Economists, including Ben Bernanke, give all kinds of reasons for the Great Depression of the 1930s. But what if the real reason for the Great Depression was an energy crisis?
When I put together a chart of per capita energy consumption since 1820 for a post back in 2012, there was a strange “flat spot” in the period between 1920 and 1940. When we look at the underlying data, we see that coal production was starting to decline in some of the major coal producing parts of the world at that time. From the point of view of people living at the time, the situation might have looked very much like peak energy consumption, at least on a per capita basis.
Figure 1. World Energy Consumption by Source, based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with BP Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent, divided by population estimates by Angus Maddison.
Even back in the 1820 to 1900 period, world per capita energy had gradually risen as an increasing amount of coal was used. We know that going back a very long time, the use of water and wind had never amounted to very much (Figure 2) compared to burned biomass and coal, in terms of energy produced. Humans and draft animals were also relatively low in energy production. Because of its great heat-producing ability, coal quickly became the dominant fuel.
Figure 2. Annual energy consumption per head (megajoules) in England and Wales during the period 1561-70 to 1850-9 and in Italy from 1861-70. Figure by Wrigley
In general, we know that energy products, including coal, are necessary to enable processes that contribute to economic growth. Heat is needed for almost all industrial processes. Transportation needs energy products of one kind or another. Building roads and homes requires energy products. It is not surprising that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, with its use of coal.
We also know that there is a long-term correlation between world GDP growth and energy consumption.
Figure 3. X-Y graph of world energy consumption (from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017) versus world GDP in 2010 US$, from World Bank.
The “flat period” in 1920-1940 in Figure 1 was likely problematic. The economy is a self-organized networked system; what was wrong could be expected to appear in many parts of the economy. Economic growth was likely far too low. The chance for conflict among nations was much higher because of stresses in the system–there was not really enough coal to go around. These stresses could extend to the period immediately before 1920 and after 1940, as well.
A Peak in Coal Production Hit the UK, United States, and Germany at Close to the Same Time
This is a coal supply chart for the UK. Its peak coal production (which was an all time peak) was in 1913. The UK was the largest coal producer in Europe at the time.
Figure 4. United Kingdom coal production since 1855, in a href=”http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=116″>figure by David Strahan. First published in New Scientist, 17 January 2008.
The United States hit a peak in its production only five years later, in 1918. This peak was only a “local” peak. There were also later peaks, in 1947 and 2008, after coal production was developed in new areas of the country.
Figure 5. US coal production, in Wikipedia exhibit by contributor Plazak.
By type, US coal production is as shown on Figure 6.
Figure 6. US coal production by type, in Wikipedia exhibit by contributor Plazak.
Evidently, the highest quality coal, Anthracite, reached a peak and began to decline about 1918. Bituminous coal hit a peak about the same time, and dropped way back in production during the 1930s. The poorer quality coals were added later, as the better-quality coals became less abundant.
The pattern for Germany’s hard coal shows a pattern somewhat in between the UK and the US pattern.
Figure 7. Source GBR.
Germany too had a peak during World War I, then dropped back for several years. It then had three later peaks, the highest one during World War II.
What Affects Coal Production?
If there is a shortage of coal, fixing it is not as simple as “inadequate coal supply leads to higher price,” quickly followed by “higher price leads to more production.” Clearly the amount of coal resource in the ground affects the amount of coal extraction, but other things do as well.
[1] The amount of built infrastructure for taking the coal out and delivering the coal. Usually, a country only adds a little coal extraction capacity at a time and leaves the rest in the ground. (This is how the US and Germany could have temporary coal peaks, which were later surpassed by higher peaks.) To add more extraction capacity, it is necessary to add (a) investment needed for getting the coal out of the ground as well as (b) infrastructure for delivering coal to potential users. This includes things like trains and tracks, and export terminals for coal transported by boats.
[2] Prices available in the marketplace for coal. These fluctuate widely. We will discuss this more in a later section. Clearly, the higher the price, the greater the quantity of coal that can be extracted and delivered to users.
[3] The cost of extraction, both in existing locations and in new locations. These costs can perhaps be reduced if it is possible to add new technology. At the same time, there is a tendency for costs within a given mine to increase over time, as it becomes necessary to access deeper, thinner seams. Also, mines tend to be built in the most convenient locations first, with best access to transportation. New mines very often will be higher cost, when these factors are considered.
[4] The cost and availability of capital (shares of stock and sale of debt) needed for building new infrastructure, and for building new devices made possible by new technology. These are affected by interest rates and tax levels.
[5] Time lags needed to implement changes. New infrastructure and new technology are likely to take several years to implement.
[6] The extent to which wages can be recycled into demand for energy products. An economy needs to have buyers for the products it makes. If a large share of the workers in an economy is very low-paid, this creates a problem.
If there is an energy shortage, many people think of the shortage as causing high prices. In fact, the shortage is at least equally likely to cause greater wage disparity. This might also be considered a shortage of jobs that pay well. Without jobs that pay well, would-be workers find it hard to purchase the many goods and services created by the economy (such as homes, cars, food, clothing, and advanced education). For example, young adults may live with their parents longer, and elderly people may move in with their children.
The lack of jobs that pay well tends to hold down “demand” for goods made with commodities, and thus tends to bring down commodity prices. This problem happened in the 1930s and is happening again today. The problem is an affordability problem, but it is sometimes referred to as “low demand.” Workers with inadequate wages cannot afford to buy the goods made by the economy. There may be a glut of a commodity (food, or oil, or coal), and commodity prices that fall far below what producers need to make a profit.
Figure 8. U.S. Income Shares of Top 10% and Top 1%, Wikipedia exhibit by Piketty and Saez.
The Fluctuating Nature of Commodity Prices
I have noted in the past that fossil fuel prices tend to move together. This is what we would expect, if affordability is a major issue, and affordability changes over time.
Figure 9. Price per ton of oil equivalent, based on comparative prices for oil, natural gas, and coal given in BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Not inflation adjusted.
We would expect metal prices to follow fossil fuel prices, because fossil fuels are used in the extraction of ores of all kinds. Investment strategist Jeremy Grantham (and his company GMO) noted this correlation among commodity prices, and put together an index of commodity prices back to 1900.
Figure 10. GMO Commodity Index 1900 to 2011, from GMO April 2011 Quarterly Letter. “The Great Paradigm Shift,” shown at the end is not really the correct explanation, something now admitted by Grantham. If the graph were extended beyond 2010, it would show high prices in 2010 to 2013. Prices would fall to a much lower level in 2014 to 2017.
Reason for the Spikes in Prices. As we will see in the next few paragraphs, the spikes in prices generally arise in situations in which everyday goods (food, homes, clothing, transportation) suddenly became more affordable to “non-elite” workers. These are workers who are not highly educated, and are not in supervisory positions. These spikes in prices don’t generally “come about” by themselves; instead, they are engineered by governments, trying to stimulate the economy.
In both the World War I and World War II price spikes, governments greatly raised their debt levels to fund the war efforts. Some of this debt likely went directly into demand for commodities, such as to make more bombs, and to operate tanks, and thus tended to raise commodity prices. In addition, quite a bit of the debt indirectly led to more employment during the period of the war. For example, women who were not in the workforce were hired to take jobs that had been previously handled by men who were now part of the war effort. (These women were new non-elite workers.) Their earnings helped raise demand for goods and services of all kinds, and thus commodity prices.
The 2008 price spike was caused (at least in part) by a US housing-related debt bubble. Interest rates were lowered in the early 2000s to stimulate the economy. Also, banks were encouraged to lend to people who did not seem to meet usual underwriting standards. The additional demand for houses raised prices. Homeowners, wishing to cash in on the new higher prices for their homes, could refinance their loans and withdraw the cash related to the new higher prices. They could use the funds withdrawn to buy goods such as a new car or a remodeled basement. These withdrawn funds indirectly supplemented the earnings of non-elite workers (as did the lower interest rate on new borrowing).
The 2011-2014 spike was caused by the extremely low interest rates made possible by Quantitative Easing. These low interest rates made the buying of homes and cars more affordable to all buyers, including non-elite workers. When the US discontinued its QE program in 2014, the US dollar rose relative to many other currencies, making oil and other fuels relatively more expensive to workers outside the US. These higher costs reduced the demand for fuels, and dropped fuel prices back down again.
Figure 11. Monthly Brent oil prices with dates of US beginning and ending QE.
The run-up in oil prices (and other commodity prices) in the 1970s is widely attributed to US oil production peaking, but I think that the rapid run-up in prices was enabled by the rapid wage run-up of the period (Figure 12 below).
Figure 12. 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 Opposing Force: Energy prices need to fall, if the economy is to grow. All of these upward swings in prices can be at most temporary changes to the long-term downward trend in prices. Let’s think about why.
An economy needs to grow. To do so, it needs an increasing supply of commodities, particularly energy commodities. This can only happen if energy prices are trending lower. These lower prices enable the purchase of greater supply. We can see this in the results of some academic papers. For example, Roger Fouquet shows that it is not the cost of energy, per se, that drops over time. Rather, it is the cost of energy services that declines.
Figure 13. Total Cost of Energy and Energy Services, by Roger Fouquet, from Divergences in Long Run Trends in the Prices of Energy and Energy Services.
Energy services include changes in efficiency, besides energy costs themselves. Thus, Fouquet is looking at the cost of heating a home, or the cost of electrical services, or the cost of transportation services, in inflation-adjusted units.
Robert Ayres and Benjamin Warr show a similar result, related to electricity. They also show that usage tends to rise, as prices fall.
Figure 14. Ayres and Warr Electricity Prices and Electricity Demand, from “Accounting for growth: the role of physical work.”
Ultimately, we know that the growth in energy consumption tends to rise at close to the same rate as the growth in GDP. To keep energy consumption rising, it is helpful if the cost of energy services is falling.
Figure 15. World GDP growth compared to world energy consumption growth for selected time periods since 1820. World real GDP trends for 1975 to present are based on USDA real GDP data in 2010$ for 1975 and subsequent. (Estimated by author for 2015.) GDP estimates for prior to 1975 are based on Maddison project updates as of 2013. Growth in the use of energy products is based on a combination of data from Appendix A data from Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects together with BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015 for 1965 and subsequent.
How the Economic Growth Pump Works
There seems to be a widespread belief, “We pay each other’s wages.” If this is all that there is to economic growth, all that is needed to make the economy grow faster is for each of us to sell more services to each other (cut each other’s hair more often, or give each other back rubs, and charge for them). I think this story is very incomplete.
The real story is that energy products can be used to leverage human labor. For example, it is inefficient for a human to walk to deliver goods to customers. If a human can drive a truck instead, it leverages his ability to deliver goods. The more leveraging that is available for human labor, the more goods and services that can be produced in total, and the higher inflation-adjusted wages can be. This increased leveraging of human labor allows inflation-adjusted wages to rise. Some might call this result, “a higher return on human labor.”
These higher wages need to go back to the non-elite workers, in order to keep the growth-pump operating. With higher-wages, these workers can afford to buy goods and services made with commodities, such as homes, cars, and food. They can also heat their homes and operate their vehicles. These wages help maintain the demand needed to keep commodity prices high enough to encourage more commodity production.
Raising wages for elite workers (such as managers and those with advanced education), or paying more in dividends to shareholders, doesn’t have the same effect. These individuals likely already have enough money to buy the necessities of life. They may use the extra income to buy shares of stock or bonds to save for retirement, or they may buy services (such as investment advice) that require little use of energy.
The belief, “We pay each other’s wages,” becomes increasingly false, if wages and wealth are concentrated in the hands of relatively few. For example, poor people become unable to afford doctors’ visits, even with insurance, if wage disparity becomes too great. It is only when wages are fairly equal that all can afford a wide range of services provided by others in the economy.
What Went Wrong in 1920 to 1940?
Very clearly, the first thing that went wrong was the peaking of UK coal production in 1913. Even before 1913, there were pressures coming from the higher cost of coal production, as mines became more depleted. In 1912, there was a 37-day national coal strike protesting the low wages of workers. Evidently, as extraction was becoming more difficult, coal prices were not able to rise sufficiently to cover all costs, and miners’ wages were suffering. The debt for World War I seems to have helped raise commodity prices to allow wages to be somewhat higher, even if coal production did not return to its previous level.
Suicide rates seem to behave inversely compared to earning power of non-elite workers. A study of suicide rates in England and Wales shows that these were increasing prior to World War I. This is what we would expect, if coal was becoming increasingly difficult to extract, and because of this, the returns for everyone, from owners to workers, was low.
Figure 16. Suicide rates in England and Wales 1861-2007 by Kyla Thomas and David Gunnell from International Journal of Epidemiology, 2010.
World War I, with its increased debt (which was in part used for more wages), helped the situation temporarily. But after World War I, the Great Depression set in, and with it, much higher suicide rates.
The Great Depression is the kind of result we would expect if the UK no longer had enough coal to make the goods and services it had made previously. The lower production of goods and services would likely be paired with fewer jobs that paid well. In such a situation, it is not surprising that suicide rates rose. Suicide rates decreased greatly with World War II, and with all of the associated borrowing.
Looking more at what happened in the 1920 to 1940 period, Ugo Bardi tells us that prior to World War I, the UK exported coal to Italy. With falling coal production, the UK could no longer maintain those exports after World War I. This worsened relations with Italy, because Italy needed coal imported from the UK to rebuild after the war. Ultimately, Italy aligned with Germany because Germany still had coal available to export. This set up the alliance for World War II.
Looking at the US, we see that World War I caused favorable conditions for exports, because with all of the fighting, Europe needed to import more goods (including food) from the United States. After the war ended in 1918, European demand was suddenly lower, and US commodity prices fell. American farmers found their incomes squeezed. As a result, they cut back on buying goods of many kinds, hurting the US economy.
One analysis of the economy of the 1920s tells us that from 1920 to 1921, farm prices fell at a catastrophic rate. “The price of wheat, the staple crop of the Great Plains, fell by almost half. The price of cotton, still the lifeblood of the South, fell by three-quarters. Farmers, many of whom had taken out loans to increase acreage and buy efficient new agricultural machines like tractors, suddenly couldn’t make their payments.”
In 1943, M. King Hubbert offered the view that all-time employment had peaked in 1920, except to the extent that it was jacked up by unusual means, such as war. In fact, some historical data shows that for four major industries combined (foundries, meat packing, paper, and printing), the employment index rose from 100 in 1914, to 157 in 1920. By September 1921, the employment index had fallen back to 89. The peak coal problem of the UK had been exported to the US as low commodity prices and low employment.
It was not until the huge amount of debt related to World War II that the world economy could be stimulated enough so that total energy production per capita could continue to rise. The use of oil especially became much greater starting after World War II. It was the availability of cheap oil that allowed the world economy to grow again.
Figure 17. Per capita energy consumption by fuel, separately for several energy sources, using the same data as in Figure 1.
The stimulus of all the debt-enabled spending for World War II seems to have been what finally encouraged the production of the oil needed to pull the world economy out of the problems it was having. GDP and Disposable Personal Income could again rise (Figure 18.)
Figure 18. Comparison of 3-year average change in disposable personal income with 3-year change average in GDP, based on US BEA Tables 1.1.5 and 2.1.
Furthermore, total per capita energy consumption began to rise, with growing oil consumption (Figure 1). This growth in energy consumption per capita seems to be what allows the world economy to grow.
I might note that there is one other exceptional period: 1980 to 2000. Space does not allow for an explanation of the situation here, but falling per capita energy consumption seems to have led to the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991. This was a different situation, caused by lower oil consumption related to efficiency gains. This was a situation of an oil producer being “squeezed out” because additional oil was not needed at that time. This is an example of a different type of economic disruption caused by flat per capita energy consumption.
Figure 19. World per Capita Energy Consumption with two circles relating to flat consumption. World Energy Consumption by Source, based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with BP Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent, divided by population estimates by Angus Maddison.
Conclusion
There have been many views put forth about what caused the Depression of the 1930s. To my knowledge, no one has put forth the explanation that the Depression was caused by Peak Coal in 1913 in the UK, and a lack of other energy supplies that were growing rapidly enough to make up for this loss. As the UK “exported” this problem around the world, it led to greater wage disparity. US farmers were especially affected; their incomes often dropped below the level needed for families to buy the necessities of life.
The issue, as I have discussed in previous posts, is a physics issue. Creating GDP requires energy; when not enough energy (often fossil fuels) is available, the economy tends to “freeze out” the most vulnerable. Often, it does this by increased wage disparity. The people at the top of the hierarchy still have plenty. It is the people at the bottom who find themselves purchasing less and less. Because there are so many people at the bottom of the hierarchy, their lower purchasing power tends to pull the system down.
In the past, the way to get around inadequate wages for those at the bottom of the hierarchy has been to issue more debt. Some of this debt helps add more wages for non-elite workers, so it helps fix the affordability problem.
Figure 20. Three-year average percent increase in debt compared to three year average percent increase in non-government wages, including proprietors’ income, which I call my wage base.
At this time, we seem to be reaching the point where, even with more debt, we are running out of cheap energy to add to the system. When this happens, the economic system seems more prone to fracture. Ugo Bardi calls the situation “reaching the inflection point in a Seneca Cliff.”
Figure 21. Seneca Cliff by Ugo Bardi
We were very close to the inflection point in the 1930s. We were very close to that point in 2008. We seem to be getting close to that point again now. The model of the 1930s gives us an indication regarding what to expect: apparent surpluses of commodities of all types; commodity prices that are too low; a lack of jobs, especially ones that pay an adequate wage; collapsing financial institutions. This is close to the opposite of what many people assume that peak oil will look like. But it may be a better representation of what we really should expect.
56,000 layoffs and counting: India’s IT bloodbath this year may just be the start
https://qz.com/1152683/indian-it-layoffs-in-2017-top-56000-led-by-tcs-infosys-cognizant/
Yes. Coding is coming to an end. It is all switching over to machine learning which will require far fewer programmers.
https://www.wired.com/2016/05/the-end-of-code/
In summary, the market is likely to remain in balance and sustained price excursions are unlikely.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Biggest-Factors-In-Future-Oil-Production.html
Not with conventional fields declining and lack of new discoveries and investments.
I couldn’t resist making this…
https://imgur.com/a/llTy1
The Pulse….
I was having coffee with a west coast nz geologist friend who operates a mining company….
He was indicating that the recent increase in the price of oil has massively impacted his business…. one of their businesses is a small gold mine and the bump in oil has resulted in the business barely breaking even….
Another indication of the fine line we tread on the price of the master resource.
I was having Christmas dinner with an American friend who is a retired oilman. He took issue with the idea that oil is the master resource. If it becomes more expensive, he insisted, we would simply switch to something cheaper. He was unable to grasp the possibility that there may not be anything cheaper or as versatile as black gold. Moreover, he was certain that with technology improving daily and necessity being the mother of invention, that our future is sure to be brighter than the present.
I didn’t attempt to argue with any of his ideas. I made most of my points in the form of questions such as: “What do you think about the decline in oil discoveries?”, “Can industrial society continue indefinitely if oil recovery and consumption doesn’t keep increasing”, etc. What struck me more than anything was his confidence in his outlook. He exhibited an unshakeable faith in the robustness of the current setup and saw no reason to question on ponder the idea that this setup is fundamentally not sustainable.
It is amazing how persistent belief in business as usual is. Of course, our leaders encourage such beliefs.
Each of us is a living proof every problem will find a solution before it is to late. Until the moment we die.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”
In this instance … not difficult … impossible
Crumbling America: Disasters Strike Roads, Bridges And Airports
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/12/19/crumbling-america-infrastructure
GE’s Nightmare Year: The Decline of an American Icon, in Charts
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-26/ge-s-nightmare-year-the-decline-of-an-american-icon-in-charts
Store closures rocked retail in 2017. Now 2018 is set to bring another larger round of them
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/26/store-closures-rocked-retail-in-2017-and-more-should-come-next-year.html
It took humans 200k years for our population to reach 1 billion. Now we are doing it every 15 years…
Humans are very good at propping up the unsustainable and this often results in a fast and unexpected collapse. – Joseph Tainter
sure…
in another 15 years, IC will be getting unsustainable…
watch out for 2032!
you heard it here first…
you’re welcome.
So, it is impossible to post anything substantive because all the words need to be misspelled. No problem. Here is a link that explains part of what will happen in 2018, the police will kill a lot of poor people. Many more than in 2017 and many less than in 2019.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.ca/2015/03/license-to-kill.html
sure, many will be kiled by the powwers that be…
kind of a konspear a cee theeeery…
but, perhaps you will be korrekt…
I predict that economic dekline will take moar lyves in 2018…
moastly in the weacker poorrer peripheral kontries…
the bigger faster stronger kontries will hear the souwnd of Creeping Collapse groewing louwder and louwder tho…
BAU twonite, baybee!
Did you know that I flunked the 4th grade? Yup. Same problem.
I asked the stupid son of a bi%tch why, oh why! Is 4 + 4 = 8. He couldn’t answer, and i couldn’t live without an answer. Now, I am back in the 4th grade.
Any predictions??
I predict a bright future for you…
especially 2018…
the lotus of wealth will spring forth with rainbows of cash…
do or do not, there is no try, only big money next year…
you’re welcome.
I predict you will have the best original epic rants on ofw!!!
Dmitry Orlov does have some very interesting insights.
and he moved back to Russia…
actions speak louder than words.
I betcha he was homesick and got seasick too. Plus, Russia having vast fossil fuel resources too, doesn’t hurt ones chances post BAU….
Dmitry Orlov is married to a woman from Russia, and they have a young son. The grandparents are in Russia, and they are looking into schools too, I expect.
and because the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s, and had the internal resources to recover, he likes Russian chances of surviving the next collapse more than the chances elsewhere, including in the good ole USA.
I bet most Americans are wimps compared to most Russians.
He has some good insights, but often seems a russophile. I wish him well, but suspect he will be disappointed that Russia fair’s no better than anywhere else post collapse.
Agree – he seems to think that Russia would not behave in a manner similar (or even more aggressive) to the US … if it was the top dog. Utter nonsense .. of course
Join Dimitry in Russia NOW!
https://www.rosebrides.com/russian-brides.html
Orlov is how I found OFW, I wish him well
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/femail/video-1001785/Woman-lift-14kg-vagina.html
strong Russian women!
Maybe he realized the boat idea was futile… and wants to die in the Fatherland…..
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8491/8360658980_cc497502ed_b.jpg
he is still finalising the quidnon designs.
his insights are perfectly balanced by his weirdness.
Just out of interest, which words are being blocked and why? I’m asking because I have posted quite a bit on this site for the past 3-4 months and the only time my posts got blocked was because of Gail’s effort to ban all global warming debates (which I do not hold against her).
Let me try: Supremacy, Conspiracy, Hoax, Black, Reptilian, Killing, Anti-Musk, Fascist
Ah I see. Comment is awaiting moderation. So basically, if your post contains certain words it will be quarantined until the admin clears it?
World Champions are immune to the block (or at least should be)
Something like this, I bet
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyn8QS74EY
Posts with flagged words are quarantined until Gail clears them. If she doesn’t see them or clear them for whatever reason, they’re eventually deleted.
I have been clearing most of them.
THE U.S. SHALE OIL INDUSTRY: Swindling & Stealing Energy To Stay Alive
https://srsroccoreport.com/u-s-shale-oil-industry-swindling-stealing-energy-stay-alive/
no biggie, just $212 billion…
sorry about the lame music…
maybe this:
Sort of, except that the EROI calculation is not the same as what the srsroccoreport is calculating. The EROI calculation is a very particular calculation that leaves out a lot of things, including labor costs, lease costs, and taxes.
I would agree that shale extraction is not profitable, whether at $100 per barrel or $50 per barrel.
Retailers Feel Shoppers’ Christmas Cheer
Americans of all income levels, feeling flush, boosted their holiday spending
https://www.wsj.com/articles/retailers-feel-shoppers-christmas-cheer-1514243102
As we were told iphone x sales were robust a few months ago….
:Lies lies lies
I know it’s pathetic. Retail sales include gas stations and groceries stores for example.. And when your population increases by several millions more each year you should always be in the black. If you look at department store sales they have been declining every year since 2000.
The Macroeconomic Impact of Microeconomic Shocks (pdf) by David Baqaee and Emmanuel Farhi
Main finding: Shocks to the economy in certain sectors can have larger effects on the entire economy than previously thought.
Nominating economist: Jean Tirole, Toulouse School of Economics, winner of the 2014 Nobel prize in economics
Specialization: Industrial organization
Why? “Baqaee and Farhi open up the black box of aggregate production by modeling the network linkages between firms and sectors, and demonstrate the emergence of important nonlinearities. This discovery has far-ranging macroeconomic implications, from the microeconomic origins of business cycles to the identification of key sectors with a disproportionate influence on the overall economy. For example, it leads to a radical revaluation, by a full factor of four, of the macroeconomic impact of the 1970s oil shocks. This opens up a fascinating research direction to build a more realistic macroeconomics, from the grounds up, with realistic microeconomic foundations.”
https://qz.com/1158930/13-economists-on-the-best-research-of-2017/
Thanks! The overlooked higher influence of energy compared to indications based on cost-shares has been criticized for quite a while.
Let’s revisit Korowizc.
Collapse oçcurs when key NODES in the economy cease to function.
As we all should know, the issuance of debt and the supply of food are the key functions of BAU.
I give to you, the issuance of debt will find any avenue. This we saw in the response to the GFC.
The supply of food is more vulnerable given the ice free Arctic of 2018/19 and it’s cascading effects. Expect to see mass chaos in the period of 2019/2020.
Me, I give myself 9 more months life expectancy than my Northern Hemisphere species-brethern. 800 kilograms of meat per capita, Hydro supplied electricity and artesian water are all instruments that will keep my local population alive marginally longer. Radiation from you Northerners may take a few months to get here.
Hmmm… 9 more months of disease … violence … and suffering….
I am wondering if I should have stayed in Bali!!! (sarc)
“The supply of food is more vulnerable given the ice free Arctic of 2018/19 and it’s cascading effects. Expect to see mass chaos in the period of 2019/2020.”
OMG! ice free Arctic by 2019? OMG!
really, if the ice is shrinking, must it keep on shrinking?
is that some law of nature?
I agree about food supply: that is issue number one…
and I agree “… the issuance of debt will find any avenue.”
somehow Arctic ice just doesn’t grab me by the… oh, wait…
chaos by 2020… perhaps… but…
BAU tonight, baby!
We have Icebreakers in our port and the crews all tell me that the lack of ice is a lie.
Our shipyard is busy building more.
http://shipsforcanada.ca/
This Is Russia’s Warship Built Specifically For Arctic Fighting
Moscow’s missile-slinging icebreakers are becoming a reality.
BY TYLER ROGOWAY MARCH 27, 2017
Much has been made about America’s so-called “icebreaker gap”—Russia has roughly 40 with many more in production while the US has one that is operational—and we have talked extensively about how the frigid arctic is likely to be a contested territory and battlefield of the future. But Russia isn’t just building more icebreakers or ice-capable logistics ships—they are also building fighting ships that can go independently where few other surface combatant can, and carry much heavier firepower while doing so.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8680/this-is-russias-warship-being-built-specifically-for-fighting-in-the-arctic
WTF? The MSM tells us that the Arctic will be ice free shortly …. but the Russians are building many new ice breakers….(article date MARCH 2017)
Let’s peak into the brain of a DelusSTANI and see what happens when these facts collide with their delusion:
http://blogs.dailyrecord.com/domestitech/files/2010/10/exploding-head.jpg
Now one would think…. that anyone reading the article above would give their head a shake… and allow a crack of line to shine in on their understanding of GGG WWWW….
That this might be the ah ha moment …. where logic takes over… and they start to say to themselves ….. WTF….. if the ice is almost gone … why build the ice breakers????
This just might lead them to — horror of horrors – suspect that the MSM is lying to them….
Alternatively…. they will probably just dig in deeper and get angry …. F789ing Fast Eddy … who the F789 does he think he is…. F789 him and his F789ing Russia story…. fake new fake news fake news MOF789er!!!!!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/5e/f5/d75ef5db8e5eaa0772f5c16184392d25.png
Well, of course, why would they admit to gerbils warning? Best to pretend it ain’t happening in order to keep the cash flow in their coffers! Isn’t fossil fuels Russia’s main source of foreign exchange?
ssessment
The Russian Federation is one of the world’s largest emitters and fossil fuels producers. As a consequence, it has a large mitigation potential, and could play a major role in international climate policy. However, Russia is the only big emitter that has not yet ratified the Paris Agreement, and instead has presented a national strategy that may delay ratification until at least 2019. President Putin also appears to have backtracked on his concern around climate change during the run-up to the Paris Agreement, recently reverting to more sceptic comments around the ability for anyone to adapt.
Russia’s INDC emissions reduction target not only lies significantly above the emissions levels projected under current policies but also is one of the weakest put forward by any government. Russia’s emissions targets are, according to our analysis, “Critically insufficient” under all interpretations of a “fair” contribution to global mitigation efforts.
http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russianfederation.html
Just because you think so, don’t make it so….
I really hate to do this, really I do, but aw far as “ice free”, it referred to the summer months
Many scientists have attempted to estimate when the Arctic will be “ice-free”. Professor Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge is among these scientists.[18] Wadhams and several others have noted that climate model predictions have been overly conservative regarding sea ice decline.[2][19] A 2013 paper suggested that models commonly underestimate the solar radiation absorption characteristics of wildfire soot.[20] A 2006 paper predicted “near ice-free September conditions by 2040”.[21]Overland and Wang (2013) investigated three different ways of predicting future sea ice levels. From sea ice models and recent satellite images it can be expected that a sea ice free summer will come before 2020.[22] The IPCC AR5 (for at least one scenario) estimates an ice-free summer might occur around 2050.[3] The Third U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA), released May 6, 2014, reports that the Arctic Ocean is expected to be ice free in summer before mid-century. Models that best match historical trends project a nearly ice-free Arctic in the summer by the 2030s.[23] However, these models do tend to underestimate the rate of sea ice loss since 2007. Based on the outcomes of several different models, Overland and Wang (2013) put the early limit for a sea ice free summer Arctic near 2040.[22]
So, I expect there will be a need for ice breakers in the winter.
I agree with your assessment.
Pick a year… any year…. and you can find an ‘expert’t to support you.
“A fair statement would be that some scientists have predicted summer ice free Arctic Ocean as soon as 2013, but others expect it to happen a little slower — say 2040-2060,” Schmidt wrote.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/02/john-kerry/kerry-claims-arctic-will-be-ice-free-2013/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm
HOLY COW!
Arctic sea ice experienced record 60-percent growth in August 2013 compared to August 2012. Gggggglobal wwwwwwwwarming alarmists now tell us they predicted this, despite our collective memories to the contrary.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/09/12/remember-all-those-breathy-predictions-about-an-ice-free-arctic-by-2015-nevermind/#39ea922eaa19
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/09/28/article-2415191-185A43E400000578-982_640x365.jpg
Funny how the sea ice sometimes melts… and sometimes freezes.
P.iss off.
Boy, some folks are very touchy. I am really sorry that your post was deleted and also sorry to have to do this, but you need to get it right.
When does ice-free mean ice-free?
First, we need to clarify what exactly an “ice-free” Arctic summer is.
By “ice-free”, scientists usually mean a sea ice extent of less than one million square kilometres, rather than zero sea ice cover.
There’s a good reason for this. Arctic sea ice isn’t just found in the central Arctic Ocean, but also along the northern coastlines of the US, Greenland, Russia and Canada, and in the narrow channels of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. And it is thicker in these regions than in the central Arctic Ocean.
Scientists expect, therefore, that sea ice will be present there a little longer than it will out in the central Arctic Ocean. This means as sea ice continues to decline, we will reach a point where the central Arctic Ocean will be largely ice-free, but remnants of ice will still remain along the northern coastlines of Canada, Alaska, and Greenland. Scientists therefore chose the one million square kilometre threshold to represent a practically ice-free Arctic Ocean.
Next time, please do some homework, thank you
How Arctic ice has made fools of all those poor wwwarmists
The belief that the ice was vanishing has been for the wwwarmists the ultimate poster-child for their cause
Two events last week brought yet further twists to one of the longest-running farces of our modern world. One was the revelation by the European Space Agency that in 2013 and 2014, after years when the volume of Arctic ice had been diminishing, it increased again by as much as 33 per cent.
The other was that Canadian scientists studying the effect of kkklimate cccchange on Arctic ice from an icebreaker had to suspend their research, when their vessel was called to the aid of other ships trapped in the thickest summer ice seen in Hudson Bay for 20 years.
But, alas, it just isn’t happening. In recent years there has been more polar ice in the world than at any time since satellite records began in 1979.
In the very year they had forecast that the Arctic would be “ice free”, its thickness increased by a third.
Polar bear numbers are rising, not falling. Temperatures in Greenland have shown no increase for decades.
The greatest scare story of all simply isn’t turning out as their computer models predicted. And no one has been more dangerously taken in by this silly scare story than the wwwwarmists themselves.
Please…. read more … 🙂
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11763272/How-Arctic-ice-has-made-fools-of-all-those-poor-warmists.html
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f1/cb/32/f1cb3213249c849827956a72442401f6.gif
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being furious… how would you rate your anger level after reading that?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/5e/f5/d75ef5db8e5eaa0772f5c16184392d25.png
And Fast Eddy gets his reward!
https://www.primaryclassroomresources.co.uk/media/catalog/product/h/o/homework-reward-stickers–25mm-circular.jpg
https://www.superstickers.com/Image/0/0/PNG/M-FS-S-FS-MS10976_1.jpeg
https://rlv.zcache.com/homework_hero_school_sticker-r4d7f80ed18694f08a26569f831a7458c_v9waf_8byvr_540.jpg
And the reward for poor research goes to: TSC!!!
http://pointstobemade.boardingarea.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Dunce-cap-in-corner.jpg
Ah, you have become an slow collapser?
“the issuance of debt will find any avenue”
And food production won’t be a problem for “long”, other than for what The Kulm would call irrelevant people.
Please send your prediction on the arctic to the Russians, that are building the largest nuclear powered icebreakers ever built…not one, but three of them. And, on top of that their LNG ships a also icebreakers. By all means, they need to listen to you and quit building those stupid ships.
Why the Czech Republic is historically and culturally such a developed country within Europe: the coal with the highest calorific value, surpassing that of Great Britain and Germany, that was at the disposal of a relatively small population:
https://euracoal.eu/info/country-profiles/czech-republic/
Hard coal net calorific value
kJ/kg
25 490‑32 070
Lignite net calorific value
kJ/kg
11 600‑20 560
Great Britain:
https://euracoal.eu/info/country-profiles/united-kingdom/
Hard coal net calorific value
kJ/kg
22 000‑27 000
Germany:
Hard coal net calorific value
kJ/kg
30 264
Lignite net calorific value
kJ/kg
7 800‑11 500
The energy resources with the highest energy content + climate conditions create the highest centers of the civilization, i.e. the centers situated in the cold or hot climates do not add much to the civilization, when much of the energy is consumed in creating suitable living conditions for the humans, which means, that not much remains for the development of the civilization, as the simple survival consumes large amounts, e.g. Saudi Arabia in the desert, Russia with its cold climate…
The oil, coal or natural gas consumed in the mild climates allows for achieving the highest levels of the human civilization. That is why the civilization is not preserved when the hard to get resources are consumed in the areas not suitable for the life of the human species.
Usually, the countries with the least favorable climates use the most energy resources. Cold countries, but also very hot, dry countries.
An article in Czech about the actual problems of the local iron and steel works when the mine Paskov in the Ostrava-Karviná coal basin with the very high quality coal for coking was recently closed due to the low prices of coal and high levels of indebtedness: the coal from Canada or Australia must be imported and the coal must be mixed to get the right mixture, a special furnace for testing the new supplied coal had to be built:
http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ct24/regiony/2170402-kvalitnimu-uhli-z-paskova-je-konec-na-jeho-dovozu-uz-vydelavaji-australane-i
Some facts about the origin of the Ostrava-Karviná coal basin:
“In the Ostrava-Karviná region the Ostrava and Karviná strata series are distinct. The Ostrava strata series was formed in a coastal environment and under the influence of volcanic activity and is characterized by high-quality coal in seams of smaller thickness. On the other hand, the younger Karviná strata series was formed after the ultimate recession of the sea.”
http://www.okd.cz/en/coal-mining/ostrava-karvina-coal-basin
In 2012, the OKD CEO Klaus-Dieter Beck (OKD is the company that mines the coal in the Ostrava-Karviná coal basin) declared that 1,8 billion tons of coal was mined since 1782, but in ever deeper strata under the ground there is still 19 billion tons of coal solely on the Czech part of this coal basin located on the border with Poland.
https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/ekonomika/vize-sefa-okd-uhli-muzeme-tezit-jeste-nejmene-25-let/r~i:article:732067/?redirected=1514354978
Upper Silesian Coal Basin
“Resources of coal to a depth to 1000 meters – about 70 billion tons, the conditions for the extraction – good.[1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Silesian_Coal_Basin
I must mention it again, as it is really undeniable: When I went out now, to see how it is outside this morning, I can smell the burned coal again, as it was when I was a child: it is cheaper for the people with the low pensions to use it for heating instead of the natural gas from Russia…
Here is an discussion in Slovak about burning the coal from Ostrava for home heating: the coal from Ostrava is clean, with very little ash content, the coal suplied from the Polish side of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin is of lower quality, a lot of ash, most probably due to the less postporcessing.
Heating with the coal from Ostrava in Slovakia for 200 days looks like USD 800 for 500 cubic meters of the heated space.
https://www.energoportal.cz/forum/pevna-paliva/spalovanie-cierneho-uhlia-46030/?kotva=spalovanie-cierneho-uhlia-67465
How can we explain the postprocessing difference in the supplied coal for heating? Poland is dependent solely on coal, the Czech Republic is an advanced user of nuclear.
The coal mined in different places has very different characteristics. I know some processing is done ( pulverizing and washing), but I don’t think this changes the characteristics materially. Usually, the best coal is mined first. Accessibility is also important.
The demand for coal for home heating in the Czech Republic is currently so high, that the mines have problems meeting it and the prices go up:
http://iuhli.cz/uhli-je-malo-ceny-rostou/
If we can keep prices high, production can grow. It is when prices are low that production problems arise.
I love the smell of coal smoke in the morning…. smells like BAU is alive and well… and farting
Those nice colorful house facades of the last decades of the natural gas use will be typically stained by emissions again. Better to stay indoors, if you are suffocating…
It’s carbon and monoxide. The ol’ Detroit perfume. And it hangs on the highways. In the morning. And it lays you down by noon…
…plus sulfur.
Thanks!
Uppsala University in Sweden was founded before America was “discovered” and will remain as long as there is civilisation anywhere.
Industrial civilisation takes a lot of energy, civilisation in colder climates only takes some firewood and food.
I was surprised how much the civilizations of Norway and Sweden were behind warmer parts of Europe, presumably because of the cold. Plague hit Norway very hard too. I understand that after Ireland, Norway seems to have lost the largest share of its population to the US. They were doing very badly.
China:
China’s Post-Coal Growth
“These values refer to the raw volume of coal use; calorific value data, released later in 2013, shows that consumption growth was roughly flat. If the volume figures take into account the fact that higher quality coal was burned, 2014 is more likely to be the year of peak coal consumption. Whether the peak year was in 2013 or 2014, the essential trend is clear.
This decoupling of economic growth and growth in coal use has raised important
questions: Is this just a temporary dip? Or is it a turning point, indicating that peak coal
consumption has already arrived? In this article, we argue that China’s coal consumption has indeed reached an inflection point much sooner than expected, and will decline henceforth (even though it will remain the primary source of energy for the coming decades). China has entered the era of post-coal growth.”
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67503/1/Wu_China%E2%80%99s%20Post-Coal%20Growth.pdf
This is nonsense. There is no decoupling between economic growth and energy consumption. Only misreporting and bad statistics.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/files/2014/03/China-coal_466.jpg
Thanks! I think BP is showing the energy-content of Chinese coal in its numbers. China certainly acts like it is post-peak. It is closing unprofitable plants.
Interesting!
it you people think elite of left wing or right wing care about you
i have only one sentence they do not care about us
https://youtu.be/QNJL6nfu__Q
Uh, what is your point?
my point is elite take vote for 99 percent but work only for one percent
so you vote do not matter
Actually, in materialistic civilizations, the problem are the .1% owner class as well as their lieutenants of the 1% and the top ~10% support structure..
That’s why the over announced shift out of petro dollar has not taken place so far. It has been simply the predominant environment of the global rich for so long, so why should they spoil their own lake they swim in.
Hence the explanations for recent domestic action in China, Russia, SArabia etc. There is apparently ongoing attempted push for some kind of different global power sharing, but you need at least some part-faction of the mega rich to be on your side (of change) as well, not easy to accomplish.
If I put together everything I have read over the last to 20 years I have to come to this conclusion: if the wealth of the mega rich does not somehow redistribute to the lower and middle income class – industrial civilization will collapse. I don’t how this can or could be done. But, if it doesn’t happen soon there will be #1 no productive and profitable ventures to invest in (That Bitcoin is being pursued may mean there are no productive ventures left to invest in) and #2 a commodity deflationary death spiral will set in leading to price collapse and bankruptcy on a global scale. The concentration of wealth IMO is what will trigger the collapse.
There is still some energy and resources left to consume (and keep industrial civilization alive a bit longer). But, we need to get some liquidity into the hands of the lower and middle income (lower 95%) to boost consumption and push commodity prices back up to profitable levels.
Greg
to cover your recent comments in one—if i can
the central concept in all this is that the last 200 years of industrial growth has been entirely due to increasing flows of raw primary energy—oil coal and gas.
without those we cannot have dams, windmill, solar panels or anything else called ”alternatives”, or any other industrial system
if you cannot understand and accept that, then there’s no point in reading the rest of this.
————
we have eagerly locked ourselves into a capitalist system, where the above energy-flows have been temporarily converted into money-flows.
so now everyone is convinced that we live in a money economy, where paying everyone higher wages will result in everyone getting richer
why?
because over 2 centuries that is what seems to have happened. And we are promised it forever. But that was an illusion.
Henry Ford doubled his worker’s wages, built more cars ever cheaper, and sold them back to his workers. It looked like a winning formula.
It was—-but what Ford ignored was the energy equation. Cars are blocks of embodied energy, Ford was acquiring that energy for almost nothing, because it was SURPLUS energy. He was paying high wages, but taking a lot of the wages back as car payments.
Genius or what?
That is the prime construct of our industrial system: cheap surplus energy, and the promise of infinite growth.
With cheap surplus energy we could all be rich, and acquire capital—houses, (think Levittowns) cars and the rest, everyone could in theory live like a king.
Hence capitalism became the religion of the masses, and socialism was anathema. It is still being preached today
Everyone followed the Ford pattern, and produced ”stuff”…..which had to be bought and sold at a faster and faster rate (growth)
Essentially this is governed by my law of: “converting explosive force into rotary motion” (which covers everything we do)–the more force, the faster the growth.
the factory systems that produce the ”stuff” were perfect re-investments as wealth accumulated. Like Ford, Nobody saw that the re-investment depended entirely on constant supplies of that energy which had to be both cheap and surplus.
Full employment dependent on that too. You cannot have jobs without burning fuels
So as the 20th c rolled on, industry delivered profit, because fuel inputs rose on average at about 7% pa,
As governments incurred debt and liabilities, that is what paid off debts, (rising surplus energy input)
THAT was the foundation of our industrial middle class economy. Energy, not wages.
This changed in 1970, when the USA was no longer oil ‘swing’ producer. That’s why the average standard of living has been flat since then, and why governments are frantically borrowing to mask the truth—that the nation’s finance system is in terminal deficit.
paying higher wages doesn’t work, because the “Ford” higher wage system doesn’t work
That supply of cheap surplus energy and materials just isn’t there any more, no matter how much everyone gets paid. Yes, there’s oil etc—but it costs more to get hold of each year, and so fewer people can afford it.
This is why Musk makes a loss on each car—in contrast to Henry Ford et al.
The super rich (in all nations) right now are running on the fumes of the oil era, but don’t know it. Trump towers and golf courses or Riyadh palaces are “worth” XXBn $—but without oil input they will be worth zilch.
There’s just a time lapse between the very rich and the very poor, which in human terms seems very long, but in economic terms is very short.
Redistributing their wealth won’t inject any fresh sources of energy into the economic system
This why there is going to one hell of a denial about this, as governments resists the truth of it all, and seek to control in inevitable civial disorder and insurrection that will result—we’ve all goy used to the good (ish) life and won’t accept it being taken away.
The economy, politics, energy and the unequal distribution of wealth cannot be separated out
That’s what I tried to hammer home here:
https://extranewsfeed.com/from-oilslick-to-tyranny-e35d04b31fc3
Every revolution has had the same basic driving force
.
I think you’re right…
and in keeping with Gail’s latest article (putting aside the initial problem with Peak Coal), the inequality leads to economic decline like the Great Depression.
so there was the Glass-Steagall banking act of 1933…
because… partly…
maybe the elites learned that lesson about the consequences of inequality?
but now…
the inequality has come roaring back…
and we shall see how severe the consequences get soon enough…
and what reason or blame is given by today’s elites.
thanks Norman…
sounds quite rational…
“The economy, politics, energy and the unequal distribution of wealth cannot be separated out…”
true, but…
within your big picture scenario…
more equitable distribution MIGHT push The Collapse further into the future…
which (I think) is Greg’s point:
“There is still some energy and resources left to consume (and keep industrial civilization alive a bit longer).”
so, in a way, your post gives the background story to Greg’s post…
I don’t see your views being mutually exclusive.
The argument that hitting the wealthy will dissuade them from investing in productive enterprises that drive economic growth and create jobs…
No longer applies…
Because there are no productive enterprises to invest in ….
There are only bubbles…..
To start … I would recommend a 50% tax on all cryptocurrency gains….
I agree with everything you say Norm. But, how do we extend industrial civilization? What are some things that would extend consumption another 2 or 3 years, After all it is consumption that drive IC. Certainly the ultra wealthy are not going to be able to consume enough. It is the masses that will drive consumption. So, it makes sense that if somehow (I am not saying how) the lower and middle income families wages increase then consumption will increase, commodity prices will increase, resource extraction will become profitable (maybe) and retail can make a comeback and more jobs will be available. I am not saying it will last very long. But, it may buy a few extra years. The final collapse will likely be harder and faster but at least it is not sooner than it has to be.
I know the causes and effects of where we are now. But, think of ways that would postpone collapse. I am not saying collapse can be avoided. Just what would you do if you had control of the situation? I would try every trick in the book to get money into the hands of the lower and middle income folks to push the needle past empty.
your comment ”pushing the needle past empty” neatly sums up the problem
next time your car’s fuel gauge is bumping on ”empty” try shoving currency notes into the fuel tank to keep the car going.—which is exactly the problem of paying everyone more money. As fuel gets more and more expensive (in real terms), your money buys less and less of it. After you pay out your last $ or £s, your car will still come to a halt
if you hand out money, it can only be used to buy ”existing” goods and use ”existing” energy….-it cannot produce ”new goods” because the ”new energy” to produce them in meaningful quantity won’t be there.
Yes it would delay the inevitable for a time, but if say—you taxed the wealthy to the extent that they were forced to sell yachts, palaces etc—a seemingly ”good thing” in economic terms—-, there would be no one to buy them, because everyone would be taxed into oblivion.
If you taxed only wealthy Americans, that would allow foreign buyers to flood in—not a good idea.
You could of course fill Trump towers with the homeless—but they would still need ongoing support because there would be no jobs available for them (no fuel to burn = no jobs+ no food).
without cheap fuel, a tower block is useless past the 5th floor. (the max height of dwellings before the invention of the modern lift.) Just as with a car running on empty, a tower block full of paupers will be unable to buy the necessary fuel to run it.
Without fuel, cars or apt blocks planes or yachts get hit by entropy in the same way
many of the ultra wealthy are on a consumer binge right now. But it is a binge that does not percolate down—$500k watches for example do not provide mass employment, but there is nothing else to invest money in.
in previous times, that 500k would have been invested in a car plant to produce dividends from energy consumed.
go back another 150 years and it would have been invested in a sugar plantation, complete with slaves.—unpleasant agreed, but producing the same results.
Another effect of redistributing money would be to perpetuate the illusion that all is OK. Everyone except OFW doomsters would think it was BAU forever once more, and when the crash inevitably arrives, would still be in a state of denial.
What interesting times we do live in.
If a Robin Hood project was run through the super computers… and it was determined that taking from the very rich … would extend BAU….. then I am confident that the el ders would do this …
It has been reported that KSA is doing exactly this …. so perhaps we may yet see some sort of fiscal guillotine in the US….
only after the current government has been guillotined
Well.. the politicians understand who runs the show…. so they would do what they are told….as they always do.
And the military men recognize the real power lies with those who print the money that can be used to reward them…. so they would remain loyal….
They would also understand that the E l ders control the spinal cord of the global economy … you cannot just pull a H i t ler and wipe them out …and try to replace them…. without activating a poison pill that wrecks the global economy….
It would be a very simple matter to call in Don Draper — and instruct him to vilify the Robber Barons who have secretaries paying higher rates of tax than they do http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/index.html
Let us not forget that the El d ers also own the NSA….. and the NSA has the goods on the Robber Barons — and everyone else…
Have you heard of the latest extortion scam? An email arrives with the subject Shame or similar… stating your computer has been hacked… that the hacker has a double screen video that shows you pulling the pud while watching po rn …. they have all your contacts…. if you do not pay xxx they will email the video to all……
Of course (???) this is fake —- however if the NSA wanted to humiliate a Robber Baron — they could do this ….
Then again they could also dig out some illegal activity — or simply make it up — to threaten a Robber Baron.
No need to hang them upside down in a hotel room and have mercenaries be at the money out of them….
Just threaten them with jail — or sh ame them….. and none of them would lift a finger to protest….
“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” ― Woodrow Wilson
Anything that amounts to a form of debt would help “extend and pretend.”
Right, we know that. This ofw. What is your point?
https://i.imgur.com/9mwloRL.mp4
Oops wanted to show something like this.
Fast Eddy said: “Let us not forget that the El d ers also own the NSA…”
But Fast Eddy at this point nothing matters except “the need for a cheap energy source”. We are all about to be humiliated (including the El d ers) by the laws of physics as Gail would say.
I wonder if the El d ers believe in God (some? many? most?). Since they know the most about humanity’s cheap energy predicament I wonder if they have repented. I would love to meet one of these “masters of the universe” and see the humiliation on their face. I know I am just as screwed (kind of) but I intensely believe in afterlife so don’t feel as screwed. Maybe it is a placebo effect but it works!
Mansoor
If a person has been brought up in a religious environment, it makes a huge difference. There is no need to invent a happily every future through technology. Another related belief is, “We can save the world by conserving resources.” The only sins today are are environmental sins–using styrofoam cups instead of paper cups, for example. Of course, we continue to deforest the planet, but since trees are “renewable,” this doesn’t seem to be a concern.
Religions are self-organized, just as nearly everything in the universe seems to be. This is the way God acts. But some people have convinced themselves that because God acts through men (in many different ways), religions are simply things that men have put together.
‘There is no need to invent a happily every future through technology.’
Who needs that when you are confident of relocating to this place:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/q-piW22oqa8/maxresdefault.jpg
Oil price spikes have happened before every recession since WW2 except one. And they have happened before the last three.
well, WTI hit $60 today…
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/25/oil-near-june-2015-high-as-production-cuts-tighten-market.html
that’s not a spike, but it’s a 2 1/2 year high.
These maps show how Americans are dying younger. It’s not just the opioid epidemic.
https://www.vox.com/2016/12/13/13926618/mortality-trends-america-causes-death-by-county
Lots of reasons: chemicals in everything, bad food, bad genes being recycled, healthcare becoming unaffordable/inaccessible, lack of exercise, lack of good quality productive jobs. Gee, I am surprised we are making past 50 these days.
Can America’s Power Grid Survive an Electromagnetic Attack?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-22/hardening-power-grids-for-nuclear-and-emp-attacks-by-north-korea
They have it all set up now..To take the grids down in a faux terror attack and blame it on NK…Then there will be plenty of oil for the world to use for another 20 years..US economic problems solved, angry US population neutralized.
And note the time difference North Korea’s day is our night…Sleep well in your beds tonight America..The MIC has your back…Just like they did on 911…/s
no worries!
that EMP attack would require a massive nuclear explosion above the center of the USA…
no way that could be pulled off…
oh, my lights just flickered…
power surge?
no…
all seems okay now with my electr
Ha ha, now, every time the lights flicker or a fuse trips, we will wonder….Is this it?
You mean, just like they did for Pearl Harbor?
and so passes another Christmas…
now Bitcoin rockets to $15,472…
never a holiday for Bitcoin!
and a week until 2018…
it seems there’s just no end to BAU…
it’s getting hard to take…
where is the bitter end?
Relax, it is always about two years away.
Lol, yeah always around the next bend…
A doomer only has to be right once though JH…
Unlikely to be the next bend… but definitely one of the bends…. impossible to know which one though
I miss Keith…
Shame I was going to send him this link.
http://maritimelaunch.com/
Notice the windmills in the background? Nice touch!
And yes we all miss Keith ….. but he has important work to do….. so we will have to sacrifice …. and get on with life … without Keith….
http://quotespill.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/i-miss-you-baby-quotes-min.jpg
It is time to kick out the non-Western countries, except maybe Japan which was a part of it in 1910, from the realm of Civilization, to reduce waste and save Civilization.
I am sure that many from the non-Western countries have exactly the opposite view. If pruning takes place, I expect that it will take place in a range of countries simultaneously. War; budgets that no longer provide many services to the poor and elderly; oil exporters that collapse from low prices.
What about Saudi Arabia? Are they “Western” or “non-Western”? Do we kick them out? Seems they are on the verge of civil war too. I have been under the impression for years (since Matt Simmons “Twilight in the Desert”) that once Saudi Arabia goes – so goes the world.
k writes “It is time to kick out the non-Western countries…”
or is this already happening, and has been for a long time?
many peripheral countries are becoming “failed states”…
this produces the outcome of reduced consumption…
the “Western countries” win this way… temporarily…
the bottom line is that in a depleting world, it’s survival of the fittest countries…
and the competition will only get fiercer.
I doubt that many Puerto Rican’s, huddling in their powerless hovels at night in the dark, are going out and spending lots of money at the mall.
but but but…
they are American citizens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You mean spare the main culprits of an unprecedented enormous resource waste and pollution dystopia generators and fsck over the sub $2 USD/day BAU wannabee prospects?
Hey k, don’t be such a tease; look how well we are trending – for now! 😉
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d8/9e/2a/d89e2aa8e111cf59bb4accdf470ea6cb–international-development-website-ideas.jpg
Food Stamps Still Feed One in Seven Americans Despite Recovery
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stamps-still-feed-one-in-seven-americans-despite-recovery
What recovery ?
What recovery indeed! Without food stamps there would be “break lines”. Can’t have things looking like the 1930’s now can we.
You mean “Bread lines”, as in loafs of bread?
We do not have food stamps in my city you get one free meal a day and some take home food 0 tax money all charity. IMHO food stamps are part of the problem just look what they are spent on.
You mean the food? I know!!
The bastards.
This is how you treat a Nationalist
That should teach him!
Just imagine as more and more people begin to coalesce into like minded groups – ahh how well these groups will get along.
Aha! He’s wearing a toupee, the faker.
I have not been here for some time but it doesn’t look like much has changed. The below is cross-posted from power satellite economics group on a new design topic that has been discussed for about a month. It may meet Gail’s energy cost required for a vibrant economy. If you have _technical_ or _economic_ comments, consider posting them to the PSE group.
Thoughts about a variation on Ian’s design
There are two innovative elements to Ian Cash’s CASSIOPeiA proposal for power satellites. The first is the 360 deg microwave beam steering, the second is the tiny local, combined PV/RF modules. http://www.mtu.edu/ece/department/faculty/full-time/zekavat/pdfs/ssp-2017/ssp2017-cassiopeia-sica-design-presentation.pdf
The second opens an interesting design possibility, one of using much larger combined PV and transmitter apertures. Sandwich type designs get hot even with only one sun on them. However, if area is cheap enough, there is no reason not to use less than one sun. A Large aperture allows better beam shaping than a simple Gaussian profile.
The idea considered here is to use a sunlight reflecting ellipse set at 45 deg from a line to the sun on a N/S axis. This reflects light down (S), illuminating a transmitter ellipse set at 45 deg to a line to the Earth. The two ellipses rotate relative to each other once a day. It is sort of Ian’s design untwisted with a redirection mirror.
Setting the PV/transmitter surface at 45 deg increases the thermal radiation area by sqrt(2). The radiation at 23 deg C is ~420 W/m^2, or ~840 W/m^2 radiating from both sides. Set at 45 deg, the radiation per projected square meter of sunlight would be 1184 W/m^2, about 87% of sunlight. So (assuming we can shade the transmitter from sunlight coming from the side) the surface will not get hotter than 23 C if the efficiency of sending out microwaves is 13% or better. Concentrated PV can be taken at 40%, transmitter efficiency at 85%, so the light to microwaves efficiency would be around 34%, almost twice what is needed. Of course, there are minor losses in the concentration lens and the sun following mirror (SFM). It may be worth using a small sunlight concentration factor or a larger one if the SFM is transparent to light spectra the CPV does not use.
Power satellites built this way do not have as much of a problem with mass growth per kW as classical ones. It’s not clear what is the most economical size. However, for analysis, consider the rectenna size as 10 km diameter and a top-hat (~flat) microwave beam profile. That gives 78.5 square km normal to the beam. At 230 W/m^2 that is 18 GW. Taking the transmission loss chain at 50%, we have 36 GW of electric power flowing to the transmitters. Using the above 34% sunlight to power figure, the power satellite will intercept about 106 GW of sunlight. At 1.366 GW/km^2 the area will be around 77.8 square km, almost the same size as the rectenna on the ground. The area for both the SFM and the PV/transmitter is ~110 square km.
18 GW is a lot of power, more than twice as much as Grand Coulee dam, but less than Three Gorges Dam. If I were thinking about a US installation, the (soon to close) Navaho power plant area would be a good location since it already has power transmission right of way to the rest of the grid. West of the former Mohave power plant would be a location with similar advantages.
Mature production cost might run 1/3rd of the thermal designs I have discussed. Those came in at around 3 cents per kWh. Scaled to 1/3rd cost, this variation on Ian’s design might deliver power on the ground for around one cent per kWh. Alternately, the transport cost to space can be about 5 times higher based on the kg/kW figure being about 1/5th of the previous thermal designs. Synthetic transport fuels made using power that cost one cent per kWh would be under a dollar a gallon. ($30/bbl oil.)
There is a long list of additional design considerations. At 25 km/s, the reaction mass consumption to compensate for light pressure would be ~856 tons per year. The power to run the arcjets would be some tens of MW, and they would require substantial heat radiators. The transmitter surface needs a microwave transparent reflecting shade to keep light (and heat) from sunlight off it. (You can’t just paint it white because we don’t want a string of power satellites lighting up the night sky.)
All power satellite designs have to cope with eclipses around the equinoxes. This kind looks like it would stand the thermal shock better than thermal types.
I doubt that either this or Ian’s exact design will be built, but they do set a new standard for the projected cost of space-based solar power and will (I hope) stimulate even better and less expensive designs.
Keith
Thanks for that Keith. Keep up the good work.
See you in another 8 months?
“I doubt that either this or Ian’s exact design will be built…”
I agree…
because insane technology almost never gets built…
but please, ignore Eddy and keep posting…
OFW has been so very entertaining lately…
and Keith…
BAU tonight, baby!
But .. if Keith posts… that keeps him away from the garage…. where he should be working on the technology that is going to save us….
So we must support Keith — best not to engage him if he does post — or if you must then do so in a manner that drives him off FW and back to his tool bench…
Keith – we believe in you — we need you — we do not want to disturb you…
We await the good news. Until then …. keep your head on the grind stone.
no!
his post was very entertaining…
Keith, don’t listen to Eddy…
please continue to post…
perhaps on a daily basis?
please?
pretty please with sugar plums on top?
“Alternately, the transport cost to space can be about 5 times higher…”
see, there’s a big problem right there…
“(You can’t just paint it white because we don’t want a string of power satellites lighting up the night sky.)”
of course not!
why, that would be unacceptable!
Wow. Just wow. I am at a loss for word.
That’s what she said…to Keith.
Keith is going to give us a miracle!
Nice to see some result; the earth needs some miracles, and if you can pull it off your name will be in the history books forever.
Along with a long list of people, going back to Dr. Peter Glaser who invented the concept back in 1968. I worked on this for fully ten years but did not make the kind of cost advances Ian Cash made.
Heard of delta v? Essentially it means that the maximum possible change you can make to your rocket’s velocity is a very simple number to calculate: total reaction mass x how fast you can throw that reaction mass away from your rocket.
Now consider the energy and resource output needed to launch enough of your satellites (assuming they work as you say) to cover a significant % of world energy use. Also consider that all the stuff launched into space amounts to a whopping 10000 tons, or about two fully laden cargo ships.
“Heard of delta v?”
Delta V is the leading illustration on the first article I wrote years ago on power satellites for “The Oil Drum.” http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5485 Lift cost is closer to the bone than delta V. LEO to GEO is predicated on arcjets at 20-25 km/s exhaust velocity with the power from dedicated beamed power satellites.
“Now consider the energy and resource output”
Been done in great detail for the previous thermal (steam) design. Takes about a decade to build up to the first satellite and more than a decade to build out the power satellite fleet to replace fossil fuel. The aerospace sector needs to grow by about 50% over a decade if we use the Reaction Engines Skylon design. Ian Cash’s design has not been checked in detail, but it roughly looks like it is around 1/5 of the mass. Since transport to space is about half of the cost, his design would reduce the capital cost by around 2.5 to one. That reduces 3 cents per kWh down to just above one cent per kWh.
The hydrogen needed for the Skylons is a substantial fraction of the world production of LNG. On the other hand, previous power satellites designs repay all the energy used to make them and put them in place in about 3 months. Ian’s design would bring that down to around one month.
As long as you are considering problems, one of them that worried me for years was the damage to the ozone from the rocket traffic. NOAA answered that just over a year ago. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EF000399/full
That is fascinating! But are you sure you have time for this?
I would much prefer you remained focused on the task at hand.
The task at hand is how to extend the life of industrial civilization. And soon! Preferably before things start to fall apart. The only way that I thing we can buy more time is for the wages of the lower and middle class to go up. Satellites in space will not do that. Tesla’s EV’s will not do that either. Keep dreaming wild dreams of trips to Mars. The simple fact is the foundation of our industrial economy (low and middle class wage earners) are broke.
Your project looks very unrealistic to me because you seem to be assuming a lot of things ad hoc. I looked up Skylon and it hasn’t even left the drawing board yet! And how far has microwave energy transmission been successfully tested? I doubt it’s anywhere *remotely* near the scale required for your project. Perhaps it is possible, but it is not reasonable to assume that it is just to make your project seem more feasible.
“On the other hand, previous power satellites designs repay all the energy used to make them and put them in place in about 3 months.”
Ignoring the fact that they are, in fact, *designs*, this still only refers to raw generation. What about inefficiency, maintenance, operations, overruns etc.?
“build up to the first satellite and more than a decade to build out the power satellite fleet to replace fossil fuel”
How will we build this space elevator capable of transporting 1000 ts of cargo/day to GEO, and at what energy cost?
“I looked up Skylon . . . ”
The hard part about Skylon is the Mach five engine and the hard part about the engine is the precooler. That’s coming right along, with the USAF taking a major interest and an engine test facility being constructed in Colorado. I have seen the test article in the UK. I was in the UK over a year ago talking to the entire engineering staff of Reaction Engines about how fast they could ramp up production and what it would cost. The slides for that talk are linked off http://www.htyp.org/DTC
What’s changed in the last couple of months based on Ian’s low mass designs is that conventional reusable rockets of the kind SpaceX builds might be cheap enough to do the job.
“microwave energy transmission” That’s been tested at the many kW level back in the 70s at Goldstone. Microwaves are an extremely well-understood subject. Do you have satellite TV? Those microwaves are going over the same distance. The Japanese are way ahead of anyone else on microwave power transmission.
“What about inefficiency, maintenance, operations .” The efficiency electricity to electricity is right at 50%, so you lose half the power. The only thing that means is that you have to generate power for half of what it sells for on the ground. The LCOE calculations include maintenance. Operations include replacing hundreds of tons per year of reaction mass and that’s accounted for as well.
“space elevator” It’s not a space elevator. Sigh, if we had materials strong enough for an elevator, power satellites would pay back the lift energy in a few days. It only takes 14.5 kWh/kg move cargo from the surface to GEO using an elevator. We probably will never get space elevators, which is a shame. Mechanical elevators out to GEO are a little better than 100% efficient. (They tap the rotational energy of the earth.)
The proposed transport mechanism above LEO is explained here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEkZkINrJaA
Good questions actually. Thanks.
“The hard part about Skylon is the Mach five engine and the hard part about the engine is the precooler. That’s coming right along, with the USAF taking a major interest and an engine test facility being constructed in Colorado.”
Until designed, built and tested, it’s a pipe dream.
“Do you have satellite TV? Those microwaves are going over the same distance.”
Yes, but in watts, not gigawatts, and not for power. Not mention, the receiving area is a tad larger than is required for the purpose in question.
“It’s not a space elevator.”
I know, but it seems more feasible than Skylon/reusable rockets for the task of climbing up to the ALP, which itself is far from being proven to be feasible on the scale you envision.
Basically you are being too optimistic and making far too many unfounded assumptions about leaps in technology. You even did the “praise with faint criticism” thing so popular nowadays by noting damage to the ozone layer as the only serious concern.
I can’t take you seriously, which is not to say I have anything against you personally or any doubts about your academic expertise on this subject. Maybe in 10 years I’ll regret what I’m about to say, but you can count me out of your utopia.
“What’s changed in the last couple of months based on Ian’s low mass designs is that conventional reusable rockets of the kind SpaceX builds might be cheap enough to do the job.”
Isn’t that the company Musk owns? Which means their costs are not real….they are based on fake easy money that does not have to make a profit.
I am confident that Keith will resolve all issues.
Please do not disturb Keith with questions or comments. He is busy.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5c/2f/56/5c2f56a503c8ebd0e73e1775ac35d586.jpg
http://www.teefury.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/product_artwork_image/480x/17f82f742ffe127f42dca9de82fb58b1/a/r/art-mco-he-can-do-it_nvy.jpg
Dude, if the human race discovered “free” or even cheap energy, it would exacerbate every single problem we have. The population would double in no time and where would all the free resources come to help fill their desire for consumption?
I always liked this clip, the sun is free.
Free how? Because solar and satellite are anything but free or simple. The sun doesn’t do anything but give us vitamin D and grow plants.
‘tear each other to shreds’
yep.
Want to get an idea of what this looks like?
Starve 5 vicious dogs for a few days — put them in a cage — throw in a pound of raw meat…
Err, I think we’ve already gotten there…
It would be far worse. The environment lags population in the same way temperature lags CO2. We won’t reverse until it’s absurd, which yeah we’ve already breached those levels. Wait until the ocean goes up 100 feet if anybody thinks this is bad.
It would be far worse. The environment lags population in the same way temperature lags CO2. We won’t reverse until it’s absurd, which yeah we’ve already breached those levels. Wait until the ocean goes up 100 feet if anybody thinks this is bad.
I live 30m from the ocean … I can in fact hear it… but I do not worry about a 100 foot rise…. because that will only always happen tomorrow…. and tomorrow… never comes.
Funny story — my geologist friend — does consulting for the government with regard to wave erosion on the coast … he was telling me that they refer to aerial maps that are over 100 years old then reference them with later maps…. to see what the long term trends are …..
What they have found is that in many areas the shore has actually extended …. in some areas there are been an ebb and flow of shore line…. in some areas where the wave action is strongest and there are no rocks in the seas to break the energy… there has been significant loss of shoreline.
https://www.tespack.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/beach-work-1.jpg
And btw…
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5579/14905486133_067caece35_o.jpg
We’ll never get that far, before it all collapses. By 2100 we’d need to burn three times or more as much energy as now, just to keep from coming apart. Imagine what the world would look like that under that scenario?
https://jmkorhonen.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/world-energy-use-and-srren-037.png
But, if by some miracle we stumble along to the point where we hit the panic button prior to collapse, it will only because the situation is grave enough to affect the elites personally. By then it will be too little too late, anyway.
“The population would double in no time”
You can make a case for the opposite if you consider Japan as an example. If you use some of the African countries as examples, you are dead on correct. Humans are not that uniform and various populations have been subjected to different selection criteria.
How humans would respond to stable low-cost energy over a number of generations is a hard question. It’s the kind of question Gail tries to answer by looking at what has happened in the past. Her task is made almost impossible by rapidly changing technology. It really will be impossible as humans start intentionally changing the DNA of their children. AI is another factor that complicates the future.
Generally, a large population allows for economy of scale. I watched the latest Star Wars production yesterday. It cost around $200 million to make and needs $800 million at the box office to break even, which it looks like it will do. If the world population were only half the current size, such an extravaganza would be out of reach.
“fill their desire for consumption?”
People don’t really consume atoms. The trash dumps of today will be the mines of the future. They do consume energy in the form of food and fabricated goods. But we are a long way from using what the sun puts out.
he japanese doubled their population by buying their energy from somewhere else
after an attempt to steal it failed
they must eventually revert to the level of population that japan itself can sustain
it is not possible to escape that law
“they must eventually revert to the level of population that japan itself can sustain”
At what level of technology? Trading with the rest of the world or no shipping?
Japan is substantially ahead of the rest of the world in power satellite development..
at a level of medieval technology—as japan had before 1860
if we’re still pumping out that power satellite stuff—i can only leave you to it
best of luck
have you ever found a tin can thats been buried for–say—3 years
all thats left is the ring of thicker metal that formed the top and bottom of the can
entropy hits everything
The energy used in mining dumps would be greater that what you get out of the dumps—always.
take a look at a car thats been left in a field for 20 years—then write a thesis on what it might be used for. (and how of course)
i’d be interested to read it.
Sorry, if anything in my book is way more practical to discuss temporary, yet already existing (quasi-/personal cocoon like) BAU extenders as discussed for example recently at Euan’s site, various home scale PV+wind+batt+cogen units then “pie in the sky” satellite proposals..
And if you want something more systemic, I wrote here numerous times about already existing at industrial scale capacity and enlarging Russian project of nuclear breeders,i.e. getting larger “mile” out of existing spent fuel and know-how.
The immediate future simple shapes more like who is gonna fall out of the sloping collapse table next, which particular unfortunate region-society, country, formerly important power-broker-interests etc.
By the way, Ian Cash is an OurFiniteWorld.com reader.
“By the way . . . ”
Some of your readers work on solving the problems you present. Others just shriek about the sky falling.
Class warfare on OFW? I hope not.
It does take all kinds.
I understand the approach Ian Cash is working with would only be a little way off the ground, and would get rid of a lot of the solar intermittency. It would allow maximum use of the solar energy available, in that part of the world.
Ian’s paper includes a proposal for a test article in a balloon. If you were seriously going to tap sunlight 20 km up, the StratoSolar approach would be more efficient. StratoSolar uses wires to get the power down and avoids the conversions losses to and from microwaves. Ian’s balloon is just a development step on the way to power satellites in GEO.
I would like to help save the world Keith …. but I can’t even walk on water or feed thousands with a single loaf…. so I do not feel qualified to solve this far more complex problem of how to keep 7.6 billion people alive (we have a new Germany with us as of the end of 2017 – isn’t that wonderful!)
So I do what I can to try to extend the current system — I burn a little coal here … a little diesel there… a lot of jet fuel from time to time…. I should buy more stuff… but I really don’t like shopping… and I can’t think of anything I really need….
I will leave saving the world to the experts — like yourself Keith.
Perhaps you might take a few moments out of your busy day to tell us how you deal with the pressure that comes with the responsibility of saving us.
Is it heavy?
https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7020/6473506449_6f0f713a1c_b.jpg
We face a predicament – not a problem.
“It is this combination of steerable null, constant aperture and geometry-independent wavefront phase reversal, which supports the formation and steering of a coherent microwave beam, focused and locked to the target rectenna site.”
Great, then we will have a potent weapon floating around up there. Just imagine when some gov (or hacker….not sure what the difference is) gets control and points it at some city.
Keep up the imaginative work Keith. If we can blow no telling how many billions on a stupid space station that is not good for much more than letting elementary school kids do experiments like growing plants in space, then we can certainly try it.
Likewise the shuttle program was a complete waste of money. Unfortunately, all that squandered waste was done in the era of affordable and plentiful oil. NOBODY in the science community wanted the shuttle program. It was glamorous, eye catching, and got NASA huge sums of money to spend….but fundamentally, useless, diverting all that money away from research, and simultaneously delaying science by yrs while making its cost 10x higher.
Speaking of the shuttle program…it is a good comparator in technical complexity and run rate (when proposed). In realization, it never met claims of what it could do, launched probably 1/100 at the rate proposed, cost 100x as much as proposed and so on.
This idea does not work in my estimation due to repairs, reliability, breakdown, failures, etc. not to mention the cost.
Whether or not this works, we have a lot of different people researching all kinds of things. This research is part of what keeps our current economy going. It provides wages and it provides people with a non-religious belief that somehow things can be made better in the future. This is not for everyone, admittedly. But as long as the economy keeps going, we need jobs for people.
Kinda like the solar energy industry…..
https://i.redd.it/rb4zns0lc5601.jpg
North Korea Testing ICBMs Loaded With Anthrax Bio-Agent: Report
http://www.ibtimes.com/north-korea-testing-icbms-loaded-anthrax-bio-agent-report-2630715?utm_content=bufferc07b8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
NK leader continues to increase his odds of a short life…
Hmmm… WMD … where have I heard this story before?
It’s the gift that keeps on giving..Same with 911.
good point…
the government here has been known to make things up…
I can’t post my predictions. System won’t allow it.
just misspell all your words.
:o)
😉
:0)
rats…
:O)
I give up…
😮
:-0
Excellent. However, I believe we have already discussed the no emoji rule on ofw.
“just misspell all your words.”
Whi*ch o-nes? F&*K that.
Maybe tone down the ant-rope-o-genik glowball wurming rhetoric and your predictions might be published!
Feel my power….
Try again later. In the mean time, I’ll try making some predictions for 2018:
1) Weather-related emergencies continue unabated and with more ferocity.
2) USA population continues to coalesce into various factions.
3) More adults leave the ranks of the employed, voluntarily and involuntarily.
4) Partly as a result of 3) fewer Americans attend pro sports. Many take up gardening.
5) A stock market correction occurs.
6) Business continues, but not as usual.
A stock market correction? A correction = collapse! at this point.
I suppose the question is how long does it take for various changes to flow through the economy, in such a way to dislodge the high stock market values. Interest rate changes have an effect, but it is not always immediate. We haven’t tried selling QE securities. Its effect would seem to be similar, in terms of raising interest rates, particularly on longer rate securities.
Oil prices are fairly high now. This is a “plus” in terms of keeping production from collapsing, but the higher prices also present a downward push on the economy.
A lot of what happens is outside the US, but even this can have an effect inside the US.
Our smart, but tricky host said (quite a few days ago now), “But it may not look at all like an oil shock. It may look like a finical (sic) collapse, and an outcome much worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It may look like the election of radical leaders.”
Foul! 20 minute nap for moving the goal line. 🙂
The Tverbergian Type Collapse (copyright pending) is by now very well defined. Fossil fuel prices stay low because wages stay low, and so no one can buy them anymore, so there isn’t enough/any and things shut down. Its a deflationary theory. (In a poorly worded nutshell. You all know what it is.)
If there is a financial collapse, and Ms. Tverberg is given the nobel prize in economics, the price of oil must be low at the time. It’s just fair.
If more radical leaders are elected, that is Peak Idiocracy (copyright by Mac10), not Tverbergian Collapse.
With that straightened out, we can proceed with my predictions for collapse in 2018.
I predict no worldwide collapse in 2018…
if you predict some type of localized collapse, I might agree…
meanwhile, Creeping Collapse will surely continue from here until The End…
because The End Is Near…
no doubt.
1. Japan had no natural resources and energy reserves, it is still the third largest economy in the world; China has very little natural resources, has become the second largest economy in 30 years.
2. People who have wealth and capital, do not only buy shares and bonds but also are opening new restaurants, factories, enterprises which create jobs for those who are seeking jobs. It is socialist propaganda to argue that only working people in spending more in shopping is the only reason for economy to grow. Why socialists do not encourage their workers to save more, so they can also start new businesses to create jobs for their comrades ? Many super rich capitalists in USA were not born rich, some of them were dirty poor when they were born.
3. More efficient energy services and advanced extracting tech can not create more energy, it only help extract the finite energy reserve in a high rate; in the long term, this will only intensify the speed of deletion for global crude oil reserve.
Energy resources are what is important, and China has had an awfully lot of those.
Both China and Japan tend to be very organized, and make good use of what they do have. Both have unified written languages. Their cultures emphasize a long list of traits that are important for success, especially working within the system. Also hard work. These have helped the cultures. These are in a sense religions. When I visited Japan last year, it was clear that young people were being indoctrinated in the Japanese way of doing things. This included field trips to shrines and other religious sites, and lesses on how properly act.
Clearly Chinese children are taught what the expected way to act is, as well, but not in quite as an overtly religious context. We don’t think about these a being state sponsored religions, but they come very close. India, in contrast, is much less disciplined and orderly.
Regarding your point 2, “saving” doesn’t help. It is debt that helps, also sale of shares of stock. The latter acts very much like debt. The economy is led forward by promises of what we will have in the future. But it really needed cheap energy.
Saving is also the way to accumulate capital for a working man, consumption and spending like no tomorrow is a sure way to keep yourself in debt and working for other people in your lifetime. As I said, not all capitalists were born with money, some started as working for others but they saved their earnings as capital for setting up own businesses. That is also why Japan and China rose as economic super powers as saving is the basic DNA of their culture.
If we have energy products, they do indeed lead to some surplus that can be accumulated. The problem is that in most situations, these surpluses are small. If a person is born into a poor family, the chance that that person will be able to afford a good education are low. (Education is also an energy product.) If the parents are wealthy, or the government somehow allows good education for all, then the person is all set. Otherwise, the alternative today seems to be debt, and this often doesn’t work out well.
There was a whole lot of debt involved in Japan’s and China’s ascent to become superpowers. Savings doesn’t go very far.
I know that there is a calculation that says that a whole lot of debt in China (and I imagine in Japan) goes to fund capital structures. This is called high domestic savings rate. But a country can build whatever it wants–roads to nowhere, high-speed trains that are rarely used, apartment buildings that no one can afford. This gives the illusion that the country has a high “savings rate.” It really has a debt rate that is being used for unproductive enterprises.
Energy resources are what is important, and China has had an awfully lot of those.
Most On shore wells in China are dry now, so I do not know what you are talking about here.
Coal has been terribly important to the world economy. It has kept the would economy from collapsing. China has had a huge supply of coal, but this is now depleting.
According to the EIA https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/country.cfm?iso=CHN, China is the world leader in primary energy production. They are the world leader in coal production. They have been producing about 4 Mbd of oil for some time. They look to be coming off plateau now. They are the world’s fourth largest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the US.
Right. I made some of these points in my recent China article. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/11/08/will-china-bring-an-energy-debt-crisis/
People don’t appreciate that without China, the world economy would have collapsed long ago.
Sorry, my memory is bad. In 2016 China was the world’s 4th largest oil producer at over 4.86 Mbd, ahead of Canada 4,6 Mbd, Irak 4.45 Mbd, and Iran 4.2 Mbd https://www.eia.gov/beta/international/. Hover mouse over country to obtain the production.
Gail,
It is a product vs. process thing. The Japanese culture emphasizes highly disciplined well defined processes and conformance to it. Given a design of a product the Japanese will produce a very high quality product cheaply because they will come up with a process to do so.
However, Japanese are not as good at coming up new and innovative products as others. Also, the conformance mindset makes it very hard to produce novel new ideas.
Indian culture traditionally emphasizes spirituality (lifelong quest for search for truth and enlightenment and reaching the absolute truth).
Middle-eastern (Islamic) culture has a very difficult time establishing obedience to authority and following a strict hierarchy. Islam is very suspicious of authority (Church or State) and emphasizes that a believer has a direct connection to god. All authority is to be constantly questioned.
Mansoor
Gail,
Per your comment: ” It is debt that help”. Simply printing currency (a form of debt with zero interest and no fixed maturity) and distributing it can also help. George W. Bush distributed $600 per U.S. resident in 2008 (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/13/bush.stimulus/).
Mansoor
I agree. The important part is getting the “income” in the hands of ordinary people, who can use it to buy goods and services. Adding a lot of debt, but only for the benefit of the 1%, does a whole lot less.
I agree as well. If somehow money can get into the hands of the lower and middle income families that need it, it could buy us all a bit more time. IMO this is about the only card left to play that has any chance of prolonging industrial civilization. Got to get wages of the lower and middle income sector up so they can consume.
You make some interesting observations.
I would agree with you that Japanese are not good at innovation. But they do excel at producing high-quality products cheaply, and their disciplined culture helps them.
I hadn’t thought of “Indian culture traditionally emphasizes spirituality (lifelong quest for search for truth and enlightenment and reaching the absolute truth).” Indians do not have the same characteristics as are helpful in the Japanese and Chinese. I understand it is hard to get teachers who are in class a high percentage of time. Children tend not to be well-behaved in school. These people do adequately well on recycling and other low skill industries, but they cannot pull the world forward.
You say,
“Middle-eastern (Islamic) culture has a very difficult time establishing obedience to authority and following a strict hierarchy. Islam is very suspicious of authority (Church or State) and emphasizes that a believer has a direct connection to god. All authority is to be constantly questioned.”
I think you are probably right. There is some of this characteristic in some Christian religions as well. It is hard to run businesses when workers are suspicious of authority.
Catholic and Episcopal churches emphasize the top down authority. There are a lot of Baptist and non-denominational churches that operate pretty much on their own. If someone comes up with a new interpretation of some Bible verse, it is possible that a new congregation will break off, with the new teaching.
Mansoor H. Khan: Islamic culture has a very difficult time establishing obedience to authority…………believer has a direct connection to god.
Exactly.
The Jews and the Christians poised and divided Islamic culture, because Judaism and Christianity are authoritarian structures.
However, the first Catholics were not authoritarians. But, once the Rome embraced Catholicism on the fourth century, Catholics became the religion of the oppressors as well.
Yes. Islam teaches that early Christians were much closer to pure monotheism!
The hard part is how to work like a Japanese (flawless execution = left brain orientation) but think like an American (have a pioneering spirit – right brain/left brain balance) and know the proper goal of a life like an Indian (spiritual achievement – right brain orientation).
Mansoor
“Japan had no natural resources and energy reserves, it is still the third largest economy in the world; China has very little natural resources, has become the second largest economy in 30 years.”
It is precisely Japan’s lack of natural resources that lead to war with the USA. After the war they were an ally and a puppet of the USA, which had plenty of resources.
China does in fact have plenty of resources. It is the largest producer of coal for example.
As a life time natural resources trader, I must say you have very little knowledge about natural resources in China.
Well Japan after WWII was essentially redirect all of its resources away from their military into the productive portion of their economy. This helped Japan a lot as the US began diverting more and more resources to its military. This gave the Japanese a huge export advantage over the US as they had very low military expenditure.
China has a lot of resources. They have a LOT of coal. They burned a LOT of coal. And they have all of the largest rare earth mines at the moment.
1. The size and health of an economy are two different things. Living in Japan is very expensive and there aren’t that many well-paying jobs. Replicating Japan’s success in the 1970s and 1980s has been very difficult for most Asian countries that are similar to Japan, culturally –and impossible for everyone else.
China has natural resources.
2.) People with low wages can’t save enough to start a business, which is why many businesses are started by people with capital or decent wages. People with capital or decent wages are not starting enough businesses to keep most people employed. The vast majority of jobs they do create are low paying or the redistribute wealth to the wealthy (finance, education, healthcare)
” Many super rich capitalists in USA were not born rich, some of them were dirty poor when they were born. ” And many more people who are rich, started off being very well off. There are very few stories of wealthy people becoming low wage retail workers because they could not compete with poor people with good work ethics.
japan fits my universal law of nations:
https://medium.com/@End_of_More/universal-law-16d41003fe2
japan tried stealing energy from elsewhere—when that didnt work they bought it through the inherent skill of their workforce. (and post war US aid of course.
but now that workforce is ageing rapidly, soon they will be forced to borrow , then beg for it.
when that is no longer possible they will sink back to the level of development that can be supported by their own environment.
This will happen to all developed nations, during the next 30/40 years (at most)
They used a lot of debt (perhaps some of this was post-war aid) to ramp up their output, back when energy prices were low. They also adopted nuclear, back when people thought that limited safety features would be OK, and keep costs down.
Now, Japan’s own demand is not rising, in part because the working age population is shrinking. The government has thought of lots of make-work jobs, and funded them with debt. If Japan shrinks back to the level of development its population can really support, I expect this will be a big fall. Japan used to have high standards. Now we keep hearing about scandals in major companies, of products that don’t really meet specifications. It is hard to compete in a world marketplace in such a situation.
Henry Makow has a wonderful piece on WW1 and Christmas:
Alfred Anderson of the British Expeditionary Force was just 18 years old and was at the front on Christmas Eve 1914, when the unthinkable happened. German and British soldiers began to sing Christmas carols while hunkered down in their respective trenches. Soon a truce between the combatants was established, and men who were enemies a few hours before began to greet one another and exchange gifts.
In other areas along the front, German troops set up small trees on the parapet of their trenches, decorated them with lit candles, and began singing carols. Soon many British troops along the front in this area began to sing along. British and French troops began to see Germans posting signs saying, “YOU NO FIGHT; WE NO FIGHT.”
Some British units improvised ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ banners and waited for a response. In a short period of time, what the governments of the combatants could not do, pockets of German, French, and British troops arranged a spontaneous truce, and soldiers left their trenches.
https://www.henrymakow.com/2017/12/1914%20Christmas-Truce-Contains-a-Lesson.html
Politics, religion or bankers which is it going to be?
Must remember His words:
“Be faithful even unto death and I will give you the Crown of Eternal Life.”
Imagine, Jesus, a two-thousand-year-old 33-year-old. Amazing!
Merry Christmas
There’s overwhelming evidence that the U.S. stock market is heading for disaster
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/theres-overwhelming-evidence-that-the-us-stock-market-is-heading-for-disaster-2017-12-05?link=sfmw_tw
good thing I don’t own any stocks…
Kind of doubtful with the ongoing global CBs floor support, unless it is meant as some temporary ~35% downswing and hysterical reactions (end of the world tomorrow) to it..
Normally I would agree that the stock market is primed for collapse. But, these are not normal times. Bitcoin is about as virtual as it gets these days and it is soaring. Irrationality abounds everywhere you look. Everything is so skewed and out of whack with respect to normals that it is hard to see our situation as BAU.
The stock market should have collapsed in a heap of rubble years ago —- but the CBs have not allowed that — and they will continue to support the markets until they push on a string.
There is no precedent for what we are seeing.
It is like stacking cases of TNT inside a building that is on fire. (TINA)
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/what-christmas-means/
Happy Holidays
Unlike Master Fast and his sycophant army, I really wish BAU would end. The incredible immorality rife in this global society makes me nauseous every day. No, I don’t think everyone will die because of the end of this sick society. Many, perhaps millions will continue.
and you have no immorality of your own?
Unlike Master Fast and his sycophant army….
I may form a band… Master Fast and the Sycophants…
why not spell it Psychophants?
catchy!
no charge…
You know how people of substantial wealth are so often (but not always)…. obsessed with wealth… so pleased with themselves…. are so protective of their wealth …they conspire to avoid taxes by hiding their wealth…. they count every single penny even when they have many millions of dollars… they compare their wealth to others … and spend their days monitoring their nett worth …. they believe they are precious…. better than everyone else…
Surely we all encounter people like this ….
Whenever I do…and it is fairly often…
It gives me great comfort to think that such people … are soon going to be overwhelmed with a tidal wave of despair and suffering …
Such thoughts make the end of BAU… palatable… to a certain extent enjoyable… it will be the great leveler…. everyone dines on rat…. and they will find out they are not so precious after all.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6d/b3/b9/6db3b93210de140175211a0ff5cd1543.jpg
good thing I don’t have substantial wealth…
It’s never to late to radicalize yourself.
You should join a terrorist organization and help speed up the collapse of BAU.
Don’t be afraid of a little mass-murder.
When needs are replaced with desires, which is basically what this modern society has done for those of us in rich countries, life starts to become pointless. Like, you can literallly see mental illness increasing right up there with the number of people in cubicles trying to make sense of it all. There is no making sense of things anymore.
My sister has a dog and they are part of a search and rescue volunteer group, originally created for tracking people that are lost in the mountains and such.
She has told me that nowadays 7 out of 10 missions was to track down suicidal people or people with dementia.
“America is in terminal decline. It is enveloped by radical evil. Its corporate systems of power and empire exploit and kill with impunity. Its perverted values champion cruelty, mendacity and greed. It bows before the idols of money and power. It is severed from the human. It, like Herod and the Roman Empire, damns the infant Jesus. There is nothing easy about faith. It demands we smash the idols that enslave us. It demands we die to the world. It demands self-sacrifice. It demands resistance. It calls us to see ourselves in the wretched of the earth. It separates us from all that is familiar. It knows that once we feel the suffering of others, we will act.”
Closing paragraph of the article….very true!
Dear Reader,
Here are five peer reviewed scientific studies authored by top experts that conclude you will be dead by no later than 2030
NASA Study: Industrial Civilization is Headed for Irreversible Collapse (Motesharrei, 2014)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615
The Royal Society: Study, Now for the First Time A Global Collapse Appears Likely (Ehrlich, 2013)
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845
Study: Limits to Growth was Right. Research Shows We’re Nearing Global Collapse (Turner, 2014)
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
Study: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: in Global Systemic Collapse (Korowicz, 2012)
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
German Military (leaked) Peak Oil study concludes: oil is used in the production of 95% of all industrial goods, so a shortage of oil would collapse the world economy & world governments
https://www.permaculture.org.au/files/Peak%20Oil_Study%20EN.pdf
Now i have become death the destroyer of worlds!
I am not sure that the authors of these studies would all conclude,”You all will be dead by 2030.” In fact, you may be correct with this conclusion. But I don’t think early authors equated collapse with, “You all will be dead by 2030.” There are a lot of things we don’t know for certain–exactly how the collapse will play out, and whether there will be some survivors. Or if there will be some different ending altogether, for example, of a religious sort.
For example, the original Limits to Growth model cannot be expected to be right, after limits hit. There is a curve that is modeled, but the original modelers did not think it was very instructive regarding what would actually happen, after supplies begin turning down. (In fact, The shape of curve used in the original study did not conclude, “You all will be dead by 2030.” So it is hard to see how Turner in his 2014 study would come to the conclusion, “You all will be dead by 2030.”
Let’s refine…
You will all be dead by 2030 — or suffering so horribly — that you will wish you were dead.
That is absolutely guaranteed.
what is the definition of “absolutely guaranteed” in NZ?
here in the USA, it must be different…
Well put, Ms Tverberg. There is a strong tendency to really think that the end of this civilization will necessarily mean extinction. That thinking is absolutist and absurd.
My tribe may not make it, but we are basically ready and we will fight to survive.
“Dear Reader,
Here are five peer reviewed scientific studies authored by top experts that conclude you will be dead by no later than 2030.”
sounds good to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
er…
as long as it’s fairly close to 2030…
Merry BAU Christmas!
Keep in mind this doesn’t mean everything will be fine and dandy until new years eve 2029..All hell is going to break lose much, much sooner.
I predict 2018 will indeed be fine and dandy…
and I’ll repeat…
humans discount the future…
right now, I have 2019 and beyond discounted to zero…
Christmas 2017… BAU tonight, baby!
🙂
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/69/1b/ce/691bce2df941ecedc49d9241c291ddf7.jpg
The stagnation of conventional oil production around 2005 and the rise of non-conventional oil as a response to that material reality has created a Gordian knot of macro-economic and geo-political problems, the fallout of which pose a fundamental challenge to the assumption of progress embedded in western expectations of democracy.
Thompson, Helen. Oil and the Western Economic Crisis
Springer International Publishing
Reviewed on Resilience but not Amazon. http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-12-05/when-boom-is-bust/
I see that the author is a Cambridge University Economist. The book sounds like it covers at least some things I have covered.
Yes I think you would really enjoy the book. If you go to amazon you can read the opening chapter…She basically says that economics pretty much ignores energy and the role that oil plays. And that their is very little written about them and how they interconnect…I just started reading it today I’ll let you know if she quotes any of your work
Re: Apple collapse in sales…
I have been wondering where so many people were getting $1000 for new phones….
I am wondering no longer.
$1000 to be a beta-tester for technology that changes a little bit too much. Who wants facial recognition software? Or the loss of the start button?
It’s all about the batteries, baby.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-25/chinese-stocks-spooked-apple-iphone-x-forecast-cut-nikkei-boosted-boj-hopes#comment-10898307
” If Apple has to degrade iphone performance some 60% in older models due to battery voltage “spike” issues in colder climates, just exactly what does this portend for your new shiny Tesla which runs on nothing more than a big ass group of iphone batteries? Top speed 45mph with a 30 mile range in a couple of years. S—, your f—-ing golf cart will do better than that. ”
More on Apple degrading the performance of its phone to prolong battery life is in the link below.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/12/20/apple-iphone-kill-switch-ios-degrade-cripple-performance-battery/#75936af616a8
The biggest Asian losers were Apple suppliers after the Taipei-based Economic Daily News reported that Apple has cut its sales forecast for the iPhone X by 40% from 50 million in Q1 to only 30 million.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-25/chinese-stocks-spooked-apple-iphone-x-forecast-cut-nikkei-boosted-boj-hopes
http://images.bwog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/shutterstock_96022541.jpg
you know…
even if BAU continues until the year 2100…
we all will have entered the nothingness of eternal death…
so…
you know…
what’s the big deal?
Merry BAU Christmas!
Predictions for 2018
no one rebuilds
Saudi Arabia is in civil war but U.S. military protects oil assets
expensive procedures phased out of Medicare
inflation continues at 5% with wage growth continuing at 2%
U.S. starts new war but not in N.K.
Chinese growth slows, Russia stays even
AI carries on conversation at the level of a three year old, this will be a remarkable advance
Elon plans launch of BFR in 2019
Many outer ring nations see high starvation rates, virtually nobody in first world cares
Shale oil production flat
1. My garbage collection increased 4+%, a point estimate, but an increase
2. Medicare may be a good prediction. I live in Rochester, MN with the world’s best healthcare by a system that truly does its best to put the interests of the patient first. Please ignore the obvious contradictions that creep into any human system. Listening to friends who are MD’s on the cutting edge and observing some outcomes, while some of these procedures are wonderful and increase length of life, there are frequently quality of life issues. The issue is how to separate those with marginal results from those with truly miraculous results and they do have incredible, positive outcomes that are life enhancing. I am in my early seventies and do not expect to receive life extending procedures much past 75, so I dance.
3. AI is a remarkable field, for those interested, “The Master Algorithm” is a well written book synthesizing the various approaches to AI.
4. Elon is a mystery: Could he be financed in the hope that something he does will work? FE’s observations regarding cobalt are probably correct, but do people have to experience some results to believe them and thus change their actions accordingly?
5. No one rebuilds: It would be interesting to take a Caribbean cruise and stop in PR or the Virgin Islands and compare today to several years ago. At dance lessons in the cities a woman with a home FL stated rents are high, availability is low due to people migrating from the Caribbean. The main landlord issue is squatters rights and eviction when the rent is not paid.
Dennis L.
here another kumbaya talk about that solar power will be free in 15 years
https://youtu.be/ZoO-ogBeX4Y
btw another gems in this video that in some years dumb phone
will have power equal of brain
You can say almost anything you want in a recorded talk.
The title is off a bit. Should say that energy will be free in 15 years. Guaranteed! Walk outside and bask in the sun!
Not trendy enough. There are enough women who believe in the solar kumbaya that one can be used as a spokesman for the movement. I don’t know why they haven’t made the spokesperson or whatever a lesbian victim of sexual harassment.
I think men is more into technofixes. Women are more plain vanilla ignorant 😉
I wouldn’t say ignorant, but they are usually more interested in the here and now, describing what’s going on today.
Men, for some reason, have more of a need to ponder about both the past and the future. Where did we come from? Where are we going and how do we get there? Solving problems, fixing stuff.
Last night at Christmas mass I was reminded that Christianity has been around for 2100 years and for us in the west is the basis for Western Civilization which judging by migration patterns has not been a total failure. Charles Hugh Smith has a nice essay out today on Zero Hedge which is hopeful as well. The ideas of the secular humanists seem to have failed on a large scale as in the former Soviet Union and on a smaller scale in the inner cities such as Baltimore and such failures to an amateur historian/psychology seem to be literally driving these seculars nuts with rage.
Humanity seems to be self organizing, trying one idea after another, discarding those which fail and keeping those which work and giving a degree of hope and well being in the process.
We are going to be okay, things will go on, doom is not healthy and the challenges will make us strong and overcoming them for me gives a sense of peace. However the divine is expressed, it is going as it is supposed to go and raging over the apparent actions of others with which one does not agree seems harmful to one’s spirit.
Merry Christmas to all,
Dennis L.
“Last night at Christmas mass I was reminded that Christianity has been around for 2100 years ”
Yes. Unfortunately, thanks to christianity, modern humans still believe in angels, devils, immortality, hellfire etc + all kinds of other unrelentingly nutso religious mythology from 3000y ago. And then the same folks that believe the above are convinced that climate science is a scam.
“The ideas of the secular humanists seem to have failed on a large scale as in the former Soviet Union and on a smaller scale in the inner cities such as Baltimore and such failures to an amateur historian/psychology seem to be literally driving these seculars nuts with rage.”
How can you possibly blame inner city crime in Baltimore on secular humanist ideas? Russia was never a humanist state. This sounds like rightwing Republican confused thinking.
“We are going to be okay, things will go on, doom is not healthy and the challenges will make us strong and overcoming them for me gives a sense of peace.”
How do you know everything will be OK? Is Donald Trump an omen for better times ahead? Are global CO2 levels dropping? Has the US renounced deficit financing? Has the US renounced endless warfare? Have we found the secret to atomic fusion?
If we had jobs that pay well for the citizens of Baltimore, we would have a lot less crime.
I personally get sick of people who keep bringing up climate change as if there were something we could do about it. Perhaps we can build sea walls and more a little farther north. I see this as a kind of modern cult.
Unfortunately, thanks to christianity, modern humans still believe in angels, devils, immortality, hellfire etc + all kinds of other unrelentingly nutso religious mythology from 3000y ago. And then the same folks that believe the above are convinced that kkkklimate science is a scam.
News to me….
If you think Christians are in the global warming crowd you’ve just adequately demonstrated that you don’t know anything about your audience.
There are many varieties of Christians. The Liberal side is very much the “global warming, protect our environment group.” The Conservative group is very much the opposite. The group currently in power is clearly not liberal Christians.
Ignorant fundamentals using Christianity as a tool. Trump to a T. And yes, there are around 30,000 variations of Christianity. Most don’t understand global warming anyhow though.
Religions have been a nice way to pass useful rules to live by from generation to generation. From (my) lutherian christian perspective, it also creates events to socialize, where we dress in a proper manner, act in a proper manner etc. I think this has been a good way to keep communities together, increasing cooperation and “decency”.
I think people will return to the old religions when they discover that there are no hope in EVs and space travel.
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich
– Napoleon
The meeks shall be rewarded — never
true…
JMG has made this kind of point also… (keep in mind that he thinks the decline of IC will happen in a stair step way…) that religion will grow as IC shrinks.
Christianity in western Europe is estimated at 4%… this is where the USA, now at about 20%, is headed if BAU can hold on for another decade or two.
eventually, with or without The Collapse, the knowledge that shows how all religions are in fact man-made will mostly disappear, while the adherents of many religions will retain copies of their scriptures which to them show proof of the validity of their religion.
so, in the coming centuries, humanity will surely return to a sort of dark ages where religions once again rule.
not a world where I would want to live, but fortunately, I won’t be around.
Merry BAU Christmas!
knowledge that religions are all man-made is contained in:
astrophysics, geology, paleontology, biology, anthropology, and genetics…
when (or if) IC collapses, most of this knowledge could be lost.
How much do you actually know about those fields you mentioned? I’m guessing close to nothing. And yet you believe that religions are manmade.
Simple logic and observation can show people that religion is manmade. Even religious people understand that religion is manmade. The problem lies not in believing that religions aren’t manmade, but in the desires or motivations that cause them to be made.
Collapse survivors can have a secular type society with no supernaturalism whatsoever, but they will still be irrational and violent. Most atheists (excluding me of course) have no clue why they disbelieve in God, let alone why it is impossible for him to exist. They just follow the herd.
Dogs and cats and other animals do no have religion….
Therefore it MUST be man-made
But we do that a very large cross-section of people around the world, over the ages, have had religion. Perhaps there is something going on.
The wheel was also invented in more than one place….
Jung had the idea(please note, I am not a psychological scholar) that there were certain archetypes basic to the human mind(again, pleas forgive if I am making a terrible mess of these ideas) which is not inconsistent with Joseph Campbell’s work. Much of what we and other living things do seems to be hardwired into the genes through eons of evolution, trial and error. Religion and the need for it could be one of those ideas, pure competition for turf seems to be hard way to make a buck which seems self evident from some areas of the inner city and maybe even attempts of world domination which regularly fall short. Trust, mutual and self respect appear to be necessary not only for a civilization but survival as well. Perhaps it is a bit of hubris to think we invent religion, perhaps it is necessary for genes to be passed on and failure to have a religion results in failure to pass on the genes. Would a very successful religion result in superior propagation of the genes and domination of environmental niches? I leave it to the reader to explore how Western Civilization has fared in this regard.
Dennis L.
apart from the odd bolt of lightning inferring god’s displeasure–good things come out of the sky
and bad things come out of the earth—volcanoes, earthquakes etc etc
in the mind of primitive man, looking for ”reasons” for everything
it is easy to see where to concept of heaven and hell arose, and got hardwired into our mental processes
We need to have a story with a happy ending. The recent one that is being passed around is that we can be free from environmental sin if we conserve on energy use. If we all conserve enough, oil will last indefinitely, and climate change will disappear as a problem. Or perhaps we need to convert everything to electric, using intermittent electricity.
We live in a self-organized world. The fact that there are a lot of similarities among religions make it seem as if one of the purposes of religions is to act as a way of passing on a list of “best practices” for living in the world today. Clearly, this list will change over time, depending on the energy availability of society, among other things. If a people is in danger of dying out, then encouraging women to have children is very important, for example. This changes over time.
the mythical three-storied universe.
Religions are self-organized, just as our financial system is self-organized. They serve a need. They are created by the energy flows that allow our economy to exist. In fact, these energy flows allow us as humans to exist.
The fact that religions are different around the world may very well be part of an overall plan. A person sees amazing similarities, but also differences.
We have all kinds of new religions too: For example, our new enemy is climate change; if we eliminate our environmental sin, we can fix this problem. It is clearly non-sense, but it is popular today. Another religion is, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”
“How much do you actually know about those fields you mentioned? I’m guessing close to nothing. And yet you believe that religions are manmade.”
these fields all cohere in their view of Reality…
the big picture:
universe is 13.7 billion years old, Earth is 5 billion years old…
life existing here for 2 or 3 billion years…
evolving for 2 or 3 billion years…
in the future beyond The Collapse, all of those facts may become mythical…
an uneducated world population will have no sources to dispute that those facts are the Reality and not myth…
and the religious authorities will of course teach that those facts are myth and their scriptures are Reality.
Some religions teach that the scriptures should not be viewed as literally true. These scriptures include a lot of myths that we can, at times, learn from. The creation myth is one of these myths. In fact, there are a couple of creation myths in Genesis. Even stories that seem to be true (with familiar characters) may be exaggerated for effect. For example, the walls of Jericho fell down long before Joshua marched around them.
“these fields all cohere in their view of Reality…”
If you think so, you’ve proved my point. Do you seriously believe that the estimated age of the earth or universe is a view of ‘reality’? Science doesn’t have a view of reality. It’s job is to tentatively describe that which is assumed to be real, viz the empirical world.
If old religions make a comeback, it won’t be due to the lack of an ‘amazing science facts!’-informed view of reality. I don’t think they’ll be back. The poor bastards who survive BAU will be stuck with atheists who will make them recite amazing science facts 5 times a day or filthy hippies who will tax them to pay for their compulsory rainbow rhythm classes.
New research shows that life has existed on Earth for at least 3.5 Billion years now. Diverse life too, methane producers, methane eaters, etc…
I would say “self-organized,” not “man-made.” Religions gradually develop over time. Many people add to them, and reinterpret them, based on what they personally have experienced. They are a way of handing down wisdom, as different people over time interpret what is important. Religions don’t have to be the same. But people do have to have a common set of beliefs. That is why we have political parties coming up with their own new “religions.”
Nice, very nice.
Another religion is, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” With this I would dogmatically disagree and would attribute it to someone attempting to move as much stuff through the world as possible for the skim(read profit). More is not better, it is just more.
The greatest wealth of all is health and intelligence. Used wisely these two can give happiness under what some would consider very unfortunate circumstances; I have seen it done and was grateful to learn from and know those who did it so well. Basically, they won the human lottery and rolled with the punches of life and were a joy to themselves and those around them.
Dennis L.
Was Pol Pot religious?
I would agree, also coming from a Lutheran perspective.
A lot of young people seem to leave the church. I wonder if they think that God has forsaken them. Also, “Dressing in a propper manner” is barely possible for young people who are barely making an adequate living.
It used to be that young people would leave the church after high school, but would come back when the got married and had kids. Now they aren’t getting married, and they aren’t having kids. So young people seem to be lacking in churches.
“However the divine is expressed, it is going as it is supposed to go and raging over the apparent actions of others with which one does not agree seems harmful to one’s spirit. ”
Too much of anything, even righteous indignation or rage as you put, harms the spirit. Christ could have learnt a thing or two from the Christians of today, who have since the beginning of the industrial era refined their contempt for all the unpleasant and unchristian extremists that surround them with a courageous moderation unprecedented in history. Foolish old Kierkegaard at the cusp of the industrial era, not being blessed with prescience enough to understand that development as the foretoken of the glorious *post* industrial Christian resurgence that it was, had this to say about it:
“Think of a very long railway train – but long ago the locomotive ran away from it. Christendom is like this. Generation after generation has imperturbably continued to link the enormous train of the new generation to the previous one, solemnly saying: We will hold fast to the faith of the fathers. Thus Christendom has become the very opposite of what Christianity is. Christianity is restlessness, the restlessness of the eternal. Any comparison here is flat and tedious – to such a degree that the restlessness of the eternal is restless. Christendom is tranquillity. How charming, the tranquillity of literally not moving.”
Well put Dennis.
There are mysteries we know nothing of in this universe. Sometimes we attach the divine to them. They are not for us to ever know or understand.
Like what mysteries do we not know Jesse?
Try….the true nature of the universe.
How….the complexity of a cell with millions of interdependent processes came about.
Try…what is known universe.
Try…how our intelligence works.
we have push it to the limit of bau till the last drop
or we 7.6 billion rats die
https://youtu.be/vT8OU5WtfkQ
merry Christmas
Not much time left.
BAU or no BAU
Merry BAU Christmas!
today was good day courtesy of bau
https://youtu.be/8CPlF-IEkXQ
merry Christmas
Yes, Merry Christmas!
GROWTH
No one here believes that growth the way we have it now is survivable. It’s also clear that down growing isn’t feasible. It’s a case where we have been prodded through capitalism to a precipice where many among the throng have started falling in. But a significant portion, exemplified by readers here, can see clearly that going forward with the cattle is fatal.
But, as with cattle, turning back means you get trampled by the throng of these to the rear earnestly charging in your direction. You can’t go forward and you can’t go backward. The logical thing is to freeze the action so that everybody stays precisely where they are, not moving an inch.
So how is that growth? Staying in one place requires great energy, since it equivalates to the energy that is embodied in building a dyke, and the physics involved in the function of the dyke. And let’s say we are at zero in terms of building this system whereby everything can be frozen in place, there is an enormous amount of energetic work ahead to create this system of stasis and keep it going against pressures for unaffordable movement (that has traditionally been seen as natural and inevitable). Think developers.
But if developers knew what was good for them, they’d turn their attention to building the system–a huge growth project–to keep everything exactly where it is. A Christmas Present.
Very interesting thoughts. It seems like we are at this point now. We can’t grow and we can’t de-grow. The only growth area now seems to be stocks and other casino games, kind of balancing out the lack of growth in other sectors. Will be intrigueing to see what happens when the markets crash!
I understand the need for growth as it relates to loans that require growth in the future to pay them off and offer more loans, but I don’t buy that there’s not a way down. It just means lots of defaults on loans and then lots of difficulty qualifying for a loan. It means lots of people with a lot less and a small % with a whole lot. I think we already are in contraction and the govt. numbers on growth are bogus. How can retail be tanking by way of Amazon and the overall economy not be contracting? How can regular people be barely getting by if there isn’t contraction? Just because the govt. is adept at falsifying numbers, doesn’t mean we have to blindly accept their accuracy. It’s incredibly easy to fudge numbers. The method for determining GDP has been altered something like 35 times and each time it was done it was to the advantage of increasing GDP. Is GDP adjusted for inflation? No, and if that’s 2% then shouldn’t it be reduced by that much? Is it? No. It’s all a game to keep us running like the red queen. In place, going no where, but trying hard while the game gets harder as the chasm between the have’s and have not’s gets wider.
Is it not possible GDP is growing because it really is, but we are mostly replacing broken windows so we experience it as barely getting by?
++++++++++
money has no value
only energy can give value to money
if a nation is in energy deficit, then its money is in deficit no matter how may loans are given
Growth is needed for a lot more than repaying loans with interest. It is needed so to help offset persistent diminishing returns, for all kinds on resources, including energy resources. It is needed so companies can have an incentive to take the steps necessary to produce the products we need, including energy supply.
Unwinding the debt would mean the financial system would collapse. The lack of return, by itself, would make the system collapse. We have to have an increasing supply of cheap energy to keep the system going. We would be in a much worse state than the Great Depression of the 1930s. Falling prices would be one major symptom.
The gov is good at fudge.
You can run this vid sound only.
What is Growth?
I’m sure I can’t answer the question. For one thing, an answer would have to be based on hyper complex human ideas and human psychology. So I mostly ask questions.
As has been implied here, the closest humans have come to rational behavior is during hunter gathering eras. The issue there seemed always how to survive in a given environment. In some cases, populations were managed through infanticide. And since such bands had very sophisticated knowledge of plants, and no use for excess humans that would slow them down, herbal means of birth control were likely to have been used.
Science might still not have the last word on how the first humans multiplied and spread out over vast areas of land. It’s not hard to imagine that scarcity in some areas, and difficult environments, as well as irrational leaders, led to the need for agriculture and ever increasing complexity. I don’t see why that condemns all hunter gatherers, (a few of whom are still around) as being innately irrational and prone to gobbling up their environments. If this is expected and unavoidable human behavior, how come it didn’t affect certain groups of hunter gatherers?
I gather that irrational human behavior and beliefs, and not something inherent in human genes, got us to a “bottleneck”. This could be a moment to rediscover rational behavior: What are the best set of behaviors to avert certain extermination of complex life? Ensuring that a network of complex systems don’t crash at the wrong times–just because society was in a hypnotic trance that obviated systematic and rational thought–can a new set of behaviors be proposed that are our best assessment of rationality, and oppose that to the one that has clearly failed?
Growth in the system that has obviously failed night not be avoidable in early stages. But if we figure out a more promising path forward, wouldn’t it need immense work to build as an alternative to the one that has failed? And whereas fossil fuels are used in some very irrational ways–that work like sawing off the limb you’re sitting on–can’t fossil fuels be used more rationally? For instance, isn’t it suggested that societies on the peripheries be “let go?” If it’s OK to let them go, why go interfering with “backward” groups that are able to survive in their backwardness? What is the point of taking their land and driving them into overcrowded cities where they’ll make more demands on the system? For the sake of growth? We’ve already let some struggling places go, and then now we’re going to create more struggling places? What about creating the growth of systems that make more sense?
Hunter gatherers still had difficulties killing off the top predators and burning down forests. Also, population of some groups tended to rise, putting pressure on resources. If population really had stayed very low, we could have gotten along without farming.
I don’t see other ways of using fossil fuels. We need today’s industrialization to get out the fossil fuels. Even with this, they are not really cheap enough to meet our needs.
as we have currently developed our living arrangements, employment in factories and so on—we cannot make anything commercial viable without heat input
it is that input that sustains our employment–thus wages and ”growth”.
but our fundamental drive force is the propagation of our own species, so we have as many offsprings as nature allows.
so as we have more kids, more ”growth” is necessary to sustain them.—they in turn do the same and so on.
this worked fine for 000s of years until we figured out how to override nature’s emergency stop—basically disease–
so now pop growth is exponential, we can’t cull our own kids, and neighbours dont look kindly on culling theirs so we have to consume/burn more to support them
when pop growth finally exceeds fuelburning in the absolute sense, growth will cease and culling will begin in earnest
The San are still in SA, holding on to the northern part of their land…miraculously!. They have been there, basically, since the emergence of the modern human. Australian aborigines are nominally still around, and have been in one place for 50,000 years. If HG’s (for whatever mix of reasons) were widely distributed around the world, it’s easy to see how, over eons, accidents, bad rulers, ecological disasters could have produced unmanageable scarcity that led to agriculture. I’m not seeing a persuasive argument that would convince the average person otherwise. .
The other ways of using fossil fuels are to use them with coherent planning in mind. Will try to say more soon.
China needs Detroit-style bankruptcy as debt problems remain: central bank official
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-debt/china-needs-detroit-style-bankruptcy-as-debt-problems-remain-central-bank-official-idUSKBN1EJ065?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5a407a1a04d3014bdf5b4346&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
Good luck on this!
I don’t think the Chinese will pull a finger out of the dyke…. all it takes is one hole….
http://dragonflycap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Fingers-in-a-dyke.jpg
Hollywood and moviegoing has its worst year in 22 years
http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-box-office-challenges-20171223-story.html
The hollywood movies are crap these days. And in every movie I get bombarded with PC propaganda. Let’s see…the list is long. Inter-racial couples, typically a white woman/black man combo, gay or lesbian couples, PC this PC that. That is why I no longer pay for movies.
They are very poorly made these days which is why most rely on CGI effects…total garbage.
I bet your the life of the party in real life! Geez!
I am surprised if I see an ad for something with a not interracial couple.
A Merry Interracial Christmas?
To long didn’t watch.
Should I?
I don’t mind interracial couples. Not even in add or movies.
But after a while I realized most ads and government information had interracial couples.
Now I see that ALL have it.
And take offense at the bad brainwashing attempt.
Should you watch? Don’t know. You probably wouldn’t learn anything you don’t know already.
I don’t mind interracial couples either (I am part of one), but I would like it if they were portrayed in the same proportion as their actual occurrence in society. The fact they are grossly over represented in the media makes me less accepting of diversity and not more. As you say, bad brainwashing attempt.
Reminds a person of climate change.
When an issue is repeated endlessly in the MSM….. always think of this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/12/6a/9d/126a9d36d4317ef4313de2d63fa2bb13.jpg
It is good to remember who said that. We all have to have something to believe. This is why the world today is filled with all the wrong stories about what will save us.
Just for the record, I don’t have anything against true love, interracial or otherwise. Whatever floats your boat. I played on one of the first racially mixed football teams in my city when the entire city was still segregated. It was called the Baby Oilers, coached by professional football players. I rode to games with a African american family of one of my co-players…Moses, who at that time lived on the other side of the tracks. My father taught us to respect all. We did. I have seen interracial hatred but I have never practiced it.
But I am tired of all the constant propaganda brainwashing.
PC everything…far beyond its actual proportion in our society
Christianity cannot be mentioned.
Our wars are good wars.
White men are the stupid ones in all commercials.
All alternative lifestyles are good and brave.
It is bad to be white, therefore no movies or commercials can have all white people…well ok, but keep it at a proportional level.
I know we stole this place from the Indians so I have no problem with the reality that Mexicans may reclaim part of this one day, or that other cultures will live here. If they replace anglos due to birth rate, well that is the way of the world. It is up to races ad cultures to propagate themselves. That is the way of the world. I am a temporary land owner and user.
But the fact is we face an intentional culture war…yes we are at war.
Crazy world isn’t it.
Interracial couples are over-represented in the media. In large metropolitan urban areas, most people date within their own race, unless–unless– they are well educated and affluent…It is well educated and affluent people in advertising and film that are promoting images of interracial couples.
still the big short was good film produced by Hollywood in recent times
as was good night and good luck—a perfect backup to the big short
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433383/
Jesse don’t forget the music video of the song of the year…
The first thing that strikes me by the sound is that is trying to be non-white (tropical, to be exact) in order to appeal to a wider audience . It’s still shitty pop music but I THINK I understand the marketing behind it. The demographic of women this was made for probably want an exotic, multicultural experience while consuming pop music.
Thanks, I didn’t know of it. But mo power to true luv.
I do not put up with that PC cxap even at work thankfully we have fired the snowflakes I think it is a mental disease even when told to stop they just cant help it.
Our largest client is the US gov. They even made fun of trump in front of the client.
My wife and I stopped going to movies about 3 years ago. 1) Too many ads before the movie started (20 minutes), 2) Too many people coming and going from their seats (people use to just sit the frick down and watch the movie) 3) broken seats 4) People constantly coughing and who knows if they have antibiotic resistant TB or the flu, but who wants to potentially breath in other people’s illnesses? 5) inconvenient & expensive, for the tickets, the fuel to get there 6) Now we have a 65″ diagonal super high def. Samsung hooked up to satellite with a BluRay DVD player, who needs a giant smelly noisy irritating illness ridden movie theatre? We made a vow; No more movie theatres and we’ve easily stuck to it.
I don’t understand why anyone would go to watch the movies — Hollywood makes maybe one decent movie a year – if that?
But then … humans are stuuuupid beasts…. they will do just about whatever they are told to do… until they run out of credit
Just look at American beer – who in their right mind would drink that cat p iss?
It’s the same for listening to crappy music–it’s about maintaining a sense of belonging by doing what everyone else is doing.
Not keeping up with the latest movie and media releases and saying that most of them are great point to social deficiencies. Criticism is chalked up to “being old” or having a personality disorder.
and theres always somebody texting in the seat in front of you
And … you never know when someone might just walk in .. and open fire with an AK47….
at least thats not usual in uk
The anthem of the knower….
oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone…
The US has reached the last stage before collapse
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-reached-last-stage-before-collapse-2017-12
This is sort of related to Dennis Meadows saying, “We are already beginning to collapse.”
Ugo Bardi likens the problem we are facing to a crack in a ship that starts small, but can ultimately break a ship in two. How long can one safely ignore the symptoms? We are already seeing symptoms. How long can the problem remain mostly hidden?
1. if they say it’s true, does that mean it must be true?
2. if this is “the last stage”, how long will this stage last?
3. was the penultimate stage from 2008-2017?
4. if so, why can’t this stage also last 9 years?
5. BAU tonight, baby!
2. if this is “the last stage”, how long will this stage last?
By no later than 2030 (Turner, 2014)
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
if so, why can’t this stage also last 9 years?
Because we are going to run out oil soon and we need for everything and we need to be cheap.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-minister-sees-end-of-oil-price-slump-1476870790
2030!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!
yessssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn’t get far in the article before I realized the author’s hypothesis is that collapse is caused by mismanagement.
It’s a very superficial, vague, and partisan article that lays the blame for everything at the hands of Republicans.Republicans are immoral and decadent because they don’t share the author’s values.
An unfortunately political article….the conservatives are bad…meaning liberals are good. The US is in collapse, and both the left and right are culpable. It is a spiritual problem infecting the US on both sides of the aisle. Greed and corruption is rampant. Is a corrupt teachers union any less culpable than a “greedy” corporation”. Both exist to get money. Waste and corruption, and lies are rampant.
Yes, we are going down.
https://www.newscientist.com/issue/2755%20/
There is a fee for downloading the article of less than $2.00, I have a printed copy, found the cover page to the article via Google.
Thanks of for the comment, it is a very interesting article by some fairly heavy weights. For me the most interesting part is the idea that there are more correlations among data than we understand from a first approximation and thus that additional data provides little to no additional insight.
Some of the work goes back to Riemann and Dyson, strange how mathematics that is very abstract finds its way into the real world.
Dennis L.
Dennis … if they are heavyweights they would be on FW…..
Twilight Zone time…..
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-23/softbanks-fortress-extends-100-million-loan-theranos
The ‘Nanotainer’. Sure, it measures in nanos and attains information from a tiny drop of blood (but doesn’t actually work). Sorry investment suckers. All right, for those of you that haven’t left the building yet, how about ‘Watergas’?
Bizarre! No matter how bad the track record, a company can get funding, it seems. Japan especially is starved for investment opportunities.
It seems that there is a premium on what you look like, how well you support the PC narrative, or the myth that anyone can achieve such things. like drop out and then have a company valued at $10B. Your connections mean you get money, big money.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles/north-korea-says-new-u-n-sanctions-an-act-of-war-idUSKBN1EI03D
Just a quick departure from the fascinating discussion regarding FF. NK says the new UN sanctions are an act of war. Seems like we are getting close to a show down.
the conclusion:
“The difference between the new resolution and the original U.S. proposal reflects the will of China and Russia to prevent war and chaos on the Korean Peninsula. If the U.S. proposals were accepted, only war is foreseeable,”
so the UN sanctions are backed by China and Russia and the USA…
what’s NK going to do?
shoot another missile into the ocean?
of course, the USA could act unilaterally, but the USA has been very restrained militarily in the past 11 months, so it would be surprising if that changed.
thus my prediction of no war with NK in 2018.
I agree with David here. The sanctions were on crude sales to NK. NK can get all the gasoline and diesel it wants from China, probably at a discount. That is why China voted for the sanctions at the security council.
South Korea is the main reason the US will not preemptively strike North Korea. Seoul is like 10 million hostages with a gun to their heads. One false move, and NK will level Seoul. They can do this very quickly and with conventional artillery. Along with all the civilian casualties, the US has a forward base there that will be leveled. There is a plan to take out the NK artillery once they expose themselves with air strikes, but it may be too little, too late. So, the pressure is from South Korea not to start something.
Meanwhile, South Korea is quietly moving all their main government services south, to the Daejeon area. The US has plans to move its forward base south to at least Ansan City area, to avoid the NK artillery range. This move may already be complete. Just being prudent.
South Korea is now expendable. Its president, installed after a political turmoil ousted teh former prez (who was the daughter of the dictator who put SK into the map), is a leftist an a stooge of the Chinese, and USA will abandon SK to its fate.
Mostly posturing and saving face me thinks. Important for NK to show their people that they have many enemies. Keeps the people united for “the cause”.
the usa-japan war started when roosevelt cut off their oil and steel supplies—the oriental cannot lose face
just sayin
Hard to believe that FDR and planners were not forseeing the consequences of that embargo. Also amazing that Pearl Harbor, with all its parked, obsolete WWI-vintage battleships and the last-minute pullout of its valuable carriers, was not a set up. We’re to believe it was all good luck for the US, bad luck for the Japanese.
https://i.imgur.com/GuFN4eM.png