Falling interest rates have huge power. My background is as an actuary, so I am very much aware of the great power of interest rates. But a lot of people are not aware of this power, including, I suspect, some of the people making today’s decisions to raise interest rates. Similar people want to sell securities now being held by the Federal Reserve and by other central banks. This would further ramp up interest rates. With high interest rates, practically nothing that is bought using credit is affordable. This is frightening.
Another group of people who don’t understand the power of interest rates is the group of people who put together the Peak Oil story. In my opinion, the story of finite resources, including oil, is true. But the way the problem manifests itself is quite different from what Peak Oilers have imagined because the economy is far more complex than the Hubbert Model assumes. One big piece that has been left out of the Hubbert Model is the impact of changing interest rates. When interest rates fall, this tends to allow oil prices to rise, and thus allows increased production. This postpones the Peak Oil crisis, but makes the ultimate crisis worse.
The new crisis can be expected to be “Peak Economy” instead of Peak Oil. Peak Economy is likely to have a far different shape than Peak Oil–a much sharper downturn. It is likely to affect many aspects of the economy at once. The financial system will be especially affected. We will have gluts of all energy products, because no energy product will be affordable to consumers at a price that is profitable to producers. Grid electricity is likely to fail at essentially the same time as other parts of the system.
Interest rates are very important in determining when we hit “Peak Economy.” As I will explain in this article, falling interest rates between 1981 and 2014 are one of the things that allowed Peak Oil to be postponed for many years.
Figure 1. 10-year Treasury Interest Rates. Chart prepared by St. Louis Fed.
These falling interest rates allowed oil prices to be much higher than they otherwise would have been, and thus allowed far more oil to be extracted than would otherwise have been the case.
Since mid 2014, the big change that has taken place was the elimination of Quantitative Easing (QE) by the US. This change had the effect of disrupting the “carry trade” in US dollars (borrowing in US dollars and purchasing investments, often debt with a slightly higher yield, in another currency).
Figure 2. At this point, oil prices are both too high for many would-be consumers and too low for producers.
As a result, the US dollar rose, relative to other currencies. This tended to send oil prices to a level that is too low for oil producers to make an adequate profit (Figure 2). In addition, governments of oil exporting countries (such as Venezuela, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia) cannot collect adequate taxes. This kind of problem does not lead to immediate collapse. Instead, it “sets the wheels in motion,” leading to collapse. This is a major reason why “Peak Economy” seems to be ahead, even if no one attempts to raise interest rates.
The problem is not yet very visible, because oil prices that are too low for producers are favorable for importers of oil, such as the US and Europe. Our economy actually functions better with these low oil prices. Unfortunately, this situation is not sustainable. In fact, rising interest rates are likely to make the situation much worse, quickly.
In this post, I will explain more details relating to these problems.
Low interest rates are extremely beneficial to the economy; high interest rates are a huge problem.
Low interest rates allow consumers to purchase high-priced goods with affordable monthly payments. With low interest rates, consumers can afford to buy more consumer goods (such as homes and cars) than they could otherwise. Thus, low interest rates tend to lead to high demand for commodities of all kinds, thus raising the price of commodities, such as oil.
Low interest rates are also good for businesses and governments. Their borrowing costs are favorable. Because consumers are doing well, business revenues and tax revenues tend to grow at a brisk pace. It becomes easier to afford new factories, roads, and schools.
While low interest rates are good, a reduction in interest rates is even better.
A reduction in interest rates tends to make asset prices rise. The reason this happens is because if someone already owns an asset (examples: a home, factory, a business, shares of stock) and interest rates fall, that asset suddenly becomes more affordable to other people, so the price of that asset rises because of increased demand. For example, if the monthly mortgage payment for a house suddenly drops from $600 per month to $500 per month because of a reduction in interest rates, many more potential homeowners can afford to buy the house. The price of the house may be bid up to a new higher level–perhaps to a price level where the monthly payment is $550 per month–higher than previously, but still below the old payment amount.
Furthermore, if interest rates fall, owners of homes that have risen in value can refinance their mortgages and obtain the new lower interest rate. Often, they can withdraw the “excess equity” and spend it on something else, such as a new car or home improvements. This extra spending tends to stimulate the economy, and thus tends to raise commodity prices. Suddenly, investments in oil fields that previously looked too expensive to extract, and mines with ores of very low grade, start looking profitable. Businesses hire workers to staff the investments that are now profitable, stimulating the economy.
Businesses receive other benefits, as well, when interest rates fall. Their borrowing cost on new loans falls, making new investment more affordable. Demand for their products tends to rise. The additional demand that results from lower interest rates allows economies of scale to work their magic, and thus allows profits to rise.
Companies that have large portfolios of investments, such as insurance companies and pension funds, find that the values of their assets (stocks, bonds, and other investments) rise when interest rates fall. Thus, their balance sheets look better. (Of course, the low interest payments when interest rates are low provide a different problem for these companies. Here, we are talking about the impact of falling interest rates.)
Of course, the reverse of all of these things is also true. It is truly bad news when interest rates rise!
Wages Depend on Interest Rates and Debt Growth
When interest rates fall, debt levels tend to rise. This happens because expensive goods such as homes, cars, and factories become more affordable, so customers can buy more of them. Thus, falling interest rates are very closely associated with rising debt levels.
We find that when we look at debt levels, rising debt levels seem to be highly correlated with rising US per capita wages, (especially up until China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and globalization took off). “Per capita wages” are calculated by dividing total wages and salaries by total population. Per capita wages thus reflect the impact of both (a) changes in the wages of individual workers and (b) changes in workforce participation. Using this measure “makes sense,” if we think of the total population as being supported by the wages of the working population, either directly or indirectly (such as through taxes).
Figure 3. Growth in US Wages vs. Growth in Non-Financial Debt. Wages from US Bureau of Economics “Wages and Salaries.” Non-Financial Debt is discontinued series from St. Louis Federal Reserve. (Note chart does not show a value for 2016.) Both sets of numbers have been adjusted for growth in US population and for growth in CPI Urban.
What does oil price depend upon?
Oil price depends upon the amount customers can afford to pay for oil and the finished products it produces. The amount customers can afford, in turn, depends very much on interest rates, since these influence both wages and monthly payments on loans. If the price that a significant share of consumers can afford is below the selling price of oil, we get an oil glut, as we have today.
It is important to note that oil and other energy products are important in determining the cost of finished products, such as cars, homes, and factories. Thus, high prices on energy products tend to ripple through the economy in many different ways. Many people consider only the change in the cost of filling a car’s gasoline tank; this approach gives a misleading impression of the impact of oil prices.
Affordability is also affected by growing wage disparity. Growing wage disparity tends to occur because of growing complexity and specialization. Globalization also contributes to wage disparity. These are other problems we encounter as we approach energy limits. Demand for commodities is to a significant extent determined by the wages of non-elite workers because there are so many of them. High wage workers tend to influence commodity prices less because their purchases are skewed toward a greater share of services, and toward the purchase of financial assets.
Because interest rates, debt, wages, and oil prices (and, in fact, commodity prices of all kinds) are linked, the system is much more complex than what most early modelers assumed was the case.
Hubbert’s Theory Underlies Many Mainstream Energy Beliefs
Today’s mainstream beliefs about our energy problems seem to be strongly influenced by Peak Oil theory. Peak Oil theory, in turn, is based on an analysis by geophysicist M. King Hubbert. This view does not consider interest rates, debt, or prices.
Figure 4. M. King Hubbert’s symmetric curve explaining the way he saw resources depleting from Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels, published in 1956.
In this view, the amount of any exhaustible resource that we can extract depends on the resources in the ground, plus the technology we have to extract these resources. In general, Hubbert expected an approximately symmetric curve of extraction, as illustrated in Figure 4. The peak is expected when about 50% of the resource is extracted. Hubbert believed that improved technology might allow more exhaustible resources to be extracted after peak, making the actual extraction pattern somewhat asymmetric, with a larger share of a resource, such as oil, being extracted after peak.
With this theory, we can expect to extract a considerable amount of resources in the future, even if the energy supply of a particular type starts to fall, because it is “past peak.” With the relatively slow decline rate shown in Figure 4, it should be possible to “stretch” supplies for some years, especially if technology continues to improve.
At some point, the standard view is that we will “run out” of energy supplies if we don’t make substitutions or conserve the use of these nonrenewable resources. Thus, an increase in efficiency is viewed as one part of the solution. Another part of the solution is viewed as substitution, such as with wind and solar energy.
In the mainstream view, the major influence on commodity prices is scarcity, not affordability. The expectation is that scarcity will cause oil prices will rise; as a result, expensive substitutes will become cost competitive. The higher prices will also encourage more conservation and more high-cost technologies. In theory, these can keep the economy operating for a very long time. The very inadequate models that economists have developed have encouraged these views.
The Usual Energy Model Is Overly Simple
Hubbert assumed that the amount of oil extracted would depend only upon the amount of resources available and available technologies. In fact, the amount of oil extracted depends on price, in part because price determines which technologies can be used. It also governs whether oil can be extracted in areas that are inherently expensive–for example, deep under the sea, or heavily polluted with some other material that must be removed at significant cost. Because of this, if oil prices are high, new technologies can be brought into play, and resources that are expensive to reach can be pursued.
If oil prices are lower than really needed, for example in the $40 to $80 per barrel range, the situation is more complex. The problem is that taxes on oil are important, especially for oil exporters. In this range, many producers can continue to produce, but their governments collect inadequate taxes. Their governments find it necessary to borrow money to maintain programs upon which the populations of the countries depend. Governments with inadequate tax revenue tend to get into more conflicts with other countries, such as is happening today with other Middle Eastern countries fighting with Qatar.
The situation of inadequate tax revenue is inherently unstable. It can eventually be expected to lead to the collapse of oil exporting countries.
Factors Underlying the Rise and Fall of Historical Oil Prices
The fundamental problem regarding the cost of resource extraction is that we tend to extract the cheapest-to-extract resources first. Thus, the cost of extracting many types of resources, including oil, tends to rise over time. Wages grow much more slowly.
Figure 5. Average per capita wages computed by dividing total “Wages and Salaries” as reported by US BEA by total US population, and adjusting to 2016 price level using CPI-Urban. Average inflation adjusted oil price is based primarily on Brent oil historical oil price as reported by BP, also adjusted by CPI-urban to 2016 price level.
This mismatch between wages and oil price tends to cause increasing affordability problems over time, even as we switch to cheaper fuels and increased efficiency. Part of the reason why affordability problems get worse has to do with our inability to keep reducing interest rates; at some point, they reach an irreducible minimum. Also, as I mentioned previously, there is a growing wage disparity problem caused by growing complexity and globalization. Those with low wages find themselves increasingly unable to afford goods such as homes and cars that require oil products in their construction and use.
Looking at Figure 5, we see two major price “humps.” The first of these is in the 1970-1998 period, and the second is in the 1999 to present period. In the first of these two periods, we often hear that the run up in oil prices was the result of an oil supply problem. This occurred because the US oil supply peaked in 1970, and the Arabs made the situation worse with an oil embargo.
In fact, I think that at least half of the problem in the 1970-1981 period may have been that wages were growing rapidly during this period. The rapid run up in wages allowed oil prices to increase in response to a fairly small oil shortage. Thus, the run up in prices was caused to a significant extent by greater demand, made possible by greater affordability. Note that timing of wage increases is slightly ahead of the timing of increases in CPI Urban. This suggests that wage growth tends to cause price inflation. It seems likely that globalization reduces the influence of US wages on oil prices, and thus on price inflation, in recent years.
Figure 6. Growth in US wages versus increase in CPI Urban. Wages are total “Wages and Salaries” from US Bureau of Economic Analysis. CPI-Urban is from US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The large increases in wage payments shown in Figure 6 were made possible by growing total population, by rapidly growing productivity, and by an increasing share of women being added to the workforce. Figure 6 shows that the big increases in wages stopped after interest rates were raised to a very high level in 1981.
Economists hope that rising oil prices will bring about new supply, substitution, and greater efficiency. In the 1970s and 1980s, oil prices did seem to come back down for precisely these reasons. I explain the situation in more detail in the Appendix. Rising inflation rates and interest rates were a problem during this period for insurance companies. One insurance company I worked for went bankrupt; another almost did.
We have not been able to achieve the same new supply–substitution–efficiency result in the 1999 to 2016 period, partly because whatever easy efficiency and substitution changes could inexpensively be made were made earlier, and partly because we are reaching diminishing returns with respect to extracting energy products, especially oil. Also, the wage disparity of workers is growing. Growing wage disparity makes debt growth increasingly ineffective in raising wages. Instead of debt growth funding more wages and more affordable goods for the working poor, the additional debt seems to go to the already rich.
The decreases in interest rates since 1981 have given the economy an almost continuous upward lift. This long-term decrease tends to get overlooked because it has gone on for such a long time. The major exception to the long-term decrease in interest rates since 1981 was the big increase by the Federal Reserve in target interest rates in the 2004-2006 period (shown indirectly in Figure 7).
Figure 7. Three-month treasury rates. Graph prepared by the St. Louis Fed.
The problem started when Alan Greenspan dropped target interest rates very low in the 2001-2004 period to stimulate the economy, and then raised them in the 2004-2006 period to cut back growth (Figure 7). This seems to have been one of the major causes of the Great Recession. The other major cause of the Great Recession was fact that oil prices rose far more rapidly than wages during the 2003-2008 period. More information is provided in the Appendix.
Where We Are Now
We have many leaders who do not seem to understand what our real problems are, and how successful programs have been to date in keeping the system from crashing. Way too much of their understanding has come from traditional models regarding “land, labor and capital,” “supply and demand,” and “higher prices bring substitution.” These models are not suitable for understanding how the economy, as a self-organized networked system, really works.
These leaders seem to believe that QE worldwide is no longer working well enough, so it should be removed. In addition, securities currently held by central banks should be sold. Also, the growth in debt should be slowed, because it is getting too high. Whether or not debt is too high, this strategy will lead to “Peak Economy.” As I explained in an earlier post, debt is what pulls an economy forward. It is the promise (which may or may not actually be kept) of future goods and services. These goods will be made with energy resources and other resources that we may or may not actually have in the future. Once we pare back our expectations, the system is likely to spiral downward.
It is not entirely clear the extent to which interest rates have already started to influence the economy. Long term interest rates, such as 10 year Treasuries, have not yet changed in yield (Exhibit 1). But short-term interest rates clearly have increased (Figure 7). An increase from 0% to 1% is a huge increase, if someone is using very short-term interest rates to fund highly levered investments.
Worldwide, the International Institute of Finance reported an increase in debt of $70 trillion, to $215 trillion between 2006 and 2016. This sounds like a huge increase, but it only amounts to a 4.0% increase per year during that period. It is doubtful this is enough to support the GDP growth the world needs, plus the increase in commodity prices demanded by diminishing returns.
There is evidence the economy is already headed downward. A recent report indicates that in the US, the smallest increase in consumer credit in 6 years took place in April 2017.
Another worrying area is auto loans. This is an area where interest rates have already begun to increase a bit, making monthly payments on cars higher.
Figure 8. Finance rate on 48-month new car loans through February 2017. Chart by St. Louis Fed.
The average finance rate in February 2017 was 4.52%, compared to an average finance rate of 4.00% in November 2015 (the low point). We don’t yet have information on what the increase would be to May 2017. A person would expect that if finance rates are following the interest rates on short to medium term US government securities, the finance rate would continue to rise. This interest rate rise would be one of the things that discounts provided by auto dealers would act to offset.
Because of the higher cost to the buyer of rising auto financing rates, a person would expect such a rise to adversely affect new auto sales. Higher interest rates would also affect lease prices and auto resale prices. We don’t yet know the extent to which higher interest rates are currently affecting auto sales, but the kinds of changes we are seeing are precisely the kinds of changes we would expect to see from higher interest rates. We have had a long history of falling interest rates (plus longer maturities) helping to prop up auto sales. Simply getting to the end of this cycle could be part of the problem.
Peak Economy is likely not very far away. We do not need to encourage it, by raising interest rates and selling securities held by the Federal Reserve. We badly need more people to understand the connection between interest rates and oil prices, and how important it is that interest rates not rise–in fact, more QE would be better.
Appendix – More Detail on Changes Affecting Oil Prices
(a) Between 1973 and 1981. Our oil problems started when US oil production began to decline in 1970, and Arab countries took advantage of our problems with an oil embargo. We immediately started work on extracting oil from other locations that we knew had oil available (Alaska, North Sea, and Mexico). Also, Japan was already making smaller cars. We started building smaller, more fuel-efficient cars in the US, too. We also began to substitute other fuels for oil in home heating and in the making of electricity.
(b) Between 1981 and 1998. In 1981, Paul Volker decided to force oil prices down by raising target interest rates to a very high level. He knew that such a high interest rate would lead to recession, which would reduce demand and thus prices. Also, earlier efforts at new oil supply and demand reduction approaches began to be effective. The new oil supply was somewhat higher priced than the pre-1970 oil. Falling interest rates made it possible for consumers to tolerate the somewhat higher oil prices required by the new higher priced oil.
(c) Between 1999 and 2008. Oil prices rose rapidly during this period, in large part because of rising demand. Globalization added huge demand for oil. Also, Alan Greenspan reduced target interest rates at about the time of the 2001 recession. (Target interest rates affect 3-month interest rates, shown in Figure 7.) At the same time, banks were encouraged to be more lenient in lending standards, and to offer loans based on the very favorable short-term interest rates available at that time. This combination of factors led to rapidly rising housing debt and much refinancing activity. All of this activity also added to oil demand.
Fortunately, these demand increases coincided with an increase in the cost of oil extraction. The world’s supply of “conventional oil” was becoming limited in supply, and began to decline in 2005. The higher demand raised prices, thus encouraging producers to pursue more expensive unconventional oil production.
(d) The 2008 Crash occurred after the Federal Reserve raised target interest rates in the 2004-2006 period, in an attempt to damp down rising food and energy prices. This interest rate rise made home buying more expensive. Oil prices were also increasing in the 2002-2008 period. The combination of rising interest rates and rising oil prices reduced demand for new homes and cars. Home prices fell, debt levels fell, and oil prices fell. Many people blamed the problems on loose mortgage underwriting standards, but the basic issue was falling affordability of oil, as oil prices rose and as higher interest rates took away the huge boost the economy previously had received. See my article, Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis.
(e) 2009-2011 ramp up in prices was enabled by QE. This QE brought a broad range of interest rates to very low levels.
(f) 2011-2014. Oil prices gradually slid downward, because there was no longer enough upward “push” created by QE, since interest rates were no longer falling very much.
(g) Mid to late 2014 to Present. The US removed its QE, leading to a sharp reduction in carry trade in US dollars. Many currencies fell relative to the US dollar, making oil products less affordable in these currencies. As a result, oil prices fell to a level far below that needed by oil producers, especially oil exporters.
So i asked my local congressman on his FB page about peak oil. I just posted a comment ‘what’s the plans for Peak oil?”. And the asshole deleted the comment and blocked me from his page. lol good grief
Out of sight – out of mind.
Time to start chanting “No taxation without representation?”
Plans, plans? We don’t need no stinking plans!!!
https://i.imgflip.com/srb5k.jpg
The bankers want war- Too many “useless bodies” out of work – time to balance the population against work available.That welfare can be used by banks to invest. (I bet someone’s thinking this)
What are the out-of-work going to do to keep their demand up? Isn’t fewer workers going to lead to lower commodity prices, and further falling prices? I am sure no one thinks of these problems.
“What are the out-of-work going to do to keep their demand up?”
Their demand for goods and services will decrease. No?
“Isn’t fewer workers going to lead to lower commodity prices, and further falling prices?”
Not in a close to fully automated production and distribution system.
Btw, the great semiconductor/microprocessor architect Jim Keller is working for Elon Musk in order to complete the missing pieces for a fully autonomous vehicles. You can be assured it is a serious push in this direction when a person of this significance being called upon.
I think we have to come to the terms what a techno-feudalism means. It is simply the irrelevance of most of us humanoid automatons. We are being replaced by machines and software at an increasing rate.
Machines and computers are much cheaper and easier to control and maintain for TPTB as the age of cheap energy is concluding. If I would be ‘in power’ that is exactly what I would strive for. Thus, be prepared for the great unwinding of the dystopian experiment rampant consumerism with sprawling suburbias and it’s equals spread throughout the industrialized civilization. It is the unwinding of the american dream and with “america” I include most of the western and industrialized vassal countries.
Russia to treat US jets in Syria as ‘targets’ after America guns down first regime warplane
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-shoot-down-all-flying-objects-in-syria-us-regime-warplane-isis-terror-a7797101.html
“throws a Paper airplane”
Interesting game of chicken. We’ll see who blinks.
“It is vital to America’s hydrocarbon future to have a healthy, sustainable oil and gas industry, conventional AND unconventional. Forty five percent (45%) of our domestic production in the US still comes from the GOM, Alaska, heavy oil extraction in California, and stripper wells all over the country. That production declines at 4-5% per year and employs hundreds of thousands of men and women. And, I am quite certain, is paid for.
As to the angry, divisive contention conventional production factions are “competing” with the unconventional shale industry in America, what possible good does that suggestion have for America’s future? None.
The shale industry is woefully unprofitable. During a five year period of the highest sustained oil prices in world history, the US LTO industry racked up hundreds of billions of dollars of debt it can now NEVER pay back. It has destroyed shareholder equity and its reserve base declines at the rate of over 80% the first 3 years of production and then 10-14% per year thereafter. The American shale industry would not exist but for low interest stimulus money to borrow from the FED. It has essentially no finding costs other than the interest it pays on its massive debt loads. That’s not “fair competition.” Let it pay its debt off and work from net cash flow, then let us see how it can “compete” with conventional oil production in America. The worse well I ever drilled in my long career is far more profitable than 90% of America’s shale wells. I would rather be out of debt and operate my junk, than be up to my hard hat in debt and own the junk the shale industry owns.
People that embrace this shale oil phenomena so passionately, so vehemently, ignore its unprofitability and all that enormous debt. They believe the money that funds the shale business will never end. Lets quit lying about all that and figure out a way to pay for it. At the moment it is NOT paying for itself.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Dj-Vu-Shale-To-Kill-Oil-Prices-Once-Again.html ”
-Mike
“People that embrace this shale oil phenomena so passionately, so vehemently, ignore its profitability and all that enormous debt.” – The common theme seems to be that as long as we get oil out of the ground, we’re good. The same seems to apply to cars. As long as society has access to cars, prosperity is assured.
No one seems to consider that what makes oil valuable is that it was historically cheap to extract and energy dense. Oil is not longer as energy dense and no longer cheap to extract. Neither is coal. The same applies to cars. Folks assume just because they are mobile prosperity is assured. A car is of little use if it has no destination.
There are people out there who believe that even if it takes one barrel of oil to get one barrel of oil out of the ground …. that we will still be extracting oil for use as a source of energy.
I have met some….
And they would be right ….
The total costs involved in extracting oil exceed the value of a barrel of oil…. yet still… we are pulling it out of the ground….
Steven Kopits from Douglas-Westwood said the productivity of new capital spending has fallen by a factor of five since 2000. “The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120,” he said http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
There must be something big I am not getting.
Even when we’ve got oil out of the ground and refined, at whatever expect, modern industrial society is designed to waste much of it on trivial pursuits and unnecessary or useless products, gadgets, structures and infrastructure—all with obscene levels of obsolescence built in.
All this effort and aggravation just to create landfill? We could learn something from these guys.
https://youtu.be/XWQMMPFtoG4
The host country of the global order is cheating on the debts in extracting hydrocarbons as well? Oh the horrors, who would be ever expecting such dastardly behavior, lolz, ..
The “concept of debt” is very ephemeral especially to those who run and own the system and can do whatever they want. Unless this factotum changes “bigly”, the show simply goes on like D. Kong jr., meaning we have to wait for fracturing of global into local “autarky” attempting fiefdoms on various continents on their own, or even smaller block like countries, nations, perhaps even smaller still, like neo-feudal plots of few thousands km2 each..
Although we might start to see some early first signs on of this negatrend even today, but it will take more time and other serious twists to the plot, before the destination becomes more vividly and clearly depicted.
Nice summary. Gl.enn would love it.
Reinforces the suspicion that Ghawar is past peak… and that total global oil production is in big trouble…
Drill baby drill…. you are all that is between us now and…
Dudes looking to get whacked.
hm, are we there yet, finally increasing chance some US hardware starts falling from the sky of foreign countries in which they were not invited.. ?
https://www.rt.com/news/393028-syria-russia-us-plane/
Lets be honest.
Shooting down a plane within that country’s borders would be considered a act of war in any other time.
It is telling how surreal the world we live in is.
It will be interesting to see if the US dares to fly over any area protected by S400:s and the hottest (non export) Russian jets.
http://www.awdnews.com/images/1443134971putin.jpg
Vlad the Impaler does not bluff. NATO either backs down or it’s WWIII
Not necessarily WWIII threshold, recall Korea, Vietnam, Central America, Afghan 70-80s, and many other places with either direct engagement or “advisors only” but actually real boots on the ground or in cockpit etc..
They prolly rather aim for prolonged proxy wars to bleed opponents as long as the printing money machine works in their advantage (universally accepted). As mentioned before, based on MIC factual numbers, Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, India and few others could no longer be challenged in conventional warfare by the West axis after ~2020-25.
The time just slipped through their sticky fingers (apart from 1990s which they used to reverse the WWII results, moving sphere of influence thousands of km, installing strange regimes and mil bases in the Balkans etc), so the last chance to attack was during 2000s and early 2010s. Even today, they somewhat could push Russia if NATO commits ~75% of everything they have like a desperate gambler, in other words if they attack madly in their larger numbers and eat horrendous losses. However, the game is so advanced nowadays both in geopolitics and internal politics, that China and others most likely won’t abstain or even back-stab their circle.
Therefore, the most likely working plan for the following years is a rehash of the old theory and practice of proxy wars and seeding chaos across the regions, which might defect to the other side to the axis of the East.
This will obviously backfire at some point, most likely the first sunken carrier (or similar damage) performed on the pennies by a lesser power, would bring to the attention the point of king being naked and powerless. And what follows then is either humiliation with expedient road to internal collapse or serious attempt at WWIII.
“As mentioned before, based on MIC factual numbers, Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, India and few others could no longer be challenged in conventional warfare by the West axis after ~2020-25.”
Are you sure about that? I think the US/west is utterly dominant in automated/cyber warfare and will stay so for the foreseeable future.
Zero “boots” on the ground. But plenty of mechanized chess pieces to be moved around by AI and other high level commanders. Like a game of starcraft.
GG WP! 😉
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c5/1c/e0/c51ce033ee572182abcbf9379c620e6f.jpg
And therein lies the problem. Comparing toys versus toys doesn’t give a result of any value. Remember the war games in the middle east where a retired general whipped the ‘blue – team’ via unconventional tactics. Terrorism is as old as the hills..look at how Palestine got changed..and can sink a country as effectively as any missile.
When safe spaces for LBGT..etc.? is a major expense for the military, how fit are the armed forces for actual, sustained combat. I think the Russians learnt this in the Winter war IIRC.
I would conclude that simulated exercise as an astounding success and a proof of the validity of it’s software models and mechanisms.
Talk about a nice little focus group they assembled there. It must have been tragicomic for the scientists and engineers to watch the military brass whine and whinge “unfair”.
My conclusion is that it is about time to let go of the bloated MIC jobs programs and focus the resources on where it matters: Knowing and playing the game, over and over again – before it even starts:
http://www.thethingswesay.com/img/6141.jpg
‘Talvisota’ was rough for the Russians:
http://www.paivanlehti.fi/content/uploads/The-White-Death-11032017-juliste-652×825.jpg
Good point, as many people suggested in comments bellow the article, the Americans as known cowards will firstly dispatch trial balloon out via their vassals, be it Germans, French and or various Gulfies, who already operate jets in the war zone theater there.
This rubicon had to be crossed eventually. It is here.
Numbers tell staggering story of EU migrant crisis
Where are these people coming from, where are they going, how many have died, and how many will be allowed to stay
https://www.rappler.com/world/regions/europe/173272-numbers-tell-staggering-story-eu-migrant-crisis
But it was in 2015 that the situation took on dizzying proportions. The IOM registered 1,011,712 arrivals by sea in Europe, including 853,650 on Greek shores, with the peak in arrivals hit in October, and 153,842 on Italy’s coastline.
The increase was mainly a result of the worsening conflict in Syria alongside deteriorating conditions in Syrian refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Among the arrivals in Greece in 2015, more than half – 56.1% – were Syrian, while 24.3% were from Afghanistan and 10.3% were from Iraq.
Most came to Greece across the Aegean Sea from Turkey
The arrivals on the Italian coast in 2015 came on the central Mediterranean route, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries: 39,162 Eritreans, 22,237 Nigerians, 12,433 Somalis and 8,932 Sudanese
Behind the migrant influx are human dramas.
In total, nearly 14,000 people have died or disappeared trying to reach Europe in the last 4 years: 3,283 in 2014, 3,784 in 2015, 5,098 in 2016 and already more than 1,800 since January 1.
Moreover, among the asylum seekers in the EU in 2015 and 2016, around a third were minors, according to the European Commission.
The EU police agency Europol said in January 2015 that more than 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children had disappeared in Europe during the preceding 18 to 24 months, adding that many may have been victims of sexual abuse and other assaults by organized crime networks
Don’t these people realize they have it so good? Winners, according to Fast Eddy…
Not winners… we are the winners…
Everyone cannot be a winner — finite world — so better me than them.
I just finished this — it’s really good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Discontents
In this seminal book, Sigmund Freud enumerates what he sees as the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. The primary friction, he asserts, stems from the individual’s quest for instinctive freedom and civilization’s contrary demand for conformity and repression of instincts. Freud states that when any situation that is desired by the pleasure principle is prolonged, it creates a feeling of mild contentment. Many of humankind’s primitive instincts (for example, the desire to kill and the insatiable craving for sexual gratification) are clearly harmful to the well-being of a human community. As a result, civilization creates laws that prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and it implements severe punishments if these rules are broken. Thus our possibilities for happiness are restricted by the law. This process, argues Freud, is an inherent quality of civilization that gives rise to perpetual feelings of discontent among its citizens.
Freud’s theory is based on the notion that humans have certain characteristic instincts that are immutable[citation needed]. Most notably, the desires for sex, and the predisposition to violent aggression towards authority figures and sexual competitors, who obstruct individual’s path to gratification.
We’ve taken what is essentially a wild beast — and attempted to domesticate it… this explains why it is so easy for man to engage in the most heinous of acts… push a few of the right buttons and we’re back in the jungle.
Just watch what happens when BAU goes down … and all the constraints of civilization (religion, police, courts, prisons) no longer serve to tamp down the ‘immutable forces’ inside all of us….
Of course they are winners. Compared to those left behind.
One million migrants almost crushed europe, meanwhile population increased 80M. I wonder what happens when Europe has had enough.
DJ, Thank YOU for setting FE straight….he was back peddling….
After all the pics he posted about the Greek Crisis and he posts that BS to ME?
Some people…. Yes, the boat people are WINNERS!!!! Escaped their hell to the shores of BAU…even if some dir or sold off into slavery extortion… They won the lottery!
No whining. LOL
our industrial civilization is final times just like every gangster film ending
for ex goodfellas scarface where main character know is gang empire going down
and can not do anything to stop it
If you have plenty of time to do some armchair travelling, you may want to go to Google Maps like this one showing Java. https://www.google.com.my/maps/@-7.2117156,108.2349259,992674m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Dark green are forests and light green are farms or clearing. Wander around Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, etc… You will see that most of the areas are basically light green unless it is a national forest. If you go over to USA, it is practically light green everywhere except some hard to reach places.
Go to Europe and China, it is almost the same. Possibly, the only place with a lot of dark green are the upper reaches of the Amazon River.
How would one imagine that one can live on earth if all the forests are cleared? Does it really become clear that it is just not possible to do that?
Or does one think that one can live on Coruscant? 1Trillion residents? (planet in the Star Wars movie)?
http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/19/18461/c1a.jpg
p.s. I have posted this before a few years back. It got worse over time.
http://www.weaponsofstarwars.com/coruscant-one-big-city
In Asimov’s Foundation trilogy the main library on the central,planet of the empire, a planet completely built out, was eventually abandoned and the land around it turned into farmland by the survivors after collapse.
That would be Trantor. At the height of empire, according to Isaac, it needed the agricultural output of four other nearby worlds in order to keep itself fed. Not a very practical arrangement, I thought at the time I read it.
Nice to see a mainstream article ending with this sort of quote:
“Had we left all to individuals to handle in 2008, we would be desperately foraging for food or dead.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/10-years-since-the-gfc-20170526-gwe5f2.html
And this one ends with some amusing understatement:
“Since World War II we’ve had 13 rate-hike cycles: 10 put us into recession,” Lindsey Group’s Boockvar said. “To think that there’s some sort of free lunch where they can normalize and let the balance sheet roll off and everything will be fine and dandy, I think there’s some delusion to that.”
http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/the-fed-wants-to-go-on-autopilot-look-out-for-storm-clouds-ahead/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-18/chinas-ghost-collateral-arrives-canada-heralding-crisis
So…. the Chinese are using one property as collateral to purchase many other properties… that’s how so many are able to to buy multiple properties all over the world…. this makes Liar Loans look benign….
This all works so long as the property markets continue to rise…. but when they don’t … and the defaults hit … the banks are going to be left holding the bag… and the world will end.
But hey — this is valuable knowledge — might as well buy more properties and enjoy the ride… no need to worry about the market turning… because when it does .. it will not matter… you die
Don’t Fight the Fed
Dude Steals A Pair Of Jordans From Finish Line!
http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh9z7O435d1Xr0wepD
Poor retail they just can’t get a break anymore.
So that’s what Ben Johnson is doing these days….
We all know that many blacks are fleet footed and like to steal stuff.
Everybody here just keeps posting stuff that we all know. I suspect this blog’s comments section has jumped the shark.
We all know that most whites are not fleet of foot — and some like to steal stuff.
Not only are you a MOREon… you are a ra-cits MOREon
Ha the biggest thieves are in the City of London, Wal Street, Buckingham Palace, colonialists in far flung countries etc etc but the odd trinket gets taken back and whooppee out comes the ‘Fleet of Foot’! Absolutely Priceless!
++++++++++++++++
And they are mostly … white men in suits… respectable thieves I suppose….
please be nice to dolph, he’s one of the few tar babies we have left on OFW.
I guess the lesson here is if your gonna steal, steal billions,, not hundreds.
The type of theft practised by the poor (shoplifting, small burglaries, etc.) such as their style of making war (guerrilla, home-made bombs, etc.) always had a very bad press. I wonder why. In contrast, the big robbers are presented as examples for children and the big mass murderers are glorified as heroes.
But I’m sure every small burgler would rather steal millions instead of a handful of dollars, as every rocket launcher palestinian would prefer to attack with mega missiles galore. But helas, they are poor, so they loose their wars in the field and also in the press. Bad luck.
Some social media reports describe the attack as “Islamophobic”, and described the attack as a van “randomly swerving off the main road and running over several Muslim men.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-18/casualties-reported-after-van-slams-pedestrians-near-london-mosque-driver-arrested
That should add some petrol to the fire….
Now why would someone do this —- and end up in prison — doesn’t this guy know that we have far more effective methods for wiping out innocent Muslims?
What a fool he is!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DGgyC1kWdVw/maxresdefault.jpg
If there are any late night TV hosts in the audience… feel free to run with that joke tonight….
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_6k4xARAkLg/WUYQiaI70-I/AAAAAAAAj3Q/GDfmn8woihUhdU-H2P-grM5Id4uTZlw-ACHMYCw/image%255B5%255D?imgmax=800
Nice sustainable village there!
Interesting comment on SRS Rocco Report posted by MASTERMIND | June 18, 2017 at 6:25 am, in the article, WARNING: The Global Oil & Gas Industry Is Cannibalizing Itself To Stay Alive:
We have run out of cheap energy –Oil companies are not replacing reserves – they are shutting down exploration — because the market will not accept 120 oil…. it collapses the economy. So what is going to happen is that the financial system is at some point going to collapse. It is the operating system of the global economy and civilization.
They will do everything they possibly can trying to fend off another 2008 moment — they will print and stimulate and bail and loan…. they will use every bullet in the box … they will throw the empty gun at this — then their will rip off the kitchen sink and throw it too.
I guarantee you they will do ‘whatever it takes’ to hold this moment off for as long as possible.But the moment will arrive — that is guaranteed.
And when it does there will be nothing left to throw — the shops will be looted and emptied — the electricity will go off… the violence and disease and suffering and starvation will follow. Global trade will completely stop — factories will close — spare parts to run the system will not be available — all energy sources will cease to operate — refineries will shut down — oil rigs will go offline — everything – and I mean everything will stop on a dime.Then chaos will reign.
And you will be dead – I will be dead – and the central bankers will be dead.
Sound like a well known FW commenter…”telling it like it is.” 🙂 It’s exactly where we seem to be headed, for what that’s worth.
Yep, excellent comment…this guy is probably on OFW too…but this moment is coming and it is coming fast…if you have a bucket list, better hurry the hell up…everything WILL stop on dime!!! My skyscraper is awaiting me 😉
For those still stuck in the early stages of the Kubler-Ross model…now is the time to leap-frog to the Acceptance Stage….
http://thetruthaboutgrief.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/StagesGraph2Jpeg-e1286309706811.jpg
They need to add another stage… the one where having accepted we are f789ed…. one then proceeds to piss away soon to be worthless cash …. letting rip on an end of the world tour or similar….
Until then… the journey is not complete….
Is that the “W” shaped recovery?
A trip on the trans-Siberian railway is my next, and perhaps last, dream trip.
http://www.irkutsk.org/fed/pic/transsib/rkarta.gif
What about a Viking Cruise down the Rhine instead?
Anything involving vineyards and nice weather should make its way onto an EOTW list.
Our local version is to drift down the river away from the crowds on a punt (Neolithic cruise ship) with some bottles chilling in the water and a pretty woman to look at.
The only sounds the ripples in the water…..
My EOTW resolution is to do a lot more of that this summer!
Too pedestrian…
Only if the cruise ship has a shopping mall and a casino on board!!!
And three chicks for every guy…
Go thru the Mongolia – Peking route. The route from Irkutsk to Vladivostok is a lot more boring.
Lots of things to see in Mongolia and China.
Thanks for the heads up. Cheers!
My fishing buddy was telling me that an old friend of his wasn’t feeling well… went to the dock … riddled with The Cancer — two months to go….
I imagine I feel almost like he feels — except that I feel GREAT!
The wonders of knowing … know no limits….
I don’t think you bucket list much last two months of cancer.
Its the mind set that is important…. work off two month blocks of time…. at the of of each block have a rip roaring party to celebrate…. then start another block….
It’s the psychological response that was exhibited by many people in the trenches in WW1, most knew they had on average only a few weeks to survive, especially if they were junior officers always having to ‘lead from the front’ and all that nonsense.
The difference is that we can arrange very much better surroundings for ourselves as we stand on the edge.
He will miss the horrors in the coming years – he is blessed.
FE is a busy boy. He is relentless on ofw, can he possibly have time for more posts? Very interesting. That storage container must be might comfortable.
“Then chaos will reign.”
How cynical! Just having some fun on a Sunday afternoon. The big Q is how long can they put it off? I’m beginning to think they are magicians.
They are magicians.
Keeping this show on the road, it’s been quite a feat – and so many don’t even appreciate how unstable it all is, that they are experiencing the greatest suspension of reality in the history of our species. No divine king or priest, no dictator has ever been able to achieve something like this.
And when we lift the curtain, to look at the magicians we see…..yet another curtain!
Are you talking about global BAU or the OFW comment section?
Yes: salute to Gail for generously providing the forum.
After all, it’s impossible to talk to anyone about all of this.
Agreed, Xabier. Unless of course you are a contrarian who enjoys weirdo-pariah status, which personally I am not.
And salute to Gail indeed.
“They are magicians.” – Addicts, not magicians. We are all addicted to this high energy life-style. Everyone wants it to continue at all costs. It is worse than a heroin addiction and we are all addicted. Anything to get one more day out of this epic party.
If they can repeal the laws of nature, then come back to us.
From the article:
“At some point… the massive amount of debt will take down this system, and with it, the global oil industry. This will have an extremely negative impact on the values of most STOCKS, BONDS & REAL ESTATE.” – What an understatement that is?
And that’s when gold and silver will suddenly increase in value 100x!!! Those would buy gold and siliver will be the new kings of the world!!!! according to Steve….
sure dude, bwahahaha
https://www.goldbroker.com/charts/gold-price/vef
I just cashed in a 5 oz bar …. and now I will waste the paper that they gave me …. in Europe later this week.
Steve still believes gold is the salvation to the coming crash.
Several years ago I commented on his blog that where we are heading gold will be useless . There would be no surplus to spend your gold on even if you could find someone to take it…and the only surplus that would be of value would be food.
He laughed at me and said that he thought things would be bad, but nowhere near that bad.
I have posted similar… there is no talking sense to Steve on that…. I am not sure if he actually believe this nonsense — or is pumping PM at the behest of advertisers who pay his bills…. (or both)
He does have some good analysis — I just ignore the PM articles… and the comments
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/sunday-review/overpopulated-and-underfed-countries-near-a-breaking-point.html?smid=fb share&mtrref=www.facebook.com&gwh=554B2C18815414E7BE87142B89138894&gwt=pay
Thanks! The world does have a lot of countries in trouble.
If I am not answering comments much right now, the problem is that I am at the Biophysical Economics conference in Montana right now. My time available to use the Internet is limited.
You go get em, Gail. While people are posting you are in the field, out there, mixing it up and presenting the information. Tip your hats to Gail!
Something about “peak economy” —
http://oil-price.net/ has graphs of both dub & Brent oil prices, so that they display as either one month, three months, one year, or five years past.
The one year graphs show a plateau a few months long, about last New Years, then, the three month graphs show a spike back up in April, then, a weaker spike in May, & now, they seem to be back in the forties.
Might this have been “peak economy”, trying to keep up the oil supply, but failing?
I think so. It’s failing rather quickly.
Pingback: Falling Interest Rates Have Postponed “Peak Oil” – Olduvai.ca
Terrible: Milwaukee Woman Filmed Setting A House On Fire While A Family Is Still Inside, Killing A 72-Year-Old Man!
http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhXU4cMS0KsUs65Kjv
Madness!
https://antinuclearinfo.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/farms-soybean-farming-in-brazil.jpg
Dont mistake efficiency for madness.
If all that wheat went to feeding the world it would solve hunger.
Unfortunately 50% of it goes to feeding cattle so that the rich countries can have their Beef. 🙁
so Duncan yes I agree….Madness.
We like our beef, other countries will just have to grow their own wheat.
And don’t forgot about all those cow farts that are causing global warming!
That is OK, we in the north will be able to grow even more wheat and raise even more cows if the planet warms up.
Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding all round.
I think you forgot to add the /sarc tag to the end of your post.
I know, it is far too hot tonight to eat beef or anything. /sarc.
I would not say no to a bit of Yorkshire pud, gravy and peas right now if you put it in front of me though. Oink oink.
“How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Elliott Wave investor Robert Prechter says a Depression-like shock is coming
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/legendary-technical-investor-robert-prechter-is-awaiting-a-depression-type-shock-in-the-us-2017-04-21
Prechter has been saying that for the past 20 years.
I suppose if he keeps saying that long enough he will be right.
Well, he only has to be right once!
http://i.imgur.com/1wQ5Z2m.gif?1
although made of light-weight aluminum, i would not want to get hit by that scooter after the crash.
https://streamable.com/97n8o
That was on the death road, the driver died, those are the passengers filming.
You know that feeling right when you let up on the accelerator pedal?????
God knows what this is about. OFW-worlders too, perhaps.
https://moneymorning.com/acq/obl/a-new-universal-fuel-for-a-rapidly-expanding-economy/?iris=693433&advText=yes&src=aol&ad=c10
Lithium crystals could supposedly be used in lithium-ion batteries. But batteries still require some way of charging them..
Another supposed use of these crystals would be to use them as hydrogen sponges in room temperature. To create the hydrogen economy
These crystals cant be burned outright for energy, they need technology, other raw materials and lots of infrastructure to work.. and the techonology isnt quite there yet, if I understand the papers correctly. So.. its a nice scam. But cant really make any real differance.
Thought something like this would be the case. Thanks.
Let’s just burn all books but the Bible and “The Art of the Deal” and get it over with.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/—BEdFatJ34/WUWGOmLLg8I/AAAAAAAAvsk/sQWHWbjRC7YKeAkT1_pEPMCUlCgeBTOYwCLcBGAs/s640/book-burning.jpg
I guess we’re all capable of getting caught up in a trance like this. It’s compelling In a crisis to burn everything that appears to have caused it. But an alternative trance, less irreversible in effects, would be to destroy nothing. Turn the whole world into a cross between warehouse and museum. Just a different trance to consider. 🙂
In our small town we have a number of events where volunteers are given a hi-vis vest and some responsibility to control traffic and/or crowds. Wow the transformation that this results in with normal people getting big ideas about their power/status is always fascinating. Easy to see how a uniform and a few simple instructions can create a trance-like zombyism in said uniform wearers and it never ceases to amaze!
And those strange people who wear black uniforms from a certain country in the 1940’s at parties, the power of shiny boots and buttons…..
Rising interest rates, home prices push cost of housing in Denver up 15 percent
More expensive mortgages could dissuade people from listing homes
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/16/interest-rates-home-prices-denver-housing/
“We are looking for a further crunch in affordability,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors, said at the National Association of Real Estate Editors’ annual conference in Denver.
Yun said builders aren’t producing enough homes to keep pace with demand in many markets, pushing up prices on existing homes. Rising interest rates add even more pressures.
CoreLogic, a real estate analytics firm, estimates U.S. home prices are 6 percent higher now than a year ago. Given higher mortgage costs, a buyer today is spending 12 percent more a month versus a year earlier for a typical house, said Frank Nothaft, chief economist with CoreLogic.
In metro Denver, home prices are up 9.3 percent, accordingly to CoreLogic, which translates into monthly payments 15 percent higher than a year ago given higher mortgage rates.
Pay raises are nowhere close to covering the gap. Metro Denver employers last year said they planned to pass on average pay increases this year of 2.8 percent, on par with the pay hikes they offered in 2016 and 2015, according to the Mountain States Employers Council.
“That is the crux of the affordability pinch,” Nothaft said.
CPI statistics generally don’t measure this kind of thing. They supposedly follow changes in the cost of rental housing, but I don’t know how well they do that.
Higher mortgage interest rates definitely mean fewer qualify for loans. This indirectly can lead to falling home prices, because there is less demand for housing.
Energy Nonsense From the Wall Street Journal
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurberman/2017/06/18/energy-nonsense-from-the-wall-street-journal/#402373e2338a
http://imgur.com/a/tI8D1
one thing i have notice is third world people more accepting about they life
then first world people for ex in my country more than half the population
live without food and live in terrible poverty so they dont even
care that bau is collapsing because still they gonna die regardless
but in usa if gov cuts food stamps of 40 millions Americans
40 millions Americans are gonna pick guns and killed any anyone who has food
after 3 days of hunger
The great traveller (when it really was travel and not tourism) Freya Stark, felt that the Arabs she encountered in the Yemen were reconciled to early death and the threat of plague, etc, as they thought that everything came from Allah, and was destined.
So they were more care-free about things, while she was fussing. They had no idea that anything could change very much, and so they accepted.
We do seem to have become rather childish in the West, and it is alarming to think of so many spoiled people with guns…….
thank god in my country guns can not easy buy because
if gun can buy easy it will become lawless country in 6 month
That’s one quite good thing about Britain, too: although the criminals have plenty of guns now, it’s got much harder for the average person.
In the UK Knife violence is now the favored tool of violence.
Yes, it all seems to stem from gang culture in schools, and even nice kids feel they need a weapon in that environment.
But it’s still nothing like the old days in Spain, Portugal and Italy where every day there used to be a body in the street as a result of vendettas in the big towns.
Or the Arab world: the black-out was abandoned in WW2 Iraq after a few weeks, because the British found it encouraged people to stab their neighbours in the dark and they ere tired of dealing with all the bodies!
Agatha Christie’s husband Max Mallowan the archaeologist had a lot of trouble on his digs in Syria in the 1930’s as on their tea breaks the workers were constantly trying to kill one another of tribal and religious grounds.
Guys, I would be hard pressed to give up my guns. I’m such a gun fanatic I have one picked out I want to be buried with;-).
How different cultures can be with regard to guns.
Each gun fight has a 50/50 chance of one side dying. So 40 million attack 40 million in the first round. Leaving 20 million snap zombies and 140 million workers. In the second round 20 million vs 20 million leaving 10 million snap zombies. In the end the 40 million snap zombies will be virtually zero.
I’d rather be a in a gun fight than a knife fight.
“for ex in my country more than half the population live without food”
That is a pretty amazing trick.
Who even needs BAU when you dont even need food?
23 minute mark onward… crucial to understanding many of the issues discussed here:
I love the bit about Freud getting dollars from Bernays!
The 1930’s rallies are fascinating to watch in this video. ‘Triumph of the Will’ by Leni Riefenstahl is also worth getting hold of.
The rallies of the radical nationalist Left in Spain today exactly copy their structure – all leading up to the much-adored Leader giving a speech with fist waving. Interviewed afterwards, everyone gibbers about how good and kind he is, how he understands, how inspired they are.
Human beings are really rather creepy animals.
The urge to get away from them is an indication of sanity, very often.
“The urge to get away from them is an indication of sanity, very often.”
Haha, yep Xavier, exactly….And it reminds me again (posting it for the umpteenth time here lol):
“It’s no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
Like the sun rising, that quote is always welcome. 🙂
What interested me in particular was how Freud stated that he feared and hated the human species… not only because he thought it dangerous and vicious — but as he states — because it enjoys things like killing and torturing….
He was a heavy duty misanthrope.
He was right – humans are an abomination … a monstrosity … we spend a huge amount of our time trying to invent ways to control our monstrous urges … from religion to legal systems to establishing cultural norms to follow — it’s all about ‘civilizing’ a very nasty animal.
I have no idea why something like us evolved … there is nothing remotely close to us in nature… all I can think is that we are a terrible mistake…. a deviance…. a screw up of nature… like a two-headed calf…
And when we are finally wiped off the planet we will not go quietly into the night like the dinosaurs… nope….. we leave behind 4000 of these….. the ultimate symbol of a dark and twisted species….
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Y3ioTQfS9C4/TYF8bKU0BdI/AAAAAAAAEs4/tnjrFq6NXj0/s1600/37182.gif
Yes, we needed nuclear power to get out of the ground more coal, oil and natural gas. Without the nuclear power, there is no restart after the WW2. It was the nuclear power that allowed for more extraction of fossil fuels, although it was no more economical using solely the power of fossil fuels itself.
So you have read the Quran. They feel the same way about humanity. And they’re into harems. Are you sure your not Persian FE? Or Pakistani?
I am a Hafiz 🙂
I met a Hariz in Cairo a few years ago – he was a friend of a friend — he had converted to atheism — after realizing that all religion was bullshit.
What are the odds of that….
Totalitarian religions are amusing: if you sin a bit, a teensy bit, we’ll pray for you.
But if you sin a lot (long list of the big ones), we’ll torture, crucify, burn, dismember, blind and hang you, tear your house down, and sow the land with salt! Because God would in some way which we pretend to know be awfully upset if we didn’t.
Which is why I prefer Stoicism and Marcus Aurelius.
The most dangerous religion of all, of course, judged by head-count, is the secular belief in Utopia through revolution, which gave us all the very nastiest regimes of the 20th century.
The urge to get away from them is an indication of sanity, very often.
And all his time I thought it was me that was insane for trying to escape this cultural freak show……………………….
God visited a very holy and good man, and informed him that he was going to turn everyone mad, to punish them , ‘But if you go up into the hills while I do it, you’ll be safe.’
So off he went, and carried on his good and holy life in a cave, while the world went mad.
But…..it palled, and praying one day he asked permission to join the rest down below, and become as mad as they all were, because he just couldn’t stand the loneliness of sanity.
The difference between the cheap energy a the costly energy is that the cheap energy is able to clean the environment, but the costly energy does not allow it, as its production and consumption is so uneconomical that the environmental aspects can not be taken into consideration.
Based on this, we do not need EROEI. Even the return on human energy invested into the obtaining the energy does not cover this aspect.
The build up of the pollution accelerates the deterioration of the human genome. We are far away from the cheap energy. In that way, the pollution aspect can be also applied to the so called renewables and turns them immediately into unclean energy, as we use more and more dirty energy to create the devices for the renewables.
We have dispersed and disperse huge ammounts of waste and started to produce the most dangerous waste with the use of nuclear energy.
Our energy generation is a waste production process that accelerates. The deadly wind farms, poisonous solar panels – all of them just add to the waste production. They are not able to eliminiate the waste, as they produce no surplus energy for that.
That is why we must count them among the costly energy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
http://sciencing.com/toxic-chemicals-solar-panels-18393.html
Its not only energy. Its everything we do. Its the Anthropocene.
Its the fertilizers that run in to the oceans. Its the big factories that pollute the ground water supply. It the plastic garbage thats floating in the oceans as huge flotillas. Its the CO2 in the atmosphere. Toxins in the rivers. And also the the antibiotics that make the diseases go super virulent. And the vaccines that are not tested properly which cause permanent neurological damages. Like the Narcolepsy sleep disorder caused by the swine flu vaccine in europe.
Instead of building something properly, to last as long as possible, to blend in and live in hamony with the environment, we go for the quick fix. Fast growth. Next paycheck. It isnt about 7 generations in equilibrium with the environment, its how fast we can pillage as much as possible.
The only sensible economy would be one which built things to last. Quality over quantity. To properly check all feedbacks of the production, to make it as smart as possible. Circulate everything. Use as little as possible. But alas, that is not the world we live in.
True, Van Kent.
On the whole, as a species we only blended in when we couldn’t really manage anything else.
I recall the Greens here advocating making houses and blocks that would only last for 20 years, so that they could be torn down in order to build newer and therefore ‘more efficient’ models, and provide ‘Green’ employment….. senseless! I don’t know whether that is still their policy.
Read up the story of concrete. The re-bars in the concrete (iron) will expand over time due to rust and in approximately 100-200 years, the entire concrete structure will collapse. What we have built for the last 100 years needs to be replaced. All of them. Just cannot fathom how much energy it takes to do all of them. We will never leave behind any “mega structures” like the pyramids.
http://www.neuvokascorp.com/sites/default/files/crusty%20bridge.jpg
All that concrete, all that pollution for….nothing.
The pyramids themselves would still be in great shape if the muslim rulers of Egypt hadn’t stripped them of their fine stone casings to build their own mosques and palaces.
As an alien was saying to me the other day, you humans ruin everything we do for you…….
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hdU-AS-x0DI/WUWe2d5UcjI/AAAAAAAAvt0/yB5N_FDmhGUmt1lqgpZ6bW6pFAyH_WCygCLcBGAs/s640/987bd3113761646ab683139acc44b903.jpg
The Survivalist (2015)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2580382/
Interesting piece, but leaves out the political aspects. War and uncertainty–speculation is a driving force in oil prices, we see that each time OPEC announces another production cut that won’t happen.
The current situation is simply the fact that demand is insufficient to consume the overproduction that is floating around the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and setting in oil storage tanks all over the ME.
The current oil and gas glut resulted from the Saudis wanting to get Russian oil out of the market place and Obama wanting to bust the Russian economy. The Saudis and the Emirates overproduced, the price of oil fell, and the Russian economy was slammed. However, the Saudis turned the strategy against U.S. domestic production.
Fortunately, American technology and ingenuity is reducing the price of fraccing, reducing the cost of production from $65/bbl a year ago to $35/bbl in some plays today. This reduces OPEC’s ability to influence prices through production restrictions.
Oil prices are not determined by demand, by the market as they should be. Oil prices will not be set by market demand until there is a recovery of economic activity that produces demand for energy.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the PRC is selling diesel on the world market, because the internal demand by logistics services to support manufacturing is not there. The excess is being sold.
Without demand, prices for oil are being set by the U.S. production–we produce, the price goes down, OPEC sets production restrictions, the speculators break out the champagne and the price goes up, until it reaches profitability for shale fraccing, the cycle begins anew.
With a drop in the price of oil, economies should see stimulus, not stagnation and decline as is currently the reality.
Things are way out of wack with the world economy, we are a decade or more away from recovery, the inflationary spiral has yet to really happen.
The world has not been here since 1939 . . . the world is a very dangerous place.
For several years, the U.S. Shale Revolution seemed like it was going to defy the laws of gravity (and finance) to provide the country with limitless oil production forever. However, something started to go seriously wrong as these shale oil companies reported their financial earnings. One by one, these oil companies financial losses and debts continued to pile up.
https://srsroccoreport.com/continental-resources-example-of-what-is-horribly-wrong-with-the-u-s-shale-oil-industry/
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/
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Fortunately, American technology and ingenuity is reducing the price of fraccing, reducing the cost of production from $65/bbl a year ago to $35/bbl in some plays today.
http://imgur.com/XTqO6SY
All those fracking companies are now broke…so much for American ingenuity.
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/06/17/us/ap-us-illinois-paying-the-bills.html
“The Illinois official responsible for paying the state’s bills is warning that new court orders mean her office must pay out more each month than Illinois receives in revenue.
” – That isn’t news. I thought it has always been that way. Federal gov’t too!
Here you go FE you can use this one along with your Paine quote
http://imgur.com/a/WcMEH
http://imgur.com/FUBtxAD
http://imgur.com/Ny4dfAB
According to the UN having a child is a human right. Nigeria will have over a billion people by 2050. You get a right, They get a right, Everybody gets a right! We live in Disney Land. WEEEE!!!
This is really the crux of our problem. If we did limit reproduction, whose reproduction would we limit? Would we do it by force? What would be the consequence of disobedience? Would those in power make exceptions for themselves? This issue just may be beyond our abilities to regulate while maintaining any pretense of societal coherence.
When a species (even an so called “intelligent” one like ours) encounters a resource windfall, it will use it, multiply, overshoot and die-off…it was inevitable, there was absolutely nothing we could have done differently when we started using FFs commercially…We are St.Matthew Island, We are Easter Island, We are Yeast in Grapes, etc…
(even an so called “intelligent” one like ours)?
http://i.imgur.com/913lVuP.gifv
Haha Darwin award right there…that’s why I said “so called” 🙂
Yeast is superior…. it makes wine…
Our byproduct is spent fuel ponds….
Population growth is responsible for roughly one third of GDP … limit it and we return to the caves…
Humanity has placed itself separate from nature(anthropocentrism). Therein lies the problem. In nature there is no such thing as rights. If we had adopted a nonanthropocentric attitude eons ago, maybe we would not find ourselves in the predicament we have today.
Low interest rates are killing wealth for the masses, high prices and low investment returns is a bad combo. Pensions are getting killed. I believe the the energy input vs energy output is simplistic but it is where you start. Yes, the low hanging fruit has been picked. Assuming no real change in interest rate, where do you see oil prices. In 3 months?
http://imgur.com/a/ALt4z
Cliff,
I don’t know where this idea of communism and Christ comes from because a family is a family no matter how big a nation is. When you are related by blood and genes politics becomes irrelevant. These people who shared all things in common understood this. They were family thus equals being of the same family tree.
Beyond that Josephus I think said it best about man’s perversions of leadership.
“Some nations place the sovereignty of their land in the hands of a single ruler {monarchy], some in the hands of a number of rulers {oligarchy}, and some in the hands of the people {democracy]. Moses our Teacher taught us to place our faith in none of these forms of government. He taught us to obey the rule of God, for to God alone did he accord kingship and power. He commanded the people always to raise their eyes to God, for He is the source of all good for mankind in general and for each person in particular and in Him will people find help when they pray to Him in their time of suffering, for no act is hidden from His understanding and no hidden thought of man’s heart is hidden from Him.” {Josephus Flavius, Contra Apion, Volume One}
Communism has nothing in relation to Christ nothing but who destroyed or perverted it to think it was?
Religion {pharisees and sadducees} and bankers of course who want it all for themselves and of course the monarchies.
i want to ask ofw which world we are live in terms of books
Orwell 1984 or Huxley brave new world
In the First World, I would say Huxley slowly going into Orwell….and if it was not for us collapsing in the near future, we would end up 100% Orwell…
Half and half
I think Huxley’s predictions are generally more accurate. Huxley’s Brave New World is largely self-organizing, which is where he succeeds and Orwell falls short. An Orwellian scenario, like the USSR, can thrive for maybe a generation or two, but eventually people realize that the reality of the state does not match its ideals. Even Huxley fell into the hole of having his Brave New World organized by the government — in reality, there would be no need. The advertising industry and the doctrine of limitless growth and limitless freedom have done that for us. People buy into ideas with the most conviction when they believe they have chosen them. People rebel when they believe authorities are choosing for them.
One thing Huxley gets right is how morals change to reflect average behavior in society, not the other way around. He shows promiscuity being venerated as self-control was venerated at the time of the book’s writing — something that undoubtedly shocked audiences at the time. But that is really how things often work; morality adapts to the center of the bell curve. This is why American morality now glorifies competition, prosperity, conspicuous consumption, and capitalism.
Good analysis. Interesting that the 20-year, widespread “Huxlerian” promiscuity window in the West was technological. The Pill allowed the window to open in the 1960s (free love, no babies) and it closed with the advent of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s because of growing access to jet-set international air travel. Suddenly, free love had a price to pay.
But I think in times where resources are plentiful, Huxley’s vision is better in keeping the masses asleep. but as resources get scarcer, the need to control people becomes more important and that’s why I find Orwell’s version would take over eventually, controlling everybody…
Huxley is in the rear view mirror, although he had a good run.
It’s ll about Orwell know.
The Orwell Estate is currently suing BushCo for plagiarism.
I think you meant an Orwellian scenario, like in the US.
Fixed it for you.
Making Coal Great Again
And then on Thursday, we got Industrial Production data showing that Coal Mining Production is exploding…
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/06/14/20170615_coal_0.jpg
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/06/14/20170615_coal2_0.jpg
Finally …. some good news!
Burn More Coal
Can we get a minute of silence at the next NY Yankees game for this… can we?
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/01/pentagon-special-ops-killing-of-pregnant-afghan-women-was-appropriate-use-of-force/
Nah…. let’s instead have two minutes hate…. USA USA USA@!!
This guy Rob Mielcarski has some pretty good stuff on his blog posts
https://un-denial.com/2015/11/12/undenial-manifesto-energy-and-denial/
Humans succeeded as a species due in large part to their evolved denial of reality. This behavior is now a disadvantage because it prevents the majority of humans from recognizing and acting on climate change and fossil energy depletion. It is noteworthy that there is not one senior leader in any country on any continent that has publicly communicated an understanding of what is going on and what we should be doing at this time, even after leaving office. Likewise, all groups including climate scientists, climate deniers, fossil energy experts, renewable energy experts, environmentalists, capitalists, socialists, communists, conservatives, liberals, Christians, Muslims, Scientologists, you name it, everyone is in denial about human overshoot. This is of course what we should expect given the genetic basis for denial. But it is nevertheless a concern.
‘acting on climate change and fossil energy depletion’
Any suggestions as to what they might do?
I guess he is still searching.. because viable feasible options do not actually exist.
Yes they do. Kill 99.9% of all humans. Bio-weapons seem best.
That would work. For starters.
Afterwards there comes these small problems. If we are in agriculture, where does the phosphorus come from? What exactly are we using as fertilizers if not Natural Gas and the Haber Bosch method ? If we are hunters, what do we hunt? If we are gathering, what are we gathering?
If we pretend to continue living like in an industrialized civilization, then we would need to answer how we get phosphorus from Marocco, spare parts from China, Coal from Australia and oil to make diesel from Venezuela, without the workers to do the actual work.
Signing off 999 people out of 1000, would seem like the ideal way of solving this predicament. But at present we dont have answers what the 1 guy would do after he survives. How he could make it even for a couple of years..
“…everyone is in denial about human overshoot.”
That gives too much credit for the populace understanding overshoot. Fact is the real malady is ‘Self Involvement’. People think of themselves 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, then way down the list comes other ideas and for a tiny fraction that understand it, ‘overshoot’. In fact, people are so self involved they don’t even care about their children or grand children, because if they did they’d be up in arms about GW and peak oil, but what they look at is their own mortality, i.e. how much longer do they have to live. If the answer is a short enough time period they have no worries about limits, GW etc. then they just want things to be the best they can for themselves. They want that giant truck spewing CO2 and they want it to guzzle FF. If a person had to decide to live another year, or die to save a million people that person would choose another year for themselves. If the total was raised to 100 million people the answer would still be the same.
Well done Bergen….
Yes everyone wants to LL…. everyone takes the $20M….
Our infinite growth economy denies that overshoot can even exist. It’s not a concept people invest time in evaluating because from an economic standpoint, population growth can only be a good thing — why ask questions? People aren’t just in denial. They aren’t even asking the questions that would lead them into denial.
“People not only don’t know what’s happening to them, they don’t even know that they don’t know.” ― Noam Chomsky
Ignorance is perhaps the kindest fate for most people: after all, an understanding of all this doesn’t exactly tend make one any happier, does it?
In most it would result in deep depression and hopelessness, rather than a carpe diem spirit of love of what good life remains to us.
After reading from Tom Murphys blog that most of his readers were INTJ type in Myers Briggs I had to do the test myself.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2015/04/programmed-to-ignore/
Surprise, surprise, I came out INTJ. Only slightly I over E and J over P. But nontheless INTJ.
So, just thinking, maybe some of us were just built this way. With a need to know, regardless of our own happiness. With poor skills in reality denial that the rest of population seem so good at. Just thinking maybe its genetic to an extent. As the rest of the population excells in reality denial, optimism to a degree of a bad sucidal tendency, by default. Maybe the small, small minority that actually cares about the reality, has been needed to keep the rest of the populace from actually killing themselves with their superpowers of super-reality-denial. Sort of a balancing act for the super-positive herd.
Unfortunately this time it seems nothing can keep the herd from running of the cliff. They are just too preoccupied with this-time-its-different / I-deserve-147 energyslaves 24/7 -its my-destiny.
If this brain structure is as Ajit Varki from UCSD claims it is. Then the majority of the population will “just-stay-positive” until the very end. Happy as a clam. Believing in tooth fairies and easter bunnies. Not percieving reality at all. And being quite happy as they go out lynch mobbing whatever minority that happens to get the blame in their neck of the woods.
I’m actually replying to Van Kent’s comment below. I think there is something to your logic that some personalities have fewer . . . emotional hangups? . . . on reality than others. I’m INTP on the Myers-Briggs. I’ve always had what I would call an annoying tendency to see the implications of actions or ideas far down the road. Authority figures don’t tend to like kids who think like this.
Someone (I forget who) posted an article on reality denial as an adaptation earlier on this entry. It is a fascinating read. I think part of why I don’t get taken in by reality denial is because I tend to see things more as a sort of narrator. My personal experience is only one of many things I find interesting in the world — the experiences of others and even experiences that don’t include humans are all equally interesting to me — I don’t tend to judge them as negative or distressing.
all groups including climate scientists, climate deniers, fossil energy experts, renewable energy experts, environmentalists, capitalists, socialists, communists, conservatives, liberals, Christians, Muslims, Scientologists, you name it, everyone is in denial about human overshoot
Rob is exaggerating. As a group, Finite Worlders are not in denial about human overshoot, and neither are a lot of people from Paul Ehrlich and the Duke of Edinburgh to millions of ordinary folks who are not particularly interested in waving political or religious flags but who know in their bones that this species is heading for the mother of all population crashes. You’ve all doubtless met a few of these people down the pub.
Perhaps, but no one is listening to these few folks. They’re considered cranks. Most people around the world want and expect growth.
Speaking of growth, check out this link below, that shows the before and after (in a short span of time) of cities across the world…fascinating..we are truly like a cancer…don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that this development happened, or else we would have died sooner (with BAU collapsing), but it’s fascinating nonetheless!
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/world/road-to-rio/satellite-photos-urban-sprawl/index.html
Definitely a MEGACANCER.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/06/16/business/16reuters-usa-housing.html
They are selected to die. Let’s just admit the truth.
Welcome To The Third World, Part 23: Illinois Death Watch
https://dollarcollapse.com/debt/welcome-third-world-illinois-death-watch/
3 Attorneys Found Dead In Wasserman Schultz Florida District In 2 Weeks
http://www.oom2.com/t47922-3-attorneys-found-dead-in-wasserman-schultz-florida-district-in-2-weeks
There Will be Blood: The Alexandria Shooting and Civil War in America
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2017/june/15/there-will-be-blood-the-alexandria-shooting-and-civil-war-in-america/
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.”
2 Timothy 3
Here we are in the bottom of the 9th for BAU (with BAU getting trampled) and what are delusistanis proposing….the mobile grocery store (BTW I do not in the least visit the fastcompany website (lol what a joke)), it was posted by a delusistani on my FB timeline…
https://www.fastcompany.com/40429419/this-tiny-grocery-store-is-mobile-self-driving-and-run-by-ai
During the mid/late 20th century (1960-1999), a barrel of oil cost $19 on average; during the
years immediately prior to the Great Recession (2000-2008), the average price of a barrel of
oil had increased to $47; and during the years immediately following the Great Recession
(2010-2012), the average price of a barrel of oil had further increased to $81.
During the same three time periods, the average price of a metric ton of copper increased
from $3,085, to $3,713, to $6,817; the average price of a metric ton of iron ore increased
from $36, to $57, to $124; and the average price of a metric ton of potash increased from
$114, to $185, to $343. (Prices are inflation adjusted.)
The simple fact is that we CANNOT GROW our global economy and improve our global material
living standards on $51 oil, $6,817 copper, $124 iron ore, and $343 potash like we did on $19
oil, $3,085 copper, $36 iron ore, and $114 potash.
It should come as no surprise that our NNR-dependent global economy experienced the Great
Recession during 2009. Nor should it come as a surprise that we have yet to recover from the
Great Recession as we enter 2017. Nor will our industrialized and industrializing economies ever
recover, so long as price levels associated with the vast majority of NNRs remain at their
inordinately high levels.
http://imgur.com/kdkmpUt
Interesting price comparisons. Cliffhanger.
Indeed.
Best Nonrenewable National Resources overview…………In my opinion.