipart-library-crazy-smiley-face-clip-art_736-449.jpeg
We’re all in the Global Village these days. And it’s just soooo convenient!
https://youtu.be/zalndXdxriI
Here in the Japanese section of the Village, the New No.2 has rolled out a comprehensive ID system that everyone can use to enjoy an even more harmonious relationship with our government. They’ve called the system “MY NUMBER”.
https://youtu.be/rFKIPhPhGdE
I have been telling people this for over 10 years They all said bs.
I need a new toaster would not shock me if it wants or asks for a internet connection
I was told by a partner in a telecom firm in Hong Kong to never say anything compromising on the phone — ‘as operators we MUST install software on our networks that monitors every conversation and when key words such as ‘cocaine’ are mentioned — you get tagged for more intensive monitoring’
This conversation happened over 20 years ago….
A record of everything.
Rather like the immense archives left by the Hittites and so on: how comforting the rulers and scribes must have felt as they banked them up, on baked clay to last thousands of years…..
And then, suddenly, no Empire at all to administer!
Still their names remained to this day. The people who married non-Jewish women after they returned to Jerusalem during the Persian rule survive for ever in the last chapter of Ezra.
who is doing the lying and who is telling the truth I would really like to know? One minute Yemen has nothing and next minute she has billions of barrels that even Saudi Arabia is now apparently stealing it? What gives?????????? Newspapers and their journalists should all be fired and should go the way of the malls permanently. But where I would like to know are the facts the real facts. I’m not a world traveller but it seems to me one either has to go to Yemen and see things for oneself or talk to someone who has! This really pisses me off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2012/02/the-economic-horrors-of-yemen-oi.html
http://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/war-on-yemen/1537-saudi-arabia-yemen-oil-total.html
https://ci6.googleusercontent.com/proxy/rNNMwc0dEpBP3wmO90uSkxZlq9h1LCoVpKNeqw4pT1wOdX6a_XD1OljZ84QJp9xdkQnYsBmR4niNjvFB1lvwcMsCo9dd_4kARCJQ1oIMxw=s0-d-e1-ft#https://www.henrymakow.com/upload_images/fakepg-large.jpg
Well said!
The ‘guy’ from the economics section of the Canadian embassy in KSA told me over coffee when I was in Yemen a few years back told me ‘there are too many people – not enough water — and the oil will be gone by 2017 — this country is f8776ed’
I reckon that is the truth.
He had no reason to lie to me — he was introduced by a friend of mine at the Canadian chamber in Hong Kong… who thought I should speak to him before heading into the interior of the country.
And we thought shale was ridiculous..
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/03/05/20170308_EOD15.jpg
That is pretty ridiculous, I agree!
This is the signature for the end of days. The entire rotten edifice of the status quo is being propped up with nothing but printed money, bullying and lies.
Meanwhile, Assange continues to punish the US.
Might be time to start making a few deals.
In Germany on Wednesday, the chief federal prosecutor’s office said that it would review the Wikileaks documents because some suggested that the CIA ran a hacking hub from the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt.
“We’re looking at it very carefully,” a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office told Reuters. “We will initiate an investigation if we see evidence of concrete criminal acts or specific perpetrators.”
Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials appeared to be legitimate.
The latest revelations came days before Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to visit Washington for an initial meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has sharply criticized Berlin for everything from its trade policy to what he considers inadequate levels of military spending.
The Wikileaks documents may also complicate bilateral intelligence ties that have just begun to recover after a series of scandals, including news in 2013 that the National Security Agency had bugged Merkel’s cellphone. The consulate was already heavily investigated by German lawmakers after that incident.
Merkel last month told lawmakers she did not know how closely Germany’s spies cooperated with their U.S. counterparts until 2015 when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the BND spy agency had for years passed on information to the NSA about European companies and politicians.
Germany scaled back the level of cooperation with the NSA after those revelations.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that the consulate in Frankfurt is home to a CIA base.
Difficult for the Germans to do anything about this — because the NSA will have compromising files on anyone who attempts to do anything about this
Given the autumn elections in Germany and rising nationalists, they will pretend to act very bravely. They might even achieve a “small victory” by having those tech guys with diplomatic passports sent back home. While on the next airplane a new group of similar US tech spies will replace them (now without a press event). After all, Germany is just occupied territory with the privilege of keeping in check the French, Italy, Balkans, Greece and the CEE, ..
Interesting!
“The market for high-yield mining and energy debt is suffering from the some of the same issues that sparked the 2008 crisis as investors turn a blind eye to poor credit in their desperation for fatter returns, according to an executive with one of Canada’s largest hedge funds.
“Fund managers are snapping up lower-quality debt in a bid to outperform their competitors and retail investors don’t understand the underlying credit risk, particularly in exchange-traded funds, said Rick Rule, chief executive officer of Sprott U.S. Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Toronto-based Sprott Inc. with C$9.2 billion ($6.9 billion) under management.
““It wouldn’t take anything at all to have the same circumstance occur in mining and energy junk debt that happened in mortgage securities,” Rule said in an interview in Toronto Monday. “Remember that nothing precipitously changed in the housing market in 2008. It’s just that people began to do the arithmetic.””
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-07/sprott-s-rule-warns-of-credit-crisis-as-managers-hunt-for-yield
The powder is piling many times higher now …. for instance… I think it was Argentina – serial defaulter – that issued bonds a couple of years ago — the return was relatively high — the issuance was massive over-subscribed… there are loads of other examples of this…
That is an indication that the smart money understands that this will end in total catastrophe — but in the meantime you just grab whatever you can to demonstrate to the punters in your fund that you are out-performing the index… you stuff the worst garbage into the fund — provided the yield is there.
It allows them to dance while the music plays …
The Vulture Guys have already exploited this.
As much as I detest the sociopaths and greed heads the scum are, they have brought some consequences to light.
The Elders have spoken again, unexpectedly.
Yesterday, the House of Lords (upper chamber) blocked the expedient Brexit option.
The gov faction of TPTB affiliated to the Brexiteers wanted to simply trigger “Article 50” (EU walk away) asap, most likely on occasion of the earliest summit in Brussels, and steer it towards the strategy of defaulting into WTO level deals with future relations with Europe, i.e. need as fewer negotiations and new reworked deals with the EU as possible. Guess, what the other faction blocked it. Now it goes to the lower chamber again where the globalist will likely complicate it again..
As a reminder, in the meanwhile the EU Comm is now busily drafting various schemes of multi speed Europe and other nonsense, so this is apparently related development how to slow the disintegration.
Looks like the predictions of it not being allowed may come true. Hotel California song comes to mind.
Good analogy!
As was suggested at the time of Brexit — either the Elders do not care — or if they do care they will not allow it.
It would appear the latter is the case…. the end of BAU will come before any non-token exits from the EU….
Note how the Elders continue to spy on us — even though most people would like to see that stopped…..
The next round comes Monday in the lower chamber, if the parliament (not large majority now) doesn’t over rule the upper House of Lords, well then it will be a more serious issue. The PM can counter attack by immediately call for new elections, hoping for higher mandate and ease of rolling the Leave stuff through. However, the UK court bodies already demonstrated they don’t like the Brexit either, so there are many quasi legal ways how to drag the process down, therefore preparing space for the EU Comm to set up lotsa traps for the Brexit hopefulians to sink them during next months and years of negotiations..
And who knows what happens in the future (alliance shifts, wars), at some juncture they could completely derail Brexit either by calling for new referendum (happened already in other countries on important EU treaties). Actually given the overall development even more likely is cordoning UK into some semi-membership status with other countries orbiting the core of the multispeed EU. So large chunk of the legislation (and yoke on the Brits) stays on.
It’s explained here, these two shills for the global, now with straight face pretend people actually didn’t intend to vote for “hard core” Brexit in the first place..
Just water and testing news
Water needed in China, such a huge project! “The feasibility of such a plan is questionable, as it will involve three countries. “Technology is not a problem. Diplomatic negotiations will depend on the local government,” an expert who asked not to be named told the Global Times.
The Russian government has not commented on the issue, but environmentalists have expressed concerns that Lake Baikal has been drying up at an alarming pace.”
https://www.rt.com/business/379699-baikal-fresh-water-russia-china/
China trying to keep the Peace, maybe no more testing for Kim?
“Beijing has called on North Korea to suspend its nuclear and missile activities to avoid a “head-on collision” with the US and South Korea”
“The two sides are like two accelerating trains coming towards each other with neither side willing to give way. The question is: Are the two sides really ready for a head-on collision? Our priority now is to flash the red light and apply the brakes on both trains,” Wang added.”
https://www.rt.com/news/379846-china-korea-nuclear-collision/
Unless the Federal Reserve intends to buy up every dead and dying mall in America, this is one crisis that the Fed can’t bail out with a few digital keystrokes.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.hk/2017/03/the-next-domino-to-fall-commercial-real.html
No need to buy up the malls — just bail out the entities that are unable to make their payments — and turn the properties into ghost malls… full of hookers, crack dealers, and various assorted freaks…. they could also be useful as shelters for the homeless….
More storage for Amazon.
Rehire the mall sales staff as warehouse staff (at slightly lower wages) and give them all a Sedgway, just like the boss.
http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/562598969dd7cc01308b7b81-1200/of-course-there-were-some-lemons-too-bezos-was-personally-very-excited-when-amazon-became-the-leading-online-retailer-of-segway-personal-transports-but-they-didnt-exactly-change-the-world.jpg
As we mentioned months ago on this very trend, the brave ones could try short REITs, but it well could be just another widow maker. The print-o-nians can have it levitate for some more years..
Did anyone say “Dead Mall”?
Video too long to watch, this must be the invisible hand at work, some retail plans don’t work out well. Next year could be different, decay stories going global seems the trend, no where to hide.
I predict “Dead Malls” are going to be a big problem. Lots of debt associated with them too, and spillover to other tenants.
“The Next Domino to Fall: Commercial Real Estate”
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar17/CRE-domino3-17.html
At some point… we run into something that will fail — that is too big to bail…
More news of dying malls:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/a-third-of-all-u-s-shopping-malls-are-projected-to-close-as-space-available-signs-go-up-all-over-america
Last year started off with stock markets crashing and for a while there I was worried Eddy’s “Last Christmas” might actually become reality. Then, for whatever reason (the ultra-low oil price?), the collapse seemed to be put on hold for a year. Now the bad economic data is again coming in thick and fast and it feels like pressure is building once more.
What happened was the CB’s stopped the market crash by rolling out massive stops….
In China the PBOC handed billions to proxies who bought the market — halted IPOs… and at the same time they threatened short sellers with prison ….
Meanwhile globally the CBs continued to loan cash to failing companies which was used to buy back shares driving share prices higher…
Institutional cash took one look at all of this and concluded — there is no fighting this — the CBs insist that the markets will go higher – even though earnings have been flat for years…
So we may as well jump on the bandwagon…..
And here we are in 2017 — everything is worse — GDP is falling — yet the markets are breaking records.
The retail implosion that is underway is a different animal — not sure how the CBs reverse this — it all hinges on the consumer — real wages are down — inflation is climbing — interest rates are up slightly — and meanwhile most are already drowning in debt…..
Bail out the creditors? Maybe — but that does not bring the shoppers back to the malls….
So Glenn
How about you do some research on the shale play in West Somerset UK and explain to everyone here why it was abandoned. Was it uneconomical? If your answer is technology had not advanced to the right level please explain why the technology moved to the North Sea which is 1000 times more difficult. When will you finally accept that shale is a Ponzi by Wall Street. At least the Brits are bright enough not to fall for it. Shale is old news Glenn very old news built on a desperate industry financed by a desperate industry.
A person who was of reasonable intelligence … when confronted with divergent facts and opinions regarding shale oil….
Might consider asking the question: why is shale not being pursued anywhere outside of the USA — particularly now — when supposedly it is cheaper to extract shale than it is conventional oil.
Glenn does not ask that question — therefore….
That’s my point the geography is the same in north east Mexico but Pemex hasn’t moved on it. I did business with them in the 2000s and it’s easy to say that they have capital constraints. But if that play was profitable they had the resources to play it. The whole conversation is a joke. Shale is a retirement party.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“Energy is the next bubble”
Gordon Gekko. Wall St. Money Never Sleeps, 2010.
https://youtu.be/whne5H1yLRc
“Might consider asking the question: why is shale not being pursued anywhere outside of the USA — particularly now — when supposedly it is cheaper to extract shale than it is conventional oil.” – Because the other countries of the world do not have the World Reserve Currency (the US Dollar). We can print whatever we need to make believe that shale oil is economical because oil is priced in US Dollars. Other countries cannot do that. So, in the real world shale oil is uneconomic. It is a ponzi scheme of US Dollars!
++++++!!!!!!
Very good. And also why isn’t the increase in shale oil in the US translating into commensurate growth as it has in the past?
I will bet you a hamburger today and pay you next Tuesday that Glenn saw this comment but did not comment because he could not find factual to comment.
In Glenn’s World — facts exist only to be ignored and avoided.
Inspired by Glenn, I’m starting a new religion. It is called “The Believers of the Empty Tank”. Our main philosophy is that we BELIEVE that if the gasoline gauge in our cars points to “E”, our cars will stop running.
I’ve come close to the “E” many times without the car actually stopping, so it is truly just a belief at this point in time.
Our main priest is Gary Oldman from the movie “Air Force One”, who in that said:
” It’s simple physics. Without fuel the plan crashes”
We BELIEVE he was right. All hail the fuel!
…and Fast Eddie, you can’t come! Another one of our core-beliefs is that RED is BLACK! You seem to not be able to understand that concept, and we have no room for none-believers!
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
I thought this report was interesting. I says (last page) that the vast majority of the oil and gas bankruptcies since 2015 that have taken place have taken place in Texas.
http://www.haynesboone.com/~/media/files/energy_bankruptcy_reports/2017/2017_oil_patch_monitor_20170220.ashx
Is it possible that you guys are taking this ganging up on Glenn the new kid at school too far, never go full retard. I know it’s fun and all, but this doesn’t improve the site much IMO. I’m just learning myself and not buying the 2018 thing. Like the film There Will Be Blood, someone’s milk shake will taken…
This phone is pissing me off, I will be back, technology is overrated!
Hey, I like Glenn. Glenn, for want of a better word, is good.
Clowns are usually funny … amusing…. maybe good… except the Crusty ones….
That’s good to hear Kurt, Glenn does put out big posts, I know more about the shale thing then I did before just following this on going banter.
Joel – here’s the thing…
Glenn ignore the facts.
We have all had plenty of experience of people ignoring facts on other sites — that is why The Core primarily participates only on FW.
If any of these clowns show up on FW they play by our rules – facts and logic matter.
If they refuse to play by our rules — they get this:
Rules? I’m still thinking
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJTCqssWcAA9T98.jpg
Facts are good, but sometimes tough to come by, so many opinions.
Ignore opinions — they are baseless…
Arguments are based on facts and logic — focus on them — notice how when confronted with facts and logic Glenn generally vanishes.
Glenn is giving FE a run for his money. I nominate Glenn for OFW mascot.
Hey Glenn
Ever heard of Oil Retort in Klive Somerset UK.
Shale oil isn’t new considering it was exploited in 1924 and turns out it was a loser. Shale was well developed before 1914. Sorry Bro. Not new not going to work. Nice try though. Maybe you should do a little more study of history.
The UK con men are not going to fool many.
As for US shale, it is all up to the Permian—-
We shall see if can get a positive cash flow with enough production to matter.
So far, the econ hasn’t worked, but the survivors are leaner, and only going after the few sweet spots left.
But it is just a retirement party for the few.
On the downside of the shale oil news is a new analysis saying that the decline in Bakken shale oil production that began in 2015 is probably not reversible no matter how much effort is made in drilling new wells in the region. Over the last two years, production has declined by 285,000 b/d in the Bakken despite an increase in the number of wells which reached an all-time high of 13,520 in November. Oil well performance in the field is declining despite improvements in technology and efficiency. The increasing gas-oil ratio indicates that the Bakken is going into depletion. The water cut, which is the percent of water contained in the oil output, is increasing, another indication that decline has set in.
Independent geologists who have looked at US shale oil production have been saying for several years that peak shale oil production in the US could come around 2020. When the prospects of finding vast quantities of shale oil in California went up in smoke a few years ago, most US shale oil could only come from the Bakken and Eagle Ford fields, and the Permian Basin. In the past year, we have heard claims that there is still much oil to be recovered from newly discovered portions of the Permian Basin, but these claims have yet to be proven.
Whether Eagle Ford, the Bakken, and the Permian basin can grow substantially is an open question. It is too early to declare that US shale oil production will be in terminal decline around 2020, but we are starting to get indications that this could be the case. Given the significant drop in expensive offshore drilling, there is a growing case that global oil production will be unable to continue growing in the next decade.
Meanwhile…
80% of the world’s oil has peaked:
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/brace-for-the-financial-crash-of-2018-b2f81f85686b#.z9uwvj2gd
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/icbkDFACM4iA/v2/800x-1.png
Just the 80% then, still pumping a lot today though, grateful for that. Amazing the 1947 bar was 70 years ago and now an IPO story. Oil getting cheaper too, still having trouble with the 2018 doom thing, maybe Bailout 2.0 coming? Nice pics
Exactly joel. Still pumping a lot today. So what we found the stuff decades ago – we’re still working our way through it.
Lol, Joel and Bergen. Are you being deliberately obtuse in the hope of inducing a brain aneurysm in Fast Eddy?
That may not be the whole story, but it’s a comfort to not be at 100%, I don’t know who makes up these numbers. But the way you stated it sounds positive. Better than the impending doom of 2018… Hard for me to go full 2018, still need time to think about it.
OUR ELDERS?
https://www.henrymakow.com/upload_images/2017-anniversaries.png
THIS IS ALL TO WIERD?
sorry should have inserted the date of all of this march 15 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????
https://www.henrymakow.com/2017/03/james-perloff-march-15.html
This is worth listening to
That isn’t weird at all. On any given month, you can generate a similar list, because there are so many historic events to pick from. More importantly, this list has no significance.
Generating these kinds of lists is called anomaly hunting. The technique is erroneously used as evidence for future events, and even the existence of a grand deity. (Gale has done something similar in a fairly recent post.) It is a fine technique to get folk to pause, notice something they normally wouldn’t, and say, “Cool.” Other than that, the technique is valueless.
The fact that my odometer rolls over, especially given how little I drive, is noteworthy for interests’ sake, and I will subject any passengers to a loud celebration as it happens, but it is otherwise uninteresting.
March 15 is also the 2,061st anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar,
blamed on Brutus and Cassius, but WE ALL KNOW who really did it.;)
Beware the Ides of March!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March
You only have two choices. This was always the case, but collapse brings it into better focus
-work whatever hours, in whatever capacity, for whatever wage
-kill yourself
That’s it. Interesting, isn’t it. Understand this truth and you will understand how collapse will play out.
this understates the interconnectedness of the entire system that we work in… & the faith required for fiat currencies to operate. Once faith collapses, you won’t have much choice in your work or faith in the value of your wage…
You forget the most popular human choice door #3 pillage.
Or “get welfare”
Wasn’t there a car crash not long ago of a close friend of Putin?
I see now why Nokia is re-releasing its old model phone and think maybe the share price will bump a little ….
I’ve never seen Star Wars… but wasn’t Darth Vader supposedly good — and then he was evil – something about the dark side?
America’s the world’s policeman … is looking more like the world’s director of gulags….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-07/wikileaks-hold-press-conference-vault-7-release-8am-eastern
We’ve benefited from the Elders’ empire — but as BAU winds up — and there is not enough to even throw us a few crumbs…. expect these methods…. to be used against anyone who dares stand against this.
Their tactics don’t seem to be very effective, the global miasma is growing smellier by the day…
Hi all,
I’ve been following this blog for many years, yet for some reason it’s still not intuitively clear to me why, if the resources for growth are available, the economy can’t grow without debt. It’s also not clear to me why a “steady-state” economy is not at least, in theory, possible. I know I must be missing something, but I can’t quite figure out what. Could it have something to do with human psychology? (and none of this BTW is Gail’s fault or anyone else here, you all do a great job of presenting the pertinent information). Can anyone help me see what I’m missing? Thanks.
“if the resources for growth are available, the economy can’t grow without debt” – the resources take energy to extract. As resource extraction continues, it takes increasing amounts of energy to extract the same amount of resource. At some point so much energy is used to extract resources there is less and less energy available for the rest of the economy to function. Debt doesn’t matter at this stage. Debt only works to grow the economy if there is cheap energy available in the future. There is not more cheap energy now or in the future.
A lot of the construction looks like wood and other materials. Hard to see at this size. Not sure how the cardboard and related technologies figure in terms of resource and energy extraction. Insulation seems better than average.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/home-and-garden/living-in-a-box-incredible-cardboard-homes/ss-AAn1Rar?ocid=spartandhp#image=7
It boggles the mind that some people cannot see that when growth stops — we very quickly return to the stone age.
Must have something to do with normalcy bias.
One could overcome this by turning off the electricity to their home for a few days…. surely that would drive the message home…. even though it is nowhere near what collapse will look like
Of course nobody will do that — because that would shatter their sanity
I think its better rephrased as “when DEBT growth” stops … the idea that “tangible” growth just stops and causes sudden collapses things is difficult because we see /think in terms of physical realities in front of us. How can they just disappear?
As far as i can see the financial system requires a continual increase in debt burden. Someone somewhere has to take this burden on. This is where the stopping at a point makes more sense.
All growth is debt therefore stop increasing debt and the world ends
“It boggles the mind that some people cannot see that when growth stops — we very quickly return to the stone age.”
Ever heard of a recession? There was a big one that started in 2008 but we didn’t go back to the stone age. How do you address that?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9yjQLpDnAmM/UR0hZ4jKZgI/AAAAAAAAAic/91mqxAzs1x0/s1600/Declining+World+GDP+2007+to+2012.png
When I use the term stop I mean as in forever.
simple
money was printed to kickstart the ”economy” and get out of recession in 2008
the problem is that the printed money was in fact a debt on our collective future
and as money is only a token of energy, it follws that the debt incurred is based on the assumption that sufficient raw energy will be available in the future to service that debt of $trn’s
the situation is exactly the same as you getting into subprime on your house, and borrowing more money as a 25 year loan—on the assumption you will have a job for the next 25 years paying enough to pay back the loan–ie producing sufficient energy over 25 years
if you cant do that–you lose your house.
now decide if the world will be producing sufficient oil for the next 25 years—because if not, you’d better start looking for a flint mine
I agree. All of the promises (sort of) made by Social Security are similar. They aren’t considered debt, because they are not guaranteed.
“Ever heard of a recession? There was a big one that started in 2008 but we didn’t go back to the stone age. How do you address that?”
FE don’t go too hard on him 😉
No hot water. That freaks everyone out.
Money is a token of energy exchange—
I bake and sell you a loaf of bread–I take your money, and use it to buy more flour–which is a product of wheat—which is grown from the earth by the farmer. (that is the base energy resource).The farmer borrows money to buy a tractor. on the assumption that I and others will continue to buy his wheat (forward debt)
The cash is passed hand to hand, it is not used as part of the food production process.
You consume the bread I sold you–and in so doing, you have dissipated the energy the farmer produced in the first place.
This is why steady state economies cannot exist in our current environment.
If you had sufficient land area to grow all the food you eat–plus animals for clothing, timber for building etc etc, then a steady state economy could exist—but only for you, if you made no demands outside, for healthcare, schools, police, weapons and so on. (maybe think Arctic wilderness) Your dissipating energy gets exclusively used to get hold of more food.
You would probably die by 50, leaving your land to be used by someone else.
As to “growth” you cannot have growth in a steady state economy, and neither can you have “infinite growth” on a sphere with a constantly expanding population.
It is the nature of every species to grow to maximum availability of resources, or die in the attempt.
Nature intends things to be that way, we are merely gene-carriers, we don’t have much say in the matter in a collective sense
Thank you. While the causes of the Great Depression are somewhat opaque to me, just to play devil’s advocate, why did we have that “mini-collapse” (the Great Depression), despite abundant resources at the time? I ask because perhaps that will help us know what the “trigger” for collapse will actually be, not that it matters (since it is inevitable), but just out of intellectual curiosity.
Hi Tim
I hope that was a genuine question so I’ll treat it that way. What most don’t understand is the relationship between money and economy. Economies are built on energy flows. Capital represents a hold on future energy. All activity in the economy consumes energy that has to be supplied at the moment of consumption. For a future to exist it has to have energy in place which requires investment. So to your point you can front load development by a pay as you go system in essence a steady state economy. In that scenario growth is impossible because you can only cycle equity. If you attempt to grow your economic activity without capital creation you end up with a deflationary system. If you attempt to remain at a steady state you end up with a problem because now it’s based on personal productivity which declines with age. There is no appeal in that. To overcome the inconvenience of these realities the world has embraced capitalism. In particular fiat currency. Now it’s possible to grow your capital “currency” at the rate beyond current consumption. The way this is primarily done is through governmental deficit spending. When a government borrows from a central bank the money is immediately spent into the economy absorbing the rate of growth thereby stabilizing the perceived value of the currency. This also provides the revenue needed to run the government agencies, which is actually parasitical but the masses have been conditioned to accept this as the cost of “democracy “.
With that reality in place the real issue becomes perpetual growth. Why? Because to generate the interest currency required to service present debts demands an increase in the money supply. However to prevent devaluation of the currency it also demands the growth of energy stocks. So in essence this website has revealed a paradox. Perpetual growth is impossible in a finite world but capitalism can’t function without perpetual growth.
This was well identified in 1972 with Limits to Growth but here’s the rub. The government knew it would crush them if they implemented any of the fixes needed so they chose to do nothing. Business as Usual. However you can’t outrun the consequences.
No doubt you see a lot of banter on this site. It’s all very informative, but anyone who doesn’t understand the paradox simply will lose the argument.
I agree very much.
Both debt and “equity” are “pay you back later” systems. They depend on energy supplies actually being available, so that goods and services can actually be made, so that we can in fact, pay back the debt later.
Because of diminishing returns with respect to energy extraction, it takes more and more future promises, to obtain a unit of today’s energy. Thus, we need an increasing amount of debt, just to stay even with respect to energy extraction. We end up with a Ponzi Scheme, of ever rising debt. Then someone decides to raise interest rates, and the whole thing tends to fall over.
Thank you. So, if I understand correctly, in very general terms, once it becomes apparent (to the “investors”) that growth in energy stocks is not possible no one will want to invest in future production as there will be no return on that investment… no incentive. Is that roughly correct?
tim said “Could it have something to do with human psychology?”
It has too I think. In a winner takes all world, with the winners being able to change the rules one might say, they want it all full control. Debt based money, eternal debt serfs supporting the tribe on top. It’s a rigged game…
We have had it for a long time. The power and wealth get more and more concentrated in the few.
Gail,
Not a new trend, I know, it is something to behold. I’m glad someone moderates our comments, its easily to go overboard when your old with poor balance.
you have to imagine a large metal tray—sprinkled with thousands of tiny droplets of oil
as the tray gets moved this way and that—at random–the oil droplets will shift around
over time, the oil droplets will become concentrated into bigger and bigger pools until only one big pool of oil is left.
Like becoming “one” with all the others, total oneness, a state of bliss! Just total peace and serenity, I feel it now…
@Joel
no wonder.
You have all the oil!!!
Back in the day a guy from church wanted my definition of rich. “When I have it all and everyone else has nothing” not sure why I said it, maybe a goal of total oneness.
I think you are right. At crucial part of the economy (in addition to energy) is human motivation and incentive. If the future looks bright, people are motivated to be (more) productive because they know there will be a future reward, i.e. in modern society work is not just a means to pay the bills but an investment in one’s future well being. If the future does not look bright, but in fact looks dim, there is no future reward for (hard) work. Thus the “system” becomes depressed – in the collective psychological sense – and productivity falls commensurate with expected future outcomes. Energy is the “hard” limit (subject to physical laws), psychology is the “soft” limit (subject to perceptions and beliefs).
Faith in the system is a big deal I think. Your soft/hard limits view sounds like a good one. In the old days forced labor was a common theme in conquest of other lands. How things play out will be something for sure. I would not have minded being born a decade earlier. The old meritocracy vs aristocracy divide was quite something too. I’m very grateful to have lived in the cheap oil era.
People with little education are particularly left out of the system now. They see that they cannot succeed, and turn to drug dealing to try to make a little money, and take to using drugs themselves. Needless to stay, their children end up in terrible shape.
timl2k11 says:
It has more to do with brainwashing.
Gail and most of those who frequent this thread are so brainwashed into banking doctrine and their “invisible hand” theology that they cannot even remotely imagine that there are other ways of creating money other than through debt production. They’re like fish swimming in water, and aren’t even aware of the water aroudn them.
In a place like the United States where, as Senator Durbin put it, “the banks are still the most powerful lobby on Capital Hill, and they frankly own the place,” the chances of creating money in a manner other than through debt creation are probably remote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZbC_IqWEJY
But in places like China or Russia, where the state is above the bankers, and the bankers are subserviento to the state, and not vice versa as in the United States, other ways of creating debt could be implemented.
Here are some passages from an essay that explains an alternative way of creating money that does not involve debt creation:
Glenn,
Very bold statement:
“It has more to do with brainwashing.
Gail and most of those who frequent this thread are so brainwashed into banking doctrine and their “invisible hand” theology that they cannot even remotely imagine that there are other ways of creating money other than through debt production. They’re like fish swimming in water, and aren’t even aware of the water aroudn them.”
I get it, but really most are brainwashed. I’m sorry that it’s digressed to this point and I feel guilty to have taken part. I tend not to read some of the bigger posts here so not sure of what everyone believes, just a new arrival myself.
Making sense of the fast collapse, slow collapse and BAU beliefs all on one thread is tough. Still trying to make sense of it. Hard to envision a mass die off one’s own species, maybe the fish analogy is good?
“that there are other ways of creating money other than through debt production.”
Debt creates money but easy to extract energy allows money. No energy no money. Money has zero worth without energy. This has always been true. There is no true money “creation” whether from debt, green stamps, or willy wonka certificates.
It’s not my quote, but I am glad you didn’t bother Glenn, all set on green stamps. The company town/store/script model works for me, offer them no exit. Like the mining towns of old, but on a global scale.
Gail and others did once try to convince that money is debt, but I just don’t see it, it seems like a fundamental error, but maybe it’s inconsequential. If the cash on my desk is debt, than what isn’t? That would imply anything that has an agreed upon value is debt too, so, everything, although obviously certain things are better suited for money.
What does it say on your “money”? Federal reserve note. A note is a iou- debt.
This is a fundamental category error everyone seems to make that I just don’t understand. Let’s say that we don’t have bank notes and everyone is using silver to conduct transactions. Is that silver “debt”? Of course not, no more than the pens on my desk, or the milk in my fridge, both which could conceivably be used as “money”. Anyway, still, I guess it’s much ado about nothing.
the reason people used precious metals as a medium of exchange, was that:
a—it contained a certain work-value
b…it didnt deteriorate over time
Paper money started as an iou for metal coinage, then gradually took over as units of exchange as carrying coinweight around got too cumbersome.
The next stage became “ledger money” by which debt could be created out of nothing.
Once debt was created out of nothing, and the money itself had no tangible existence, we were permanently locked into a debt-future economy by which everyone had to actually believe the money was there, even though it wasnt.
Pretty much everyone lives within that debt bubble, dependent on future renue/work to pay today’s debt.
If you cant grasp that, imagine what would happen if everyone suddenly realised that collective debt was based on just the collateral of ”belief”—the belief that your home was worth 200k—for no better reason than everyone says it is, and someone is willing to take on a debt to pay that $200k.
Of course if the purchaser has $200k in gold coins stashed away—and buys my house with it, that’s fine, but very unusual. In any event it would have to enter the bank’s ledger system.
But the gold represents the labour of those who extracted it from the ground, and even so, I have to use those coins to buy another house or whatever else i want—ie I buy the results of someone else’s labour.
whatever ”money” you use, it is only a measure by which labour/energy is measured
I highly recommend the documentary “Money as debt” by Paul Grignon to understand what paper money is and what it’s origins are. (Which NP started alluding to in the previous comment)
I’ll definitely check it out! Thanks.
I would also add this observation, according to investopedia… “A banknote is a negotiable promissory note issued by a bank and payable to the bearer on demand.” That definition no longer makes any sense. Since fiat money is now backed by nothing, there is nothing “payable to the bearer on demand”. I.e. they are intrinsically worthless.
yup
“fiat money is now backed by nothing”
Saddam and Qaddafi would disagree.
I will try again explaining the need for debt, in another post. If you buy something, the person you buy it from gets a certificate essentially saying that he can also buy something. This is where the debt comes in. When there is a built in time lag, then it is possible to almost create something out of nothing, with the magic of debt. A business can say, “Help me now, and I will give you a certificate that will allow you to buy someone else’s output now. Mine isn’t ready yet.” The business can do this because of debt it has obtained, or because of shares of stock it has sold. Our economy is full of these certificates good for future goods and services. Of course, they only are valid if the economy is functioning in the future.
“an alternative way of creating money that does not involve debt creation:”
What use is money if it isnt a debt?
The passage above as I see it implies some sort of money without INTEREST creation … not debt creation. This is not capitalism. Its more like barter.
Good luck with winding the clock back & convincing the Oil cos to go down that road.
An example. People need houses to live in and transportation to get to work etc. That’s why we need debt so houses and cars can be affordable to people without having to save up for decades. This provides myriads of jobs and keep people happy. That’s why you need debt to provide goods for a growing population, for example for people just entering adulthood who has nothing saved up.
Global upstream investment in 2017 would need to increase at least 20 percent above last year’s total to meet future demand growth, said Fatih Birol, International Energy Agency (IEA) executive director.
You think?
http://www.oilandgas360.com/will-oil-supply-keep-demand-2020/
They make it sound like things will be pretty much BAU for the next 5 years or I interpreted that badly.
3 years I would say was their analysis.
But who knows? Many of the guys actually pumping and drilling are saying 2018.
I guess we just have to see.
Lots of people like even numbers, trying to stay positive here, more of an odd number chap myself. So in that localized area 2018 maybe a turning point ?
HSBC is suggesting 2018….
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/brace-for-the-financial-crash-of-2018-b2f81f85686b#.z9uwvj2gd
I wonder if they are pushing an Apocalypse Fund on the back end of this report….
A marketing opportunity for sure. Gaming for profits right to the bitter end.
I gave a seminar last year and used Gail’s now famous graph showing global energy use over time, with a steep drop off in 2015. I think she made that prediction in 2012, so I added 3 year error bars to make it 2015 ± 3. So, if we go down in 2018, that will be within the error envelope, another accurate prediction from Gail!
not sure how we will acknowledge this feat, assuming it happens. maybe a special awards ceremony at FE’s End of the World party? FE, can we all attend and maybe not go home afterwards?
“maybe a special awards ceremony at FE’s End of the World party? FE, can we all attend and maybe not go home afterwards?”
Not a bad idea, only problem is how do we get to NZ?
These type of predictions have been made since I first read about peak oil in 2005. Fact is oil business supply fluctuates with price/demand. There isn’t going to be any collapse of the oil industry, not anytime soon anyway. It’s in the black. It wouldn’t do what it does if it didn’t make money.
I would suggest you read this https://srsroccoreport.com/end-of-the-u-s-major-oil-industry-era-big-trouble-at-exxonmobil/
This would seem to indicate we are in serious trouble…
http://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/icbkDFACM4iA/v2/800x-1.png
This IEA statment repeats some of the themes that Gail has itereated, that the low oil prices don’t justify enough investment in higher-cost oil to insure future supply. The underlying subtext is that growth in lower-priced shale production won’t be enough to satisfy future demand growth, and will not end up being be the marginal barrel.
http://www.oilandgas360.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/03062017-Oil-Breakeven.png
http://www.oilandgas360.com/u-s-oil-gas-breakevens-50-per-barrel-3-35mcf-klr/
That’s a legitimate analysis, backed up by a fair weighing of the facts and empirical data, and quite the opposite of the defacutalized nonsense from Art Berman and SRrocco spout and that Fast Eddy posts ad nauseaum. It’s more in line with what the IEA is thinking, which is somewhat more pessimistic about shale potential than what those in the shale industry are saying.
It’s going to take some more time to see just how productive the shale plays will be, and what the actual extraction cost will be. Nevertheless, I think we know enough already to conclude that shale oil and natural gas breakeven costs have come way down from a couple of years ago.
The ranking of the major oil basins for the lowest extraction costs is as follows (also illustrated on graph that Duncan Idaho posted):
https://s1.postimg.org/m0wnx4jgv/Captura_de_pantalla_720.png
U.S. shale required prices to break even are higher than many are asserting, according to research by KLR Group released today. But if the IEA’s current demand/supply analysis is correct, it’ll be a moot point in three years.
KLR’s models show U.S. oil and gas breakeven WTI prices are $50/bbl and $3.35/Mcf, significantly above many estimates. Using a standard 10% ROR forces cost of supply much higher, with oil ranging from $71/bbl to $91/bbl and gas from $4.20/mcf to $5.70/mcf.
Several factors contribute to costs being higher than expected. According to KLR, all-in well costs across a company’s entire drilling program are about 120% above single well estimations.
Trouble wells can easily cost double expectations. Actual well recoveries are generally 15%-30% below type curves. Almost all anomalous events in a well’s lifetime are negative, and these occurrences are typically not included in forecasts. The higher full-cycle well cost and lower well recoveries make actual industry capital intensity about twice the values given in single well representations, according to KLR.
Midland and Eagle Ford show lowest oil breakevens
The Midland basin and eastern Eagle Ford have the lowest required oil costs due to lower capital intensity and higher oil cuts. These basins require a WTI price of $71/bbl-$80/bbl to create a 10% ROR.
The Bakken has higher capital intensity than the Midland basin and lower realized oil price, but does have the highest oil cut of major U.S. oil plays. An oil price of about $90/bbl is required for a 10% ROR in the Bakken, according to KLR.
The Midland basin is considered the lower bound of the cost of U.S. supply, while the Bakken is considered the upper bound of supply cost.
Gas: Marcellus is lowest breakeven
According to John Gerdes and the KLR team, the Marcellus has the lowest breakeven costs of any major U.S. gas play.
Low capital intensity drives this advantage, but is partially offset by lower realized prices due to transportation bottlenecks. KLR estimates that $4.20/mcf-$4.50/mcf gas prices are required to generate a 10% ROR in the Midland. The Utica sees similar price realizations but higher capital intensity than the Marcellus, driving its 10% ROR cost up to $5.00/mcf.
Uh oh. Now you’ve done it. Cue FE.
I worked in the trenches in LGBT advocacy back before it was cool to be gay, so I know all the tell tale signs of fanatatical religous fundamentalism.
And Fast Eddy demonstrates every characteristic of being a fundamentalist religous fanatic:
All in all, the type of fundamentalist religious fanatacism that Fast Eddy engages in is the 180º opposite of what the scientific process should look like. But as Kip Hansen notes in this post, science, and especially climate science, frequently falls way short of best scientific practices too:
Eddy never struck me as being a godbotherer
more or less sane i would have thought
Norman Pagett,
What does sanity have to do with it?
Because of my many years in the trenches fighting against the Christian Right, I know more about peope like Fast Eddy than he knows about himself. These people are not insane. And the best of them, like Ralph Reed, are extremely intelligent, charming, and beguiling.
Fanatical religious fundamentalism — whether of the traditional sort or the new secular ideological variety — is about people who are so in love with their own theories, hypoetheses, opinions, speculations, predictions, theology, or secular ideology that it blinkers them to any alternative facts, and carries them far afield of factual reality.
It’s a common condition that runs throughout human history, and is not the definition of insanity.
Glenn – I see all religious people as fanatics…. organized religion is a cult.
Think about it – every Sunday you gather and some clown preaches to you — and you make a sign of the cross and moan eh-men …. you drop to your knees and worship the man in the sky — who like Caesar can on a whim give you the thumbs down sending you to the fires of hell to burn forever.
This is madness. Total madness. Total delusion.
It would be a colossal joke if it were not for the fact that religious and political leaders urge the fanatics to kill each other on a regular basis.
Death to religion. Death to cults.
Post BAU I might consider rising up as the anti-Pence….. anyone who even dares to mention Jesus or Allah or any of these fakes —- will get the sword. Absolutely NO exceptions
does a frenzied Oh-my-god also carry the death sentence?
just in case
I will show mercy and any utterance of the word allah god jesus etc… will result in the Cutting Off of The Tongue with The Sword.
COOTTTS.
well that won’t go down too well with the blasphemer i have in mind
suddenly i prefer Trumprule
I must admit, Fast Eddy/Paul does seem to behave like a “religious” (I use the term loosely) fanatic doomster. Why? Because he makes overly confident statements about “insta-collapse”. I don’t doubt “instal-collapse” because it terrifies me, I doubt it because there are so many moving parts that the “shape” or “path” of collapse seems impossible to know for sure. Perhaps the USA will suffer dramatically reduced living standards, gradually, thus easing the pressure on the “system” for a time. I don’t know.
i can understand your point
but an aircraft also contains 000s of moving parts
the failure of any one of them can bring the plane down
Taking your airplane analogy, depending on which part fails, in some instances one system can compensate for the failure of another, as when, for example, on United Airlines Flight 232, the engines were used to steer the aircraft when all flight controls were lost. Now the economy does not have a “pilot”, but, like an airplane, it does have many systems which can be used for purposes they were never intended for.
the aircraft analogy was a generalistion
but to be absolutely specific, if the aircraft runs out of fuel it falls out of the sky
we are running out of fuel and there are no viable alternatives
It does make sense to me that we will try to keep the illusion of infinite growth going until we essentially fall of a cliff so to speak. I guess my point is that it is possible there may be events that *impair* the system without destroying it, and then a “re-adjustmtent” ensues. I suppose my real fear is that this will be a long, painful, drawn out collapse, and I’m hoping to disabuse myself of such beliefs.
you could be right about a long slow drawn out slowdown and a peaceful existence in centuries to come. nobody can know precisely.
i make my forecast on the imbalance of global society as it is right now:
1 Bn people reasonably comfortable
6.5 Bn in a state from poverty to outright starvation
If that balance is not redressed, then we’re well and truly screwed, because the havenots will not obediently roll over and die, or remain as they are, essentially supporting the ”haves” in thier comfortable lifestyles.
Politicos can argue about the details, or frack themselves into bankruptcy, or argue about famine relief—that is the equation we have to deal with, and the gap is going to widen, and not in countries 6000 miles away, but literally on our own doorsteps.
The employment isnt there to enable people to earn enough to live, because cheap surplus energy isnt available to support the labour of people. This is the imbalance of our society. It has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with the industrial infrastructure we regard as normal and infinite.
The haves and havenots are with us now, and the vast majority have no concept of what created their predicament, only that they see stuff they cannot afford even on a modest scale.
in any society, mass deprivation never ends peacefully.
Imbalance, that’s a good point. I’m loving your book by the way. Very well written.
yes i’ve come to see imbalance of society as one of or major problems.
people will not surrender willingly what they have, so the nature of things would suggest they will have it taken from them
it is that act of taking that will give us an unpleasant few years till balance restores itself.
glad you like the book btw
Norman – how about this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/b0/7b/ea/b07bea8c5ed034e8ec816e7b5dce1a2c.jpg
“the failure of any one of them can bring the plane down”
That’s normally not the case. Planes are able to fly with a lot of damaged equipment. Not long ago I was on a plane where half the cabin air quit. The pilot loaded a little more fuel so he could fly a little lower and we took off. Even an engine out doesn’t bring the plane down.
Keith – how’s everything — do you mind to take Glenn with you when you head back to DelusiSTAN?
Religious fanatics do not make use of facts.
I have posted facts that demonstrate that 99%+ of all agricultural land is farmed using petrochemicals which destroy the soil — so therefore there will be epic famine post BAU — likely everything grows or moves will be consumed by 7.5 billion starving people.
Show me how that is not a fact?
I have posted facts that demonstrate that if a spent fuel pond is not maintained it will release 14,000 or so Hiroshima bombs of radiation. There are 4000 ponds around the world.
Show me how that is not fact? Or show me how we manage 4000 spent fuel ponds without electricity – diesel – engineers – computers – spare parts when BAU goes.
” I don’t know.”
That’s a healthy outlook. If there is anything that will pull humanity back from the fire, it’s the expansion of knowledge. For example (a wild one), people could have a big leaf installed so they can be fed by just lying in the sun. This isn’t beyond what can be imagined coming out of biological research.
“This isn’t beyond what can be imagined coming out of biological research.”
Hmm, I find that example a bit bizarre.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
timl2k11,
Most of the commenters on this thread, and Gail herself, fall into the determinist school.
According to this philosophy, humans have no will to change the course of events, but are trapped in exorable natural process controlled by an omnipotent and omnipresent deus esconditas>/i>. One of these quasi-devine puppeteers is evolutionary theory. Another is the “invisible hand.”
These deterministic theories have their origins in John Calvin’s deterministic theology of divine selection and pre-destination.
The opposite philosophy/theology to this is what is known as Pelagianism or Humanism. Both of these attribute the free will, and thus the ability, to man to change his destiny.
For more on this, you might want to check out my comments above on this same thread, where I cite some references which explain this in much greater detail:
Facts? Did I hear someone ask for facts?
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Norman said
“does a frenzied Oh-my-god also carry the death sentence?
just in case”
If you start making exceptions right away my guess things will fall apart, one must hold the line, sort of an honor thing. Who knows this is out of my league…
Was late on the post, he shows mercy, its settled.
Glenn-
Just adding a bit of equanimity and data from a legitimate source.
hint: (It’s best if we all do this)
Why don’t you talk to Fast Eddy about that?
I sense that FE has donned the tin foil hat, entered the storage container, and is currently composing an extensive rant – 3…2…1…
Glenn, could you take a minute and review FE cash flow chart he posted above. I’m convinced Our FE has it right and I think shale oil is a dead duck. Could you give me your interpretation?
OK so a minimum oil price of $70 dollars is required to make a reasonable profit, with oil stubbornly around $50 a barrel, how could these shale companies make money?
The lucky ones who are making profits are the newer entrants who don’t have a bunch of sunk investment and debt overhang in wells that were completed using older technology, and in the shoddier basins. Wells were much more expensive to drill and produced less oil.
They don’t have the debt overhang, they use the latest of technology, and only drill in the sweetest of spots where the wells produce much more prolifically. Extraction costs may be as low as $30 per barrel, allowing them to make a 10% return at $50 per barrel oil price. Remember, $50 is the average cost.
But I agree with KLR that, for the Permian and Eagle Ford shale basins to become active again on a widescale basis, a price of at least $60 to $70 will be required, and for the Bakken maybe even $90.
I think most of the pioneers in the shale business lost money even at $100 per barrel. This is the part of Art Berman’s analysis I agree with.
Why do companies invest in money-losing ventures? You tell me.
Yes sure Glenn… sure… so producers have knocked over 50 bucks off the price required to produce a barrel of oil …. holy jesus mother of mary we’ve got us a miracle… the ‘The Second Coming’ is not hype… Jesus is here — he is on a pilgrimage to Shale Land —- he touches a shale play and voila —- the oil magically comes to the surface….
Is he off to Alberta next? They could use some of that magic too.
FYI: red ink does not generally imply profitability….
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Why do people invest in companies that lose money?
Generally because these are companies that have huge potential upside — if a tech company has massive traffic — but loses money – the hope is that they will be able to monetize that traffic and become the next Google or Facebook – both of which lost a lot of cash at one point.
Everyone – except you it seems — knows that shale is a dog — shale wells deplete very rapidly — there is no long term monetization opportunity —- these are very short plays…
Why does the money pour in? Because if the money does not pour in – the oil stays in the ground — and we die.
‘Whatever it takes’ — means — whatever it takes. We are fighting for our lives here
http://a.abcnews.com/images/Business/GTY_pets_com_nt_131107_16x9_992.jpg
They dont
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
What more do you need Glenn? This says it all…. if $50 was profitable then you would not see a sea of red….
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Nicely done, nicely done.
The economy is like a self-driving car.
Imagine if it ran on batteries!
https://youtu.be/3AlndKQSs6Q
Breath taking fantasy, one can only dream, the city of Atlantis ran on zero point modules sort of a battery. Battery technology is improving, as a consultant I used to run a development team for a battery powered under water vehicle. Played around with battery powered bicycles about a decade or more ago. My conclusion then was if range was a concern and slower top speed acceptable, it was better to improve endurance fitness than screw with batteries. To fat to think about riding now, I hear you can live for years on body fat, Java the Hut is immortal….
The people don’t believe the Empire is evil, the media suppress that view point. Some are aware of the cruelty of the past and present, not a popular topic of discussion. Donald said he will make things great so there’s that, one can only hope and change, it’s an embarrassment…
Most of the US public has not been part to any serious pain on domestic soil at least since the Civil War era, that’s what, ~150yrs ago? This is often overlooked important factor shaping the nation’s psyche in contrast to the rest of the world.
Obviously, there were some ongoing trends slightly altering that like waves of immigration from war torn countries, incl. replant of elites of Nazi regimes from Europe and S. America etc. Also some wounds have been made by the Vietnam war and the overall social decay from at least 1970s. But the major point still stands, the US in unfit to face up to any serious dislocation in contrast to 2.5-3rd world “immunized” realities..
In Alaska ya’ll who sing god bless america every morning…. ya’ll ought to watch this ..
Ya’ll are living inside the epicentre of the evil empire.
https://thepiratebay.org/search/snowden/0/99/200
Events are unfolding at amazing speed and it is accelerating. Unprecedented in history of mankind. A lot of metric/statistics/etc are at all time highs, all time low, since Lehman, since 1987, etc.
A flap of a butterfly’s wings in Amazon will cause a great thunderstorm in London – chaos theory.
Anything, any event, big or small can cause an extinction event. Only a fool will comment that it will or will not be an issue.
Cornered animals are especially vicious because it is a do-or-die situation. Will this be another pile on the camel’s back or will it be the straw? No idea….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-06/wikileaks-releases-encrypted-vault-7-torrent-will-unveil-password-tuesday-9am
I could be wrong, but this will be nothing again.
As of today you can run 1080p documentary video how the Seizure Lady candidate is eating Syrian child brains with a long spoon and at least half the country won’t be bothered at all.. We are way past the moment at which information and civil discourse can change a thing..
Not so sure about that…
It’s just that there’s no meaningful discourse at the Nation State level. At the top table at The Bank of International Settlements … well well well
I have a funny feeling it’s different amongst that grade of human.
Well, that’s related to the issue I posted about, the wiki leaks is mostly just a “low level” fluff. Color me unimpressed providing “yet another evidence” how the delegated political class and some mid upper level of fat cat are corrupted and immoral, .. , who knew.. lol
However, the leakers have several times outed themselves by admitting they are not interested in the core structural stuff shaping longer cycles, including the layers like you suggested, BIS, .. etc.
Yep, that’s pretty much it, you can’t blame the leakers; it takes a life time of study–and the right social position to comprehend the System in its Totality. No one is to blame really.
What is concerning; is that all of my friends whom are far older than me couldn’t see the System. So they were all relying on belief to varying degress.
Interestingly, in the personal notes of all the US unofficial leadership that I read; they all used to word DOOM to describe the situation facing America.
Amazing, really.
Cathal Haughian
http://www.beforethecollapse.com/about
Yep, all the hoopla so far today was just another dump of details on cyber spying and inter agencies fight.. Well, we have had similar stuff uncovered for past several decades on many fronts already to no avail. Nothing new under the sun, stealing, spying, lying, ..
Perhaps one of the “benefits” and or (goals of it) will be temporary shift of balance more towards the mil guys faction “around” Trump for a moment.
I was watching Snowden yesterday — and clearly what the NSA is doing is driven by the desire to control the world — of that there can be no doubt. The Terrorists are a means to this end … scare people (911) — then roll out the surveillance unopposed.
This is a clear violation of the US constitution — it is ILLEGAL.
Has anything been done about it? Nope.
Is the MSM screaming STOP? Nope
Are the elected reps voting to stop this? Nope
Is the http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-18/surveillance-state-wins-senate-votes-allow-nsa-bulk-data-collection-continue
The Elders run the show….
The primary purpose of surveillance is to build up a database of control files on every decision maker. Then, they’ll obey. That’s why you must choose; I chose China.
Many lack the context to attain Understanding. Like how the fish are last to see the water.
Sitting in China, and being well informed, my summary is that Trump is backed and protected by a New York based Family–The Rotschilds.
The Rockefelar Network controls the USA historically and is smarting quite openly, they were the pro War faction in recent years. Their Network is vast, including CIA, CNN, NYT, WaPO, CFR etc.
The Rotschild faction is systematically attacking the Network; first the media and now Intel branches.
So, in China we’re essentialy watching a kind of civil war at the very top, reminiscent of the recent power struggle here between Bo XiLi and Xi.
The wild card is a dirty nuke or assassination; impeachment is a real possibility.
You’d be crazy to be exposed to significant risk going forward; I’m all in 100% Gold. May buy some crypto. And I had no gold two months ago.
Good Luck to my American Friends,
Cathal
http://www.beforethecollapse.com/about
http://www.beforethecollapse.com/about
I am sure Snowden and Assange have held back the stuff that would tear the system to bits — Snowden in particular would have access to all the secrets the NSA has on every world leader the world over — the deals behind the deals etc etc etc…
But what point in revealing these things? If anything — you hold that info back as your get out of jail card.
Ultimately nothing will change – both are wasting their time.
My point is that we will never know what the trigger will be. We must cherish every moment of our lives.
Yep, recently I just caught myself off guard starring (while FW narrative buzzing in the head) at my shiny zinc plated wheel barrow and shovel, what fantastic tools. My ancestors of few hundred yrs past would be proud and humbled by such technology at the same time..
Can we put the world out of its misery …. please….
The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. It’s just an easily manipulated number. I fully expect the dow to be reaching new highs just before everything collapses.
Wage slavery is categorically different in that its prevalence correlates with non animate sources of energy. Wage slaves have served as overseers of the energy slave economy according to the instructions of the bosses. Sadly, what this implies is that as fossil energy production declines, the demand for wage slaves also declines. We are observing it happening. The stagnation of wage earnings began at the time US oil production peaked. The currently observable rapid decline in demand for wage slaves just happens to coincide with global peak energy.
The actual rate of energy decline is accelerated by the associated trend of impoverishment of wage slaves and the growing pool of would-be wage slaves. And thus we will get to see the effect of Ugo Bardi’s Seneca Cliff. Named for 1st century Roman citizen Lucius Annaeus Seneca and based on this quotation:
“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.”
– Lucius Anneaus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, n. 91
Demand for energy is falling faster than production, causing even the mightiest producers to teeter on the edge of insolvency. The prediction a few years ago by petroleum geologist Jean Laherrere that the Bakken fields would be played out around 2020 appears to be on target.
The great NY Yankees catcher Yogi Berra is said to have quipped that “predictions are hard, especially about the future.” I agree, but sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind.
Ugo Bardi, an estimable professor, and a whole pack of fellow academics joined by the usual crowd of entrepreneurial hustlers are pushing a pipe filled to the brim with Hopium that ruination can be avoided or mitigated by works worthy of a sorcerers apprentice.
We just have to assemble a vast armada of solar panels and wind turbines, plus a few billion tons of rechargeable batteries and turn every suitable topographic feature of the landscape into pumped storage, et voila!, energy slaves forever.
An admirable dream, but I’m gonna let that bandwagon go on down the street without me. I share the opinion that boat sailed for NeverneverLand quite a long time ago. What already exists and whatever still gets built will keep some lights on for awhile, but preservation of industrial civilization seems to me unattainable.
For me optimism is ordering 100 more capsules for the despised Nespresso machine….
“we must live the dark ages with the human species we have, not the one we might wish we had. “
http://www.anarkismo.net/cache/imagecache/local/attachments/jan2017/300_0___20_0_0_0_0_0_obamaafghanistanwar1.jpg
Real earnings are up 2.5% off the 2009 lows, The Dow is up 210%
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-06/snap-crackle-drop-hottest-ipo-crashes-bull-market-celebrates-8th-birthday
Do not … fight… the Fed
It’s really just a breathtakingly huge circle jerk between institutional investors and the FRBNY. That’s it. Everything else they spew out is utter nonsense.
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/03/05/brick-mortar-retailers-bankruptcies-restructuring-neiman-marcus-bcbg-hhgregg/
Online is part of the problem but this demonstrates that the real problem is that people have no munny…
http://www.startribune.com/off-price-stores-are-taking-off-in-the-twin-cities/415375144/#
here is a more serious video about the collapse of retail.
https://youtu.be/kuZ1wUizx14
The price of delusion:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/brought-down-by-long-bust-texas-oil-men-pray-for-another-boom/ar-AAnP4lA?pfr=1
What does it all mean…
It seems like a lot of testing has been hitting the news lately. Poor Iran has been threatened so many times over the years. Had a friend who had to train these guys to maintain F14 avionics back when the Shah still had his job there. He said they tough to work with, didn’t like being blamed for mistakes, maybe the Navy should just leave them alone.
The new young Kim is having fun, love the photo ops/clips when a successful launch takes place.
“One day after North Korea launched 4 ballistic missiles, 3 of which fell into the East Sea inside Japan’s economic exclusion zone, and which have painted a spotlight on how Trump will react to this latest provocation, Fox reports that Iran also test-fired a pair of ballistic missiles this weekend into the Gulf of Oman, with one missile destroying a floating barge approximately 155 miles away.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-06/iran-test-fired-2-ballistic-missiles-iranian-vessels-came-within-600-yards-us-navy-s
Hope things don’t get out of hand
http://i.imgur.com/r3QQrbo.png
Most likely not accidental timing both NK & Iran fired missiles the same day, as they have exchanged missile and nuclear bomb information in the past. What I love about it is it was a double whammy on Trump, the provocator. Let’s see what the narcissistic raging lier does in response. Probably just more venting and fuming. Come on Trump, put your rage into action. Do something about these missile launches instead of spouting vacuous threats.
Hint:
Iran holds the “Trump Card” on this one.
That cat seems to want nothing more than to pass out in a comfy place.
One eye says “just ignore this tiresome pr/ck.” The other says “just be glad that you are the one who brings me the food bowl and not a mouse.”
Got to watch this!!!
https://youtu.be/LPjzfGChGlE
Maybe he could explain carbon emissions to people using gumballs.
The people would just eat them and want more gumballs.
“The people would just eat them and want more gumballs.”
In the movie Key Largo a character in a wheelchair asks this Cuban Mafioso character how much is enough? What is it you really want? And he thinks about it for a moment, then says, “I want more. Sure, that’s what I want.” And I guess that defines people too, always wanting more. Voracious appetites until something stops them.
rumor has it there’s book out about the end of all that gimme more stuff, in kindle and paperback.
It may sound like a fantastic creed that the quasi-divine powers of the market are a rational will and that the social world is governed by an “invisible hand” that almost miraculously produces a rational distribution of goods and services.
And so it is. What is more fantastic is that it is still widely believed.
The market fundamentalists, even as we speak, are diligently at work propagandizing their fantastic creed:
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BhirfVRcyNo/WLMYQVIj2FI/AAAAAAAAR3Q/bFN7zilbiTwm_dyMJfVer7-DGf0tqAvMwCLcB/s640/Trumpentropy.png
Got to check out this essay found here:
http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/Pfv1.cfm?pfvID=2612&SearchParam=Shamrock
concerning the manipulation of the gold and oil markets leading up the collapse of the USSR. http://www.lemetropolecafe.com/Authorlinkdocs/1672.htm
Very interesting stuff and the many links provides a wealth of info. This one paragraph though speaks volumes:
“What we are looking at are “the powers that be” backed by British and American (and Israeli) military might, pushing for control of the world’s oil supply to the detriment of the people who already have legal title to it. It is raw, naked power…ruthlessly projected. The United Nations Security Council has just approved the plan, which means that this whole farce is now turning out to be little more than ‘legalized’ stealing. Public opinion be damned.”
This piece to from 2001 on Saddam Hussien and his manipulation of the oil market is frightening to say the least. He had balls to go up against the States but paid for it terribly so.
mahttp://www.gold-eagle.com/article/saddam-ized-iraqi-crude-oil
Gold and Oil and all the political blackmail going on reminds me so very well the words from James 4
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God?
thanks Jerry very interesting read there is proof of elders working in collusion to bring about a hidden agenda this may involve precious metals maybe a return to the gold standard that might be the real reason that canada has lost all its gold
strange goings on but for me all of this lends considerable weight to the bible and its teachings/warnings that the city of Babylon in Rev. 18 is none other than New York/Washington. Given the reference to 7 hills and one would think its Rome but don’t you know Washington herself sits on 7 hills. Rev. 18
Strange goings on and one should visit vigilent citizen to learn and ask why the interest and building of Pyramids and other symbols from long cursed and forgotten empires. https://vigilantcitizen.com/category/sinistersites/
There you will find the truth that America is not a Christian nation but an idolatrous one! and Christianity has sadly been usurped by diabolical people working to destroy it from within. It is why we read in 2 Peter 2:2-4
Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
and why St. Paul cried terribly for he foresaw what was coming
I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you without mercy for the flock. Yes, and even among you men will arise speaking perversions of the truth, trying to draw away the disciples and make them followers of themselves. This is why I tell you to keep on the alert, remembering that for three years I never failed night and day to warn every one of you, even with tears in my eyes.
Mexico — applies for Too Big Too Fail status:
The most ominous sign yet came last week when Bloomberg reported sources saying that the Bank of Mexico (or Banxico, as it is referred to) had sought a swap line from the Federal Reserve in case of “liquidity problems,” which immediately triggered furious denials from Banxico.
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/03/05/mexico-debt-liquidity-problems-swap-line-fed/
Foreign currency borrowing caused the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997…. it’s all good until your currency devalues — and you have to pay USD debt with local currency revenues.
The Fed will need to add Mexico to the list of entities that suck the teat to get infinite low interest USD…..
I heard a prediction that we can expect rolling derivative collapse based regional bank failures this year. These, like past failures, will be contained in an effort to save the system. Since this will be an international issue I’m sure all central banks will collaborate. 2017 shouldbe interesting if this turns out to be accurate.
China announced few days ago (ZH article) at their congress that they are not going print anymore, as the post 2008 and especially the period after 2013 reflation was pumped mostly by them at least on the traceable front as per that recently “famoused” UBB paper. They said such printing could be utilized again in times of reacting to crisis only.
So, this is either just another lie or as perhaps more probable they are trying to force showdown on FED, since the Euros and Japanese (or yet smaller ones like BoE/SNB) can’t obviously return to printing in that top league alone in any quasi credible fashion.
Here we go. Sooner than I thought. Those dominos just keep falling.
Well something is certainly going on, because the Mexican Peso has recovered substantially since the middle of January. So maybe Mexico asked for and received a swap line from the Fed. This is what happened back during the Great Financial Crisis.
https://s9.postimg.org/qjnfofo8v/Captura_de_pantalla_716.png
There are, however, other reasons why the Peso might be recovering, as are listed here:
Also the Chinese ambassador from China to Mexico announced a while back that if Trump gets too tough on Mexico, China is waiting with baited breath to enter Mexico and develop its vast oil and natural gas shale reserves.
Maybe this had something to do with Trump’s 180º reversal on his immigration policy last week, which is a very big issue with the Mexican people and its criminal state.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/597689-1.gif
I’m in Mexico right now.
They knew something several months ago, as i was limited to $300 in exchange.
Since you are there, has the pipeline theft issue improved? Remembered a story a few months back.
Mexican Drug Cartels Looting State-Owned Gas Pipelines http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-12/mexican-drug-cartels-looting-state-owned-gas-pipelines-black-market-sales
Amid the chaos, the country’s powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel threatened to to burn down gas stations as retribution for taking advantage of “the majority of the people who don’t make even a minimum wage.”
I’m in Jalisco, but no visible chaos.
But I’m sure it is continuing.
Mexican Oil and Drug Cartels: Cocaine & Crude (Full Length)
Like Gail has said, Mexico has many potential problems to resolve before it can fully exploit its vast shale oil and natural gas reserves. This is one of them.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Mexico is has enough red ink to get involved in the shale ponzi.
Europe has totally abandoned shale (except a few UK con men).
Argentina has the best shot of at least breaking even.
That chart is sort of humorous.
That chart is pure propaganda.
?
Nevertheless, the revenues Mexico receives from the export of petroleum plunged drastically beginning in 2012, due to both declining production and lower prices, leaving a huge hole in the Federal budget.
https://s27.postimg.org/ox4731lo3/Captura_de_pantalla_85.png
Mexico’s top auditor, the Federal Audit Office (ASF), just came out with a bombshell report showing that a staggering 72.9% of the new debt Mexico’s government issues today is used to repay the principal on its maturing old debt while 13.9% goes toward servicing the interest payments. That leaves just 13.2% for investment projects or productive activities, part of which is no doubt skimmed off by corrupt officials and businessmen.
The debt continues to grow at a much faster rate than Mexico’s economy, whose growth is forecast to slow this year to 1.5%, compared to last year’s 2.4%. To make matters worse, much of Mexico’s new debt is in foreign-denominated currencies. Between 2015 and 2016 alone, the total amount of euro and dollar-denominated debt it issued rose by 46.2%.
Mexico’s oil revenue is crashing.
It was 1/3 of National Income.
I don’t understand why shale is not happening in Mexico — don’t they understand that they can be Saudi Mexico … I don’t buy this ‘gangs’ excuse —- are the gangs shutting down Pemex?
Come on Mexico – join the 50 Buck Club. Avoid collapse. And enjoy decades of prosperity based on cheap shale oil
Come now FE, you just need to ignore profitability and depletion.
Living n Mexico, I can say from primary experience red is a popular color.
Euan Mearns says Donald saved us
“10 years ago on The Oil Drum many were forecasting the imminent terminal decline of global oil production. And it never happened. For years now folks have been forecasting the imminent collapse of the US shale industry and US oil production. And it never happened. “
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-17/death-bakken-field-has-begun-big-trouble-us
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Bakken-Decline-Rates-Worrying-For-Drillers.html
https://grandemotte.wordpress.com/oil-and-gas-5-production-decline-rates/
And now the operators are poking even more holes into the plays with horizontal drilling — accelerating the depletion rates even further
Well actually there’s some real factual information out there on Mexico’s vast shale oil and natural gas potential, so one doesn’t have to trade in the distortions, half-truths and outright lies that Fast Eddy does.
And yes, Mexico does have the potential to put it in the same league with Saudi Arabia, reserves wise, even though the extraction costs for shale will be much higher than what the extraction costs in Saudi Arabia’s conventional oil fields have been.
The vastness of Mexico’s shale fields is difficult to comprehend: 1000 km long by 50 to 200 km wide, with more than 200 m of gross shale thickness, double the typical Eagle Ford thickness in South Texas.
Instead of wallering in a world of defactualized distortions, half-truths and outright lies the way Fast Eddy does, one might actualy try doing some investigations based on empirical facts, as this article in the Oil and Gas Journal does:
And there is a pool of oil beneath the surface of the moon 10x the volume of the Pacific Ocean — but the cost to deliver it to earth is $100+ per barrel….
Will this oil every make it to earth?
According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices. http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/high_oil04sum.pdf
This map shows the areal extent of Mexico’s shale basis.
The areas are so vast in comparison to the size of US shale basisns that it boggles the mind.
http://www.ogj.com/content/dam/ogj/print-articles/volume-114/issue-6/160606OGJ_40_1.jpg.scale.LARGE.jpg
We’ve got plenty of oil that in the ground that is not feasible to recover because it would result in a sea of red ink — so what is so special about this?
I understand that those areas are deeply infested with the cartels and the population suffers tremendously. Its time humanitarian responsibilities of USA illicit drug use are addressed, those shale/cartel zones need to be liberated!
Interesting that Pemex up until the price of oil plunged …. was able to operate without being shut down by the ‘bad guys’ — how the revenues from Pemex made up to one third of all govt income — how it fueled corruption to many officials ….
Yet apparently shale oil — which could replace Pemex as the cash cow — is not allowed to happen because the ‘bad guys’ are so powerful that they are stopping it.
You’d think the Mexican military would step in — heck – considering the fate of the planet is at stake you’d think the US military would walk across the border and within 15 minutes put an end to the ‘bad guys’
They must be really F98877ing bad guys…. everyone is afraid of the bad guys …. let’s take a look at one of the bad guys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW37AGZ0Pj0
Ya – I am sure the Mexican and US military machines are scared… gotta be that
Jacob Zuma calls for confiscation of white land without compensation
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/03/jacob-zuma-calls-confiscation-white-land-without-compensation/
What the South African anti-foreign riots say about the country’s economy
Growth is anaemic and per capita income is 3.8% lower than in 2009 – a recession year, writes Julians Amboko
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/03/02/what-the-south-african-anti-foreign-riots-say-about-the-countrys-economy/
Anti-White Riots – video https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/world/africa/immigrant-protests-south-africa.html
No place on earth will be a good place to be when BAU goes…. however Whitey would be better off on the moon than in any country where Whitey is not the majority …. in any country where Whitey has a history of oppressing the locals….
One reason I left Indonesia is because Whitey treated them Indonesians very badly for 300+ years… and they remember … and when Whitey loses his power — there will be people who recall grandpa telling about how Whitey spit on him ….
And they will be wanting revenge on Whitey…. they will be doing very bad things when they catch Whitey…
South Africa….whooaa….. very bad place to be when the SHTF… very bad indeed…
Whitey is going into the cooking pot … as we can see Jacob is putting more wood on the fire….
FE, this is a real issue. Unfortunately the US is not a safe place for this reason. New Zealand sounds pretty good. I can not think of any other safe place for whites.
“What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence” of our land.
Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the U.S.; Hispanics, 17 percent; blacks, 12.3 percent; Asians, 5 percent; and multiracial Americans, 2.4 percent.
But let’s not kid ourselves… white will be at the throat of white as well…. over a can of beans
Whitey has had a good run overall, I don’t think it’s all that bad yet. Everyone can’t go to NZ…
Hard times ahead for the majority though. I think a good test would be a 30 day shut down on the EBT cards, sort of a stress test. Get a feel if any problems area’s or stability issues with the system. Down in Venezuela they’re currently testing…
Why should non-white revenge on european countries with no real colonial history? Like Finland?
Oh I dunno … if I was from Libya … and I had been bombed back to the stone age by NATO…. and I noticed that Whitey was in chaos …. I might slit a few random throats …. as payback…
Eye eye tooth tooth and all that
Last I heard NZ has a fairly large native Maori polynesian culture, and I’m sure they remember “whitey” tried to exterminate them about 200 odd years ago. They practiced canibalism, also.
‘One in seven people living in New Zealand are of Māori ethnicity’
http://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/profile-and-summary-reports/quickstats-about-maori-english/population.aspx
The odds are not favourable… especially on the south island where the ratio would be even more in favour of non Maoris.
Could be bad to be them.
reminds me of a time we wandered into a bar in Christchurch, about 1979. we walked in, 4 white Americans, and everyone sitting at the long bar turned around to see who had come in. all male Maoris, with lots of scars on their faces. their look wasn’t too welcoming, so we had one round of beer at a table away from the bar and left.
Yes but big tough Americans are afraid of their own shadows …. terrified of The Terrorists… so I can imagine they’d be scared of someone with a few tattoos….
I don’t think most European kiwis share that fear…
Dreadfully bad form, stopping those Maori warriors for eating one another as they’d always done – except for the head, apparently that was kept for display.
The Celts did much the same thing. No house complete without a head.
The Ancient Germans preferred to nail the bits and pieces up on trees for the gods.
The English? 10% of prisoners were sacrificed to the gods.
God, life is dull these days……
Now the problem is with the eating of the Twinkies….
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/281014/intervention-vital-to-curb-maori-obesity
zuma is already making promises to take the land from white farmers and return it to black africans
so he is planning to do another zimbabwe—that’s going to be interesting
It’s counter intuitive, and some will say it’s fanciful, but I propose that whites’ best interests are served by at least trying to see that a minimum standard of governance is provided for non whites. It can often be done for a pittance. Non white people (broadly defined) don’t basically want to live like whites, and instead only want things a little better, or just want to be left alone. Leaving stable communities alone would be the cheapest way to go. But if you want to disturb those stable communities to sell them things they don’t need, to take their “untapped” resources, then their violence against you (for want of more of what you convince them is indispensable, but also due the hellish disorder from destabilization) goes with the territory.
Artleads said:
I don’t believe that the color of one’s skin is the ultimate cause of one’s cultural uprbringing, even though it may be one of the proximate causes.
Sorry if I misled. I’m talking in proximate (historical) terms.
with Ben Carson in charge, you have nothing to worry about re. colour
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ben-carson-slaves-immigrants_us_58bdbf1fe4b033be1467634f?dyi5ynuc15gclerk9&
Artleads,
In the United States, it’s become impossible to have an open and frank discussion about race these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZKNKZLtYIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWIMt9JxugQ
We’re seeing who the new Brown Shirts are these days, and they act just like this guy did:
:https://s24.postimg.org/aclbwioph/Captura_de_pantalla_719.png
“‘Bell Curve’ author attacked by protesters at Middlebury College”
Someone was talking about the protest of Charles Murray on Charlie Rose last night. Something like how it reflected extremes of polarization and in-group thinking these days. Even so, there are times when the cup of tolerant disagreement runneth over.
Humans have never seen the world as a unity and don’t know how to start thinking about it as such. (With full disclosure that I don’t know either, although I like the idea of trying.) So Charles Murray (about whom I know nothing) and the students may each be barking up the wrong tree.
How many years has Charlie been doing that show — has he ever asked a hard question?
He should change the name of the show to The Sycophant
I can’t figure out if Charlie is totally insane, or is the result of some unknown syndrome. Maybe by being so open to the BAU talking points, he’s demonstrating (unwittingly or not) how the system self organizes. But that’s a generous view.
Charlie is an actor — just like all MSM ‘journalists’ are actors…. they are fed their lines off of a teleprompter …
Just like Potus….
There is no upside to rocking the boat…. Charlie is in the business of doling out blue pills — it pays well…
Gentiles have been conned into fighting in the middle east. Gentiles have been conned into stupid non historical alliances. Gentiles have been conned into accepting violent refugees from the same wars that they were conned into. Now they are being incited to kill each other in civil war. What part of this does not make sense? They are like cattle too stupid to live.
Doesn’t really matter — given the stone age is about to be revisited
Yeah, they should write a song-“fracking on the moon with solar panels beaming energy back to earth as they build asteroid mining stations”.
https://youtu.be/r_agB5jPrsM
How ~30yrs span could make such a difference, at that time they had the technology base to research and build ICBMs (with Israel and Pakistan as junior buddies in the project), now they are further dropping into some primal state of affairs of much lower complexities.
ICBM stuff is built on a surplus of cheap energy, not technology.
This simple rule applies all over the world. The notion that space technology creates wealth is the ultimate fallacy
when you have cheap surplus energy, then lots of taxes are collected–these fund vanity projects–moonlandings– and essential projects–hospitals schools etc.
when energy becomes expensive, less ”surplus” is available in the tax take—so space programs are cut back.
if there was anything commercially useful on the moon/asteroids, you can be sure private venture capital would have put colonies there decades ago.
Indeed. People in general assume that it is technology that powers our world. What the people miss is that energy makes the technology and thus energy powers the world. I think this obfuscation is done on purpose to keep the people from questioning too much.
? I was simply referring to the rapid complexity fall of all things considered South Africa since the late 1980s/very early 1990s. Most of the commonwealth talent escaped.
I just illustrated this on the their nuclear program, which came to fruition only in other countries (former partners) as the people and info moved out of South Africa.
I wonder if the Middle Ages have any lessons for us here? Isn’t it that, with civilization out of gas (somewhat like now but much much less so then?), monasteries sequestered as much knowledge of technology as they could? Civilization lived to fight another day (although our prospects are different now) using that stored knowledge?.
the last 200 years (since the industrial revolution) have been an anomaly—something never experienced before in the history of humankind, and something that can never be experienced again.
Our current danger lies in the insistence that our mode of existence has shifted permanently—-ie–our lifestyle will always be as it is now–heat light transport permanent employment/liesure available on demand.
We believe the politicians who promise this.
Whereas our reality/normality is what existed before 1700/1800, the autocratic rule of combined church and state, where only aristocracy had access to surplus energy resources, and the energy providers (we serfs) had to labour to provide it.
For 200 years fossil fuels spread the wealth and democracy, when we’ve burned it all, we will revert to the fascism that was our normality.
How? Because as society breaks down, dictators will seize control and rule as petty fiefdoms–which is how rule was enforced in the middle ages and way back before that.
Civilisations “lived to fight another day” Agreed, but only using the weapons they had. Which is why little progress was ever made as one civilization replaced another.
The industrial revolution provided new weapons to expand territories and kill off native peoples. The first people to get hold of iron ships and cannon proceeded to conquer much of the world, (we Brits).
Unfortunately everybody else learned the same techniques and that created 2 world wars.
Now there are no new territories to take, and no new resources to absorb and thrive on–again this is why I chose the title that I did for my book ‘The End of more”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00D0ADPFY
—in an attempt to wake people up to the fact that there just isn’t any more to be had. Though the majority of people remain convinced that “they” will “come up with something”.—It ain’t going to happen. Denial of reality is critical, because people are going to get very annoyed when the truth dawns.
I can read a book on how an internal combustion engine works (stored knowledge) but without oil and steel production facilities, that knowledge is useless.—Same with a lightbulb, refrigerator, tractor, aircraft. Read about how they work but without a cheap power source, that knowledge is also useless. Medieval society functioned on muscle power alone.
As to monasteries, they were a store of literacy and numeracy, but little more than that. They colluded with the state to maintain the status quo, where even printing the bible in English carried the death penalty. Right now, the evangelical godbotherers are in a state of denial about science, global warming, age of the earth and so on. Given the opportunity, they would enforce these beliefs. (Check out Inhofe and Carson et al)
I can forecast now, that when society collapses, there will be a suppression of scientific knowledge, through the doctrines of extremist ideology of one sort or another. Then we will revert to the era of pre-enlightenment, with the disadvantage that there will be no means to extract ourselves from it by “technological progress” because we will not have the surplus fuel to do it.
“How? Because as society breaks down, dictators will seize control and rule as petty fiefdoms–which is how rule was enforced in the middle ages and way back before that.”
But still the monasteries managed, against all this inevitable terror, to sequester knowledge. We live in a very different time, and if we can’t keep BAU going, or enough of what feels like it, there is no telling what will happen. But I’m only talking about trying to stash away information, if only aliens in a million years ever get to examine it.
the monasteries managed to hold onto literacy and numeracy in a reasonably safe environment because there was a universal belief in and fear of a real god. But that was all
hence kings left monasteries untouched, until Henry 8th in UK disbanded them, and sold off thier lands. Until then the ownership of land was split between king and church.
Getting rid of church rule led to the enlightenment in the uk, because the church stopped restricting access to knowledge (as opposed to Galileo in Italy for instance, where the church imprisoned him for stating that the earth went round the sun)
I pointed out in a post elsewhere, that the longest lasting practical information we have is stuff written on vellum 500 years ago. Most of what’s before that is stone tablets or cave paintings.
Nothing of it could be done without motive power—again i make the point that our civilised existence is entirely dependent on converting explosive force into rotary motion. It does not depend on information
Norman Pagett says:
So the church was all obscurantism and darkness, and the new secular ideoloogy all light and reason and tolerance?
What an unbelievablly Manichean, and false, construct. Have you ever heard of the Holocaust?
And your doomerism seems to belie just how enlightening you believe the enlightenment was. In the end, you flame out in a bout of cognitive dissonance.
And Henry 8th’s “disbanding the monasteries” and “Getting rid of church rule led to the enlightenment in the uk, because the church stopped restricting access to knowledge?”
Good grief, man, have you ever picked up a history book in your life?
last sunday, i sent my stunt double to confession.
on my behalf he confessed to masochistic urges in some of my replies on OFW on this particulr thread.
The priest ordered that this must cease, as I was enjoying it too much, therefore i feel bound, under threat of eternal damnation, to resist responding to this latest diatribe.
I would also counsel other OFW doomsters to desist from such self pleasuring, under threat to their eternal souls, from taking equal pleasure in such matters.
Thy sins shall find thee out!!
I didn’t read your latest drivel because it would put me over my drivel limit…
But I did notice reference to a Mr Mani ….
I read a book about Mr Mani some years ago —- http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-56656-247-8 and interesting you use the term Manichean …
My recollection of the book was that Mani had attempted to bridge the major religions (primarily Islam and Christianity) — that he was quite successful — so he was captured tortured and murdered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#Life_of_Mani
That’s sums up organized religion for you 🙂
FYI
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
“Nothing of it could be done without motive power—again i make the point that our civilised existence is entirely dependent on converting explosive force into rotary motion. It does not depend on information”
But without having access to this sentence, any future humans would be bereft of possibly useful information, whatever they were able to make of it. It’s been said that knowledge is power.
i take your point
but—project 10000 years hence—the same length of time that our civilised living might be said to have existed.
If we “go down” in the coming century….you can be certain that we will spend the following century denying it, and killing each other to prove it.
That might kill off (5 Bn people) maybe more–if it does, there will not be a big enough body of people to reconstruct anything, even if the means was available.
Those left will be too busy staying alive to worry about scientific advancement with no immediate benefit.
Currently we use coal oil and gas for motive power—there may be other “energy systems” out there that we know not of, and all kinds of projects are under way to find them.
But for the moment The laws of physics govern us in 3 applicable ways:
1 we need hardware/metals to build anything substantial
2 we cannot create stuff without heat.
3 everything we use to function needs wheels
If we’ve burned everything thats burnable, I fail to see how any future civilisation if there is to be one, will have access to anything useful in practical terms.
10 k years from now, there will be no hydrocarbon fuels available, and no “factory system” to provide development of new power systems.
We run on wheels—so any alternative would seem to require something different—what exactly?
Yes the knowledge of the wheel will exist, but the means to make it rotate will not, other than muscle power
“there will be no hydrocarbon fuels available”
Wood is a hydrocarbon, and it does not take high tech to produce liquid fuel from it. Not a lot maybe, but if populations are low, plenty enough per capita to “turn some wheels.”
Europeans had lived in the midst of vast forests throughout the earlier medieval centuries. After 1250 they became so skilled at deforestation that by 1500 they were running short of wood for heating and cooking. They were faced with a nutritional decline because of the elimination of the generous supply of wild game that had inhabited the now-disappearing forests, which throughout medieval times had provided the staple of their carnivorous high-protein diet. By 1500 Europe was on the edge of a fuel and nutritional disaster [from] which it was saved in the sixteenth century only by the burning of soft coal.
More https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Pre-industrial_history
7.5 billion people will do quite a number on forests that remain….
during WW2, quite a number of cars used wood as a fuel system
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html
Problem with this is:
1……trees don’t grow fast enough to supply the need for fuel, in addition to all the other requirements, long term. Trees will be cut down for short term use, just as oil has been used for short term use.
2 …..If you have a low population, there will not be enough people to sustain the necessary industrial infrastructure to produce wheeled vehicles other than carts. Motor vehicles are complex systems.
3…. Journeys require purpose. In a crashed economic situation, there will be little need to go anywhere at all. Travelling from A to B does not produce prosperity, the journey consumes fuel, which is a finite resource. There will be no “nature of work” in the sense we know it as the point of commuting to work.
4…..converting plant material into liquid fuel is pointless now (EROEI is too low)—it will be even more so in the future
There will be plenty of trees In the future. There will be virtually no one to cut them down or have the means to move them to where they are needed. Forests are going to get a break.
I am sure there will be plenty of trees — they will just be too far away from where anyone lives to bother cutting and dragging them back…. (note: I am pretending people will survive the spent fuel ponds)
As has been posted previously — it all comes down to nett energy — if it takes more energy to cut and drag a tree from a distance – than the energy you get from the tree — you do not bother
Likewise — hunting animals — what happens is the nearby animals get hunted out — and as any hunter knows — when animals know it is open season all the time — they avoid humans — they go further into the bush…
There won’t be any ATVs to haul meat out of the bush — and if you have to walk 10 or 20km to try to find something to shoot – then haul it out on your back — you get into the nett energy issue again….
‘primal state of affairs’
sustainable state of affairs? nice try but unfortunately too late for that… no going back
Famine is on the brink of reaching greater than biblical proportions in Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia, where the combination of war, draught, poverty and more and more babies is proving too much for the aid agencies even at a period of record high global grain production.
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN16B087?sp=true
The number of people facing severe hunger worldwide has surpassed 100 million and will grow if humanitarian aid is not paired with more support for farmers, a senior United Nations official said.
Dominique Burgeon, director of the emergency division at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said latest studies showed 102 million people faced acute malnutrition – meaning they were on the brink of starvation – in 2016, up almost 30 percent from 80 million in 2015.
The hike was mainly driven by deepening crises in Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia, where conflict and drought have crippled food production, he said.
“Humanitarian assistance has kept many people alive so far but their food security situation has continued to deteriorate,” Burgeon told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.
More investment is needed to help people feed themselves by farming crops and livestock, he added.
“We come with airplanes, we provide food assistance and we manage to keep them alive but we do not invest enough in the livelihood of these people,” he said.
“We avoid them falling into famine but we are not good at taking them off the cliff, away from food insecurity.”
The U.N. World Food Programme said last month more than 20 million people – greater than the population of Romania or Florida – risk dying from starvation within six months in four separate famines.
Wars in Yemen, northeastern Nigeria and South Sudan have devastated households and driven up prices, while a drought in east Africa has ruined the agricultural economy.
The truth is nobody cares. Yes, yes, millions without food. Wake me when it is hundreds of millions.
No need to wake you up — you will be one of the billions who are starving
Let’s consider mercy killing the starving. Fast painless nerve gas for Yemen?
The primitive dictators of KSA want to kill all Yemeni, the US federal government wants to kill all Yemeni, and the suffering Yemeni will be put out of their misery. It is a win/win/win. Maybe even some oil fields for the Israelis to pick up?
My experience of Yemen was that the entire population is so stoned on khat from morning to night…. they wouldn’t care if they starved to death — just keep supplying the khat
As for oil fields — Yemen has pretty much run out of oil — and water:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2012/02/the-economic-horrors-of-yemen-oi.html
Thanks FE, ground truth is gold.
So your saying the movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemem, isn’t depicting current facts on the ground. The British at least found a market for cluster bombs sales, did notice that. They are just in the wrong place for someone’s plan.
Have you chewed the stuff? Whats it like? Did you mix it with your ABILIFY?
When in Yemen….
Of course I tried it — bought a sack for 5 bucks in the market — felt like what drinking 4 red bulls and 6 cups of coffee must feel like… I would not call it a ‘good buzz’…. but then when people drink coffee for the first time they don’t feel well…. I suppose you get used to it …
I gave the rest of the bag to the organizer.
Thanks for the honest reply! I was wondering… The media made it out to be the crank of the alooooo ukbars. Reefer madness yah know. Khat would seem to be a mere red bull like imitator for captagon the real aluuu ukbir amphetamine psychosis.
My take on it was that it created walking zombies….
I’ve also chewed betel in Burma — similar effect but khat would be more powerful….
Neither made me want to find an AK and open fire…
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/khat-chewing.jpg
Happiness is:
http://www.darkbiology.com/drug_p5.jpg
The Roman name for Yemen was Arabia Felix, or “happy Arabia”. Alas, it is anything but, because of war and lack of oil.
“The soaring cost of seeds, fertilisers and tractor fuel was pushing many farmers to leave,”
There goes any illusion of a skinny cow, wooden plow and a farmer farming owned/borrowed land.
” latest studies showed 102 million people faced acute malnutrition – meaning they were on the brink of starvation – in 2016, up almost 30 percent from 80 million in 2015.” – And there folks is how we get billions to die very quickly. 30% in one year is crazy exponential growth. All we have to do is continue on course and by the year 2026 3 billion people will starve to death. Without food and water we die quickly.
10 years of inverse growth, can’t be done, no way.
https://i.imgflip.com/dckmk.jpg
http://www.killthehydra.com/wp-content/uploads/telling-me-you-have-so-much-clean-water-meme1.jpg
Get your point on my pic being a poor choice, now to your pic.
Sadly, that is the case, now that we are sort of post industrial though things have cleaned up. Down south in Ohio, the river caught on fire, back in 1969 pre-conventional-peak-oil period. Good old days…
http://i.imgur.com/XYOL8XY.jpg
it is true that Africa as a whole is headed for basket case status as a complete continent.
thats 1.25 Bn people give or take.
It would seem an obvious to cut world pop by just emptying out Africa—but then what?
Turn it into a game reserve?
the means by which africa dies will not stay within africa.
I don’t know how it plays out. But the numbers are all there indicating that a massive storm is on the horizon that will test human survival at levels we haven’t seen in thousands of years, if ever.
a big part of the problem is of course that many African rulers regard their country as personal property, and so run kleptocracies—not exclusive to Africa of course, but seemingly worse there than elsewhere in general
It would seem an obvious to cut world pop by just emptying out Africa—but then what?
Turn it into a game reserve?
Norman, I gather this has been Prince Philip’s idea for some decades now.
Food Crisis news
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-06/food-crisis-greatest-threat-social-stability