The economy is like a circus. It comes to town, and eventually it leaves town. We get paid in tickets to this circus. As long as the circus stays in town, we can use our tickets. Once the circus leaves town, we are pretty much out of luck.1
The reason the circus stays in town is because the economy stays in sufficient balance that the economy can go on. This is much like the way many other self-organized systems function. For example, our bodies continue to function as long as there are suitable balances in many different areas (oxygen, food, water, air pressure). Ecosystems continue to function as long as there is sufficient rain, adequate temperatures, and enough sunlight.
There are many different views as to what limits we reach in a finite world. Some people think we will “run out” of oil, or of energy products. Some think that the energy return will fall too low, as measured in some manner. I see the adequacy of the energy return as being very much tied to the financial system. Thus, the forecast by US Atlanta Fed GDPNow indicating that first quarter 2017 US GDP growth will only be 0.5% is likely to be a problem, assuming it is correct.
Our economy operates on economies of scale. Once we get too close to shrinking, or actually start shrinking, we reach a point where the economic circus starts to leave town. At some point, we will discover the circus is gone. The economy we thought we had, will have left us. If some people are survivors, they will need to pick up the pieces and start over with an entirely new system.
What the Economy Needs to Do to Keep Functioning
For our economy to continue functioning, a number of variables are important:
- Prices of commodities – Prices cannot be too high for the consumer to afford goods made with them. They also cannot be too low for producers. If prices of oil and other commodities are too low for producers (as they are now), producers need to keep raising debt levels to stay in business. There is a risk that production will stop from lack of adequate new investment, or from the bankruptcy of producers.
- Wages of non-elite workers – These wages need to be high enough so that workers can afford goods made with commodities, such as cars, homes and computers. These big purchases tend to use commodities even after they are made, adding to “demand” for commodities. If commodity prices such as oil are too low (as they are now), it is likely related to the inadequate wages of non-elite workers.
- Mandatory payments required of non-elite workers, such as taxes, health care, and education – It is not just wages of non-elite workers that are important. So are required payments, such as payments for taxes, healthcare and education. Clearly, the lower these payments are for non-elite workers, the better the economy functions.
- Interest rates – Low interest rates are helpful for some parts of the economy, while high interest rates are good for other parts. Low interest rates help create affordable monthly payments for goods such as homes and cars. If interest rates decline, the market prices of assets such as real estate, shares of stock, and bonds tend to rise. These rising values are of great benefit to owners of these assets, since they can sell these assets and use the proceeds to add to current consumption. Conversely, high interest rates are important to pension plans and to others depending on investment income. Banks have a problem if there is not a big enough “spread” between short and long interest rates.
- Increase in debt – An increase in debt indirectly makes the economy “look” much better. Increasing debt acts to raise wages, since some of this growing debt adds to funds available for wages. The higher wages tend to increase demand for goods, and thus indirectly raise commodity prices. A virtuous circle starts, pushing up economic growth, provided an adequate quantity of very cheap energy products is available (under $20 barrel oil, for example) that can be used to make goods and services. Increased debt works less and less well, as the price of energy products increases.
- Inflation rates – The higher the inflation rate, the easier it is to repay debt with interest, since most debt is not adjusted for inflation. Also, high inflation rates help keep prices of homes and other buildings from falling as they age, making the use of mortgages more feasible. If the price of a commodity, such as oil or coal, is high and then falls, debt based on the prior high value of the commodity is likely to become a problem.
- Quantity of energy products affordable by economy – It takes energy products to produce goods and services. If the price of commodities is low, it is possible for buyers to purchase a large quantity of these products, even on a low budget. Current relatively low prices tend to help the economy, even if producers cannot afford to make adequate investment in new production with such low prices. Thus, today’s low energy prices make the economy look good for at a short time. Afterwards, the outlook is less rosy.
Ultimately, the issue at hand in determining whether the “circus will leave town” is whether non-elite workers are able to adequately make a living. We know from biology that the return on the labor of animals must be adequate (animals must be able to get enough food by walking, swimming, or flying) or their populations will collapse. The same thing is true for humans. We also know that prior civilizations that collapsed often had wage disparity problems. When this happened, non-elite workers were no longer able to pay adequate taxes. Their nutrition became poorer. They tended to become more susceptible to epidemics. These were things that pushed the economy toward collapse.
The goods and services that non-elite workers can buy with their wages represent the benefits of our fossil fuel powered energy system, as distributed to the most vulnerable workers in the system. Once these benefits start falling too low, the system can no longer function.
There are some indications that benefits are already too low for the economy to keep functioning in a “normal” manner. A major such indication is the fact that energy prices have remained far too low since mid-2014. It is becoming increasingly clear that there really is no oil price which is both high enough for producers and low enough for consumers. We may be living on “borrowed time,” using an increasing amount of debt to support energy producers.
Thus, world economic growth rates may already be too low to keep the world economy operating. Regulators who consider only the US do not seem to understand the world situation. Because of this, they can easily make moves that make the situation worse, rather than better. For example, they have already started raising interest rates and are planning to sell securities currently held by the Federal Reserve.
A Few Graphs Giving Hints of Our Problem
Economists have not understood what our problems really are, so they have tended to omit some important issues from their analyses. I put together a few graphs that might give a little insight as to what is happening.
Interest Paid by Households
Interest paid by households is important because this money is transferred to banks, insurance companies, and pension plans. It leaves the households who paid this interest poorer. Buying goods using debt is convenient, but it has a cost involved.
BEA Table 7.11 shows a category called, “Interest Paid by Households.” If we compare this to BEA “Wages and Salaries,” we find the relationship shown in Figure 1. Admittedly this is not an exact comparison; there are some people who are not wage earners who are making interest payments, for example. I have not tried to offset “interest paid by households” against “interest received by households,” because the households benefiting from interest payments are likely very different households from those making interest payments. They are likely richer, and at a later stage in their lives.
Figure 1. US Household Interest Paid (from BEA Table 7.11 Interest Paid and Received by Sector and Legal Form of Organization) divided by Wages and Salaries from BEA Table 2.11, “Personal Income and its Disposition.”
The pattern might be described as follows:
- A rapid run-up in interest payments that took place until about 1986
- A general flattening, with new peak in 2007
- A rapid fall starting in 2008
It seems to me that the pattern up to 1986 reflects the general run-up in consumer debt levels during this period. The amount of interest paid is also affected by interest rates, such as ten-year treasury rates.
Figure 2. US Federal Bonds 10 year interest rates. Graph produced by FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data).
Interest rates started falling in 1981. These higher rates only gradually worked their way into the system because many people had bought houses earlier and were able to keep their existing mortgages at low interest rates. The amount of debt outstanding continued to rise, allowing the total amount of interest paid to continue to rise until 1986.
After 1986, rising debt amounts and falling interest rates came closer to offsetting each other (Figure 1). By 2008, the economy was in a severe recession. In order to help get out of the recession, interest rates were lowered through Quantitative Easing. These lower interest rates, besides helping the economy in general, helped oil prices gradually increase back to the $100+ per barrel price level that they needed to be profitable. Oil prices had temporarily dropped below $40 per barrel in December 2008.
Figure 1 shows that interest payments for several years amounted to about 12% of wages for households. Interest payments are now down to 8% of wages. Even at this level they are significant. They are likely higher than this for those with low wages and high debt. If interest rates rise significantly, the most vulnerable are likely to find their discretionary income reduced.
Rising Healthcare Costs
Figure 3 shows a comparison of US healthcare costs to GDP and to wages. A huge increase in costs is evident in the 2001-2005 periods, and also in the 2008-2010 period, especially compared to wages.
Figure 3. US Healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of wages. Healthcare costs from cms.gov. Wages and salaries and GDP from BEA.
The increase in healthcare costs since 2008 is one of the costs putting pressure on the economy, and leading to a need for lower interest rates.
The Affordable Care Act should be affecting amounts for the latest years, since the ACA started increasing the number of people with insurance starting about 2014.
Figure 4. Kaiser Family Foundation chart of percentages of non-elderly people without healthcare insurance, from this Source.
A person might wonder why 2014 and 2015 costs didn’t rise more, with so many more people added to the system. Perhaps care that was being given “free” by hospitals is now being charged back to patients. Or perhaps many of the people choosing to purchase coverage through the program were already insured elsewhere in the system, so were not really added to the healthcare system through the Affordable Care Act.
One very recent US healthcare change is the addition of an automatic penalty for not having healthcare insurance. This penalty began for tax year 2016, filed in the beginning of 2017. This provision particularly hurts young people, because rates are structured in such a way that the rates for young people subsidize the rates for older people. Thus, young people often find that buying health insurance is far more expensive than their out of pocket costs for health care would have been, without insurance.
Young people who are affected by this new requirement will find that they need to cut back on other expenditures (such as restaurant visits), if they are meet the requirements of the law–either buy healthcare insurance or pay the mandated penalty. This change will begin to adversely affect the economy in 2016. Bigger impacts are likely in early 2017, when taxes are filed.
Falling Wages Relative to GDP, and Rising Wage Disparity
The path to lower wages as a percentage of GDP has been a bumpy one. The general pattern is that when the economy is booming, wages tend to grow as a percentage of GDP. Recession tends to send wages down as a percentage of GDP. US wages seem to have increased somewhat since 2013, perhaps because the price of oil is down, and the US dollar has risen to a relatively high level. This is part of what allows some people to talk about the “tightening labor market,” and gives them confidence in the economy.
Figure 5. US wages and salaries divided by US GDP, based on BEA data.
There has been significant growth in wage disparity since about 1980, both in the US and in many other developed countries. Figure 6 shows some data for the US.
Figure 6. United States Income Distribution_1947-2007 in 2007$. The data source is “Table F-1. Income Limits for Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent of Families (All Races): 1947 to 2007”, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements. Graph is from Wikimedia Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1947-2007.svg
As the economy becomes more “complex,” in other words, “specialized,” wage disparity tends to be more of a problem. Work that could previously be done by manual laborers is done by machinery, or is transferred to low wage countries. Many people lose their jobs, and have difficulty finding good-paying replacement jobs. All of this contributes to inadequate wages for non-elite workers.
Role of Inflation and Rising Commodity Prices in the Economy
We rarely stop to think how important inflation is to the economy. For example, if inflation is sufficiently high, it will slightly offset normal depreciation in values of homes and business properties. Thus, home and business property values will tend to slightly rise over time. If banks can count on values of structures rising, rather than falling, over time, lenders can assume that mortgage loans are fairly risk-free, because the lender can count on getting its money back through the sale of the property, if the mortgage-holder defaults.
This same principle holds when energy properties, such as coal mines and oil fields, are financed. As long as energy prices keep rising, there is a good chance loans can be repaid. Once energy prices fall, debt defaults become a problem. Oil exporting countries also find that the taxes they can collect fall significantly. As a result, energy-exporting countries are in a far worse economic position once energy prices fall. Exporters of other commodities, such as metals, have a similar problem if prices fall.
In the last two paragraphs, I mentioned the impact on lenders and governments of rising or falling prices. Owners of properties are also affected by rising or falling prices. If prices rise, these owners can sell their assets, and make a profit. In fact, these owners have often purchased their properties with debt. If the price of the property rises, but the amount of debt is unaffected by inflation, the owner of the property can often get a disproportionate benefit of the price rise. Of course, if the value of a property falls, the property-owner is disproportionately affected by the fall of the price.
We are so used to a rising-price scenario that we have little understanding of how a flat or falling price scenario might work.
To get a little idea of how much inflation has in the past been working through to asset prices in the United States, I looked at some information provided by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. I compared these amounts to GDP, rather than asset prices, to get an idea of how much impact they have, relative to each current year’s activities (Figure 7). There is about $3 of assets of the types BEA analyzes for every dollar of GDP, so the impact, relative to GDP, is about three times as high it would be, relative to the asset prices themselves.
If this same relationship holds elsewhere, a person can see why a commodity-producing country might have a big problem, if the price of that commodity suddenly falls. There is huge “balance sheet” impact that doesn’t directly affect current GDP as reported (since GDP has to do with current goods and services produced). But it can have a major impact on the country, as it goes forward, because affected loans are much less likely to be repaid. Countries often try to be lenient with lenders, hoping that commodity prices will rise again. But if the drop in prices is permanent, countries must use more and more extreme measures to hide the problem of loans that have a low probability of repayment in a low-priced commodity environment. Eventually, these loans seem likely to default, if prices do not rise sufficiently. China and many commodity-exporting countries seem to be affected by this problem.
Figure 7. Changes to US Fixed Assets, based on BEA Table 5.10, Changes in Net Stocks of Produced Assets.
BEA shows three amounts of interest with respect to US assets (Figure 7):
- Inflation – Changes in asset values based on changes in the general price level
- Re-evaluation total – Changes to asset prices in particular; includes changes because assets are taken out of service because of disaster or because a business is no longer profitable. Note the spikes related to the housing bubble of the 2003-2006 period and the corresponding dip during the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
- Depreciation – Expected amount of new investment needed to offset “consumption of fixed capital.” This rate is quite high, (about 15.7% of GDP recently) because the asset base includes fairly rapidly depreciating assets, such as cars and computers, besides buildings of all types, and intellectual property such as computer programs.
The last year shown is 2015. Inflation (relative to GDP) was only 1.2%, and the re-evaluation total was only 0.3% of GDP. (Calculated as percentages of the assets involved, these inflation rates would be only a third of these amounts.) These low inflation rates make it very difficult to operate a debt-based economy. A shift from inflation to deflation would be a major problem. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get much inflation, if the wages of non-elite workers remain very low.
Conclusion
We have kept our economy expanding through growing debt use and growing energy use. I described this process in my post, What has gone wrong with oil prices, debt, and GDP growth?
Now we seem to be reaching the end of the line. The economy is getting very close to shrinking. When this happens, we are getting close to economic collapse–the economic circus is starting to “leave town.”
People who think our only problem is “running out” and “high oil prices” don’t see the problems the economy is developing right now. These problems are much more subtle, but they can have a devastating effect. The Federal Reserve talks about inflation rates above 2% being too high, but inflation rates below 2% are at least equally problematic. Somehow, the debt system needs to keep operating for the whole system to work.
We are now at the point where the economy is decidedly unstable. Little things can affect it, like the Affordable Care Act requirement that uninsured people buy healthcare insurance, or pay a penalty. Low commodity prices make debt repayment more difficult in countries producing those commodities.
We should not be too surprised if the economic circus starts to leave town. There are simply too many pieces that are now unstable. The US Government is facing a shutdown in the near future, unless its debt ceiling can be raised and funding can be enacted. The world is depending on China for economic growth, but China’s debt is becoming unmanageably high. Japan’s debt is also unreasonably high. Oil exporters are becoming increasingly unstable, with continued low prices. We can find problems in almost every country of the world. It looks like it is only a matter of time, until one of these problems starts a downward spiral.
Note:
[1] Thanks to commenter “Lastcall” for this analogy.
Railroads slash capital spending, but plow more money into buying back own shares, after two years of Freight Recession.
CSX reported quarterly earnings late Wednesday. Revenues increased 9.5% from the terrible quarter a year ago, which had been the worst quarter in terms of revenues since Q1 2010! So it’s no big feat to beat last year’s fiasco quarter. At $2.87 billion in Q1 2017, revenues are sill 5.3% lower than they’d been in Q1 2015. This time, moribund coal shipments had increased.
Since March, there’s a new guy at the throttle. Hunter Harrison is known as a cost cutter. And that was the theme of the earnings announcement. The railroad said that it plans to cut costs further. It had already slashed its capital spending plans for 2017 by 18% to $2.2 billion. Now more cuts for 2017 are likely.
But in the same breath, it announced that it would plow $1 billion into buying back its own shares. Stocks jumps.
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/04/20/after-2-years-transportation-recession-railroads-slash-capital-spending/
http://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/US-railroad-revenues-2014-2016.png
In Atlanta CSX is selling its tracks ringing the city to a city sponsored foundation which is tearing them out and replacing them with wide sidewalks (from 2007-~2030). Infrastructure that will never return…
Funny….crazy… ridiculous.. and so on….
If you want to turn a bunch of chopped vegetables into juice, do you need a QR code and a $400 internet-connected machine, or can you just squeeze the vegetables until juice comes out? Juicero Inc. raised $120 million to bet on the QR codes, and Bloomberg’s Ellen Huet and Olivia Zaleski said: We refute it thus.
But after the product hit the market, some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it. Bloomberg performed its own press test, pitting a Juicero machine against a reporter’s grip. The experiment found that squeezing the bag yields nearly the same amount of juice just as quickly—and in some cases, faster—than using the device.
There is a video demonstration. I have probably read that paragraph 50 times in the last 24 hours and I still tear up when I look at it. It might be my favorite paragraph in all of tech journalism, though the next paragraph is a strong competitor:
Juicero declined to comment. A person close to the company said Juicero is aware the packs can be squeezed by hand but that most people would prefer to use the machine because the process is more consistent and less messy. The device also reads a QR code printed on the back of each produce pack and checks the source against an online database to ensure the contents haven’t expired or been recalled, the person said. The expiration date is also printed on the pack.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-20/juice-machines-and-red-flags
MY toaster is broken…It will not surprise me if the new one wants a net connection.
I guess life as a toaster is boring…SO it could talk with other toasters Imagine the excitement of watching flying toasters.
Hook your toaster up to the INTERNET — and you can raise $120M from venture capitalists.
but will you be able to watch po rn on your toaster?
The circus has moved to the white house…
Kid Rock, Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent visit Trump at the White House
https://static.businessinsider.com/image/58f8cdb60ba0b89a1e8b4957-640/image.jpg
T’s smile looks genuine too…
Next up – Kim and Paris DO the Whitehouse…
Melany gets pissed off…
https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2016/04/27/27-melania-trump-botox.w710.h473.2x.jpg
Hang on … is that a Blue Steel imitation from M?
http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/images/1/15/Zoolander.jpg
Hahaha!
That would make Kafka blush!
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/japans-exports-jump-march-024825729.html
Japan exports rise. This follows a recent report that China’s economy is ratcheting up. Maybe collapse isn’t as imminent as some assert.
I saw some cars at the Mall yesterday – it looked busy.
All is fine
Would you now like to assert winter doesn’t happen if there are some warm days in autumn.?
You are missing the entire concept of collapse. Collapse is not the outcome of a decline. It is the point at which some weak link in a weakened system breaks and causes the rupturing of the entire system. Think of a car with a cam belt. Runs fine. Squirt some nitrous might even run better. Then bang. Belt goes. Stops running. You’ll endlessly hear people on this site say ‘everything works until it doesnt’
More Turkey serving on the way!
The stock market rallied Thursday, with the Nasdaq poised for a record finish as investors welcomed on a deluge of stronger-than-expected corporate earnings reports and economic data.
Reports that House Republicans may be reaching a deal to repeal and replace Obamacare also boosted sentiment, analysts said
The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +1.02% rose 58 points, or 1%, to 5,921, above the record close of 5,914.34 on March 30.
“There is a lot of good news when it comes to earnings and economic data and not only in the U.S. but overseas as well,” said Karyn Cavanaugh, senior market strategist at Voya Financial.
“It’s almost as if investors are realizing that a selloff yesterday because of a drop in oil was not warranted,” Cavanaugh said.
BAU got more lives than Felix the Cat.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-set-to-claw-its-way-back-from-triple-digit-loss-as-oil-prices-rebound-2017-04-20
Doing a search to try to find more detail about these ‘awesome corporate earnings’ … and I can’t find a lot…
But I do see the same headlines over and over and over… and when I see that I smell The Ministry of Truth…
No doubt the same old games being played — deliberately lower guidance — then ‘beat’ with what are still shitty results — but because expectations were ‘beat’ — that gets spun as a huge positive…
Then of course there is the accounting methodology used — GAAP — or make up numbers otherwise known as non-GAAP accounting aka fake accounting
The macro is that retail is getting crushed — restaurants are getting crushed — the job market has not improved — that’s all anyone needs to know
Is the lustre of Tesla beginning to fade?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/tesla-tumbles-after-recalling-over-50000-cars-suvs
I like the allegation saying that buyers of the cars with the autopilot feature become unwitting testers of a beta version of the self driving software that is not really ready for use.
At one point in time in America, living at home with mom and dad after crossing out of your teenage years and into your 20s was embarrassing and something that was generally avoided at all costs. And while hard times come and go, 20-somethings who were forced back into their parents’ care worked their tails off until they could save up enough money to once again regain their freedom.
But, these days millennials seem to be embracing the free room and board provided by their parents. According to a new study from the Census Bureau, roughly one-third of all millennials live at home with their parents and one-fourth of them can’t be bothered with enrolling in school or finding a job.
According to the following chart from Bloomberg, there are 2.2 million millennials who live at home with mom but neither attend classes nor have a job. Of those, 40% of them are already in their 30’s, they’re predominantly white and have a high school diploma of less.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user230519/imageroot/2017/04/20/2017.04.20%20-%20Mill%206_0.JPG
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-20/quarter-millennials-living-home-neither-work-nor-study
Not buying cars… not buying houses.. not buying furniture or appliances… not paying off student loans….
“Not buying cars… not buying houses.. not buying furniture or appliances… not paying off student loans….” – But living there lives on internet social media sites. They are just dead weight. It is bad enough with all the parasitic jobs that are out there but to literally do nothing other than waste away on social media is a new low.
Tesla cars with the Autopilot 2 features were first sold in October 2016. The first generation of the system was first unveiled in 2014. The Autopilot 2, or Enhanced Autopilot, feature costs consumers $5,000.
“What consumers received were cars without standard safety enhancements featured by cars costing less than half the price of a new Tesla, and a purported ‘Enhanced Autopilot’ that operates in an erratic and dangerous manner,” Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman, said in a statement.
Now this is where delusion meets reality — all these clowns believing in Elon Jesus and AI bullshit fork out the 5k — and they end up in a head on collision with a dump truck…
I’m Lovi’in It!
After reading that Tesla’s Autopilot software uses the white lines on the road to guide the car, this got me thinking (yeah I know I should stop thinking). What if the line fades or a white bird swoops down beside the car or there is construction zone with a lane change over a white line. This all just seems too random and prone to malfunction. And some idiot sat in the back seat of his Tesla while it drove him around using this buggy software. What an idiot. I am sorry but having a computer drive a car on roads with varying, unknown and unpredictable markings just seems like a recipe for disaster. What if some teenage kids get the idea of using spray paint to paint a white line into the ditch?
Drowning Towers, the best collapse book
https://s.w-x.co/wu/non-enso-record-noaa-3.17.png
To be honest the only factors I see firmly in place to keep the ‘ circus ‘ in town is low interest rates and affordable energy . Everything else from livable wages across the economic spectrum , viable health care , affordable commodities [ especially housing which is currently within the grasps of the bubble of the century ] etc are all nowhere to be found .
Yet Gail .. the circus [ a great analogy by the way ] … or as I call it the Potemkin Village is not only sticking around .. seemingly entrenching itself even deeper .. replacing tents with buildings etc . And with the current administrations ephemeral [ Trump changes his stripes faster than any ten of us change our socks .. hence ephemeral ] agendas to tear down much of what you’re saying is needed including what Health Care we do have with the AHC as well as striking down minimum wage requirements etc one wonders .. what is keeping the ‘ circus ‘ in town ? And assuming it might finally come to its senses and pack up the tents … where does it go next ?
Which leaves me feeling regardless of how much research I do .. how many experts I question within my circles [ Academia etc ] etc .. that there’s a whole lot of questions floating around with nary a viable answer or even the hint of a viable answer in sight
http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2017/04/07/Photos/MG/MW-FK018_retail_20170407113840_MG.jpg?uuid=4684ce00-1ba8-11e7-ac5c-001cc448aede
“The National Flood Insurance Program is up for reauthorization this year; fiscal conservatives have said they want to use that opportunity to reduce the program’s subsidies, so that people are paying something closer to the full cost of their risk.
A cut in federal subsidies would particularly hurt Florida, which despite its exposure pays the lowest average flood-insurance premiums in the country, according to FEMA data.
Laura Reynolds is the former executive director of the Tropical Audubon Society, Miami’s oldest environmental group; she’s lived in her house in Cutler Bay, an hour’s drive south of Miami, for 13 years. She said she had once hoped to pass it on to her niece or nephew, but now plans to sell.
“The future of our coastline is completely doomed,” Reynolds said. “The question is, how long will we have?””
Yep, our coastlines are doomed for sure. But, it is just one of many limits to growth we are reaching. It should be interesting to watch property values on Miami Beach.
When no`ones thoughts on anything matter, whether perceived imperfectly or held confidently, then disinformation will have little role to play.
Thoughts matter little in cataclysms.
Let’s say that we`ll only have a depression.
Can you outline the major shifts in society that occurred in society since 2008 that support your assumption that it will be ignorable through disiNformation.
In 2008 we had major recession and it was widely reported on, even the uberfool made an address on TV about it. Most people either lost a job or were afraid of losing it major corporations and banks were known to be life support. Given that and the fact that the same open society today with a media that still reports on dramatic real world events at its own discretion and TPTB don’t yet have the ability to morph themselves into every editor of every news outlet…
Here’s an example on the kind of essay question a first year student at university would use to discover the unsubstantiality of these perception, control and disinformation claims.
Compare and contrast the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to temporarily prevent widespread knowledge of the Great Famine with the unsuccessful attempts by the current government of Venezuela to prevent the beginnings of a civil war in response to food price inflation and economic malaise.
Pingback: OUR INTELLECTUAL BANKRUPTCY: THE “RELIGION” OF ECONOMICS, UBI AND MEDICARE FOR ALL | NewZSentinel
I guess they couldn’t hold their noses long enough?
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/UC-Berkeley-orders-cancellation-of-Ann-Coulter-11084299.php
On the question of TPTB lying about growth, or anything else. First of all, we do know that they lie, and lie frequently. Second, we do know that as things go south, they will continue to lie about more and more.
Even if there is a depression, they will never announce it as such. The game is perception and confidence, keep people guessing and believing anything. If you haven’t figured out by now, that’s how the whole American system operates. Confidence won WW2, confidence won the Cold War, confidence keeps the young men signing up for the military and the workers trudging to their dead end jobs so they can go into debt and buy a car and house and pretend they are living the dream.
We are at a strange point in history, where we are at peak, but the lie is that the peak can continue indefinitely, or even go higher. The global system operates around a country, America, that has believed in infinite growth and progress since the beginning. There is nobody left to challenge this, they long ago died off. The best Russia and China can do is try to create work arounds, a parallel system to fill in the gaps of the present one, and they will probably lie about everything as well.
i dont know how they will do it but you could be right Dolph maybe the movie ‘Soylent Green’ is the future we are heading too and you still get to eat human.
Fine post. Again, I’m looking for a like button.
So it’s a game of smoke and mirrors, which lies in the annals of art and tourism, whether it’s Jeff Koons or Disney World.
I remember my first post on this site and feeling glad that you complimented it while being consternated that FE chastised it for being superfluous.
Two years later the complete opposite is true. Your approval of anything has become objectionable and I`m quite happy to receive criticism from FE given he is one of the few here who seems fit to administer it.
Unfortunately, this isn’t Facebook where you strive for likes to stroke your ego.
my post was a misrepresentation of events that makes me look foolish.
Oh dear, motivated to defend my ego what shall I do?
What do others here do that might guide me? I could post something clever about turkeys… or point to the Roman empire as the model of all collapses…Or mutter the Fourth turning is coming…Or accuse everyone of forgetting that virtuality is the new reality
… Or that cardboard might transform us…Or rant at those who doubt my eggplants’ power to combat knife attacks….And if I repeat my clever thoughts of how much it’s possible for me personally to avoid the collapse I seem to want petulantly because there’s a better way to live if only people would listen to my ideas
One doesn’t stroke the ego here by seeking approval or agreement.
One rather reminds themselves of superiority over fools by spending time wading in their nonsense.
One can be petty at times. Even Peter the Great used fools for his sport.
Is that an observation of the nature of commenting in different forms of social media or is it a snide comment?
I’m quite eager to share thoughts on the former as it’s been an area of interest to me. As for the latter, I’m happy to refer to the post today where you revealed that you are intellectually challenged and claimed that cars made in Chinese factories were actually made in American factories and supplied the evidence to ridicule your claim yourself.
No? You weren’t claiming that GM is exporting sbhtloods to China?
You were instead claiming an American branded Chinese made car is currently selling well in China so ipso facto China wants to import U.S made cars?
It’s creative leaps of imaginative thought like that that made America great for that one week back in the summer of 1955 or whenever it was you Americans call your golden age. You know sometime after that awkward proof that capitalism was as destructive as communism for a country and before you let women and negroes and unio unionists speak out of turn.
“go into debt and buy a car and house and pretend they are living the dream.”
Or go into debt without buying a car or a house and pretend they are living green and actualizing themselves.
“We are at a strange point in history, where we are at peak, but the lie is that the peak can continue indefinitely, or even go higher. ”
Futures…,
Not sure what part of this or my post you object to. The above resonates with me, because it invites discussion as to how the emphasis on quantity–just counting the numbers of cars or whatever–as compared with quality can affect the economic system. A new car is at once a weapon of mass destruction (including through the cost of its manufacture) and the most awesome miracle of technological power. Looking at a new car in awe–the paint job, the quiet operation, the luxurious sears, the computer systems–one senses that it is profoundly undervalued (as in for its system-wide costs). It is an IMMENSE accomplishment, but the cost to the entire planetary survival system seems way too much. Dolph hinted (to my mind) at this, which is why I liked his post, although I do tend to find his posts innovative. And I remember wanting to press a like button for a recent FE post as well. I’m not taking sides, since everyone here is my teacher. Art economics (which interests me) tends to lean toward quality rather than quantity, but that hasn’t had much discussion so far on FW..
Almost by definition, one cannot go higher than the peak. Perhaps in the case of the peak referring to another form of matter/energy, like a mountain, and you flying above it in a winged suit, jet pack, small plane, helicopter, etc., where you are suspended in another form of matter/energy.
As far as I understand this, it sounds pretty apt. I was considering “energy” that keeps the wheels turning, but not in the same “physical” and quantitative sense as before. And also something that holds on to (and sucks value out of) that peak for dear life.
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T-Rex Drillerson- The evidence is clear Iran’s provocative actions threaten the U.S., the region and the world.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tillerson-iran-left-unchecked-could-follow-north-korea-s-path-n748496
This administration is backing themselves into a corner from which the only course of action will be war with Korea and or Iran with potentially millions dying. Whatever happened to MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction? So far it’s worked to keep nuclear armed countries from launching, so why wouldn’t it work in the future? For example, both India and Pakistan have nukes and both hate each other yet neither has decided to push the button. I just think We need to keep in mind Trump has never before been a politician so he is coming from a different perspective, a business one in which he wants conclusive action taken, but in this case those actions would likely lead to war, instead of just relying on MAD.
‘Mutually Assured Destruction’
Not such a bad idea … given the alternative is eating Human Burgers… and when that runs out … starving to death.
I agree. Almost every country is facing intractable problems. And these problems will only get worse with time. The ruling class really does not want the war machine and its weapons to go to waste while there is one more shot at world ward for their entertainment.
Let me modify that – yes, I know the US dropped nukes on Japan in WWII, but at the time they were the only one’s with the device, so there was no MUTUALLY involved.
I didn’t read your post FE, but did glancingly noticed it was there. I don’t read your posts or respond to them.
You wouldn’t understand them anyway … so better you just keep reading your Archie Comic books… and regurgitating MSM stories….
“Don’t believe the hype dude”
It’s time for you to wean yourself off the media kool-aid and stop listening to the ward drums beaten by politicians.
Nonsense. Trump`s admin isn’t being backed into a corner because it has some idea of removing a future nuclear threat.
Trump had to come out of the meeting with Xi without egg on his face. Merkel made him look oafish and Netanyahu made him a lapdog. The trade dispute is intractable because the U.S. makes nothing China would import (no thanks to weapons, bbqs, and cars only a fool would buy) No quick victories to be had there.
So make NK an issue. China doesn’t mind as it’s not so foolish as to think that NK or Trump wants to do anything than bluster.
Couple of statements a few days later about the axis of evil make this appear strategic but really send a message to the switched on that there’s nothing to worry about in terms of actual strikes because this is the same game of domestic titillation American politics has been bullshi.tting about forever
“the U.S. makes nothing China would import” – this is not a correct statement. GM is selling a lot of vehicles in China! So much so that China has allowed GM to post sales numbers over 10 million in 2016 – a new record for GM. From http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/07/news/companies/gm-record-sales-profits/ “China is now GM’s largest market” China is a crucial player in maintaining growth.
The cars are not imports you t.
Wit. They are all manufactured in China.
Ok so maybe you were saying China would ‘like’ to import GM cars, not that they are currently importing cars. Sorry that’s probably your point. But it’s still silly. Consumers liking cars made in China with a GM badge is not the same as China being willing to import cars made in the U.S with a GM badge. Why? because GM is not the only getting profits off Chinese made cadillacs. Important state associated partners take half the profits out of the Chinese made cars. As you may be aware the auto industry is about the only industrial scale investment making money in China right now and the Party will be relying on its performance for stability. China is also developing local brands to compete that would be threatened if more competitively priced GM products were allowed to take even more market share. On top of this is a general trend to reorient Chinese industry for domestic consumption. Now is anlikely time for China to bend quickly to American demands, which as I stated is the proximate reason for the NK ‘escalation’ of late. I’ll stand by my claim that China doesn’t want to import anything America makes, (even though American branded products may be doing well here and there)
I’ll have what he’s having
Toyota is built here in the USA and is still considered an import car. I don’t really understand your point. The bottom line is that China and the USA need growth to stay viable. If it is building cars in China with US sourced components or building cars in the USA with Chinese sourced components it does not matter. Companies are all global now and will do whatever it takes to keep growth alive by any means necessary. Yes, even if it takes bombing a country to oblivion. Whatever it takes to maintain growth.
Brick wall, head.
No the cars are not assembled in China, they are manufactured there. The link you have made between the bombing of NK as a way to increase car production is curious. So your theory is that Xi and Trump agreed to the status quo in tariffs to boost the Chinese arm of GM a little while unleashing a humanitarian crisis on its border.America can benefit from having destabilised a region it wants to steal resources from? I wasn’t aware that the Korean peninsula has oil.
FSA is correct, there is a massive tariff on imported autos in China (25% + more for luxury, ultra luxury, or large engines). And any manufactured in country has to be done by an entity majority owned by Chinese via joint venture. So I believe 51% of GM’s profits in China (for cars manufactured there) go to a Chinese corp that can kick GM out of the facility at any time. It’s a “deal with the devil” situation but if you don’t do it your competition takes the market…
Here’s a good article: http://blogs.cfr.org/setser/2017/04/03/auto-trade-with-china/
What evidence?
The fact is that they are helping eradicate the proxies of the USA, UK, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia etc. from Syria
Thank for your insightful comment on this…
Or are you trying to sensationalise things by discussions of how nuclear war is about to start?
WWIII has been about to start since 1949. Don’t stain your pants.
Wouldn’t it be great if on his first day they gave Donald a suitcase with a key and lock and a big red button inside, and told him that it was the launch box? And then, we watch all this drama unfold, and one day he opens it, dramatically turns the key and presses the button, and Ashton Kutcher pops out and tells him he’s been punked, they’d never actually give him the launch codes? Maybe some sparklers would pop out the top of the suitcase and Stars and Stripes Forever would play.
The real question is: Who has the codes and physical ability to actually launch a nuclear strike? Someone does. And I guarantee you it isn’t the president. Presidents come and go so, someone maintains the authority over the nuclear program. But who?
During Cold War there were three or four episodes in which nuclear attack order was launched, or has to be launched because some atmosferic abnormality tricked the radar systems or such… But at some point in the command chain an officer, or many, disobeyed, cancelling the attack
This happened both in the us and the soviet union
Simon Cowell?
Ok Eddy is this more like it?
Well, in that case you’ll be glad that are fit and can run.
Here’s a nice article on training to run a competitive 5k.
http://strengthrunning.com/2013/07/how-to-train-for-a-5k/
Not a bad idea Grayfox. I, myself, trained for a half marathon (13.1 miles) for a year at age 55. Still in shape at age 59 to run a 10k race or about 6 miles. Judging from the lack of physical fitness of the younger generation, this may be a deciding factor in survival.
Even if it would isn’t, it just makes you feel better and look better for about a hour a day!
Please, don’t give me excuses that you can’t, there is a lady in her 80s still entering and finishing Marathons!
Yes, 100% right. Benefits the here and now, as well as the unknown future. I’m running in a 10k this Saturday @ 60 yrs. age. We have an 80+ age group award bracket in the race for men and women and they do OK.
What a coincidence! Both of us in the same league… Old Guys Rule!
Remember Jim Fixx back in the 1970s? His books on running are good ones still to read.
One thing is not to skimp on running shoes!!! Very important. If you can not afford good ones by the leading makers, such as, Brooks, Saucony, New Balance, Teva, look on EBay and there are sellers there’s that offer used or floor models at a fraction of the price.
Also, put on double socks to prevent blisters!
Other than that rehydrate and better to do the time running/trotting/walking than the distance. Enjoy the stride.
PS Jim Fixx died fairly young at age 52
Fixx died on July 20, 1984 at age 52 of a fulminant heart attack, during his daily run on Vermont Route 15 in Hardwick.[1] The autopsy revealed that atherosclerosis had blocked one coronary artery 95%, a second 85%, and a third 70%.[4]
In 1986 exercise physiologist Kenneth Cooper published an inventory of the risk factors that might have contributed to Fixx’s death.[5] Granted access to his medical records and autopsy, and after interviewing his friends and family, Cooper concluded that Fixx was genetically predisposed – his father died of a heart attack at 43 after a previous one at 35, and Fixx himself had a congenitally enlarged heart – and had an unhealthy life: Fixx was a heavy smoker before beginning running at age 36, had a stressful occupation, had undergone a second divorce, and his weight before he took up running had ballooned to 214 pounds (97 kg).[6] Medical opinion continues to uphold the link between moderate exercise and longevity.[7
So exercise did not kill him.
I’m 70, and still backpacking and surfing, swimming laps.
A comrade I backpack with is almost 80.
You quit moving and you are dead.
Good luck on the run!
Duncan, that is so inspirational.
I was floored when I read just doing a Fast paced walk provides 70% of the benefit as going for a jogging run!
You are so right, once you become a coach slug you have one foot in the grave.
Get checked out before you start by a Doctor as Jim Fixx should have done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so5TlXOkpHI
😉
Believe me, Snorp, there are more than a million more reasons NOT to do it.
Yours is just one of the more obvious.
It will make you look better…at least inbetween your ears!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvu2I0JtU88
💪
Be all that you can be?
In the interview, broadcast on the Discovery Channel in the UK, Armstrong then admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs Erythropoietin (EPO), testosterone, cortisone and human growth hormone as well as having blood transfusions.
Once the oil shortages hit in 2020. The government will go to rationing something like 20 gallons a person. Then after two years owning gasoline will be strictly illegal except for the military and agriculture. Government will become a dictatorship overnight! And will seize all sources of land and energy. Things will break down. Economic collapse looking something like this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy7FVXERKFE
Oh and the reason the movie never got made was the director went crazy and murdered his family and himself…
Once BAU begins to shrink it will collapse — which means the financial system will implode… and total chaos will result.
What’s the point in rationing? This is not an emergency situation – it is the end of civilization…
People will be killing and eating each other soon after collapse hits — I hardly think anyone is going to queue up at a petrol station for for their fill up.
And to top it off – there will be NO electricity – you cannot pump gas without electricity.
Who is going to deliver more petrol to the stations – would you volunteer? If so why? How would rationing petrol help when BAU is collapsed? Nobody will have a job to drive to — so what use would petrol be?
When the power goes off — expect nothing — no food – no electricity – no police — no medical assistance – no water supply — no sewage disposal – no garbage pick up
Nothing.
And why, knowing this, would one choose to sit and wait for it to happen?
And why, knowing this, would one choose to sit and wait for it to happen?
Normalcy Bias – it will not happen until it happens
Or maybe, too, normalcy bias is toward the networked global system that we see as either working or not working. I gather that it only worked (briefly) because of coal and oil. Beyond that, it can’t work. But what about the local community? Recently, there has been a novel spate of break ins and theft in this normally “safe” village (sitting on a main road). People come to a meeting to talk about security. Cameras are planned for. But I struggling to get 20 people to donate $5 each toward the first camera, not sure they’ll ever step up. This is normalcy bias too. The general society out there is fine. Things will be fine. It’s not our problem. Let’s go have a drink, or talk whatever bullshit thing we keep talking. So there is no understanding that security starts locally.
There is a lot of wisdom in the saying that everything is fine no matter how bad it is for everyone else – until it something happens to you.
“The battle has begun between the shaman/artist
and the cyber/technocrat. We are living at a
place of crucifixion in a crossroad of time.
Opposites cross. Polarities collide. Industry and
technology have succeeded for two centuries
by moving in complete indifference and denial
toward nature.”
August 2015 issue of THE magazine / Santa Fe, NM
FRITZ SCHOLDER: NON-INDIAN INDIAN
Fritz Scholder painted Indians. Often the Indians were monsters.
Sometimes the monstrous Indians were self-portraits. Scholder’s
work forces Indian people of a certain generation to remember
that we used to have short hair and wear IHS glasses. That we
passed for whites. That we drink. That we weren’t always about
tradition. That we often hated ourselves, and sometimes we
still do. That life is ugly and beautiful, that monsters are real.
And that death is never far away.
— Paul Chatt Smith
Fritz Scholder was one-quarter Luiseno, but said he grew up as
a non-Indian. He swore that he would never paint Indians.
He maintained that he was not an Indian artist.
He claimed his art was not political, but it polarized
the art world. For every position Scholder took,
he also investigated the opposite viewpoint.
His paintings posed questions: What is Indian art?
Who is an Indian artist? To what extent must
a person have lived an Indian life to be an Indian
artist? And what of the non-Indian who employs
traditional Indian styles or treats Indian subjects?
The perception of American Indian art was
changed in the sixties and seventies by artists
like Scholder who fought against the cliche of the
American Indian. From 1964 to 1969 Scholder
taught painting and art history at the Institute
of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, where he
steered his Native American students away from
so-called Indian art. One student recalls, “Initially,
Scholder was tyrannical in his view that he would
never get any place painting Indians. He made
me destroy many of my works. He wanted us all
to be Abstract Expressionists.” Scholder utterly
demolished Dorothy Dunn’s Studio School, which
had dominated Indian art with romantic cliches
of genre art on Indian themes — flat perspectves
romanticizing nature and Indian life. Scholder
stated that these Indian paintings were not only a
“visual cliche, they were a psychological cliche.”
By 1967, Scolder realized that someone
needed to paint the Indian differently. “ With
Indian No. 1 people were freaked-out. I knew
they would be, as the first Indian had green hair.
I felt it to be a compliment when I was told that
I had destroyed the traditional style of Indian
art.” He went on to say, “ An artist must walk
the tightrope between accident and discipline.
By walking that tightrope and putting down
something on a canvas from your gut, you have
a chance of making marks that will live longer
than you. It is completely up to you to be your
own worst critic. I take each work to the brink
of disaster and then pull it back until it defies
me to go any further, and then I know it’s done.
I give thanks every day that I’ve been able to
take my craziness and make it work for me.”
Scholder created an extraordinary fusion of
Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and Pop
Art to express his vision of the Southwest and
the Indian experience. Fritz Scholder — prolific
painter, sculptor, lithographer, teacher, mentor,
and bookmaker — an abstractionist who turned
to figuration and changed Indian art forever.
Words of wisdom by Scholder to students at the
University of Oklahoma commencement address,
in 2002: You must be yourself on purpose. First,
find out who you are and fully accept it. Fall in
love with your life and live your life with finesse
and manners. Be a role model for yourself any
many will be influenced. To truly keep something,
you must give it away. Beware of progress, a myth
made false by the true lies and factoids of our
history. Like the Greek mask of tragedy, man’s
excellence is equal to his more tragic flaws.
Are we, the best and brightest, watching out
planet dimming? The cybernetic age challenges
each of us. The digital landscape quakes.
Overpopulation and disease run rampant.
The battle has begun between the shaman/artist
and the cyber/technocrat. We are living at a
place of crucifixion in a crossroad of time.
Opposites cross. Polarities collide. Industry and
technology have succeeded for two centuries
by moving in complete indifference and denial
toward nature. Reinvent yourself every day.
Each day can be a new adventure in your quest
for truth.
PIRATES AND FARMERS by Dave Hickey
inside front cover:
I ADVOCATE site-specific optimism.
Hope for a better tomorrow is delusional, but we can still look forward
to the next few hours with a high heart. I may have
sinned flagrantly in the past, broken your heart last year
and inadvertently betrayed a trust four hours ago.
Our Planet may suffer an asteroid implant tomorrow afternoon,
or I may keel over in a shopping mall. I may even forget today
tomorrow, but there is nothing prohibiting us from having
a lovely lunch at Robuchon this afternoon, gobbling calamari,
gossiping about Junior League lesbians, and telling jokes
about radioactive art dealers. If things get dire, we might
emulate the French dandy who began reading the Illiad
in Greek on the night he went to the guillotine. I have no doubt
that he folded down the page as he laid the book aside, just
to make a tiny point about slaughtering knowledge. We all
might be capable of such panache, if we didn’t believe Freud
and the church, because they are wrong. We do not die
bearing the burden of our original and subsequent sins.
Death is sad, but it is not a bad thing.
It’s punctuation. It makes room for the kids.
and yet………
Formatting got messed up. Too bad.
No big loss there. Movies can be recycled, we don’t need anymore of them, nor do we need anymore “directors” and actors who haven’t had a job their entire lives.
Hope Hollywood goes bankrupt.
We interrupt this discussion for breaking news…
Fast Eddy has just ordered 200 Nespresso capsules that will be shipped all the way from Auckland to the south island direct to my post box.
Fast Eddy will not be recycling these capsules because that would be pointless.
The question is – will Fast Eddy finish the 200 capsules while there is still electricity to power the machine.
That is all.
Missing a trick there, FE: turn the capsules into an ‘ironic’ artwork installation ‘piece’ on Consumption and Doom.
You could ‘take over’ (as ‘artists’ always seem to do today, in the past they just exhibited) the Met or Tate Modern. 🙂
Xabier, you might like this:
“After Christie’s announced that “Balloon Dog (Orange),” Jeff Koons’s 10-foot-high sculpture resembling a child’s giant party favor, would be the star of its Nov. 12 postwar and contemporary-art auction, it started an international advertising campaign featuring the lovable pooch. The auction house also sent gushing e-mails to its top clients that read, “The Stage Is Set to Make History.”
Cynics, of course, began to wonder how Sotheby’s would compete. It turns out that its big-ticket artwork, the cover of Sotheby’s Nov. 13 contemporary-art auction catalog, could not be more different. It is a gory image of a wrecked car wrapped around a tree, from Warhol’s “Death and Disaster” series.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/arts/design/warhol-death-and-disaster-work-to-be-sold-by-sothebys.html
Does this tell us that, through the art market, death and disaster have a market niche within the continuing (?????) spectrum of BAU?
Meanwhile at the Fast-residence
This could be a reality show…. participants vie to burn the most carbon … recycle the least … waste as much as possible … buy as much useless stuff as their credit card limit will allow….
In support of the continuance of BAU … of course. It’s all about BAU
Burn. Destroy. Waste.
Hollywood is an abject waste of money, time and resources.
So is the internet as they seem to fill the same role, so I’m hoping that your criticism of film entertainment is observational rather than judgemental.
I might watch one Hollywood movie per year…
However it is a key pillar of the Elders PR Machine…. therefore one might argue it is extremely useful…. that is why ownership is kept in ‘friendly’ hands….
We need more productive people who have had real jobs, like physicians implicit in the productive insurance and pharmaceutical rackets
Could you explain this “better?”
There’s a reference to Dolph’s occupation in an effort to communicate my distaste of his claim that no actor or director has ever had a real job. Actors, directors and most people in the film industry work ten to twelve hour days during production and many who are following creative passions that seldom give steady film work have to work just like the rest of us to pay their bills. It’s hard not to be viscerally offended by the ignorance and smug judgement of what I imagine is an area of life he can’t relate to due to deficiencies in his brain’s development in infancy
“There’s a reference to Dolph’s occupation in an effort to communicate my distaste of his claim that no actor or director has ever had a real job. ”
OK, got it. I didn’t understand what he said either. Thanks.
But … they get to have a casting couch… as a fringe benefit!
Looks like craziness!
Elon Musk takes a jab against Unions now! I hope this scumbag is still around when the BAU goes down. He deserves to suffer!
https://global.handelsblatt.com/companies-markets/tesla-sparks-union-fight-750492
He got a break…Now it is over Pay up or shut down
oops looks as if Israel is going to be the next Saudi Arabia lol and the savior of Europe no less energy wise that is?
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/1.781188
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/1.781188
I don’t understand why that is funny? please explain your sarcasm?
The problem with Idiocracy:
Labor markets in the First District continued to tighten somewhat. Many employers sought to add modestly to head counts (although one manufacturer laid off about 4 percent of staff over the last year), while wage increases were modest. Some smaller retailers noted increasing labor costs, in part driven by increases in state minimum wages being implemented over a multi-year period.
Restaurant contacts, particularly in heavy tourism regions, expressed concern about possible labor shortages this summer, exacerbated by an expected slowdown in granting H-2B visas. Half of contacted manufacturers were hiring, though none in large numbers; several firms said it was hard to find workers.
One respondent said that during a recent six-month attempt to add to staff for a new product, two-thirds of applicants for assembly line jobs were screened out before hiring via math tests and drug tests; of 400 workers hired, only 180 worked out.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-19/one-boston-employer-gave-potential-workers-math-and-drug-test-result-was-disturbing
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/04/17/20170419_EOD13.jpg
Ohio Radio Shack closes, goes rogue on Facebook! The Elders won’t like this!
http://www.businessinsider.com/ohio-radioshack-goes-rogue-on-facebook-2017-4
March set a remarkable new record for global warming, NOAA reports
First time any month was more than 1.8°F warmer than normal “in the absence of an El Niño episode.”
Hang on campers!
From what I read Duncan, during the 90’s and ought’s the world temp. was stuck at about .9C above 1880 baseline, but then started rising in the 2010’s, then spiked during the recent El Nino and in spite of being post El Nino, the World temp. has remained at an elevated level (1.26C above 1880). Plus word is another El Nino will form later this year, which is a very quick turnaround time to be into another El Nino.
It was bound to happen too, as CO2 increases have breached 3 ppm the past two years for the first time and if you look at a graph showing CO2 increases it’s shooting straight up because it’s occurring over such a short period of time. So at some point temp. was bound to follow and now it is. https://www.co2.earth/ shows march CO2 avg. was 407.05 and April daily show it at 409.52. The high mark always comes in May, which should break 410. But the CO2e (equivalent) because of other greenhouse gasses from human activity puts it close to equivalent to 500 ppm CO2.
What we’re in now is a time period in which heat that was being absorbed by the oceans is now beginning to release into the atmosphere, ratcheting up world temperatures. That process will continue to increase. The scary part is because of the lag time from emitting GHG’s and subsequent temperature increases is 30 years, we won’t experience what we fully put into the atmosphere up till now, until 2047. Yet we still keep emitting billions of tons of CO2 acting like we have an allowance to do that short of passing 2C. Heck, by the time we pass 2C we’ll run right past it like we ran past the vaunted 350 ppm CO2 limit.
There are plenty of other gases besides CO2, and my guess is that in the short-term they will create greater havoc, especially any methane spikes!
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
CO2, by definition, has a GWP of 1 regardless of the time period used, because it is the gas being used as the reference. CO2 remains in the climate system for a very long time: CO2 emissions cause increases in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 that will last thousands of years.
Methane (CH4) is estimated to have a GWP of 28–36 over 100 years (Learn why EPA’s U.S. Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks uses a different value.). CH4 emitted today lasts about a decade on average, which is much less time than CO2. But CH4 also absorbs much more energy than CO2. The net effect of the shorter lifetime and higher energy absorption is reflected in the GWP. The CH4 GWP also accounts for some indirect effects, such as the fact that CH4 is a precursor to ozone, and ozone is itself a GHG.
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) has a GWP 265–298 times that of CO2 for a 100-year timescale. N2O emitted today remains in the atmosphere for more than 100 years, on average.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) are sometimes called high-GWP gases because, for a given amount of mass, they trap substantially more heat than CO2. (The GWPs for these gases can be in the thousands or tens of thousands.)
And ironically some of the latter are by-products in the manufacture of solar panels.
Riots in Venezuela right now live feed! looks like civil war!
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1vOGwvllwORKB
I agree, Venezuela has fallen off the wagon. Looks like they (and an increasing number of countries around the world) are no longer going to be part of the global economy. As long as no big players fall out of the game (USA, Japan, China, Russia, Germany) we should be OK for a bit longer.
The USA is on a permanent down turn and will continue.
Bernie Sanders showed real solutions but was rejected by the established traitorous political slime. He had the support of younger generations sadly they have zero political power until boomers die off. Unfortunately they will be grasping at straws and have been sold into slavery by generations of go along to get along. War and poverty because of unpayable national debt is near guaranteed. No one is going to MEGA. The people won’t do what it truly requires.
What is truly required?
Politicians say what the think will get them elected.
https://www.iceagenow.info/winter-returns-russia-europe-cold-records-broken/
I’m trying to look at these articles from an artist’s perspective:
“Prices of commodities – Prices cannot be too high for the consumer to afford goods made with them.”
I tried selling art work for “ridiculously low prices,” and it worked somewhat. I made a little more than the cost of entry to the show. I wasn’t depending on the money to meet basic needs, so I don’t know what it would take to do that. I didn’t figure on materials cost (which are extremely minimal), on recouping cost of education (by now something of a stranded asset :-)),,or on the cost of the space, lights, heat, etc. I use a lot of “found” and discarded materials.
BTW, what does it cost stores to truck away cardboard or bale and wire it, etc.? How would it work for them to put it, and other discard in a give-away-to-artists/builders bin and have us take it away for them?
“Wages of non-elite workers – These wages need to be high enough so that workers can afford goods made with commodities, such as cars, homes and computers.”
Working for wages is problematic for the artist, who tends to be too free spirited to take orders gladly. Or to gladly accept a system that leaves no room for their own creative take on what it should be. Many artists try to be self employed, but that is hard to do through sale of a “non essential” product. Yet, the artist/builder could be given lots of essential work to do for wages. The WPA of the 30’s could offer some clues for ways to do that.
“Mandatory payments required of non-elite workers, such as taxes, health care, and education ”
Education is so often nonsense. What if there could be a fusion of the establishment system with community-based education? Charter schools are an exploding new approach, but they seem heavily geared to fitting in with the corporate system (as opposed to the community-building one).
“Interest rates – Low interest rates are helpful for some parts of the economy, while high interest rates are good for other parts.”
Whichever has less of a frantic or “heating up” effect might be best? And I guess that as circumstances changed, one or the other would fit that category. The system needs to calm down, I think.
“Increase in debt – An increase in debt indirectly makes the economy “look” much better. Increasing debt acts to raise wages, since some of this growing debt adds to funds available for wages. The higher wages tend to increase demand for goods, and thus indirectly raise commodity prices. A virtuous circle starts, pushing up economic growth, provided an adequate quantity of very cheap energy products is available (under $20 barrel oil, for example) that can be used to make goods and services. Increased debt works less and less well, as the price of energy products increases.”
What if, through use of discard, system, collaboration, coordination, there is a way to do much more with much less debt?
“Inflation rates – The higher the inflation rate, the easier it is to repay debt with interest, since most debt is not adjusted for inflation. Also, high inflation rates help keep prices of homes and other buildings from falling as they age, making the use of mortgages more feasible. If the price of a commodity, such as oil or coal, is high and then falls, debt based on the prior high value of the commodity is likely to become a problem.”
“Quantity of energy products affordable by economy – It takes energy products to produce goods and services. If the price of commodities is low, it is possible for buyers to purchase a large quantity of these products, even on a low budget. Current relatively low prices tend to help the economy, even if producers cannot afford to make adequate investment in new production with such low prices. Thus, today’s low energy prices make the economy look good for at a short time. Afterwards, the outlook is less rosy.”
But shouldn’t we have an analysis of what we could do without, do more of, or do differently? I don’t think a self-organizing system precludes a deliberate effort to make as practical interventions as you can see to do.
“But shouldn’t we have an analysis of what we could do without, do more of, or do differently?” – It sure would be nice to have an alternative to our predicament. I just don’t have a clue as to what that could be.
“Some economists say ideas, innovation, and creativity are essential to growing the United States economy.”
Arts and culture contribute more to U.S. economy than tourism
“For the first time the federal government has tallied up the arts and culture contribution to the nation’s economy. It turns out that sector, movies, painting, publishing, cable and more, was worth half a trillion dollars — 3 percent to the gross domestic product in 2011. That’s more than the travel and tourism industry.
‘Here you have for the first time, comprehensive empirical evidence from the point of view of economists that the arts play a substantial role in the nation’s economy, says Sunil Iyengar who runs the Office of Research and Analysis for the National Endowment for the Arts.”
https://www.marketplace.org/2013/12/06/economy/arts-and-culture-contribute-more-us-economy-tourism
Well, museums and art galleries in major cities are now just business ventures -the museum shop and franchised souvenirs matter more than the artworks displayed.
See, for instance, the ridiculous tower tacked on to Tate Modern in London – incredible amount of money just to attract tourists and provide another unnecessary viewing platform.
The very definition of redundant infrastructure, created just before the fall of the civilisation.
‘Orange trees being planted in large numbers are the sign that a civilisation is about to fall.’
Curious observation by an Arab historian of the 14th century: why orange trees?
The ones referred to produced bitter oranges, of no real use, only of decorative, aesthetic value, and very expensive to grow and nurture in an arid climate. Probably planted by a corrupt elite, taking too much from their society and environment.
So, when you see such things all around you, apparent signs of wealth, you know the end of the cycle must be near….
Gail mentioned new cars, but there’s a market for old cars too, and even wrecked cars. The bottom link should show a wrecked car being exhibited in a gallery.
https://search.aol.com/aol/image?q=wrecked+car+images+in+art&s_it=img-ans&imgId=9E750F3C39900FA1AC42A485BC22ED21DC3D05DF&v_t=webmail-hawaii1-basicaol
http://globalgraphica.com/2013/07/29/in-paris-wrecked-car-as-ready-made-art/
http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Electric-cars-face-cost-pressures-as-key-metals-soar
Electric cars face cost pressures as key metals soar
Cobalt up more than twofold since last year
Cobalt is certainly nice to have but not all lithium ion chemistries require it (eg Nissan Leaf). Even in those that do, it’s a relatively small (5%) portion of the material in the cell although its price has greatly increased its cost weighting recently. The real mover would be lithium if auto manufacturers decided to make real entries in the market at 60kwh+/vehicle. It would be supply constrained for years until new mines would open up (at much higher price points since you can’t count on the lithium triangle developing that fast).
off we go again on ”wheels”
it’s not access to wheels that made us prosperous
it’s prosperity that allowed us all to have access to our own set of wheels.
It’s not the journey that makes you prosperous, it’s what you do at each end of the journey
I agree Norm.
those of us who ”get it” about wheels are very much in the minority
With one exception … remember the Singapore Airlines campaign ‘The Journey is THE Destination’
https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/images/navigation/flying-withus/our-story/singapore-girl.jpg
But as long as we have jobs. We have to get to them. Because we built the houses far from the jobs.
And for reasons I don’t understand everything collapses instantly if we would take the train instead of the “wheels”.
“everything collapses instantly if we would take the train instead of the wheels” – I think part of that would be due to job losses in the car building industries and suppliers who make the parts. Like Gail always says (and rightly so) it is networked economy.
We will see soon enough 🙂
On local level car miles are down but ownership is up.
Best of two worlds: car industry busy, public transport industry busy.
trains depend on converting explosive force into rotary motion (wheels)
The existence of ”jobs” assumes the means by which those jobs are supported–which itself assumes explosive forces to sustain the functon of those jobs
Electric trains?
And anyway probably takes less FF to transport 1000 people by train than car.
And jobs … there are a lot of bullshit jobs, and also a lot of hidden unemployment.
Autos create jobs, jobs, jobs.
Building 60 million vehicles requires the employment of about 9 million people directly in making the vehicles and the parts that go into them. This is over 5 percent of the world’s total manufacturing employment. It is estimated that each direct auto job supports at least another 5 indirect jobs in the community, resulting in more than 50 million jobs owed to the auto industry.
Many people are employed in related manufacturing and services. Autos are built using the goods of many industries, including steel, iron, aluminum, glass, plastics, glass, carpeting, textiles, computer chips, rubber and more.
http://www.oica.net/category/economic-contributions/
Half of the companies listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average depend on autos for revenue.
The manufacturers building cars and light trucks, along with their suppliers and dealers, generate billions of dollars for the US economy and employ tens of thousands of skilled workers in all 50 states.
The greater automobile industry extends well beyond the iconic names of auto companies familiar to us all. Auto manufacturing depends on thousands of companies supplying parts, components and materials, as well as a vast retail and vehicle maintenance network of dealers. No other industry in America has such an expansive reach to every state, delivering economic benefits and creating jobs in so many different sectors.
https://autoalliance.org/economy/
I’m not sure what that has to do with my comment or Duncan’s but the prosperity we had has been wasted on ultimately fruitless enterprises and unsustainable societies.
By sustainable society I assume you are referring to hunter gatherer type societies?
And just imagine what would happen to the prices of all these rare metals if EV sales hit even 1% of all vehicles sold…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country
At the moment EVs really do not even exist… they are a rounding error….
I suspect that EV’s use a lot more of the periodic table than and ICE car does.
Absolutely, shuttered mines need to open, new mines opened…discovered even. Demand for lithium but also nickel, cobalt, copper, and aluminum goes way up. But no rare metals (like cobalt) are actually necessary; just nice to have if available. Same goes for rare earths (which aren’t really rare).
We have a winner – step right up and accept your award for MOREonic Comment of the Week
Cobalt is said to account for about 20% of the components cost for batteries. Domestic battery manufacturers are worried that a further rise in price could make it difficult to procure materials and lead to delays in development.
http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Electric-cars-face-cost-pressures-as-key-metals-soar
A rise in price will not affect short term procurement but will definitely boost production long term (especially from ‘artisinal’ operators in Congo) while shifting battery makers away from cobalt.
Larkana, Pakistan
Elev 190 ft 27.72 °N, 68.78 °E | Updated 33 min ago
Clear
Clear
113 °F
Feels Like 119 °F
N12
Wind from SSW
Tomorrow is forecast to be NEARLY THE SAME temperature as today.
Today
High 116 | Low 84 °F
0% Chance of Precip.
Yesterday
High 113 | Low 79 °F
Precip. 0 in
Oh my, no thanks. The temperatures are for other people better suited to take it.
My Father drove him & I through the Mojave desert in Summer in the middle of the day in the 60’s and before we set out it was 120 F at the café we had lunch. It was a Dodge Phoenix with no AC. I was 8 with blond hair and blue eyes. I told him it was too hot but he told me it wasn’t because when he was stationed in Hong Kong during WWII, it was not only hot but very humid and this was dry, so I should be fine. Sit up and shut up. So I put my hand out the window but my hand heated up so I said it was even hot if I stuck my hand out the window and he yelled at me to stop putting your hand out the window. I told him again it was too hot but he told me to shut up. Then my father said, hey look, there’s radiator fluid coming in on the passenger side. I looked down at it and rolled forward and fell on to the green anti-freeze. My father implored me to get back in my seat but I refused finding the fluid helped cool me down some. So he said, well suit yourself but just be sure not to drink any. So I passed out and came to late in the afternoon with a huge headache, but alive to my surprise. He said, “I’m sure glad you’re ok, because otherwise your mother would have really been angry at me.” These days they would have called that episode child abuse, but back then it was a parents right.
He said he had listened to the radio while I was out and a family of 3, two parents and a daughter had died that same day in the Mojave Desert. It was a VW that had broken down (air cooled – any wonder) and the daughter had walked to try and get help but died on the way and then the parents walked to find the daughter and died a short distance away. Heat can kill, no doubt.
‘just be sure not to drink any’
You should have listened to him….
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I still don’t understand why the BAU can’t keep going much longer? What amount of debt is to high? I just don’t see why the game is nearing the end yet? Can anyone help explain?
Well, here is a suggestion. Go back to Gail’s previous articles and read each one, word for word, along with the comments and links provided. If you still do not understand, please let us know and Fast Eddy will explain in detail further.
Hope this helps.
Lollll, I was just about to tell him exactly the same thing…basically take a week off and go through the last 6 years of Gail’s articles + comments and then get back to us…and STOP with the stupid questions (unless you’re a troll and doing it on purpose)…
I don’t have time to read through hundreds of posts and comments. All I want to know is what REASON do you think we are nearing the end? Since the Elders have kept the game going for over a decade with very little growth. Logic will tell you that they can do it for another decade. I understand you can point to the large sums of debt and horrible growth. But that only proves that the end is in sight. Not that it is necessary near anytime soon. I am confused…
You don’t have time? Well, may I suggest you scan through the articles and comments and gleem the information that meets your inquiry. Again, if yo still are perplexed, Fast Eddy surely will come to you aid to help.
I agree with cliff hanger, having read but obviously not understood I haven’t understood why the real economy has to grow.
That interests can’t rise much and more money has to be created I understand.
The real economy has to grow so that debts can be paid back with interest. Otherwise debts default and we get financial collapse.
Must debts be paid off? And why not just pay it with printed money? (Yes I know eventually resources will be gone, I’m stupid, but not that stupid.)
When you are pay with printed money, the value of money will be gone. What if EU says that starting from tomorrow, everyone in EU will get EUR2000 per month per person. Instantaneously, what will happen? The amount of food is the same but the amount of currency circulating is not very high.
Same goes for printing money to pay the debts. One’s debt may be a pension manager’s assets. By paying off debts, the money will go back into the system. Just by saying that EUR200 is enough to lower the confidence in the currency and there will be a stampede out from EUR.
We are too interconnected where we can do one thing big and at some other places, something bad will happen.
They are already printing (buying bonds) at a rate of 200 EUR per month per person.
We are nowhere close to lack of food.
” Since the Elders have kept the game going for over a decade with very little growth. Logic will tell you that they can do it for another decade.” – Really? Shirley you can’t be serious! Logic tells me that something that is unsustainable will end at some point. The “Elders” are not magicians. Diminishing returns is not something that can be postponed by the “Elders”. We are in the thick of diminishing returns in almost ever aspect of our global economy that is why growth is dead. This is a predicament with no solution. This isn’t a game with a reset button. This is an artificial world we have created using finite resources to power it. Now we are reaching the limits of those resources. This was predicted and modeled already many years ago in a book called “Limits To Growth”. The reasons are many and increasing with every passing day. Here are some examples: metal extraction (ores are getting exponentially less concentrated every year causing exponential increases in energy to extract them). Energy extraction (oil, coal and natural gas are getting more are more expensive to extract in energy terms every year). Food (42.2 million Americans live in food insecure household). Infectious disease (there are bacteria now capable of defeating all antibiotics and this trend is accelerating). Pollution (global warming, climate change, ocean acidification, fracking polluting underground water, earthquakes from fracking, draining aquifers). Species die-off (a total of almost 80% of the world’s fisheries are fully- to over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse. Worldwide about 90% of the stocks of large predatory fish stocks are already gone). This is not sustainable. Logic says that which is not sustainable must end. The acts of the “Elders” when all this came to a head in 2008 was to cut interest rates to zero and growth effectively stopped. Every sign is pointing to another immenent crash in almost every aspect of the global economy. There is nothing left for the “Elders” to do to stop what is coming. We are in over our heads with unsolvable problems.
That is my best shot at a Cliffnotes version of what I have learned over the course of the 15 years I have been studying this kind of stuff. It isn’t something with just one simple explanation. The best person to ever explain our predicament was Albert Bartlett. His rationale is essentially: Infinite growth in a finite world is impossible. Professor Bartlett has since passed away. But, give Albert a chance and listen to his video on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI1C9DyIi_8
asking ”when will things come to an end” is an impossible question, because for some the end has arrived, for others it might be a decade in to future. Or never.
It all depends on your access to and use of available (energy) resources.
a Syrian refugee has no access to resources–for him his end time has arrived
For a Kalahari bushman, or Arctic subsistence trapper, the end may never arrive because he is used to getting what resources he needs from the surrounding environment.
Can Venezuela recover for instance?—possibly, but they must inevitably crash again. The USA will do the same, but at a different time and rate, in the future, probably a decade away.
You beat me to it. but that is only the start
Very well put Greg! 🙂
I think the trouble today is GDP print is a lie. They artificially force it above zero, so people don’t know the economy is shrinking. The result is they just keep trying harder with less. I don’t think there will ever be another official recession because those crunching the numbers will force a positive number. If Trump is willing to lie about an armada of naval ships headed towards Korean waters when it fact it was 3,000 miles south in Jakarta, then I’m pretty darn sure they will continue to lie about GDP.
Yes they can lie, but we don’t live in a virtual world…at some point the physical reality catches up with you…we have been papering over diminishing returns since 2008…that cannot go on forever…
Up until now – and even now I am not sure — I do not think GDP has been a complete lie.
If growth had stopped then we would not be here right now.
It is not possible to have a prolonged period (years…) with contraction – and not have collapse.
The growth that we have experienced has of course been created through extreme stimulus – enormous debt — record low interest rates — subprime loans etc…
But it is growth — for instance I believe that 17M cars were sold in the US last year… setting a new record…
I agree with FE. GDP is showing some growth. It is toxic growth but, still growth.
I agree FE there has been growth in the last few years (I just think of all the empty cities China has built) but like you say that has come through Herculean efforts from the CBs…and next time around they will not be able to recreate that..I just look at my downtown core here in Montreal…I have NEVER seen so many high-rises popping up in the last 40 years..this will not be reproducible…but it did create a false sense of prosperity…
As Gail pointed out, there was a massive growth pump enabled by a huge increase in coal consumption in China between 2011 – 2014 which stopped global energy use from dovetailing. It appears now that global energy use is decreasing…and as Gail has pointed out the economic cost of harnessing more energy is reaching limits that the real economy cannot bear even if more debt instruments were added. As Gail has mentioned the only debt instruments that can extend BAU are those that prop up financial institutions whose temporary liquidity in the face of structural insolvency can keep the flows of direct stimulus to revenue threatened companies and broke consumers we need going for a little longer. Some might argue that ‘helicopter money’ could also be a last resort but that appears to be a miasma that would never eventuate given its potentially disastrous unravelling of central bank control over inflation.
Global energy use decreasing = real economy contraction = financial collapse = real economy collapse
This is my simple calculus.
….’they’…. are hundreds if not thousands of people within numerous governmental and non-governmental organisations compiling easily verifiable data… All sorts of pay grades and political stripes. All with ready access to media outlets if they want to question the officially released aggregate. If ‘they’ are lying then you are talking about a cover-up of a scale that puts you in Alex Jones territory.
Sure, agenices can choose to reinterpret certain figures in they way publish or hide them… think the various money supply figures used to judge inflation or which metrics are relied on to judge how many people are fully employed… but straight-out false numbers…no.
This idea that everything out of the government or the MSM is a lie is a knee-jerk reaction taken too far. For example, the MSM doesn’t regularly ‘lie’ – it packages a selection of what are essentially factual truths in a way that make you believe bigger lies…. or put more precisely, they are the storytellers that weave the myths that need to be expounded for civilisations to maintain themselves. Your comments, Bergen, often show that you believe the bigger lies…. while here you are protesting that some of the facts that don’t fit with your beliefs are lies.
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Driverless Van Tests Don’t Pencil Out
“While it might be easy to convince public officials to sell driverless technology as a flashy solution to mobility deficits—the math still doesn’t justify the expense.”
https://www.planetizen.com/node/92323/driverless-van-tests-dont-pencil-out
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‘Perhaps the most striking feature of the spaghetti diagram — what everyone notices the first time they see it — is the enormous amount of “rejected” energy. Not just some, but almost two-thirds of the potential energy embedded in our energy sources ended up wasted in 2016. (And note that some scholars think LLNL is being too optimistic, and that the US is not even 31 percent efficient but more like 13 percent.)
What’s more, the US economy is trending less and less efficient over time. Here’s the spaghetti diagram from 1970 (LLNL has been at this a long time)’
http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/13/15268604/american-energy-one-diagram
‘The decline in overall efficiency in the US economy mainly has to do with the increasing role of inefficient energy systems. Specifically, the years since 1970 have seen a substantial increase in electricity consumption and private vehicles for transportation, two energy services that are particularly inefficient. (Electricity wastes two-thirds of its primary energy; transportation wastes about three-quarters.’
Is this Tainters complexity at work?
The energy of conversion doesn’t have to be wasted. China, Sweden, and other countries have used the “waste heat” to heat homes in “cogeneration”. Of course, that means that the homes need to be near the power plants (or vice versa–China seems to build coal fired power plants in the middle of cities).
There have been proposals that cogeneration should be greatly increased.
I am not sure all this matters all that much. We have never been able to put a large share of theoretical energy to use. We have lots of energy from the sun. Trying to get it into the right form takes a huge amount of effort–far more than simply using a solar panel to partly get it ready for our use on the grid system. There is a huge more amount of refinement needed as well that most people fail to recognize.
“We have lots of energy from the sun. Trying to get it into the right form takes a huge amount of effort” – Therein lies the problem! Getting the energy in the “right form.” Rather than knowing we have a lot of waste heat, shouldn’t we instead be seeing that what we are doing is sub-optimal and we need to change course. But, instead humans think we have to build out more complexity to capture all this waste heat and convert it into the “right form” so we can have more stuff!
We just have to face the facts that we are using finite energy supplies to maintain a very inefficient and artificial ecosystem.
Is the MSM “getting it”? Pray, what might have prompted BBC to publish a “doomer” article? See this link:
Interesting times indeed!
Oops, link not visible. Let me try again: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170418-how-western-civilisation-could-collapse
Very fine article, with a small exception for the optimistic last paragraph. Thanks for pointing it out. Maybe BBC is seeing the problem as well.
I think this guy is still in denial with some bargaining popping up…wait for the next article…it will be anger I think…
On OFW many are more or less at acceptance…perhaps with a dollop of ‘stunned mullet’ in the middle somewhere. So I travel around and work as necessary and watch ‘normal people doing normal things’ in these completely abnormal times!
Very familiar.
Facts, facts, facts, then at the end a complete change of human collective behaviour and a couple of technological breakthroughs and everything will not only be ok, but better than ever.
Well said!
Lastcall says: “So I travel around and work as necessary and watch “normal people doing normal things” in these abnormal times!”
Exactly Lastcall, I go about my daily business, and look at people all around me, people I see at a professional sports game, at a shopping mall, a client, whatever, and the word that keeps popping into my head looking and talking to all of them is: “Clueless, clueless, clueless”
The masses have no idea what is about to happen, even though clues are to be found everywhere (out-of-control debt, environmental degradation everywhere, etc..)
It’s incredible how people buy all the MSM bs. And even though the news that get by the filters are getting worse and worse, people just compensate by reading less and less news.
Another factor is that people don’t care to investigate these things as long as they have a job, food in the supermarket etc. Collapse comes to one person at a time, so slowly that almost nobody sees the big picture.
Reporter: So how did your company go bankrupt?
CEO: Slowly at first, then suddenly.
A very good article, and refreshing to see on such a site, although one can take Homer-Dixon with a pinch or more of salt.
The prescription of more ‘rationality’ as a solution is nonsense – because of the unattainability of rationality, and the sheer scale of our problems.
Welcome to the new American Unreality …with Donald Clint-o-Bush the hybrid leader of the “New Truth”
LOL!
However, as stated at the beginning, there is a second means of proving that Western economies are mired in a Greater Depression: energy demand – meaning the lack of energy demand in the West.
It’s a simple equation. Economies use energy. Growing economies use more energy. There is no exception to this economic tautology. Even very efficient economies will require some incremental amounts of energy to grow. And our economies are not “very efficient” from an energy standpoint – the Right Wing has fought very hard for decades to prevent this.
For our economies to grow, they must consume more energy. Western economies are not consuming more energy.
Over the past eight years, all increases in global energy demand have come from the Rest of the World. According to the Western media, growth rates in the Rest of the World over the past eight years have been dismal, and those economies are using more energy.
Observe this July 2015 headline from the World Economic Forum:
The surprising decline in US petroleum consumption
The only reason this declining consumption is a “surprise” is because the corrupt liars in the U.S. government continue to pretend that this train-wreck economy is growing. If the U.S. government was honest and acknowledged the U.S. Greater Depression, this is the headline we would have seen at the WEF:
The decline in U.S. petroleum consumption is expected
Growing economies use more energy; shrinking economies use less energy. And if the Corrupt West wasn’t using its energy-intensive war machine so regularly, the collapse in energy demand in the Western world would have been even more pronounced. No economy with flat energy demand can pretend to be growing. No economy with its interest rates set permanently at near-zero levels can pretend to be growing. Both of those preceding statements are economic tautologies. Absolute proof. Western economies are not growing because two absolutely unequivocal economic fundamentals indicate such growth to be impossible. Here is a quote from the WEF article:
Petroleum consumption in the US was lower in 2014 than it was in 1997, despite the fact that the economy grew almost 50% over this period.
Here is the correction to that quote:
Petroleum consumption in the US was lower in 2014 than it was in 1997, despite the fact that the U.S. government pretended that the economy grew almost 50% over this period. The convenient thing about imaginary economic growth is that it requires no energy to fuel it. There has been some small degree of divergence in the U.S. from petroleum consumption into alternative energy sources. Putting the statement above into context, since 1997, there has been very little real growth in the U.S. economy – and none in the last ten years.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-18/great-western-economic-depression
But surely we could have decoupling? On local level.
A country provides banking services or apps or “design” in exchange for food, fuel, clothes and more or less refined commodities.
banking services are an ”abstract” concept
whereas food etc is a ”real” commodity.
they may appear to be interchangeable, but they are not in any real sense.
in a fully functioning commercial infrastructure, you can exchange ‘designs’ for stuff you need to live on (I’ve done that all my working life), but people back down the line have to support the commercial system i live in, in the sense that they must produce ‘excess’ energy in one form or another, or have access to it.
My design/writing skills only had ‘value’ because other people had the leisure time to use and need them. They had that leisure time because they didn’t need to work 80 hours a week to stay alive.
My Gggrandfather would have been totally mystified as to why anyone would pay me for skills that he could see no use for.
But of course in his day, stuff i design/wrote about did not exist, and he would have had no awareness that they could ever exist.
His was a much simpler society–no gadgets, or whizzy things to make life easy. His style of living probably hadn’t altered much in any real sense in 50 generations.
Thus as our commercial infrastructure collapses in on itself. through lack of energy, the need for abstract concepts such as a ‘banking app’ will disappear with it, and have no meaning or value.
” the need for abstract concepts such as a ‘banking app’ will disappear with it, and have no meaning or value” – Brilliant as always Norm. It isn’t hard to understand these concepts. If 100 dollar bills were blowing in the wind the only animals that would chase after them and fight over them are humans Other animals know better. Not take that a step farther to the modern day with digital 100 dollar bills flowing through fiber optic cables. How real is that? What have we been reduced to that we think that has value? Money can only have value if it can buy real resources. You cannot de-couple this connection and have an economy.
Sure, but currently, and at least for past 30 years West has decoupled.
One thing that needs to be considered with the petroleum consumption number is the amount petroleum that is being used to produce petroleum. It is not broken out in the historical or current data…. and my gut is that it is significant…. and that it is hiding/obscuring an even greater drop in consumption from the “rest of the economy”….
How Humans Cause Mass Extinctions
The cause of this great acceleration in the loss of the planet’s biodiversity is clear: rapidly expanding human activity, driven by worsening overpopulation and increasing per capita consumption. We are destroying habitats to make way for farms, pastures, roads, and cities. Our pollution is disrupting the climate and poisoning the land, water, and air. We are transporting invasive organisms around the globe and overharvesting commercially or nutritionally valuable plants and animals.
The more people there are, the more of Earth’s productive resources must be mobilized to support them. More people means more wild land must be put under the plow or converted to urban infrastructure to support sprawling cities like Manila, Chengdu, New Delhi, and San Jose. More people means greater demand for fossil fuels, which means more greenhouse gases flowing into the atmosphere, perhaps the single greatest extinction threat of all. Meanwhile, more of Canada needs to be destroyed to extract low-grade petroleum from oil sands and more of the United States needs to be fracked.
More people also means the production of more computers and more mobile phones, along with more mining operations for the rare earths needed to make them. It means more pesticides, detergents, antibiotics, glues, lubricants, preservatives, and plastics, many of which contain compounds that mimic mammalian hormones. Indeed, it means more microscopic plastic particles in the biosphere – particles that may be toxic or accumulate toxins on their surfaces. As a result, all living things – us included – have been plunged into a sickening poisonous stew, with organisms that are unable to adapt pushed further toward extinction.
With each new person, the problem gets worse. Since human beings are intelligent, they tend to use the most accessible resources first. They settle the richest, most productive land, drink the nearest, cleanest water, and tap the easiest-to-reach energy sources.
And so as new people arrive, food is produced on less fertile, more fragile land. Water is transported further or purified. Energy is produced from more marginal sources. In short, each new person joining the global population disproportionately adds more stress to the planet and its systems, causing more environmental damage and driving more species to extinction than members of earlier generations.
Moar… https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mass-extinction-human-cause-by-paul-r–ehrlich-and-anne-h–ehrlich-2015-08
Very well written article. This stuff is not hard to understand. People in general are so indoctrinated into the current system they do not see the bigger picture.
Save a Species – smother a baby in its crib today.
Seriously…
How do you explain this? Looks like oil companies have figured out how to pump oil at a profit now. Can you debunk that claim?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shale-funders-analysis-idUSKBN17J0BK
“Can you debunk that claim?” – Can you prove it? There is plenty of well researched information on this blog and elsewhere that you can debunk it yourself if you are so inclined. Also visit http://www.artberman.com/ for in depth information on oil extraction.
The thing is…
We are very obviously in a world of pain….
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2W4vx3BbQSM/V_0AET0iMXI/AAAAAAAACLc/7GUc6iq3cAc1F07qKJDpMjW4VgI3-OUiACLcB/s1600/O%2B%2526%2BGas%2BDiscoveriesF.jpg
We have apparently run out of options in terms of new oil discoveries — so best of a whole lot of bad options is shale…
Does anyone in their right mind believe that shale is going to be cheaper to produce than conventional plays (which are bleeding billions with oil at $50)
Of course it is not.
But these are desperate times — the E.lders are not going to just sit back and watch …. they will do ‘whatever it takes’
They will instruct the MSM to give us more ‘Saudi America’ fables… they will tell us shale is profitable at 10 bucks if it comes down to that… they will make sure the shale oil comes out of the ground — even if it means printing money and handing it to the producers … (which will encourage investors to follow their lead)
Everything is at stake here.
Everything.
We need 4 new fields the size of the Saudi Arabian Ghawar by 2024 in order to stave off existing natural field decline rates that will put the world in a very tough situation.
As shown in FE’s chart above, there have been no “elephant” fields discovered for decades despite $billions being invested in exploration.
Don’t be fooled by the current situation where major players are flooding the market with oil discovered decades ago. They are simply sucking harder on the same straw and depleting reservoirs at a faster rate.
Did you see recently the IEA warned of oil shortages by 2020 if more investment wasn’t made?
above cited source
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2017/march/global-oil-supply-to-lag-demand-after-2020-unless-new-investments-are-approved-so.html
The price of oil was in the 100 buck range for 4 years or so….
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Crude_oil_price_WTI_EIA_since_2000.svg/350px-Crude_oil_price_WTI_EIA_since_2000.svg.png
And this high price resulted in few new discoveries…
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-siua9vZmbl0/V8rYYbbsPEI/AAAAAAAAAAU/zI7g8JwtOxMpgfolfgVybo6Bpj1e4aeRgCLcB/s1600/discoveries.png
Perhaps if the economy could handle $200 oil we might find quite a bit of new oil that could be extracted…
But at 50 or even 100+… we are done.
Well there could be a huge economic crash reducing demand for oil that could stave off shortages. It is hard to predict when and if shortages will occur. I do think there will be shortages at some point in the next two or three years.
Another thing that is often overlooked is the prospect of disruptions in supply due to pipeline fires or natural disasters like hurricanes disrupting refinery operations. Recently the colonial gas pipeline in Alabama caught fire disrupting supplies to the east coast and millions of people. This fire was blamed on aging infrastructure and is the second such fire in recent years. So, we seem to be facing headwinds in energy supplies in ways other than extraction as well.
To that note… explains why the head of EXxON is now the Sec of State….
Yep, it should be very telling why Rex Tillerson is now Secretary Of Sate. It shouldn’t be difficult from that position to influence policy that props up big oil companies. As things continue to deteriorate with respect to the economics of oil extraction, I would expect to see more “energy independence”, “drill baby drill”, “shale will save us” types of propaganda.
I explain it the same way one explains Tesla — billions pour into that company even though it loses huge amounts of money…
Chesapeake loses $4.8 billion in 2016
At the end of February, Chesapeake Energy announced it posted a net loss of $4.8 billion during 2016. The loss resulted from lower commodity prices, lower production values and a decrease in the value of the company’s oil and gas assets. Average daily production for the fourth quarter was around 574,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day, including 108,00 coming from the Utica shale play.
http://businessjournaldaily.com/chesapeake-reports-net-loss-of-4-8-billion-in-2016/
CONTINENTAL RESOURCES: Example Of What Is Horribly Wrong With The U.S. Shale Oil Industry
According to Continental Resources website, it labels itself as America’s oil champion. To be a champion, one is supposed to be winner. Unfortunately for Continental, it’s taking a serious beating and is a perfect example of what is horribly wrong with the U.S. Shale Oil Industry. During the beginning of the U.S. shale energy revolution,…
https://srsroccoreport.com/continental-resources-example-of-what-is-horribly-wrong-with-the-u-s-shale-oil-industry/
Let me turn this around — if shale is so profitable then why are the main players bleeding red?
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Yes but now this year the industry is claiming that they have got technology down to 40 dollars a barrel profit. Do you think they are just lying to keep the BAU going longer?
‘When it gets serious – you lie’ Jean Claude Juncker
The end of the world is fairly serious….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XPrRxhYJMkQ
We got the BEST Bullshut money can buy!
Uh oh. It is the return of the g-man. New name, same old stuff.
Where’s he at with his lawsuit lolll
What particular pieces go into calculating this profit? The devil is in the details. Companies make calculations on different bases. Typically, they leave out a lot of overhead costs.
” the industry is claiming that they have got technology down to 40 dollars” – That is a lie! Read Art Bermans blog to find out what is really going on. Essentially the oil field servicing companies are renting and selling drilling equipment at a loss to stay afloat. And that cannot last for very long. It isn’t technology improvements at all that are pushing per barrel costs down!
Yeap, that and ……
“Companies are effectively high-grading their assets by writing down wells with poorer performance. Breakeven price is lower because only most profitable wells are included in the calculation.”….. “Lower Future Net Cash Flows”….
It is just a con and shell game….
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Why-Breakeven-Prices-Are-Plunging-Across-The-Oil-Industry.html
That was just so perfect.
Reuters, an well known front for the deep state pushing their MSM storyline. Making the best of bids to show that ‘everybody’ should invest in shale oil. Keep the money rolling in the billions. Put all your dimes in shale. It is very profitable. The price can go even lower, without problems. The demand is surprisingly high. Private capital is rushing in for shale in the billions. Ah.. just perfect
No matter who you believe in. CBs, a deep state, Eddys elders, neocons, TBTB, a black box with the NSA or divine intervention. Those kind of ‘fake news’ we need more. Lots more.
Reality, physics, thermodynamic laws, naahh.. boring.. we just need well crafted stories like that. Good Job!
Would there not be dire consequences if the media reported “reality”? The economy operates in large part on confidence in the future. Reporting that anything other than growth is imminent would destroy confidence and collapse the system. Particularly if some of the commenters here are correct and this overshoot was the inevitable outcome for the human species, then reporting the “truth” would accomplish nothing but bringing about a swifter end.
One thing I have learned by reading about our predicament is that possessing objective truth is not always adaptive. Sometimes illusions help us take risks, spend our time productively, act in a pro-social way, and create organized systems. Religion, for example, may not consist of objective truth, but it has many adaptive elements.
If we had had this truth decades ago, would we have been able to restrain our biological impulses enough to act on it? Probably not. Truth is overrated. Having it does not offer any particular advantage.
Some things that seem like conspiracies are really just organized systems working around a mythology. We can deride the media and those who believe in prosperity/growth all we want, but for my part, I hope they keep believing for a long time. That myth is currently propping up BAU.
Nothing would have changed, there is no way we would have left the resources in the ground even if a prophet from the future would have come to the past to show us a video showing the total collapse of the economy and biosphere.
We don’t have to go too far back, in 1972 the writers of the excellent Limits To Growth were dismissed and ridiculed by politicians and economists alike as doomsayers. 45 short years later, Donella Meadows must be laughing from the grave! 😉
And in any case in 1972 we were already locked into this system that needs constant growth, so we would have had to collapse the world economy bringing millions to their death…however maybe it would not have been total collapse since the world economy was not as interconnected as it is now and we were not working everything using JIT..
Too true: the delusions of others regarding the Bright Mars Future (TM) help me to feed myself today and lead a very comfortable life.
I am grateful for all the ‘growth and hope’ propaganda, an excellent job is being done!
“Can you debunk that claim?”
No one can, because if they are drilling and fracking etc., then there must be money in it as Rockman at peakoilbarrel (who works in the oilfields) says, or they wouldn’t do it.
Actually … you are wrong.
Oil companies carry billions of dollars of debt – banks want them to repay that debt.
So if the price of oil drops below the break even point …. the banks will not call in the loans and drive their clients into bankruptcy…
What they will do is work with their clients so that they can continue to service the loans hoping the price of oil increases… they will even loan MORE money to them to keep them afloat…
The oil companies will endeavour to pump MORE – not LESS oil — because pumping more brings in more cash — and this cash can be used to service debt… allowing them to live to hopefully fight another day …
Might I suggest that because this is a rather important commodity that the CBs would also be involved in making sure the oil companies keep pumping oil — as I have posted previously CBs are making billions available to oil companies (and many other non oil companies) to allow them to stay afloat.
The situation is no different than what we are seeing here in NZ with dairy — the operators have been losing money for two years now — prices are below break even…. are they stopping milk production?
No — they are continuing — and the banks are extending financing that allows them to continue to produce milk… at a loss…
It’s your lucky day as well — you have learned something – Happy Wednesday
Like they say you owe the bank a million you got a problem,owe the bank a billion they got the problem.
Right!
…and the money keeps pouring into Shale. ……..”AND IT’S GONE ! ”
http://peakoil.com/production/undaunted-by-oil-bust-financiers-pour-billions-into-us-shale
“Time to payout should indeed be all that matters, that and ROI. I personally have never been able to work off cash flow unless my ROI’s are 3:1 over the life cycle of the well. Imagine a situation where it takes 5-6 years to reach payout, 65% of your total UR has then been realized, the other 35% takes 18 more years to occur, that at rates of less than 25 BOPD, and the best, the BEST you can hope for is 1.5:1 ROI. Factor in risk (as in the price of oil collapsing 70%) and anybody with any cranial capacity whatsoever would sooner bury the $9M cost of drilling the well in the back yard with the dog bones.
People in the oil business understand that does not work. People not in the oil business focus of the romance of 3% of all the shale oil wells EVER drilled in America and ignore the other 97%.”
-Mike