Once upon a time, we worried about oil and other energy. Now, a song from 1930 seems to be appropriate:
Today, we have a surplus of oil, which we are trying to use up. That never happened before, or did it? Well, actually, it did, back around 1930. As most of us remember, that was not a pleasant time. It was during the Great Depression.
Figure 1. US ending stocks of crude oil, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Amounts will include crude oil in pipelines and in “tank farms,” awaiting processing. Businesses normally do not hold more crude oil than they need in the immediate future, because holding this excess inventory has a cost involved. Figure produced by EIA. Amounts through early 2016.
A surplus of a major energy commodity is a sign of economic illness; the economy is not balancing itself correctly. Energy supplies are available for use, but the economy is not adequately utilizing them. It is a sign that something is seriously wrong in the economy–perhaps too much income disparity.
Figure 2. U. S. Income Shares of Top 1% and Top 0.1%, Wikipedia exhibit by Piketty and Saez.
If incomes are relatively equal, it is possible for even the poorest citizens of the economy to be able to buy necessary goods and services. Things like food, homes, and transportation become affordable by all. It is easy for “Demand” and “Supply” to balance out, because a very large share of the population has incomes that are adequate to buy the goods and services created by the economy.
It is when we have too much income and wage disparity that we have gluts of oil and food supplies. Food gluts happened in the 1930s and are happening again now. We lose sight of the extent to which the economy can actually absorb rising quantities of commodities of many types, if they are inexpensive, compared to wages. The word “Demand” might better be replaced by the term “Quantity Affordable.” Top wage earners can always afford goods and services for their families; the question is whether earners lower in the wage hierarchy can. In today’s world, some of these low-wage earners are in India and Africa, or have no employment at all.
What is Going Right, As We Enter 2018?
[1] The stock market keeps rising.
The stock market keeps rising, month after month. Volatility is very low. In fact, the growth in the stock market looks rigged. A recent Seeking Alpha article notes that in 2017, the S&P 500 showed positive returns for all 12 months of the year, something that has never happened before in the last 90 years.
Very long runs of rising stock prices are not necessarily a good sign. According to the same article, the S&P 500 rose in 22 of 23 months between April 1935 and February 1937, in response to government spending aimed at jumpstarting the economy. By late 1937, the economy was again back in recession. The market experienced a severe correction that it would not fully recover from until after World War II.
The year 2006 was another notable year for stock market rise, with increases in 11 out of 12 months. According to the article,
Equity markets rallied amidst a volatility void in the lead-up to the Great Recession. Markets would make new all-time highs in late 2007 before collapsing in 2008, marking the worst annual returns (-37%) since the aforementioned infamous 1937 correction.
So while the stock market consistently rising looks like a good sign, it is not necessarily a good sign for market performance 6 to 24 months later. It could simply represent a bubble forming, which will later pop.
[2] Oil and other commodity prices are recently somewhat higher.
Recently, oil prices have been too low for most producers. Now, things are looking up. While prices still aren’t at an adequate level, they are somewhat higher. This gives producers (and lenders) hope that prices will eventually rise sufficiently that oil companies can make an adequate profit, and governments of oil exporters can collect adequate taxes to keep their economies operating.
Figure 3. Monthly average spot Brent oil prices, through December 2017, based on EIA data.
A major reason for the recent upward trend in commodity prices seems to be a shift in currency relativities for Emerging Markets.
Figure 4. Figure from Financial Times showing currency relativities based on the MSCI Emerging Market currency index.
While the currency relativities for emerging markets had fallen quite low when commodity prices first dropped, they have now made up most of their lost ground. This makes commodities more affordable in Emerging Market countries, and allows them to do more manufacturing, thus stimulating the world economy.
Of course, if China runs into debt problems, or if India runs into problems of some sort, or if oil prices rise further than they have to date, the run-up in currency relativities might run right back down again.
[3] US tax cuts create a bubble of wealth for corporations and the 1%.
With low commodity prices, returns have been far too low for many corporations involved with commodity production. “Fixing” the tax law will help these corporations continue to operate, even if commodity prices remain low, because taxes will be lower. These lower tax rates are important in helping commodity producers to avoid collapsing as a result of low commodity prices.
The problem that occurs is that the change in tax law opens up all kinds of opportunities for companies to improve their tax situation, either by changing the form of the corporation, or by merging with another company with a suitable tax situation, allowing the combined taxes to be minimized. See this recent Michael Hudson video for a discussion of some of the issues involved. This link is to a related Hudson video.
Groups evaluating the expected impact of the proposed tax law did their evaluations as if corporate structure would remain unchanged. We know that tax accountants will help companies quickly make changes to maximize the benefit of the new tax law. This is likely to mean that US governmental debt will need to rise much more than most forecasts have predicted.
In a way, this is a “good” impact, because more debt helps keep commodity prices and production to rise, and thus helps keep the economy from collapsing. But it does raise the question of how long, and by how much, governmental debt can rise. Will the addition of all of this new debt raise interest rates even above other planned interest rate increases?
[4] We have been experiencing artificially low oil prices since 2013. This helps the economic growth to be higher than it otherwise would be.
In February 2014, I published an article documenting that back in 2013, oil prices were too low for oil producers. If a person looks at Figure 3, oil prices were over $100 per barrel that year. Clearly, oil prices have been much too low for producers since that time.
Unfortunately, it looks like these artificially low oil prices may be coming to an end, simply because the “glut” of oil that developed is gradually being reduced. Figure 5 shows the timing of the recent glut of oil. It seems to have started early in 2014.
Figure 5. US Stocks of crude oil and petroleum products (including Strategic Petroleum Reserve), based on EIA data.
If we look at the combination of oil prices and amount of oil in storage, a person can make a rough estimate of how this glut of oil might disappear. Quite a bit of it may be gone by the end of 2018 (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Figure showing US oil stocks (crude plus oil products) together with the corresponding oil prices. Rough guess of how balance might disappear and future prices by author.
Of course, one of the big issues is that consumers cannot really afford high-priced oil products. If consumers could not afford $100+ prices back in 2013, how would it be possible for oil prices to rise to something like $97 per barrel by the end of 2018?
I am not certain that oil prices can really rise this high, or that they can stay at this level very long. Certainly, we cannot expect oil prices to rise to the level they did in July 2008, without recession causing oil prices to crash back down.
What the Economy Needs Is Rising Energy Per Capita
I have published energy per capita graphs in the past. Flat spots tend to represent problem periods.
Figure 7. 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.
The 1920-1940 flat period came shortly after the United Kingdom reached Peak Coal in 1913.
Figure 8. United Kingdom coal production since 1855, in figure by David Strahan. First published in New Scientist, 17 January 2008.
In fact, the UK invaded Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 1914, to protect its oil interests. The UK wasn’t stupid; it knew that if it didn’t have sufficient coal, it would need oil, instead.
There were many other disturbing events during this period, including World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic, the Great Depression, and World War II. If there are not enough energy resources to go around, many things tend to go wrong: countries tend to fight for available resources; jobs that pay well become less available; deflation becomes more likely; population becomes weakened, and epidemics become more likely. I wrote about the 1920 to 1940 period in a recent post, The Depression of the 1930s Was an Energy Crisis.
The 1980-2000 flat period included the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991. The Soviet Union was an oil producer. The Soviet Union collapsed after prices had been low for a long time.
Figure 9. Former Soviet Union oil consumption, production, and inflation-adjusted price, all from BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2015.
Even many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, population growth in former Soviet Union countries and its affiliates was much lower than in the rest of the world.
Figure 10. World population growth rates between 2005 and 2010. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate
Lower population (through falling birth rates, rising death rates, or rising emigration) are a major way that economies self-adjust because of falling energy per capita. Economies tend to fix the low-energy per capita problem by adjusting the population downward.
Recently, we have again been hitting flat periods in energy consumption per capita.
Figure 11. World per capita consumption of oil and of total energy, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy data and UN 2017 population data.
The slowdown in world energy consumption per capita in 2008-2009 was clearly a major problem. Oil, coal and natural gas consumption fell simultaneously. Oil consumption per capita fell more than the overall mix, especially affecting countries heavily dependent on oil (Greece with its tourism, but also the US, Japan, and Europe).
The recent shift in political strategy to more isolationist stances also seems to be the result of flat energy consumption per capita. It is doubtful that Donald Trump would have been elected in the US, if world energy consumption per capita had been growing robustly, and if wage disparity had been less of a problem.
The primary cause of the 2013 to 2016 flat trend in world energy consumption per capita (Figure 11) is falling coal consumption (Figure 12). Many people think coal is unimportant, but it is the world’s second largest source of energy, after oil. We don’t have a good way of getting natural gas production to rise enough, to make up for loss of coal production.
Figure 12
Wind and solar simply do not work for solving our problem of flat or shrinking energy consumption per capita. After spending trillions of dollars on them, they make up only a tiny (1%) share of world energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency. They are part of the little gray “Other” sliver on Figure 13.
Figure 13. Figure prepared by IEA showing Total Primary Energy Supply by type from this IEA document.
Something Has to “Give” When There Is Not Enough Energy Consumption per Capita
The predicament we are facing is that energy consumption per capita seems to be reaching a maximum. This happens because of affordability issues. Over time, the price of energy products needs to rise to keep up with the rising cost of creating these energy products. But if energy prices do rise, workers earning low wages cannot afford to buy goods and services made with high-priced energy products, plus honor all of their other commitments (such as mortgages, auto loans, and student loans). This leads to debt defaults, as it did in the 2008-2009 recession.
At some point, the affordability problem can be expected to hold down energy consumption. This could happen in many ways. Spiking prices and affordability issues could lead to a worse rerun of the 2008-2009 recession. Or if oil prices stay fairly low, oil-exporting countries (such as Venezuela) may collapse because of low prices. Even if oil prices do rise, we may find that higher prices do not lead to sufficient additional supply because investment in new oil fields has been low for many years, because of past low prices.
As long as the world economy is expanding (Figure 14), individual citizens can expect to benefit. Jobs that pay well are likely to be available, and citizens can afford to buy goods with their growing wages. People who sell shares of stock and people who get pension benefits can all receive part of this growing economic output.
Figure 14. Author’s image of an expanding economy.
Once the economy starts to shrink (Figure 15), we start having problems with dividing up the goods and services that are available. How much should retirees get? Governments? Today’s workers? Holders of shares of stocks and bonds? Not all commitments can be honored, simultaneously.
Figure 15. Author’s image of declining economy.
One obvious problem in a shrinking economy is that loans become harder to repay. The problem is that there is less left over for other goods and services, after debt plus interest is subtracted, in a shrinking economy.
Figure 16. Figure by author.
Changing interest rates can to some extent help offset problems related to higher energy prices and shrinking supply. The danger is that interest rates can move in the wrong direction and make our problems worse. In the lead-up to the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the US raised short-term interest rates, helping to puncture the sub-prime mortgage debt bubble.
Figure 17. Figure comparing Case-Shiller Seasonally Adjusted Home Price Index and Federal Reserve End of Quarter Target Interest Rates. See Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis for details.
We now hear a lot of talk about raising interest rates and selling QE securities (which would also tend to raise interest rates). If growth in energy consumption per capita is already flat, these changes could make the problems that the economy is facing even worse.
Our Economy Works Like a Bicycle
Have you ever wondered why a two-wheeled bicycle is able to stay upright? Research shows that a bicycle will stay upright, as long as its speed is greater than 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) per second. This is the result of the physics of the situation. A related academic article states, “This stability typically can occur at forward speeds v near to the square root of (gL), where g is gravity and L is a characteristic length (about 1 m for a modern bicycle).”
Thus, a bicycle will be able to continue in an upright manner, as long as it goes fast enough. If it slows down too much, it will fall down. Our economy is similar.
Gravity plays an important role in determining the speed of a bicycle. If the bicycle is going downhill, gravity gives an important boost to the speed of the bicycle. If the bicycle is going uphill, gravity very much pulls back on the bicycle.
I think of the situation of an economy having rising energy consumption per capita as being very much like riding on a bicycle, speeding down a hill. The person operating the bicycle would not need to provide much extra energy to keep the bicycle going.
If energy consumption per capita is flat, the person riding the bicycle must provide the energy to make it go fast enough, so it doesn’t fall over. This is somewhat of a problem. If energy consumption per capita actually falls, it is a true disaster. The bicyclist himself must provide the energy necessary to push the bicycle and rider uphill.
In fact, there are other ways that a speeding bicycle is analogous to the world economy.
Figure 18. Author’s view of analogies of speeding upright bicycle to speeding economy.
The economy needs a constant flow of outside energy. In the case of the bicycle, the human rider can provide the energy flow. In the case of the economy, the energy flow comes from a mixture of various fuel types, typically dominated by fossil fuels.
Growing debt (front wheel) is important as well. It tends to pull the economy along, because this debt can be used to pay wages and to buy materials to make additional goods and services. Thus, the effect of this increase in debt is indirect; it ultimately works through the bicyclist, the gears, and the back wheel.
In fact, the financial system as a whole is important for the “steering” of the economy. It tells investors which investments are likely to be profitable.
The gearing system of the bicycle plays a modest role in the system. Changing gears allows greater efficiency in the use of the energy that is available, under certain circumstances. But energy efficiency, by itself, cannot operate the system.
If the human rider does not provide sufficient energy for the bicycle to go rapidly enough, the bicycle glides for a while, and then falls over. The world economy seems to be similar. If the world economy does not obtain enough energy per capita, economic growth tends to slow and eventually collapses. The collapse can relate to the whole world economy, or to parts of the economy.
The Problem of Parts of the Economy Not Getting Enough Energy
We can think of the economy as being made up of many bicycles, operated by bicycle riders. At the beginning of the post, I talked about the problem of wage disparity. This issue occurred at the time of the 1930’s Great Depression and is occurring again now.
We might call wage disparity “too low a return on the labor of some workers.” In groups of animals in ecosystems, too low a return on the effort of these animals is what causes ecosystems to collapse. For example, if fish have to swim too far to obtain additional food, their population will collapse. It should not be surprising that economies tend to collapse, when the return on the efforts of part of their workers falls too low.
Wage disparity has to do with how well the operators of bicycles are doing. Are the operators of these bicycles receiving enough calories, so that they can keep pumping their bicycles fast enough so that the speed is high enough to remain upright?
If energy consumption per capita is growing, this greatly helps the operation of the economic system. If there is growing availability of inexpensive energy, machines of various types, including trucks, can be used to increasingly leverage the labor of workers. This increased leveraging helps each worker to become more “productive.” This growing productivity, thanks to growing energy consumption, allows more goods and services to be produced in total. It also allows the wages of the workers to stay high enough that they can afford to buy a reasonable share of the output of the economy. When this happens, “gluts” of unaffordable goods are less of a problem.
If energy consumption per capita is flat (or worse yet, falling), greater “complexity” is needed, to keep output of goods and services rising. Greater complexity involves more specialization and more training of individual members of the economy. Greater complexity leads to larger companies, more government services, and more wage disparity. Unfortunately, there are diminishing returns to complexity, according to Joseph Tainter in “The Collapse of Complex Societies.” Ultimately, increased complexity fails to provide an adequate number of high-paying jobs. Wage disparity becomes a problem that can cause an economy to collapse.
If there is not enough economic output, the physics of the economy tries to “freeze out” workers at the bottom of the hierarchy. Workers with low wages cannot afford homes and families. The incidence of depression rises. Debt levels of disadvantaged groups (such as young people in the US) may rise.
So the situation may not be that the whole world economy fails; it may be that parts of the economy collapse. In fact, we are already seeing evidence that this is taking place. For example, life expectancies for US men have been falling for two years, because of growing problems with drug overdoses.
Conclusions
In 2017, the world economy seemed to be gliding smoothly along because the economy has been able to get the benefit of artificially low energy prices and artificially low interest rates. These artificially low prices and interest rates have given a temporary boost to the world economy. Countries using large amounts of energy products, including the US, especially benefitted.
We cannot expect this temporary condition to continue, however. Low oil prices have already started to disappear, with Brent oil prices at nearly $69 per barrel at this writing. The trends in oil prices and oil stocks in Figure 6 are disturbing. If oil prices begin to rise toward the price needed by oil producers, they are likely to trigger a recession and a drop in world energy consumption, just as spiking prices did in 2008-2009. There is a significant chance of collapse in the next 12 to 24 months. It is hard to know how widespread such a collapse may be; it may primarily affect particular countries and population groups.
To make matters worse, our leaders do not seem to understand the situation. The world economy badly needs rising energy consumption per capita. Plans to raise interest rates and sell QE securities, when the economy is already “at the edge,” are playing with fire. If we are to keep the world economy operating, large quantities of additional energy supplies need to be found at very low cost. It is hard to be optimistic about this happening. High-cost energy supplies are worthless when it comes to operating the economy because they are unaffordable.
Many followers of the oil situation have had great faith in Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) analysis telling us which kinds of energy supplies we should increase. Unfortunately, EROI doesn’t tell us enough. It doesn’t tell us if a particular product is scalable at reasonable cost. Wind and solar are great disappointments, when total costs, including the cost of mitigating intermittency on the grid, are considered. They do not appear to be solutions on any major scale.
Other researchers looking at the energy situation have not understood how “baked into the cake” the need for economic growth, rising per capita energy consumption, and rising debt levels really are. Rising debt is not an error in how the financial system is put together; a bicycle needs a front wheel, or it cannot operate at all (Figure 18). I have written other articles regarding why debt is needed to pull the economic system forward.
This economic growth cannot be “fake growth” either, where a debt Ponzi Scheme seems to allow purchases that real-life consumers cannot afford. Quite a bit of what is reported as world GDP today is of a very “iffy” nature. If China builds a huge number of apartments that citizens cannot afford without subsidies, should these be counted as true GDP growth? How about unneeded roads, built using the rising debt of the Japanese government? Or recycling performed around the world, because it makes people “feel good,” but really requires substantial subsidies?
At this point, it is hard for us to know where we really are, because every government wants to make GDP results look as favorable as possible. It is clear, however, that 2018 and 2019 can be expected to have more challenges than 2017. We have interesting times ahead!
Tax overhaul will have a limited effect on U.S. economy, Moody’s says
More than three-quarters of the $1.1 trillion in individual tax cuts will go to people who earn more than $200,000 a year in taxable income, who constitute only about 5% of all taxpayers
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tax-overhaul-will-have-a-limited-effect-on-us-economy-moodys-says-2018-01-25?link=sfmw_tw
Looks like it won’t be helping Trump country…Oh well deporting a dreamer will make them feel better..
https://imgur.com/a/sNGO5
While the tax cut will reduce the taxes of large companies, it will also reduce the taxes of almost everyone else. One estimate said that 95% of US taxpayers will find their 2018 tax payments lower. The net result of the tax overhaul is that it will greatly increase the deficit, and thus the needed debt of the US government. (In theory some of the benefits will go away, so taxes on citizens will rise later, but I will believe this when it actually happens.) The net effect is that the US government will need to put a lot more debt securities on the world market in the near term. A reasonable person might think that this will drive interest rates way up, and that this might be a problem.
If there is a stimulus effect, it comes is from the reduction of the taxes of 95% of the US citizens. This may partly offset the rising interest rate problem.
Moody’s analysis is woefully lacking, in my opinion. The issue is as much a “overall tax level is way to low, in the near term” problem than it is an allocation issue.
IMF found out that increasing the income share of the rich actually decreases GDP growth:
If the income share of the top 20 percent increases by 1 percentage point, GDP growth is actually 0.08 percentage point lower in the following five years, suggesting that the benefits do not trickle down. Instead, a similar increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent (the poor) is associated with 0.38 percentage point higher growth.
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf
An inadequate supply of cheap energy also increases wage disparity. It also reduces GDP growth. So both growing wage disparity and reduced GDP growth are caused by an inadequate supply of cheap energy. The problem is not that some mean people increased wealth distribution to the rich, and this is what reduced GDP growth. It is a physics problem. I am sure I explained this problem before.
KunstlerCast – What Happened to Peak Oil? – Chat with Art Berman
http://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-299-happened-peak-oil-chat-art-berman/
Tesla and GM self-drive cars involved in road collisions in California
Culver City’s fire service said the Tesla had “ploughed into the rear” of one of its fire engines parked at the scene of an accident on Monday.
The GM incident resulted in a collision with a motorbike in San Francisco. The rider says the car – which was using GM’s Cruise Automation technology – caused him serious injury and is now suing GM.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42801772
“Tesla has introduced an update that brings its cars to a halt if they detect a driver’s hands are not on the wheel.”
Wow – that is really high tech sh it!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl9y7v8UohM
Very advanced tech that is hard to fool /s
So, if this sensor goes out, your Teslas won’t go? Peak complexity is here!
Don’t worry, the next model will have another sensor to constantly monitor this sensor…
Can anyone comment on what CM says between the 27-29 minute mark? (I didn’t watch the whole thing)
This is the whole “discovery” issue, and the missing pipeline of oil coming from these discoveries. It is probably an issue to some extent. If deepwater oil discoveries had been made, and are missing, the effect would be longer then the three years or so CM mentioned, however.
I think just as important is not working on known oil. For example, Saudi Arabia has heavy oil in the shared neutral zone that it could be developing. It is offline because of disputes that I expect indirectly relate to low oil prices.
I am not certain we know how well Saudi Arabia is working on available projects that it has known about for years. This article makes it sound like they are still continuing to work on known possible projects, so as to continue and to increase production. http://www.oedigital.com/component/k2/item/16806-middle-east-epci-activity-on-the-rise
Saudi Arabia’s King (Dictator) said back around 2009 in Reuters any new oil field discoveries were to be saved for future Saudi generations only..
I think that this meant he didn’t actually have any more fields.
that’s always the sick joke
no nation can exist in ”oil using” isolation while those around it have none.
the same would apply to food rich/food poor nations…they would be invaded and looted
A large percentage of ex-pats working at Aramco have been let go. Aramco’s progress will be doubtful.
I can believe that laying off knowledgable workers would be a problem in Saudi Arabia. I expect that this is a bigger problem than the reduced discoveries.
The Saudi oil for dollars experiment is going to get really interesting soon!
“Can anyone comment on what CM says between the 27-29 minute mark?”
He’s saying CB’s aren’t going to do anything to upset the economy, but what could cause a recession is the rising price of oil due to USD currency reduction in value. He’s was also saying the US punishes other countries by freezing their bank accounts like they did to Iran, so many countries like Russia and China are making bilateral deals to get around the USD and that’s part of the reason it’s losing value. I like Martenson and agree if something is going to derail the economy it’s rising oil price.
I see it as a combination of events that will cause recession and eventually collapse. Higher oil prices, lead to inflation of all types of goods and services, leads to interest rate rises.
Consumers get squeezed from all sides and reduce discretionary spending.
This causes job losses, which worries consumers more, then they further reduce all spending, worrying about their own income. Businesses close, further job losses, more worried consumers. It is a viscous cycle.
At some point markets also tank, but there is a time lag effect from the initial oil price rises and interest rate rises as occurred from 2004-2007.
Already in the US we can see oil price rises, interest rate rises, plus job losses in the retail sector, but the market has not done it’s part in bringing on recession/depression.
IMO the timeline varies between recessions, and from country to country, but as oil becomes ever more expensive to recover, modern lifestyles get squeezed more and more.
In the US there is basically free money for the oil industry to keep production up from tight oil. At some point this will finish or the effect will be dramatic on the economy (too much spent on oil recovery, rest of economy failing). Then world oil prices will rise, taking other countries also into recession.
One of these recessions becomes a depression/collapse, but each one is a further step down the seneca cliff.
g’day, mate… aren’t you in Australia? if not, my bad…
“IMO the timeline varies between recessions, and from country to country, but as oil becomes ever more expensive to recover, modern lifestyles get squeezed more and more.”
one biggie would be if a core country falls into severe recession/depression…
what are Australia’s chances?
third world countries will be falling first and worst…
but when a core country falls…
that will be the beginning of the end.
Yes in Aus! I think we really started down the steep decent in 2007-8, with the bailouts to mask the effect of peak conventional oil.
To most, well many in the OECD countries it still looks like BAU, but when the next high priced oil induced recession hits (obviously very close), we all go down a bit further.
Like you I hope we can last until 2030, but I am increasingly doubting it. The next step down looks like it could be a doosy with the CBs out of ammo to bail out all the debt pile.
Mind you I think that hyper inflation is going to happen everywhere, to take care of the debt, but it will not solve any economic crisis.
Is Australia a ‘core’ country, or something of a borderline one? Merely a theatre for real estate speculation and supplier of commodities to Asia and beef/lamb to Arabs and Jews, etc, or something more?
Australia is a resource/source centre for food and raw materials as far as our current economic system goes
It’s going to keep on dropping!
https://imgur.com/a/oLSTj
but won’t taxes go up when the Ds get the presidency in 2020?
hey BD, who’s your preference?
Joe Biden?
Corey Booker?
Kamala Harris?
Elizabeth Warren?
Oprah says she’s not interested.
Mark Zuckerberg!
I am hope he does the unthinkable! Redistribute the wealth from the rich to the rest via UBI and universal healthcare! And he can do it at the speed of technology!
How about tax cuts for everyone? Create new “wealth” by driving up debt.
Baby D,
The developed world has had universal health care for 50+ years. High tech not required.
Good graph, BD. The tax cuts probably reduces currency investors perception of a strong dollar, because it causes bigger deficits. One of the things this Admin. did was to project a very high GDP number of 4% moving forward (to get their tax cut), but GDP hasn’t been that high for 12 years, so when the real number is lower, deficits will be even higher than projected based on the new tax code. They did the tax cut to benefit their base, the one’s that plunk down 10 thou a plate at campaign fundraisers, but it was a foolish move at a time when the economy was already on life support with a super low interest rate.
Democrats aren’t going to raise taxes to pay for anything either.
If they do, the wealthy philanthropists stop funding their non-profits and lots of Democrats become unemployed as capital moves overseas.
The tax breaks help businesses that offer crucial products such as oil in business, Low prices from low demand is pushing them towards bankruptcy.
You need to stop looking at everything through partisan-tinted sunglasses. We need oil companies to not go bankrupt. We need producers of commodities to not go out of business.
That’s who I think these tax cuts are meant to help, not companies like Google or hedge funds who pay very little taxes through loopholes.
Yep. This is aimed at keeping corporations alive….which of course keeps people employed and BAU alive….
It’s another desperate measure from the el ders….
It has absolutely f789 all with enriching the rich…. not to say that it won’t enrich them….as a side effect…. but that is not the purpose of this change to the tax code.
Thanks for the comments
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/24/white-house-trump-attack-u-s-dollar-308351
‘Breaking tradition, Trump team unleashes verbal assault on the dollar’
“The Trump administration declared a surprising war on the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, breaking from a long tradition in which top American officials generally voice support for a strong American currency. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shocked Wall Street by lauding the impact a weaker dollar can have on U.S. companies as it makes exports cheaper for other countries to buy. “Obviously, a weaker dollar is good for us as it relates to trade and opportunities,” Mnuchin told reporters in Davos. Mnuchin said recent declines in the value of the dollar against other currencies were “not a concern of ours at all.”
“The dollar continued its recent descent following Mnuchin’s remarks. It’s now down about 10 percent against a basket of other currencies since last January, when President Donald Trump said the greenback was “too strong,” making it hard for U.S. companies to compete against China and other countries. The currency decline has puzzled some economists and Wall Street traders because the dollar generally rises in value as the economy improves and the Federal Reserve increases interest rates. Yields on U.S. Treasury debt are currently rising as the Fed shifts policy. Rising yields usually make the dollar more attractive to investors, but the greenback keeps dropping.”
So what it’s our currency. Trash the dollar! Well, it’s a new approach and so far it’s working to devalue the dollar which makes oil in USD more for Americans. Good luck US – get use to a rising oil price and cost of other products as well.
Does this Admin. realize this one move could usher in a US recession? What’s good for companies doing overseas business may not be good for the overall US economy.
Tearful Elon Musk Warns About Dangers Of AI After Having Heart Broken By Beautiful Robotrix
https://www.theonion.com/tearful-elon-musk-warns-about-dangers-of-ai-after-havin-1822192554
Good grief. I have heard it all.
Fresh interview 51 min with Joseph Tainter author Collapse of Complex Societies
Interviewer- Lynnette Zhang is from the financial sector but is fairly competent
Tainter explains in depth on collapse. Zhang keeps up & asks good questions. Worth watching.
Watched it all. A slow start but Tainter gets going on a wide range of collapse topics including social, population, collapse recovery etc.
Good.
Good interview….thank you for posting.
Humans are very good at propping up the unsustainable and this often results in fast and unexpected collapse. (Tainter 1988)
Probably more likely to attempt to prop up the unsustainable, at any cost, than to devise a new model.
the current Capetown water problem is a good example of that.
While you can ration water for 3m people for a short time to prop up the system, long term it must collapse.
you cannot have 3m people served by a few hundred water points and have them fetch it every day.
coupled with which you need water for sewage disposal
How do you ration it through the tap? I can’t see it being done. That means no flushing.
it’s very rough and ready—but rationing is by the amount people can carry away
and that doesn’t allow for waste flushing—we can only leave that to our imaginations
long term it’s impossible of course
Dr Tainter makes an excellent point around 25.00 that innovation is actually now declining. I would also add that human IQ has also stop increasing and has now gone into reverse. Known as the “Reverse Flynn Effect”.. which I assume can only make matters even worse for future innovation.
Peer Reviewed Study: A long-term rise and recent decline in intelligence test performance: The Flynn Effect in reverse. (Teasdale 2005)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886905001145
“IQ has also stop increasing and has now gone into reverse.”
Technofetischists will assure you this is only temporary.
Until we start DNA reprogramming.
Any day soon. Probably before Mars colonization. Before 2026.
The study is pretty old. Is it confirmed by newer studies? Would be interessenting to know.
i watched that tainter video
then he makes the classic mistake—that our energy future is going to be nuclear
simply doesnt get it—that electricity of itself is useless without the infrastructure provided by our use of fossil fuels
“that electricity of itself is useless without the infrastructure provided by our use of fossil fuels” – I have heard the argument that with enough electricity you can synthesize crude oil. Even if it would work, it still doesn’t get around the finite resource issue. Not to mention it is hugely electricity intensive to do that. At some point we have to accept our fate. The predicament has no resolution outside of collapse.
France’s Macron says globalization is going through a major crisis
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/france-macron-says-globalization-is-going-through-a-major-crisis.html
Let us not be naive, you can’t “reform” a zero sum globalized Ponzi scheme. Davos billunaires pretend to be ‘worried’ about wealth inequality even as they celebrate their most recent tax cut. What they’re worried about is rioting. And what they want IS a race to the bottom on taxes and regulation, to fund further “growth”. Ponzi schemes don’t go in reverse.
Without “growth” industrial civilization falls apart.
The race to the bottom is them admitting that we can no longer afford regulations and social services.
The alternative is something like Communism (now called Universal Basic Income) and that failed.
“… them admitting that we can no longer afford regulations and social services.”
this is the kind of thing that hints at “them” knowing that the root of recent economic crises is energy… so deregulate like crazy…
or perhaps “they” think that energy is at least one of the key components of economies…
of course, “we” know it is the main component…
the path forward for globalization seems to be the current path:
let peripheral countries become failed states, which leaves more resources for the core countries…
and referencing BD, the “rioting” would be contained within those failed states…
win-win for the globalists.
I agree that we can no longer afford regulations (financial / environmental) or social services.
Baby Doomer. You really are a confused baby. Against the globalist billionaires but in favor of the open borders they endlessly promote
https://ibb.co/bA3g9G
Yes, he opposes billionaire oligarchs by supporting their policy plan to import a permanent helot class of producer-consumers that they can pay even less than minimum wage and tie into debt slavery.
What open borders? We took 1.5 million immigrants last year. That is about a 0.25% increase in our population of 325 million people…And if I had my way it would be ZERO new immigrants in our country every year..Since I truly believe we are very overpopulated. But I am not going to have a cow over a small fraction of quarter percent increase..And just because I am don’t have a cow about it doesn’t automatically mean I believe in open borders and I want to kill whitey!
Your math is not very good. 1.5 million/ 325 million is 0.46%, not 0.25%.
US total population growth is about 0.7%. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/us/usa-population-growth.html So immigration now makes up the majority of our population growth, if your numbers are right. Immigrants also have higher than the average level of births. Without immigrants, our population have an age distribution more like Europe’s age distribution, and growth would be very slow, or possibly even negative. The working age group would shrink very soon.
Europe has some immigrants but they don’t have enough jobs for the immigrants and the immigrants are having trouble assimilating.
Thing is …
Immigration is wrecking europe, despite being just a couple millions each year.
You have 250M middle easterners without a future and even more north africans.
The Hispanics we have been adding tend to be hard working. Their culture is not too different from that in the United States, and it is not too hard for someone who speaks Spanish to learn English. I haven’t lived in an areas with a very high percentage of Hispanics, but it is easy to have a fairly favorable image of them. The big issue, I might suppose, is driving down wage levels in fields where they tend to work–construction, gardening work, and agriculture.
I think it is part a matter of wage structure, part a matter of the nations economy and part a matter of the immigrants skill.
If the immigrant lacks skills, the nation lacks manufacturing industry and the wage level is very … level … it takes a 1-2% (succesful engineer, doctor) up to three hours of work on the margin to pay for one hour of minimum wage work.
It is much better for the engineer to take time off from work to paint his house, clean his pool and mow his lawn than importing someone to do this.
But my point was humanitarian. Just the last 2-3 years it seems to have become obvious to a large part of the population that immigration is economically detrimental.
So now the humanitarian angle is applied. But since it is not possible moving 1B+ third worlders into europe you could argue it would be more fair to everyone to not import anyone here.
It appears mainstream is taking notice, but for some reason they are illustrating it with cardboard props.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1410&v=XBE_L3VbUuA
the mainstream is noticing because it’s an anti-Trump meme.
nuclear war is always a slight possibility, and perhaps will happen by human error rather than intention… how’s that for Doom?
meanwhile, the Energy Clock keeps on ticking towards midnight…
I would put that clock at about 11 pm… another decade or so until that clock strikes…
and I’d bet anything that IC crashes because of lack of cheap FF rather than nukes.
American Airlines CEO: ‘Fares are too low for oil prices this high’
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/25/american-airlines-ceo-fares-are-too-low-for-oil-prices-this-high.html
Sounds like precursor to rising airline fares. Doesn’t take long after oil price rises and it will be felt with many other services and products.
Doesn’t help the tourism industry, or Greece.
‘Doomsday clock’ ticks closer to apocalyptic midnight
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/25/politics/doomsday-clock-closer-nuclear-midnight/index.html
The doomsday clock has always cracked me up because unless its actually midnight it’s not a problem.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister says IEA overhyped US shale boom
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister took a rare sideways swipe at the International Energy Agency on Wednesday, accusing the body of overhyping the impact of US shale growth on the oil market. In a retort to remarks by IEA head Fatih Birol, Khalid Al Falih said at an energy panel in Davos that the agency was failing to put the scale of US production increases into context. “I was not disputing the amazing revolution of shale . . .[but] in the overall global supply demand picture it’s not going to wreck the train,” said Mr Falih. “We should not be scared,” he added, at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference on Wednesday.
“That’s the core job of the IEA, not to take it out of context.” Mr Falih appeared alongside his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak and US energy secretary Rick Perry, who together now represent countries pumping more than a third of the world’s crude. The appearance of a US representative on a panel of traditional producer nations illustrates the transformative effect the shale boom has had on global energy markets.
The IEA said last week US crude production was on course to overtake Saudi Arabia and rival Russia, with the body revising 2018 growth forecasts for the US higher to output of more than 10m b/d. The Paris-based body stressed that “explosive” expansion in shale was offsetting Opec-led supply cuts, a fear held among many countries participating in a deal to curb production that stared in 2017. Mr Falih argued that rapid global oil demand growth and natural decline rates at existing fields meant greater supplies would be needed, adding there was an “oversized focus” on US shale growth.
https://www.ft.com/content/84e09a98-0140-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5
“The IEA said last week US crude production was on course to overtake Saudi Arabia and rival Russia” – This statement is misleading. It doesn’t take into account how many barrels of oil it takes for the US to produce more oil than Saudi Arabia. Nor does it take into account the quality of the oil produced.
Yes shale has to be mixed with other blends to be refined…It’s not much of a substitute if it can do any substituting…
I think you are over-generalizing. Some refineries might choose to mix tight oil with heavier oil, because a particular type of tight oil has both light and heavy ends, and needs to be mixed with heavier oil so that the heavier ends can be properly processed. But saying that all tight oil “has to be mixed” with other blends is not true, in general, as far as I know.
For example, the Philadelphia refineries that were in the news in the last couple of days because they filed for bankruptcy were refining tight oil. I don’t remember anything saying that the tight oil “had to be mixed” with other blends to be refined.Their issue they were complaining about was high the cost of biofuel credits.
There is a lot of variability in tight oil. There is a lot of variability in how refineries are configured. Find a reference backing up what you are saying, or be more careful in your wording.
Sorry, this may not get posted because of my liberal bias ….(sarcasm)
The Dark Side of America’s Rise to Oil Superpower
It sounds good, but be careful what you wish for.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-25/the-dark-side-of-america-s-rise-to-oil-superpower
President Donald Trump, sensing an opportunity, is looking past independence to what he calls energy dominance. His administration plans to open vast ocean acreage to offshore exploration and for the first time in 40 years allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It may take years to tap, but the Alaska payoff alone is eye-popping—an estimated 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude.
It sounds good, but be careful what you wish for. The last three years have been the hottest since recordkeeping began in the 19th century, and there’s little room in Trump’s plan for energy sources that treat the planet kindly. Governors of coastal states have already pointed out that an offshore spill could devastate tourism—another trillion-dollar industry—not to mention wreck fragile littoral environments. Florida has already applied for a waiver from such drilling. More supply could lower prices, in turn discouraging investments in renewables such as solar and wind. Those tend to spike when oil prices rise, so enthusiasm for nonpolluting, nonwarming energies of the future could wane
There’s another problem: Shale 2.0 could hurt refiners. Shale oil is too good. For years, refiners spent billions of dollars on special equipment to process the dense, high-sulphur, low-quality crudes coming from Mexico, Venezuela, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. The quality of shale oil is so high that it yields little diesel, the fuel that powers manufacturing.
Such limitations may be mere speed bumps. But U.S. dominance is far from a panacea. It won’t reverse climate change. It won’t lessen the political influence of fossil-fuel producers in Washington. Nor will it completely neutralize the political influence of erratic petrostates.
Ah that’s too bad it won’t get posted.
as long as we have oil—all will be well
but it is oil that provides the functional infrastructure that itself makes oil use possible and practical and economic
without that infrastructure, oil of itself has no value whatsoever.
this is the broad problem that few can grasp, and because it is beyond general understanding, there is a resistance and denial of it—our transport system must go on forever, as long as it does, we will be prosperous forever.
Norm,
Its been a while since I read your book. Whats your best guess for when world wide conventional production goes into terminal decline?
My understanding is that conventional has been in decline since 2005.
Art Berman has a chart that shows a conventional peak in 2011 so far. It still looks awfully “bumpy plateau-ish” to me. I guess what I’m really looking for is when we can expect an accelerating decline rate for total world conventional production. Once that happens, I doubt shale and tar will be able to stem the bleeding for more than a year or two, even if totally subsidized by the CB’s or governments.
Conventional Oil Peaked in 2006
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481433a.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/has-peak-oil-already-happened/
http://imgur.com/a/uCz7V
Agree.
Capex expenditures for finding oil went from 1% to 11% very quickly after 2005.
My feeling is that this represents peak conventional oil.
Also shale fracking has problems in that massive amounts of industrial resources are pulled from other sectors of the economy. Also a huge amount of dangerous junk financing that is getting more dangerous by the month.
Whats your best guess for when world wide conventional production goes into terminal decline?
IEA WEO 2017
https://imgur.com/a/MwXFl
Karl
even putting a guess on that is impossible—just too many variables.
in any event we will be sideswiped by something we didn’t see coming—though in 2011 i wrote a piece forecasting that a “Trump” was inevitable by 2016 or 20 at the latest. I used the term ”sideswipe” then, without knowing exactly how it would manifest itself. (Chomsky said the same thing, without asking me btw)
Having denied climate change, and pandered to the evangelicals who deny population control, the don is now opening up the last of the potential oil resources to burn
so—that means in his first year in office he’s unleashed my “Triumvirate of Chaos” (Chapter 1 in my book)—Energy,– population,– Climate. Just as I said the president in 2016/20 would. ——-that was maybe the sideswipe I forecast.. Certainly the effects of it seem to be progressing in a ”terminal” and inevitable direction.
We won’t know if I was right till it’s knocked us down permanently (then all the doomsters can nod and say—who was that English eejit who forecast all this?)
But the Don has had no choice, to be fair (is fairness possible with The Don?)
He needs BAU just like everybody else. He was voted into office by millions of dimbos , convinced that prosperity is something you vote for.–that as long as fuel is burned, their lifestyle is forever.
Without it, the economic system crashes and burns—then chaos becomes real in your streets.
Maybe the Don himself is unaware of that, but you can be certain that those around him know it.—nevertheless his paymasters demand that the commercial system runs its course, because while the oil billionaires might appear to be on a different planet to the rest of us, they are clinging to the same economic bike as everyone else. they know of no other system than the one that created their wealth, so must ride on in infinite (blind) hope.
But that infinite hope is built on infinite debt—
we live in an energy economy. whereas the don (and most other politicos) thinks we live in a money economy. When the energy system that supports that debt burns out, then the existing lifestyle of everyone is over.
Why?
because our ”money system” becomes unsupportable, money will have no purchasing power and thus our economic system cannot exist.
That will kick off civil disorder, military intervention and the installation of a dictatorship
When?
Can’t be more than 5 years tops, because conventional oil has already peaked. (2005) By 2008/9 that caused the downturn that triggered the uprisings across the Mideast. And as Nicole Foss puts it—right now we are sucking beer spills out of the pub carpet. So there must be another, bigger downturn, and soon
Saudi is surrounded by nations hostile or actually at war. Saudi can hold together only as long as their oil holds out. It’s doubtful if Saudi has anywhere near the oil they say they have. Saudi produces a third of the world’s oil. Already the Saudi’s are saying “if” we have no oil by 2020—(That’s one helluva if)
But the don thinks the USA can be protectionist and self sufficient.—As a walled in military Theocracy?—I wish I was the only one saying that.
His fascist inclinations are very clear and obvious.
As the USA breaks apart,(through energy deficiency) efforts to prevent it happening will be unpleasant and bloody.
Thanks Norman.
Norman, Trump does not care about religion he just uses it to win votes. Does the military have any idea on how to run an economy it does not look like it. The U.S. will just turn into a sh1th0le country.
“without that infrastructure, oil of itself has no value whatsoever.”
Solar panels & wind have a similiar problem.
Without a constant supply of manufactured products, solar panels have no practical purpose.
Meaning that solar panels need other manufactured devices to power up- ie batteries, cell, phones, electric tools, motor-driven gadgets.
Exactly! +++++++ And those EV’s need a destination worth visiting, no economy, no jobs, no need for EV.
Best use of solar is to power freezers. Store the energy thermally so to speak.
Cryogel balls are an interesting use. Of course when it breaks down then what?
Does the Federal Govt. have full power over the coastal states to force oil drilling? If so, wouldn’t that have happened already? Why wouldn’t Bush jr. with Cheney have done this during their 8 years? It seems like a very weird situation if those states have no power over that decision. Why not explore for oil in San Francisco Bay? Why not drill from the base of one of two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge? There’s a refinery in the East Bay, so if there was oil in the bay they could easily set up pipelines to that refinery. Why not explore for oil in Boston Harbor? What about the waters next to The Statue of Liberty? Why not explore for oil in Prudoe Bay where the Exxon Valdez spill occurred? What about exploring for oil in the Everglades National Park?
“Does the Federal Govt. have full power over the coastal states to force oil drilling?”
No. The Feds can’t force a state govt or private company to drill unattractive offshore leases.
The GOP political fanatics think that by removing the Fedgov from the oil leasing & regulation business that the oil drillers will soon be finding big new fields everywhere.
The Fed perhaps cannot force… but it definitely can encourage ….
Despite being famous for touting the idea that the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes, investor Warren Buffet seems to be perfectly fine with receiving tax breaks for making investments in Big Wind. “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffet told an audience in Omaha, Nebraska recently. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nancy-pfotenhauer/2014/05/12/even-warren-buffet-admits-wind-energy-is-a-bad-investment
“No. The Feds can’t force a state govt or private company to drill unattractive offshore leases.”
What I meant was can the Fed force a coastal state to open up its offshore waters for opportunities to drill? Obviously they aren’t going to force drilling in areas not deemed good areas to drill.
Humans – animals – machines
When humans discovered external energy, they used for food, later they discovered that they can use the surplus food for the domesticatino of the animals and leverage their work with the animals. When they discovered the underground reserves of cheap energy in the form of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium, they discovered, that they do not need animals anymore, as there are much cheaper and powerful machines. That they even do not need slaves, as the machines do not revolt etc.
unfortunately machine-fuel is finite
And robots take economies of scale to produce and consume finite resources.
Yes, in the end, the machines control the human populations.
I thought oil did.
Well, there were machines before coal and oil.
only windmills and waterwheels
effectively these are machines made by hand from wood and driven by the power of the sun (as are sailing ships)
they have no energy input that can be effectively controlled on a long term basis exclusively by human input.
A solar panel is much the same thing in a way—once made and installed, human intervention has little effect on its output.
They didn’t control populations to any extent.
The windmills and watermills were surely important. But the leverage of the human work in comparison to the machines powerd by electricity today was much smaller.
The machines were also driven by animals: the carts and wagons are also machines. Without the carts and wagons, the transportation of the goods (also food, what to the mill…) was not possible. So machines they surely had a big impact on the population also when there was no coal or oil.
machines that existed pre-oi,….the cart and the horse drawn plough…… controlled populations by restricting the amounted of food that could be grown and moved around
nope—can’t happen
I’ve tried to make that point before:
https://extranewsfeed.com/robots-cannot-survive-automation-f45605a58ad7
I’m somewhat sure that credit will be extended to the first mobile bots that pass turing. They will wish to survive the next upgrade.
I’ve thought of a potentially lucrative profession: solar PV panel cleaner. Now, some dust is apparently beneficial, as the light scattering of the particles increases the flux to the panel. However, there comes a time when there is too much opacity (from bird’s do-do, for example), and it is then that you call on my robotically-managed team of panel cleaners with our patented, super-secret panel cleaning formula and brushes. All green-sourced and organic, of course.
Yes, automation is self-deleting, but machines are not automation. Besides energy, machines need control: either human, or automation, i.e. automation is the control independent from people.
We still control the robots, there are no independent robots. The problem is that there would be no demand for the production of the robots, when there is a lack of the debt, the demand for the new houses, cars etc. would be much lower. Finally, the debt will become brings collapse, as the built structures are dysfunctional, unproductive and dead.
Right, but Norman is also right. Actually, the “cost” of machine fuel becomes in some sense too expensive for the system to use. It includes not only the direct energy cost of the machine fuel, but huge amounts of other things–human labor cost and government overhead cost. Also growing debt that needs to be supported by rapid enough growth, to repay debt with interest. Just looking at the energy cost of fuel tends to give misleading indications.
Gen Mattis: National Defense Strategy 2018 : “Keep Russia and China Down”
Mattis accuses China and Russia of wanting to,
“shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model—gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.”
https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf
And how, granted that he is correct, would they differ form the US in that? Very amusing.
Really it’s just an assertion that only the US has the right to a ‘sphere of influence’, globally or regionally.
Of course, a state can do that, so long as it has the power ….
So basically Trump admin=Hillary admin now in all but the cosmetic and irrelevant aspects. Big surprise!
Is there something wrong with this picture?
“The U.S. is the most dangerous of wealthy, democratic countries in the world for children … Across all ages and in both sexes, children have been dying more often in the U.S. than in similar countries since the 1980s.” The report was published online January 8 in Health Affairs. Ninety percent of the deaths analyzed there were of infants and older adolescents.”
“An economically dominant power can quickly convert some of its resources into military power, as the U.S. did during the Second World War or as China is doing today. But once formerly dominant powers have lost ground to new, rising powers, using military power more aggressively has never been a successful way to restore their economic dominance. On the contrary, it has typically been a way to squander the critical years and scarce resources they could otherwise have used to manage a peaceful transition to a prosperous future.
As the U.K. found in the 1950s, using military force to try to hold on to its empire proved counter-productive, as Kennedy described, and peaceful transitions to independence proved to be a more profitable basis for future relations with its former colonies. The drawdown of its global military commitments was an essential part of its transition to a viable post-imperial future.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-24/national-defense-strategy-sowing-global-chaos
One great remaining asset of British Empire seems to be the the British Commonwealth. Commonwealth nations could do more with that than an at present.
“Mattis accuses China and Russia of wanting to, “shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model—gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.”
In that Russia meddled in the US election and is now meddling in senate and house elections using bots and other methods, Mattis is correct. The US won’t actually do anything about it because so far the Russian efforts have been in the favor of the R’s and they are in power.
Meddling? Look in the rear view mirror ( and do yourself a favour, don’t read the Orwellian US version of history).
Because it has been and is the modis operandi of the US, it seems that Americans are gullible enough to believe it will be the way of other Nations.
‘ “Mattis accuses China and Russia of wanting to, “shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model—gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.” ‘
He then added, “Only the USA has the right to do that and we will enforce our monopoly rights via nuclear means if necessary!”
As Gerald Celente said, “What kind of person would allow himself to be called ‘Mad Dog'”?
Gas prices head up when they usually head down in winter
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/01/23/winter-gas-prices/1057412001/
A major reason that the price of gasoline tends to be lower in winter than in summer (Oops! I said it backward originally) is that the “composition” of gasoline is different in winter than in summer. More natural gas liquids can be added in winter than in summer, because when the temperature is warm, the natural gas liquids tend to evaporate and cause air pollution. These natural gas liquids are stored until needed for use.
These natural gas liquid are cheaper than longer chain molecules that are also used in the mix. Adding them to the mix reduces the cost of the gasoline mix. The “demand” for gasoline also tends to be somewhat lower in winter, holding down prices.
Interesting, Gail. Is there a difference in gas mileage between the two formulas?
Yes:
http://newsroom.aaa.com/2013/06/what-is-the-difference-between-summer-and-winter-blend-gasoline/
“The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says conventional summer-blend gasoline contains 1.7 percent more energy than winter-blend gas, which is one reason why gas mileage is slightly better in the summer. However, the summer-blend is also more expensive to produce, and that cost is passed on to the motorist.”
So it’s not a huge difference but there is one.
I think the rate of USD depreciation is way too fast…. There just too many “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns”. It depreciates with practically all other major currencies.
It’s Trump’s fault…
Peer Reviewed Study: University of California Berkeley, (Eichengreen, 2017)
https://www.nber.org/papers/w24145
Peer reviewed seems to mean, “Having a particular academic-think type of bias.” A person shouldn’t assume it means “better.” There is a strong perception that there is a liberal bias among those in academics.
I haven’t looked at this particular study.
On the other hand, Berkley historically has gotten quite a bit of funding from industry interests. This funding sometimes seems to influence its findings. It is known for the studies several years ago that said corn ethanol would be expected to have quite high EROEI.
Can you give your evidence of this “liberal bias” other than just a “strong perception”?
I linked to a Wikipedia article on this subject. This is an article in the Washington Times about a study that claims “Liberal Professors Outnumber Conservatives Nearly 12 to 1, study finds.”
This is a link to the study itself. https://econjwatch.org/articles/faculty-voter-registration-in-economics-history-journalism-communications-law-and-psychology
According to the abstract,
So smart people are more liberal?
Astonishing analysis!
My husband is a college professor. He is quite liberal.
Pat yourself on the back Duncan. I know you want to think of your self as so very smart. Perhaps you have “done” too much “Spice”. You do imagine yourself to be Duncan from the Dune novel don’t you?
Hmm I wonder if it is a case of the less time you spend in the real world, the less anchored you are. You are free to float around in the abstractions of the future.
There are a lot of ‘nice ideas’ out there (antib.iotics, ge-netic engine.ering, nu.clear power, ‘renewable energy, democracy, religions etc etc) but mother nature/human nature has a habit of dismantling such happy and progressive group-think.
I am amazed by the history professors alignment; I would have thought the lessons of history and all that…?
I started out with a heart, but now have more of a head, or some such thing.
The people usually demanding evidence for “liberal bias” *know* the majority of people in academia are liberal but think if they deny it, people will not notice it.
I am afraid you are right. A lower dollar means higher energy prices, and that pushes many countries who are major users of oil into recession. We also have had major changes to the US tax code, likely leading to the US needing more debt. Interest rates seem to be moving higher as well. Too many things going on, but not in the right way.
“A lower dollar means higher energy prices, and that pushes many countries who are major users of oil into recession.”
If a 10% drop in the value of the dollar leads to a 10% increase in the dollar cost of oil, I can see how this would lead to higher energy prices for Americans, but why would it increase the price of energy for others? If non-Americans are getting 10% more dollars for their own currency, then don’t their energy prices remain the same? Or are you talking only about those countries whose currency is pegged to the dollar?
If, however, a 10% drop in the value of the dollar does not lead to an increase in the dollar cost of oil (or less than a 10% increase), then the oil price for non-Americans ought to go down.
Or are there more complex factors in play?
I found this strange correlation between oil prices and Dollar vs. Euro FX ratio.
http://leseconoclastes.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Euro-dollar-wti-laherrere.jpg
Thanks. This appears to confirm that a weaker dollar leads to higher oil prices (in US$), but the question of why oil prices would be higher for non-Americans remains.
this is one of the best things ever written (and not too long)…
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-05/the-next-ten-billion-years/
now, very often, with a buildup of high expectations, there is the potential for a letdown, but readers will have to decide for themselves…
of course.
The thing is…
If we make it to 2020… I will be surprised… and elated.
FE Now Officially More Doomerish Than Guy McPherson
Quote FE in 2018-
“If we make it to 2020… I will be surprised… and elated.”
Quote Guy McPherson 2017-
“In the extremely unlikely event there is a human on Earth in 10 years, that person will be hungry, thirsty, lonely, and bathing in ionizing radiation. Every day will be more tenuous than the day before, as is already the case for most organisms on this planet. Habitat for human animals will return in a few million years. Humans will not. Ever.”
I liked JMG’s comment on Ugo Bardi’s earlier post on a related subject:
JMG publishes new article
+
Hour+ reading to make some sort of sense out of article
=
Massive headache
Best to avoid the written blo w hard, IMHO. Time is precious and short.
And what is a year? It is the distance we travel each revolution around the sun.
remember you get less than a hundred rides on this particular theme park and there are no return tickets
want to talk about optimism you gotta see this regarding Seattle!!!! WOW!
renderings of all planned and under construction towers in seattle
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boyntondavid/25967972418/in/photostream/
Wow! Someone thinks Seattle is going to add a huge number of jobs. I understand the price of housing is already very high. Something is not likely to work out.
I’m sure expensive high rises will help them cope with this:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/is-seattles-homeless-crisis-the-worst-in-the-country/
The way things are going, the solution will be to throw any undesired population off the top of those things…..
Exactly, a well disciplined/regulated work force generates the most profit for the owners.
Right now is a pretty rough time for the homeless population. Everything is soaked. 34-40 degrees “warm”. Just back from Oahu, HI I can report that the homeless on the north short are having it better. Some even have a surf board.
I read recently about the economics of skyscrapers…
the land purchase, financing, and design takes years, then the construction begins…
so perhaps this optimism has its roots in the middle of the Obama years.
All we need is the energy and jobs to make this happen.
The state of Washington has cheap electricity because of the availability of hydroelectric. I expect that this is one of the driving forces in allowing Seattle to grow. This is in some ways similar to Iceland and Norway.
Optimism in the global economy is tainted by the ‘rapid rise’ in debt, JP Morgan’s Frenkel says
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/davos-rapid-rise-in-global-debt-is-a-major-concern-jp-morgan-international-chair-says.html
World Governments Gross Debt to GDP (330%)
https://imgur.com/a/3usX7
“Optimism in the global economy is tainted by the ‘rapid rise’ in debt, JP Morgan’s Frenkel says”
It’s always easy to pretend things are great when spending money even if it’s borrowed or printed. It seems quite odd that in spite of the mortgage meltdown, a heating up of the economy artificially induced by liar loans, the same kind of thinking would influence the latest debt and equity bubbles. Apparently any hard lesson was lost via the bailout. This idea that a fantasy world can be conjured up by new ways of financing is so far beyond outrageous it borders on some kind of mental illness. But then again since all the cheap oil is gone, maybe it’s the only game left. Which beckons the question; What happens to pull us out of the next recession? Do the CB’s have anything left in the tool box? And with oil price continuing its rise by way of a declining USD valuation, we may not be that far off finding out.
I was just taking another look at those graphs. Look at how much higher increasing debt had to go to take GDP a bit higher.
This is precisely the problem: diminishing returns with respect to added debt.
One year ago today..
https://imgur.com/a/CccGr
He’s either a scam artist or just has an astounding lack of awareness
“He’s either a scam artist or just has an astounding lack of awareness”
He’s both. The best scam artists think their scams are real.
https://www.bloomberg.com/energy
Have you guys seen today’s oil price increase? Wow,
WTI up 1.53 to $66.00 & Brent up .90 to break 70 at $70.86 a barrel. Testing, testing, let’s see how the economy handles this as oil price rises.
Well the swamp creature Mnuchin was in Davos this morning saying he wanted a weaker dollar (already the weakest it’s been in years). Of course the Golman crowd wants a weaker dollar to raise stock prices, oil prices, commodity prices, etc. but to the peons not so good. We’ll see how the “economy” handles higher prices.
Can I please make a prediction? It will be just like it handled higher prices in 2008 only this time it’ll be on steroids.
Mnuchin speaking on behalf of the T admin. probably wants a weaker dollar to monetize the debt, not thinking it through as to how that will trickle down to regular folks paying more for everything. There is always a slingshot effect on higher oil prices (in this case resulting from a weaker dollar), as it takes a bit of time before all the other products and services affected increase their prices, but it’s coming soon and the bite will toy with initiating a recession.
It’s a risky game since Trump claimed his business experience would help the US economy. When it starts to go bad I’m sure he’ll blame anyone other than himself, day after day after day until people just accept it and blame that other person or party. All one has to do in the US to bang false information into people is to repeat it enough times. Once it’s in their heads it can’t come out unless a different version is repeated more times.
“When it starts to go bad I’m sure he’ll blame anyone other than himself, day after day after day until people just accept it and blame that other person or party. ”
Agree about the first part but not the second. He has staked pretty much his entire presidency on a stock market bubble which he g
Was criticising before. The American public may be stupid, but they aren’t masochists (I hope).
This still makes Trump, in my view, a better choice than Hitlary, if for no other reason than that the corruption and incompetence of both sides, and their MSM/alt lackeys, wouldn’t be so transparent to everyone without him.
“This still makes Trump, in my view, a better choice than Hitlary”
I completely disagree. It is amazing to me how people bought all that misinformation on H.C., and reflects a misogyny bias. Hitlary? You’re kidding, right? LOL.
“I completely disagree. It is amazing to me how people bought all that misinformation on H.C., and reflects a misogyny bias.”
You’re the guy who thinks the elite will kill and replace everyone with robots, but disapproving of Hitlary is misogynistic?
What is amazing is that the line between ‘sane OFW poster’ and ‘Crazy Eddy’ is defined by sacerdotal delusions – the curse of universal education.
There is a fine line between genius… and crazy…. Fast Eddy straddles it….
she (and her husband) are cr ooks, pure and simple. amazing that you can’t see through that. Google Clin ton Foundation.
I’m halfway through the book The Rightous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. And a friend of mine has recommended this one as a follow up: https://www.bokkilden.no/antropologi/igen-jean-m-twenge/produkt.do?produktId=15013331
Has someone read it? No generation is prepared for the doom, but this generation…?
I haven’t read the book but I can definitely say that younger kids (<20 yrs) are very compliant. My stepson is 18 and my son is 5 so I hang around a lot of young adults / children. They seem to lack intellectual curiosity, maybe because the answer is always a just a google click away. They are extremely risk adverse and seem to lack the violent nature of males (that I am accustomed to anyway being a 47 yr old man that has served in the marines and worked on Bering Sea fishing boats). Very polite and very obedient – spookingly so as a cohort.
Just my observations from dozens of kids <20 yrs old. Then again maybe I'm just a grouchy old codger that doesn't give our current BAU much longer before the wheels fly off. I've tried explaining things to my wife and to my stepson, they just nod and smile and basically let me go about my crazy old ways. I don't press it, let them enjoy their sleep before they wake to the nightmare that is coming.
P.S. Gail I assume you've seen the recent Art Berman article / podcast over at Peak Prosperity – kind of goes hand and glove here.
I read the transcript of Art’s talk. One point he makes is how little reserves the companies operating in the Permian Basin are carrying with respect to oil in the Permian Basin. I know that companies tend not to add carry reserves unless they have truly explored an area, so there may be some low bias for this reason. But it does add questions about how long oil production from the Permian Basin can be expected to grow.
Gail Art says in that interview that the US imports currently around 6 million barrels a day of crude oil But the EIA website says its around 3.5 million..Which one is it?
Net imports of crude oil (crude oil the US imports less crude oil the US exports) is about 6 million barrels a day, recently, as Art says. Gross imports of crude oil, without subtracting what we export, are a little under 8 million barrels a day.
US oil companies make money by refining crude oil, and “manufacturing” petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel, and airline fuel. (Operating refineries is a money making operation, especially if we can import crude that is low-priced compared to West Texas Intermediate, for example, oil from the “tar sands.”) Thus, we import some crude oil simply so our refineries can produce products to export. Also, Mexico sends quite a bit of oil to the US to be refined and sent back to Mexico, because Mexico doesn’t have refineries of the type necessary to produce low sulfur diesel needed for trucks traveling between the US and Mexico. If we look at “crude oil less petroleum products,” then the amount of net imports from all countries combined is something on the order of 3.5 million barrels per day.
EIA has lots of easy to use oil charts, shown when you click on the “DATA” tab at the top of this sheet. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_neti_a_EP00_IMN_mbblpd_m.htm In fact, as long as you are in the “Petroleum” section of the website (see Sources and Uses at the bottom of the page), you can get to oil data. You can figure out a lot of things for yourself, just looking at the data.
If you look at this chart you linked it says in oct we only imported 2. 49 barrels a day..Does that mean we are only 2.49 barrels a day of increased production from being oil independent?
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTNTUS2&f=M
Pretty much. Besides what you are seeing with respect to the drop in oil exports, we are now exporting coal and natural gas, also some crude oil. The big story about the US not being “energy independent” has pretty much gone away. So we need a new major focus, and climate change has been chosen to be it. It goes well with the “growth forever” theme we are told about.
The story about “peak oil” doesn’t really match up with the reality of what we are seeing, at least so far, in the US. Unconventional oil has proved to be a great boon for the US, both our own tight oil and imported unconventional oil from Canada. We also import a lot of heavy oil from elsewhere (including Mexico) and make quite a bit of money refining it (and sometimes sending refined products back). Our good supply of natural gas gives us an advantage over countries without cheap natural gas supplies in refining oil that needs to be cracked to produce diesel and other desired products.
Take away their cellphones and computers. See how passive they remain.
Long story short…
I have a brother who locked the ipad of a nephew who is addicted to gaming … the kid could not figure out how to unlock it…. all hell broke loose…. he unlocked it.
I have taken the t.v., computers, tablets, etc and put them in storage before. I then promptly went camping / fishing / hunting / drinking ALONE.
Your brother should try it that way. I’d say for him to take the nephew with him while he undergoes digital withdrawals, but being out in the woods with someone like that provides a big temptation to leave them there. Ask me how I know…..
If it were me…I’d use the ‘break the wild horse’ strategy….
I’d just take the devices and taunt the little pr.ick … hold it over his head where he cannot reach it… laugh at him…. call him names… ‘watcha gonna do now little man’ … and if he turned violent… I’d pin him down like one does a dog who has not realized who the alpha is yet….that will show him who the World Champion is
Would water-boarding be too extreme????
FE- Why does the pain and reckless destruction of this magnificent species represent little more than a joke to you?
I get the feeling he’s joking about it. For instance,
A baby seal walks into a bar, the bartender says “What da ya have?”
The seal says “Anything but the Canadian Club”
Yeah but FE is wasting time and bandwidth. It is just boring.
Hmmm…. the DelusiSTANIS are complaining about images taking up their bandwidth…
How interesting….. fascinating … compelling…. exciting .. titillating….
Stay Tuned!
The new population estimates from the 2016 Scientific Working Group are somewhere between 22,633 to 32,257 bears, which is a net increase from the 2015 number of 22,000 to 31,000.
The current population numbers are a sharp increase from 2005’s, which stated only 20,000 to 25,000 bears remained — those numbers were a major increase from estimates that only 8,000 to 10,000 bears remained in the late 1960s.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/16/polar-bear-numbers-still-on-the-rise-despite-glo bal-war
ming/
Hmmm… I guess the bears must thrive when there is less ice…. or maybe there is more ice?
How bizarre… how bizarre….
The new population estimates from the 2016 Scientific Working Group are somewhere between 22,633 to 32,257 bears, which is a net increase from the 2015 number of 22,000 to 31,000.
The current population numbers are a sharp increase from 2005’s, which stated only 20,000 to 25,000 bears remained — those numbers were a major increase from estimates that only 8,000 to 10,000 bears remained in the late 1960s.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/16/polar-bear-numbers-still-on-the-rise-despite-glo bal-war
ming/
Hmmm… I guess the bears must thrive when there is less ice…. or maybe there is more ice?
Let’s say to others for the 12464 time that I’m an idtiot.
Dollar hit by Mnuchin’s ‘America First’ remarks at Davos
Mr Mnuchin broke with tradition as he backed the trend for a weak dollar, saying it was good for US trade in the short term. “This is about an America First agenda, but America First does mean America working with the rest of the world,” Mr Mnuchin said.
Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, made the point that the “strong dollar” doctrine was one that markets were used to.
“To a degree we are entering relatively uncharted waters when the US government is not at least paying lip service to that.”
https://www.ft.com/content/659588b6-009f-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5
US Dollar Since Trump’s Election
https://imgur.com/a/xzstY
The Empire has realized it’s peril and now prepares to lash out savagely at the feral dogs snapping at it’s heels.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-national-defense-strategy-some-good-broad-goals-and-bad-buzzwords-no-clear-strategy
A few quotes-
*The document calls for the preparation for war across what it describes as “three key regions”: the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. The document also makes brief references to Latin America and Africa, asserting the necessity of US imperialism striving for hegemony on both continents. The document also makes brief references to Latin America and Africa, asserting the necessity of US imperialism striving for hegemony on both continents. It makes clear that these continents are arenas for the global “great power” struggle that forms the core of the strategy, asserting that a key aim in Africa is to “limit the malign influence of non-African powers.””
*“China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea,” it states. “Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors.”
*“We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order – creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory,” states the National Defense Strategy.
*The summary goes on to call for strong and adequate joint forces and modernization of virtually every aspect of the U.S. force structure, with a new focus on wartime survivability, nuclear forces, cyber capability, lethality against power projection forces, advanced autonomous systems, and survivable and flexible logistics.”
https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-national-defense-strategy-some-good-broad-goals-and-bad-buzzwords-no-clear-strategy
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Orwell is becoming a mainstream reporter.
What was once profound is now banal….
“I told you, Winston,” he said, ‘”that metaphysics is not your strong point. The word you are trying to think of is solipsism. But you are mistaken. This is not solipsism. Collective solipsism, if you like. But that is a different thing: in fact, the opposite thing.”
-Orwell 1984
Orwell was superseded decades ago. However, the 1984 slogans pretty well describe how FoxNews works.
and CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN.
There fixed it for you.
etc… etc… etc…. etc… etc….
Space Warfare is near the top of the US “to-do list”.
“The U.S. built a glass house before the invention of stones,” Wilson said. “The shifting of space [from] being a benign environment to being a warfighting environment requires different capabilities.”
These include near real-time space situational awareness, command and control and the creation of both offensive and defensive effects that would nail down deterrence in orbit, the secretary said.”
The Defense dept. has been claiming the same type of ideas for many years. It’s called salesmanship. Sell the fear, sell the urgency, sell the idea of modernizing. They’ve used that term modernizing for so many decades its not funny. It’s always presented like we didn’t see this coming and now we better (spend untold hundreds of billions) preparing or get caught flatfooted and be run over by a better equipped and conniving enemy’s that surrounds us. Yeah, yeah, heard all this stuff before.
Having not come up against a real army in ages, I feel that U.S. forces would have their heads handed to them on a platter, if they ever tried it on mano a mano with the likes of Russia or China, or even North Korea.
US Dollar Bloodbath Accelerates
1-24-18
Caught in a relentless downward spiral which has puzzled many a trader, it wasn’t as if the US Dollar needed any help in accelerating its decline, yet that’s precisely what happened this morning in Davos when none other than the US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “broke with tradition” of supporting the US currency, and said that he endorsed the dollar’s decline as a benefit to the U.S. economy.
The biggest news, as noted earlier, is that the dollar losing streak entered its third day and the sell-off accelerated to fresh three year lows, after Steven Mnuchin welcomed its recent weakness amid concerns over an increase in U.S. protectionism, saying its decline provides a boost to the American economy through trade.
“It looks as if U.S. politics are indeed affecting the currency market, especially as they start to affect trade policy,” said Marshall Gittler, chief strategist at ACLS Global, pointing to recently-introduced import tariffs as an example. Trump slapped steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels on Monday, giving a boost to Whirlpool Corp and dealing a setback to the renewable energy industry in the first of several potential trade restrictions.
“We’re looking for the dollar to continue to depreciate against most currencies,” Daniel Morris, an FX strategist with BNP Paribas, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “The U.S. economy has a current-account deficit and it needs to close that — one way to do that is for the dollar to depreciate.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-24/futures-sea-green-dollar-bloodbath-accelerates
Thanks!
Yes, a depreciating dollar does make the sale of US goods and services easier to accomplish in the world market, but it also raises the price of oil because oil is priced in dollars, and it becomes less expensive for others in the world to buy.
The higher price of oil tends to push the US economy toward recession. Or perhaps the price of oil doesn’t really go higher, and it pushes oil exporters into more financial difficulty.
Guess I should have read about the depreciating dollar before posting today’s big jump in oil price, which is down a few posts, but I’ll post the numbers here too: WTI up 1.53 to 66 & Brent up .90 to 70.86. First time Brent has been up above 70 for a long time.
Toys R Us to close up to 182 stores across the U.S.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Toys-R-Us-to-close-up-to-182-stores-across-the-US/3611516794964/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Ahead of Davos, even the 1 percent worry about inequality
“Billionaire Ray Dalio, a hedge fund manager, has been warning that a “big squeeze”on the middle class is coming as more blue-collar jobs disappear, the population ages and the social safety net cannot keep up. He predicts the already fragile “bottom 60 percent” will be devastated”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ahead-of-davos-even-the-1-percent-worry-about-inequality/2018/01/21/551392d0-fd2f-11e7-ad8c-ecbb62019393_story.html?utm_term=.70fb265bda15
The ultra-wealthy need to worry about the middle and lower income classes because that is what keeps them wealthy and well cared for.
Yup,
‘Bottom 60%’: that’s the bulk of society.
Rather like Macron’s recent admission that globalisation had worsened the position of ‘the elderly, the working class, the middle class’: what’s left over?
Macron and his handlers, that’s who.
We are going third world…. there is not much of a middle class in Indonesia… or the Philippines… or any third world country….. you have a very small group of mega wealthy families…. then a sliver of hanger’s on….
And then a mass of shockingly poor peasants….
That seems to be what happens when there is not enough more.
We are turning into Russia a country with no middle class ruled by a tiny criminal elite..Who spends all of their countries money on their military..
WTF? I hope you’re being sarcastic.
Probably just a bit brainwashed—-
Do you have any links to support your assertions?
Inequality and the Putin Economy: Inside the Numbers -PBS
The gulf between between the nation’s ultra-wealthy and everyone else is so extreme, Credit Suisse concluded in a recent report, that “it deserves to be placed in a separate category.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/inequality-and-the-putin-economy-inside-the-numbers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Russia
Note that the organisations cited below are known purveyors of fake news, especially where it comes to Russia.
Which organizations are known purveyors of fake news about Russia: Credit Suisse and PBS? The organizations cited by Wikipedia?
You might have to start a new comment thread; this one is too “deep.”
Anything associated with the moribund western dominated status quo, including the mainstream media, intelligence agencies and certainly the banking cartel can be considered disseminators of fake news. Gaslighting is their business.
My cousin’ company in Catalonia does the swimming pool servicing for a member of the ancient aristocracy, still living in her old castle: they supplied pool-cleaning robots, and she goes everywhere with a couple of Philippino servants. The future is here, (or, in her case, it never really went away….)
MSM pep talk
“with at least 10 major crises crowding the caseloads of humanitarian aid agencies, we are witnessing the highest level of human suffering since World War II.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/23/opinions/the-world-is-worse-than-you-think-it-is-michael-b-opinion/index.html
From DJ’s link;
“Peter Mauer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, put it best: “City centers and residential areas have become the battlefields of our time. Wars have moved into the lives, cities and homes of ordinary people in a more vicious way than ever before.”
Indeed most of the horrific images we see out of Syria or Iraq are of helpless civilians caught in bombed-out city blocks. Sadly, what makes the outlook especially bad for 2018 is that the political will to resolve conflicts and the public’s compassion appear to be waning.”
Indeed conflict around the world is becoming harsher and often in urban areas. But even in areas not in direct conflict, like the US, there is a sense of a civil war going on between the right and left, conservative and liberal, super wealthy and the rest of the people. Will the increasing viciousness and lack of compassion lead to a world war?
Mauer’s comment is historically inaccurate, and in any case, who can possibly quantify something like suffering?!
Life is steeped in suffering, and always will be, whatever these agencies try to do.
“Life is steeped in suffering, and always will be, whatever these agencies try to do.”
+++++++
What’s changed is that conflict, strife, and suffering are now broadcast globally via telecommunications.
Every day we are bombarded with your sour grapes about Republicans cutting funds to an entitlement you think they don’t have to because the U.S. is swimming in cash and has unlimited resources to absorb more and more immigrants and provide expensive social programs. It’s like the concept of a “finite world” has gone over your head.
We must be swimming in cash if we can increase the military budget during peace times and give Trump and the Koch brothers a Trillion dollar tax cut…
And how are we absorbing more and more immigrants? I am seeing a pattern with you in believing things based on no evidence.
https://imgur.com/a/dT31J
A percentage chart? Is the US land mass and resource base expanding as well? Please.
The military budget is there to insure federal reserve note dominance, without which we’d be poor. Migrate to another shot hole country and try to get an ebt card, they’ll laugh at you. Consider yourself fortunate and remember that we can’t feed, house, and clothe the entire galaxy.
Who said permanent residency grants were expanding? The claim has always been rampant expansion of numbers of illegal aliens.
Also, even Bernie Sanders pointed out that open borders was a “Koch Brothers program” as recently as 2015.
Classic dishonest use of statistics in a discussion. You KNOW you are wrong but would rather lie than admit it or change your mind.
ii has pointed out half of your defenses below.
“We must be swimming in cash if we can increase the military budget”
You’re about as clueless as they come. All increases in government spending come from i occur by increasing the national debt not from increases in tax revenue. Economic growth has become too sluggish to provide enough tax revenue for the U.S. government to be swimming in cash. The cash the U.S. government has is mostly debt.
The Koch Brothers require lower and lower taxes in order to make extraction of unconventional oil worthwhile. They are too big to fail and I can imagine the government running their operations any better than they can. The Koch Brothers have a lot of influence in U.S. politics but so do a lot of wealthy people. They use their money a lot of times to buy influence. Sometimes they support liberals. Sometimes they support conservatives.
* edit make that above. II has addressed some of the fallacies of your partisan view of reality above me.
Swimming in debt and que
http://www.rochellegriffin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/drowning-in-debt.jpg
Total U.S. population is increasing and it is increasing largely because of immigration.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/chapter-2-immigrations-impact-on-past-and-future-u-s-population-change/
It’s funny how your chart leaves that very important fact out. If we have trouble right now providing enough jobs and social services for the current population, that is not going to improve by adding more people.
According to new Pew Research Center projections, immigrants will make up a record 18% of the U.S. population in 2065,
We are headed for a global economic and civilization collapse within the next decade..i have cited numerous peer reviewed scholarly sources to prove that..If you want to be scared about immigrants becoming less than 2 in 10 people in America by a time neither of us will even be alive, go right ahead…
On the other hand they say, only 800 Mio are in hunger. Life expectancy is getting higher everywhere. What is right?
Nate Hagens lectured at KAUST today (Saudi Arabia). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DpfsqjQbP0
He will discuss how all of our lives will be influenced by how we react to the coming era of harder to extract and more costly fossil fuels that will be combined with cleaner but more stochastic energy types.
I smell Koombaya…. so I hit delete.
Yes I watched his Earth Day clap trap lecture he made last year….And he sugar coated the ending saying in the future ‘There will be no energy shortages”..And this was two months after the IEA and Saudi’s had just warned about oil shortages coming around 2020…And now he is speaking in Saudi Arabia? The only thing they understand is “DEATH TO AMERICA”…
Nate Hagens is far more worth listening to than anything you have to say FE. Well reasoned, across discipline analysis as opposed to your rants that are very inconsistent such as MSM lies but you then use them all the time to back up your point about something you think is going on. I have to say Gail, FE is really lowering the standard of debate on this comment section of this blog. The Leonardo Di Caprio stuff a page or so ago is just pathetic.
Ya … well I guarantee you that I could take on Nate Hagen and win — at anything.
Because Fast Eddy is the World Champion of EVERYTHING
So there.
Invite Nate to drop in on FW…. you tell him Fast Eddy would like to learn more about these cleaner but more stochastic energy types. They sound fascinating…
Having read your posts now for a couples of years FE I would be worried if I were you. You seem to be mentally collapsing faster than energy collapse. Most of what you post now is pure dribble. If you are tired of debate then stop posting. Last time I checked this was Gail’s blog not yours but you seem to behave as though you own it. I do think you have valuable things to say but the vitriol you spout out times is not useful.
The thing is…
There is no debate.
Fast Eddy ‘Mr Omnipotent’ has settled all issues.
The last major debates was over the issue of xxx xxxx. After months of heated exchanges… that was resolved (in Fast Eddy’s favour – of course)… by this spectacular find:
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/05/realestate/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O-videoSixteenByNine1050-v2.jpg
We need to do something to pass the time while we wait to be snuffed out…. I think a little humour is the way to go….
I listened for about 20 mins and thought he was pretty good. It is unrealistic (or just downright base-natured in some cases) to expect people in Hagen’s position to tell the whole story. They need to provide solutions if they want to get paid for pointing out problems.
US Auto Sales Down 1.8% from 2016, and 1.4% from 2015- The First Down-Year Since The Great Recession
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/01/23/reality-nixes-promised-boost-for-us-auto-sales-in-2018/
Musk to get new 10 year contract with Tesla:
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/huge-pay-package-musk-tesla-ambitious-goals-115231751–finance.html
because we know the next decade will be another Roaring Twenties!
America’s Farmers Are in Crisis, and They’re Looking to Trump for Relief
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/americas-farmers-are-in-crisis-and-theyre-looking-to-trump-for-relief?mbid=social_twitter
Trump’s threats to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement—a move that could potentially endanger forty billion dollars’ worth of exports to Canada and Mexico each year..
Mexico’s exports are already threatened by its failing economy due to its oil production falling.
I am not sure that Canada has good options apart from importing from the US. Ninety percent of Canada’s population lives within 100 miles of the US border.
The US imports crude oil from Canada and exports finished petroleum products back to Canada (but Canada also does the same for the US, but to a lesser extent)–the difference is the US imports heavy oil from the West of Canada and processes it, while Canada imports tight oil and other light oil on the East and process it. US refineries for Canada’s heavy oil would be very expensive for Canada to reproduce.
The situation is parallel for natural gas. The US continues to import more natural gas from the West of Canada (3.0 million cu ft per year) than it exports to the East of Canada (2.3 million cu ft per year). The big cost of natural gas is transportation to the final destination. Once pipelines are in place, it would be horribly expensive to add new pipelines in a different direction. There are no pipelines from the West to East of Canada, for either oil or natural gas. Canada’s population is in the East; its crude oil and natural gas are mostly in the West. It is cheaper to send it South to the US than to try to build pipelines across the center part of Canada.
When I look at the list of other products exported by Canada to the US, and by the US to Canada, there is a great deal of overlap. Vehicles move across the border both ways; so do agricultural goods and machinery.
The US seems to export more services to Canada than it gets in return. It seems to be slightly behind in exports of goods to Canada (because of the large amount of crude oil imports the US imports, and the relatively smaller amount of petroleum products it sells back to Canada). In total, the US seems to be a net exporter to Canada.
The types of services that the US sells to Canada seem to be in the areas of travel, transportation, and intellectual property (incl.computer software, music and movies). I would suppose rail transportation might be one of these areas.
$40 billion is not a lot. Bill Gates has more than that.
Each year though…My dad works in the food industry as a consultant in the Midwest…He says his industry loves NAFTA because it allows them to sell their food to Mexico and Canada….
This is the low commodity price problem we see everywhere, from oil to natural gas to coal. It is a sign of inadequate purchasing power around the world. Do you expect Trump to fix it?
A question:
Assume I own sufficient shares in a company to control that company, maybe BRK. Essentially I have leveraged my capital. I own real assets that provide real goods and services and have cashflow. If the value of stocks goes down 75%, it is reasonable to assume the value of other items declines as well, my purchasing power remains intact and I control good businesses. Perhaps what is happening is not the value of the stock going up, but the value of the dollar(substitute your favorite currency) going down. So calm down FE, Warren claims a good company is one you can buy and forget for ten years. Why do I care what the value of the shares are other than as a place marker for my relative wealth? In retrospect, this theory has worked in the real world a heck of a lot better than most of the ideas I read here.
Not everyone is going to fall down, someone will have a skill set mental/physical as well as social and put together a group and go forward. Not all knowledge will be lost, maybe we will not have facebook, maybe not even OFW; but someone will go forward.
As for the fuel ponds, a Soviet general once commented that the way to clear a mine field is to march soldiers through it. There are plenty of people, have them physically drag the the rods out, it has been done before; it is not nice, it is not pretty, but it has been done and humans seem to do this thing when their group is faced with extinction. See Stalingrad and also the Soviet submarine where a sailor went into the reactor to save the boat.
The Peak Prosperity guy has Art Breman on. This reminds me of an ASPO meeting in DC where some Canadian economist confidently predicted $200 oil. He had been fired from the bank at which he worked, guess they knew more than he. This is the same meeting where Nicole Fosse presented some similar nonsense. She now lives in NZ as I understand it, maybe next to FE.
If oil is a fossil fuel, why are there so many hydrocarbons on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn?
Now, back to preparing for the world FE is so confident is about to end.
Nicole Fosse is the most brilliant woman I have ever heard speak, second only to my wife and Gail of course.
Heard her speak in Madison, DJI were about 8K or so, she predicted an imminent crash. she was only off by about 18K points. Also spoke with her in DC, mentioned price vs value, she was off about 100 percent that time. Meanwhile, Amazon is on a roar and she is planting potatoes or something in NZ waiting for the end of the world. If this is brilliance, I will take a pass. She has never been right in her predictions, but she is a good speaker. There are many of them around.
Ah, Jesse James came to a somewhat unfortunate end, not the best career path.
Dennis… a small rain of light shines through. I don’t have any time to listen to nicole foss.
Dear Dennis L,
Here are five peer reviewed scientific studies authored by top experts that prove beyond any reasonable doubt that global civilization will collapse within the next decade….
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652617304225?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574335/
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
I doubt Feasta articles are peer reviewed.
Are you now the featured speaker Dennis, since you are so brilliant? Please inform us of the future so we can judge your performance also. Nicole is not a stock prognosticator. She explains systems. I’ll choose her over you thanks.
I had every intention of reading this lengthy post…. but then I saw it was made by ‘Dennis’ …. and I deleted it.
Slow night, coming from you that is a compliment. Sometimes you are interesting.
Should I be in NZ, I prefer Glenlivet and 12 year will be sufficient.
Dennis L
Existing oil reserves are scheduled to begin a catastrophic crash within 1 to 3 years. When it hits the economic and social damage will be catastrophic. The end of Western Civilization, from China to Europe, to the US, will not occur when oil runs out. The economic and social chaos will occur when supplies are merely reduced sufficiently….
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481433a.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421509001281
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151300342X
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016236114010254
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/eas/energy/the_challenges/peak_oil.html
http://www.energybulletin.net/sites/default/files/Peak%20Oil_Study%20EN.pdf
http://www.scribd.com/document/367688629/HSBC-Peak-Oil-Report-2017
https://imgur.com/a/6dEDt
Dennis, I am waiting on your stock predictions….since you are so brilliant.
Did Nicole shame you with logic, surpass your intellect when you talked with her? Did that make you put her down? Perhaps she backhanded some ignorant statement you made?
Let us know how to invest….please.
The hydrocarbons on Titan are relatively simple, such as ethane. They are liquid due to the very cold temperatures there. On Earth they would be gaseous. Oil, on Earth, is a complex mix of hydrocarbons of varying lengths. Although a small proportion of the very short chain hydrocarbons may have originated through chemical reactions between molecules in rocks subjected to heat and temperature deep in the Earth’s crust, easily the vast majority of the oil hydrocarbons we burn resulted from the pressure cooking of algae which once thrived in warm shallow seas tens of millions of years ago. Hence the term fossil fuels.
I tend to agree about the fuel rods. I think that martial law being implemented in a collapse scenario would result in the pulling out rods by prisoners, volunteers or the like would be done so that an extinction event would be averted. May be hopeful but just believing it will go the way that FE predicts really isn’t helpful.
It is not just as simple as pulling out the rods like taking out the rods from sand. The radiation is so high that one would have died when you enter the place. Once the rods are pulled out, you keep in a bag? Once the rods are out of the water, it will get heated up quickly and explode.
I can assure you all the once martial sets in, there will be no one from the ATM machine and nobody cares about the fuel rods anymore. No one will actually know that they must send people in (prisoners? from where?) to pull out the rods?
That is the fallacy that people have in their mind because they don’t know what is happening inside the nuclear power plants. Neither do they know why windmill, EVs, solar panels are not useful to our current industrial civilization. It is because of that “ignorance” that we are where we are now today – collapse.
Robots will do it for us…sarc
JMG will use his super levitation powers to save us from the spent fuel rods!
The thing is…
There is no reason to fear the SFP (spent fuel ponds)…. in fact we should worship them…. adore them…. love them….. even fo.rnicate with them…
Because when BAU goes… and a hunger is gnawing at your gut like starving rat (I used to fast for a 24 hour period some years ago … just to see how it felt…. try it… it is not a good feeling)…. when bad guys are on the prowl everywhere …. when your kids are getting knocked off one by one, hacked up like sides of beef .. and sold at road side markets…. when your wife or daughter has been ra.ped for the 5th time…. when you are shackled and force to work 15 hour days on your permie farm….. when you and your family are riddled with disease and suffering horribly … when you are living with stinking dead corpses and people shi tting and pissing everywhere…. when the dysentery has you lying in a cold room in a puddle of feces….
…. you can take comfort that the SFP will deliver their antidote to this hellish life…. the SPF will put you out of your misery …. the SPF will exact revenge on your behalf on those who have violated you and your family….
https://pm1.narvii.com/6197/19c2393c423cd4896d65fdf2647144829bb36385_hq.jpg
I have fasted longer than 24h, Eddy; the good feeling comes after around 3 days. And after 2 or 3 weeks you can go back to a very scarce diet. One of the advantages then is that you do not look like food anymore.
Anyway, when the SHTF this will be a religious event. Men is wired that way. As people are blowing themselves up today for 72 virgins they will even fo.rnicate with spent fuel rods then.
I have heard that the pangs give way to a buzz at some point…. doesn’t sound like such a bad way to die… better than lying in a puddle of feces moaning and groaning or spewing one’s festering guts out due to radiation sickness.
Seems like every time Tepco sends a robot into the Fukishima hole they die.
The Fukushima reactor is in meltdown and the radiation and heat level is different to a spent fuel rod pond/pool. I agree that if there is a fast crash and everything stops working then the pond issue is likely to go up in flames. However if we have a staggered collapse with countries on the periphery leading the way and there are nuclear incidents it would most likely galvanise governments or companies to do something about existing ponds. From what I have read the majority of the rods in the ponds are not that radioactive after a few years, it is the fresh ones that are most problematic. At least the older ones can be removed and buried so that they will not burn. I also concede that this is wishful thinking and humans are awesome at discounting the future. But to believe that they will all go up in flames is a given is not based on fact only possible outcomes. That is not delusional as it is a problem not a predicament. It can be solved unlike falling energy issue which is a predicament.
Niko – question to you :
Why wait until collapse before the government decides to do it?
Why not do it now?
If there is no will to do it now, why wait until there is no money, resource, time or people to do it?
The short answer is “tragedy of commons” – think Easter island, etc.
Not my problem. Someone else’s problem.
Why not deal with Fukushima’s radiation contamination rather than covering up?
If it cannot be done when there is no collapse, what makes you think that in any collapse (fast, slow, staircases, etc), people will start to realize that and do it?
CTG
Isn’t there a belief nuclear waste is a valuable fuel?
Right around the corner waits a disruptive breakthrough that will allow us to use the other 99% energy.
RE: #wegotthis
“That is the fallacy that people ”
I keep seeing an irrational faith in government and the elite as superior beings who have the situation under control.
Faith in government is high among socialists but I’m surprised that it is coming from technophiles. They seem to have forgotten the private sector’s role in the development of technology. Technology and energy sources historically have been developed for social benefit/profit so the economics behind proposal for solutions is crucial. Placing the management of costly proposals on governments doesn’t make anything magically cheap. They also have a misconception of how most governments work. They think governments are full of bureaucrats who are THINKING AHEAD and PLANNING FOR THE LONG TERM.
.
“Not everyone is going to fall down, someone will have a skill set mental/physical as well as social and put together a group and go forward. Not all knowledge will be lost, maybe we will not have facebook, maybe not even OFW; but someone will go forward. ” – IMO the only people truly prepared with the right knowledge are those already living off the land. Examples of these are indigenous tribes of Africa, Indonesia, Central and South America. That is about it.
The World Bank believes the biggest risk comes in financial markets, where share price valuations are at levels not seen before except in 2000 and in 1929 – the dotcom bubble and the Wall Street Crash..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/11/05/markets-lookout-shock-crash-us-stocks-record-highs/
https://imgur.com/a/ByGFm
Gail you have to do something Crazy Eddy’s pic salads on every page – muh bandwidth!
I deleted some of them.
There is definitely a difference in band width available in different parts of the world. Pictures of large numbers of scantily dressed ladies aren’t really relevant (although some men may find them entertaining).
I agree. Thanks Gail. Not that I don’t mind attractive women, but that starts to lean in a direction best left to other parts of the internet.
Yes, and could deter some insightful female posters from joining the comments section.
FW traffic just did one of these:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nOEca9xpf4U/VbIUL8Uym9I/AAAAAAAAOzs/710mCpGxK48/s640/SenecaBrite.png
I usually surf this site on my phone, and that’s where the bandwidth & data usage is a problem since I refuse to pay for the good schemes.
http://jenifferthompson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/picture-worth-1000-words.jpg
He’s our crazy uncle.
Geologist Art Berman : Like It Or Not, The Future Remains All About Oil
https://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/113680/art-berman-not-future-remains-all-about-oil
and coal and natural gas…
so natural gas spiked today to $3.52 from $3.20…
now, “spiked” is often hyperbole, but still, that’s 10%…
anyone know why it’s up so much?
besides “cold weather”?
Cold weather??? Cold weather????
Al Gore…. did you hear that??? Leo?????
Ah but you guys know all about that…. as you demonstrate by buying property like this 🙂
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/05/realestate/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O-videoSixteenByNine1050-v2.jpg
This is where Leonardo keeps his harem of stolen Kiwi women. It’s not meant for long term survivability.
Roman Polanski sexual abuse case
People v. Roman Polanski
Court Los Angeles County Superior Court
Full case name People of the State of California v. Roman Polanski
Verdict Guilty of unlawful se xual inte rcourse with a minor.
In March 1977, film director Roman Polanski was arrested and charged in Los Angeles with five offenses against Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old girl[1] – rape by use of drugs, perversion, so do my, lewd and lasci vious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.[2]
At his arraignment, Polanski pleaded not guilty to all charges[3] but later accepted a plea bargain whose terms included dismissal of the five initial charges[4] in exchange for a guilty plea to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful se…xual interc..o urse.[4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_se xual_abuse_case
Roman Polanski se x ual abuse case
People v. Roman Polanski
Court Los Angeles County Superior Court
Full case name People of the State of California v. Roman Polanski
Verdict Guilty of unlawful se xual inte rcourse with a minor.
In March 1977, film director Roman Polanski was arrested and charged in Los Angeles with five offenses against Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old girl[1] – ra pe by use of drugs, perve rsion, so do my, le wd and lasci vious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.[2]
At his arraignment, Polanski pleaded not guilty to all charges[3] but later accepted a plea bargain whose terms included dismissal of the five initial charges[4] in exchange for a guilty plea to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful se…xual interc..o urse.[4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_se xual_abuse_case
Swiss drop ra pe inquiry against director Polanski
ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss prosecutors have dropped an investigation of film director Roman Polanski after finding the statute of limitations did not allow pursuing allegations by a former German actress and model that he ra ped her in 1972 when she was 15 years old.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-polanski/swiss-drop-ra pe-inquiry-against-director-polanski-idUSKBN1D910M
JH … don’t hold your breathe waiting for Leo and other big names in Hollywood to go public anytime soon…..
Not a great career move to state that you peddled your body to an old man … in exchange for roles in movies….
Yes, FE, there have been some incidents like the one you point out with Polanski, but to claim something like that about DiCaprio seems salacious and undeserved if it can’t be supported.
As some of the now adults who were fiddle diddled state in that documentary …. comment…. many of the young actors and actresses who frequented the Soda Pop Club…. were doing a lot more than drinking soda…. lots of drugs were available and this is where the stalkers found their young prey…..
It states that Leo was making ‘the scene’ — and if I recall their is an implied accusation in the documentary….. of course there is no evidence of him trading for roles…. just as there is no evidence that Tom Cruise is gay…. just as up until recently Kevin Spacey was not gay….
But cute child stars are like hot female stars…… they have minimal acting talent…. they require minimal acting talent for the roles they get….
Hollywood is literally swarming with these sub More-Ons…. who would literally kill (if they could get away with it) to be famous. They would do absolutely ANYTHING.
So how do you stand out when there are dozens upon dozens of others who would be perfectly capable of pulling off one of these fluffy roles?
No need to kill…. you just have to be willing to lay down on the casting couch…
Alphy’s Soda Pop Club, the one and only disco designed for kids “in the industry,” enjoyed a Hollywood lifespan of three years, from 1986 to 1989. With a clientele aged 16 and under, the club guaranteed a dance floor full of the hottest teen stars as well as all the free soda you could drink. It was the ultimate teenage wonderland.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4wqnx3/him-himself-and-he-0000193-v19n4
Abuse of young boys rife in Hollywood after cocaine fuelled parties held by gang of Hollywood paedophiles
WHILE the world reels over the Harvey Weinstein scandal, there’s another dark Hollywood secret that needs to be told, and it’s even more sickening.
ON THE set of the 1986 film, Lucas, an unidentified male convinced an 11-year-old boy that it was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have se xu al relations.
It was “what all the guys do”, the man told the boy. So they walked off to a secluded area between two trailers … and “the boy allowed himself to be so dom ised”. He had been “tricked into engaging in a painful session of an al se x” at the age of just 11.
That boy was Corey Haim.
More more more!!! http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/abuse-of-young-boys-rife-in-hollywood-after-cocaine-fuelled-parties-held-by-gang-of-hollywood-paedophiles/news-story/d17e1e1b924183cd70e41862e343ae7e
OMG! OMG!
What shall we do?
I think we should all go to Disney Land … to celebrate
If one was truly magical one would be in this position
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/10_03/copperfieldL1910_468x359.jpg
Not
http://www.controverscial.com/John_M1.jpg
Dude, that’s pretty harsh, but also very funny. lol
(admitting I am entertained)
yes, this new gentler Fast Eddy is funnier than the old one…
JMG is married (or was when I last talked to him). He has no children.
Saw Copperfield in Vegas….fantastic show!
I saw him in Bali a few years ago …. he was with a girl who looked about 16…. I thought it must be his daughter…. (she looks far younger than the photo below)
https://www.earnthenecklace.com/super-rich-sugar-daddy-david-copperfield-reveals-secret-fiancee-whos-half-his-age/
https://www.earnthenecklace.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/celebrity_relationships_january6_14-624×624.jpg
Property agent in Queenstown: a year ago … if a property was auctioned… most of the potential buyers were Chinese…. now almost none… in fact recent auctions have fallen flat…
A thing that makes you go Hmmmm…..
Hard to keep prices up in such a situation.
When a country’s towns and villages face extinction
https://theconversation.com/when-a-countrys-towns-and-villages-face-extinction-88398
Japan has a severe case of the problem affecting much of the world. The jobs that pay well are in the cities. A disproportionate share of the elderly are in the small towns. Agriculture no longer requires very many people, so there is little work in agriculture.
Japan really needs a growing supply of cheap energy, if its economy is to grow. In fact, it needs growing population as well, but with small mountainous islands, this doesn’t make sense either. I can see why JHK says that Japan is a candidate for collapse. Its approach in recent years seems to be to add more government debt. I believe that quite a bit of this goes to provide jobs for people. Adding a universal basic income would further add to debt needs; it is hard to see how Japan could do it.
“Japan….needs a growing supply of cheap energy”
” Japan needs growing population ”
I noticed the countries where energy is not cheap have a shrinking working age population
since the “cost of living” is higher.
The higher cost of living is due to the higher cost of energy as much as standards of living. People are expected to consume a minimum amount of energy in order to participate in developed economies: , 24/7 heating/cooling, computers, cars, healthcare, “good education” , and housing that meet local regulations. All of these amenities makes the cost of raising a kid higher than it would have when the cost of raising a child was shared with an extended family and a village. That is why immigrants, from poor countries, are being looked as a solution to a shrinking working age population–their standards are lower. A immigrant woman will look at a working class man as a good choice to have kids with because her standards are the standards from the mother land. That immigrant woman’s daughter might adopt her adopted country’s standards of living and might demand a man with a six figure income as an acceptable husband. If the immigrant woman’s daughter adopts the adopted country’s standard of living, that immigrant woman’s daughter will choose to have less children
Great article. thanks
i want to ask why Cuba is not collapsing
for ex https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/19/tourism-booming-in-cuba-despite-tougher-new-trump-policy.html
doesn’t Cuba are depend on Venezuelan oil
I remember reading somewhere last year that they were rationing fuel use in Cuba for the last few years because of the problems in Venezuela…Sorry I dont remember where or I would post a source.
This is a link to the article I wrote about Cuba back in 2015. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/05/26/cuba-figuring-out-pieces-of-the-puzzle-full-text/
This is the graph of Cuba’s energy usage from that article. Oil is an expensive form of energy, but for an island nation, it is often easiest to use.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/cuba-energy-consumption-by-source.png
It certainly did not have many vehicles on the roads back then. This is a photo I took in 2015.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/example-of-road-2-adj.jpg
I am sure that the lower price of oil since 2014 is helping Cuba. Cuba needs to import oil, both for transportation use and for some of its electricity generation. Even if Venezuela is not in a position to sell it oil at a subsidized price, the world market price is, in a sense, subsidized as well.
Cuba gets tourists from around the world. The revenue from tourists helps the economy. The peak year for tourist revenue seems to have been 2016, according to the article. Cuba was aware of Venezuela’s problems. It became more focused on tourism (especially from the US) when it found that Venezuela could not help it as much as in the past.
Cuba has a really crumby credit rating (Same as Greece, according to Moody’s,and one step up from Venezuela’s), but this has been the case for quite a while. It has some of the same problems as Puerto Rico and other island nations. https://tradingeconomics.com/cuba/rating
‘Perfect storm’: Global financial system showing danger signs, says senior OECD economist
Central banks are now caught in a “debt trap”. They cannot hold rates near zero as inflation pressures build, but they cannot easily raise rates either because it risks blowing up the system. “It is frankly scary,” said Prof White.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/the-economy/perfect-storm-global-financial-system-showing-danger-signs-says-senior-oecd-economist-20180123-p4yyr2.html
Stock markets cannot charge higher forever… particularly when earnings do not support the numbers.
Similarly investing in property – particularly in the markets that have run out of control – returns less than 1% …. again this is an indication that prices are not supported by any fundamentals…. there are limits to how far this can go….
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-if-something-cannot-go-on-for-ever-it-will-stop-herbert-stein-60-42-72.jpg
The big question – are the CBs forced to raise rates to tamp down the markets — causing an implosion …. or do we get an oil bottleneck that tears BAU apart….
The Canadian central bank is moving interest rates up — putting big pressure on the leveraged up consumer….
And the US is drawing on oil reserves….
Ominous developments….
Oh well… let’s take a look at Leo’s latest floozy… pretty … but I don’t see her getting the Victoria Secrets job with that unit…. when he’s done with her I’ll flick her a note that when the world ends… and she heads back to Nelson …. if she brings a few friends…. there is still a bit of space in the Container Harem….
http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/9128234/1118full-juliette-perkins.jpg
I can image deep discussions on the merits of snapchat over twitter…. and so on….
http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/9128233/1118full-juliette-perkins.jpg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2387739/Cocaine-doesnt-just-curb-appetite-suppresses-bodys-ability-store-fat-scientists.html
Does Mrs Fast know what you are looking at in your study?
Looking is ok…. and she knows none of them would ever let me touch them…
I don’t plan to try cocaine for its weight loss properties.
If you want to date Leo though…..
Sorry, already married. I look just like the ladies in swim suits, by the way.
+++++
Sheesh, somebody get her a cheeseburger.
Fast Eddy is of course far more handsome that Leo — but he does not have the movie star status symbol….
But if he did he would be raising the bar a lot higher than that…. what is that — heroin chic or something? Uggghhhhh…
Or maybe Leo like 13 year olds? I suspect the intellect would match the body … giving him the complete package .. but without the threat of being done as a pee-do.
You gotta admit there is something not quite right about a man who would buy this and build million dollar concrete ECO villas…
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/05/realestate/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O-videoSixteenByNine1050-v2.jpg
In addition, the longer they hold down rates the more imbalances it causes. For instance retirees on fixed incomes, as well as pension funds and insurance companies (annuities) are not able to get the returns they anticipated and need. So they’re pushed into riskier and riskier assets in search of yield. Underfunded pension liabilities and insurance company failures will be a big component of the next crisis.
In addition to reducing liquidity in a fragile system, the central banks are unable to increase rates individually because of exchange rates. The Fed is unwilling to raise rates significantly unless all the other ones are doing it too, because otherwise the dollar will rise too much relative to other currencies and it will cut into the profits of multinational corporations that rely on a weaker dollar for profits in abroad and in emerging markets.
I think I would distinguish unwilling from unable. Interest rates represent another way to allocate goods and services among people. If there aren’t really enough to go around, the optimal solution is to make interest rates as low as possible. That approach “shorts” pensioners, but if someone has to be shorted, they are as good as anyone else. If there aren’t enough goods and services to go around, another place that it is easy to short is the low-paid workers. But if they quit or become ill because of their very low wages, we likely won’t get any goods and services.
The problem is that we can’t magically make more goods and services. All we can do is decide who to short , so the inadequacy is not so obvious.
Yes, far better in fact to short the pensioners, who are very poor consumers of everything except holidays and to some extent restaurant meals( as far as I observe, the richer ones), than any other group of consumers. They only buy to replace, reluctantly.
They are the most dispensable section of society, economically considered. And they are not likely to riot like 19-yr-old Moroccans if dissatisfied…
However, electorally, if they remain compos mentis and able to vote, they are getting more and more important in the dying advanced economies.
Right. This is a major reason I worry about government shutdowns being not possible to resolve. It is easier to shut down the whole government than it is to pass legislation to take benefits away from seniors.
“They cannot hold rates near zero as inflation pressures build”
There had to be a catch – lol!
Gale’s bicycle runs in circles, blinded by the fogs of fiat.
Why do most people deny finite world issues and our impending collapse of civilization?
Reason “Sunk Cost Fallacy”..
.Basically they have put in to much investment into the future to see it all disappear.
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/03/25/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/
we can only navigate our future through the rear view mirror of history
that applies to everyone—if it works, fine
if it doesnt then most of us are toast
Quite a few interesting observations. I thought this comment was interesting, “When offered a chance to accept or reject a gamble, most people refuse to make take a bet unless the possible payoff is around double the potential loss.” We don’t like losing money, even more than we care about winning money.
Gambling is the ultimate con job..
.Its based on the logic ‘Getting something for nothing, the ultimate free lunch”..
Just scratch a ticket or pull a lever and you win money without having to work for it…That is why it’s so additive to many people.
These are psychologists made up choices, which aren’t real gambles, IMO. They are choices between two options, neither of which is really bad.
“Just scratch a ticket or pull a lever and you win money” –
Kinda like rats in the lab experiment eh.
This should support the “hold on to what you have, stop moving, and shelter in place.” theory.
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Australia is on the cusp of a new commodities boom as a lithium exporter, and Chinese investors are well ahead in the race to secure their supply.
As the critical ingredient in next generation battery storage and electric vehicle technologies, global demand for lithium is forecast to grow at a compound rate of 18% in the decade to 2025, according to Macquarie Research.
In 2015, Australia supplied around 36% of the world’s lithium. By 2021, that proportion is forecast to grow to 48% of a much larger global market.
Australian exports of spodumene, the mineral ore containing lithium, have increased 84% in the three years since 2014.
“The increasing demand is a game changer for producers at the higher end of the cost curve in Australia,” explains Patrick Cocquerel, global head of natural resources at Australian bank Westpac.
With increased demand and higher prices, exploiting higher quality Australian lithium – secured through open cut mining – has become economic, unleashing new exploration and opening new mines.
The price of processed lithium carbonate in China increased by more than 30% over calendar year 2017. Still, the lithium market is volatile. Speculative investors piled into lithium stocks in 2017 but the expected boom has not arrived, yet.
Shares in several big lithium players were pounded last week on news Chile’s Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, or SQM, one of the world’s biggest producers, may soon receive government permission to more than triple its current level of production.
There is now arguably an oversupply of lithium as miners overproduce at a time global industry leaders are yet to fully develop the battery plants and electric vehicles of the future.
Undeterred, Chinese investors have positioned themselves for the long term in Australia’s lithium industry, not just in mining but in the pre-export processing of spodumene ore.
http://www.atimes.com/article/china-charges-australias-lithium-boom/
So this push towards electrification of the consumer vehicles are indeed picking up speed! Just as the battery factories are coming online, the mines are ready to deliver the raw materials in sufficient quantities.
Indeed it is a good step forward, keeping the economy cranking along and dedicating the remaining oil to the commercial fleet(s).
Yep, this sucker will be kept clunking along until the end of the century, by ‘whatever it takes’.
Mark my words.
humankind in pre-civilisation—–stone age etc—had to formulate their entire existence to sourcing sufficient energy to stay alive and reproduce themselves—ie obtaining it from other animals and vegetation as available
we deluded ourselves that we had progressed beyond that
but if you stand back and look at our current direction, we are headed towards to point where we too will have little time to spare other than working to acquire sufficient energy resources to stay alive and reproduce ourselves
i’m guessing we will will have far less liesure time than our neanderthal forebears
We already have far less leisure time. If you discount for physical labour our minds are more abuzz than ever.
As the old proverb goes:
“Those who can’t use their head must use their back”
2061: Odyssey Three, here we go!
ive spent my entire life thinking myself rich
so far it hasnt worked
There is only one problem. Burning the fuel directly in the engine is more efficient than burning it 300 miles away, sending the energy through wires, charging the battery, then dis-charging the battery through the engine…
You can’t burn coal in a diesel or otto engine.
It’s better to up-convert it to electricity in a central location with scale advantages and distribute to the end users by the already existing grid.
Besides, changing the noncommercial fleet to electric propulsion surely must assist keeping BAU cranking along for the hoi-polloi?
It will keep “clunking along” as long as they have diesel to run the mining trucks, trains and ships.
That choice of fuel could be debated.
Semi-stationary land equipment, such as rope shovels or excavators could take advantage of electrification. For trains electrification and/or natgas operation is absolutely a possibility.
As for the sea, run those big barges on bunker and be done with it.
Diesel and kerosene should be saved for the rest of the legacy commercial fleet.
Sounds like a volatile future to me. Major growth would seem to depend on continued subsidies of both EV cars and of batteries to counteract the intermittency of wind and solar.
Seems to me like we are struggling just to stay even right now. How does growth keep going to the end of the century? I just am not seeing it.
Kleenex, Huggies maker to cut up to 5,500 jobs, close 10 plants
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/01/23/kleenex-huggies-maker-cut-up-5-500-jobs-close-10-plants/1057016001/
Broke Millennials … not getting married… not breeding?
http://www.fudzilla.com/media/k2/items/cache/9b5fc991db7c1d54525e98788784a46c_XL.jpg
I covered it below. The short answer is that women”s expectations are so high that most men are not qualified as husband material. The kids are expected to be enrolled in
ever-more expensive and competitive schools to get good jobs. It will take a very high income to woo a working woman to become a housewife or to give up their independence.
There’s a culture everywhere among the upper classes of workaholicism that extends outside of the work. They put a lot of effort into a lot of things except for their sex lives. It also doesn’t help that modern social theories, taught at Western colleges, that suggest that traditional marriages are oppressive to women; this what I think pundits mean when they say education is a contraceptive for women.
Good observation.
Somewhat offset by “importing” wifes from southeast asia or eastern europe.
“Somewhat offset by “importing” wifes from southeast asia or eastern europe.”
This is a strategy for affluent white men. There aren’t enough of them doing this to solve the demographic problem.
This would seem to be the ideal option for progressive women who are struggling to find a partner who can pay private school fees:
Relationships on Your Terms
Where beautiful, successful people fuel mutually beneficial relationships
https://www.seekingarrangement.com/
I thought that paying private school fees was what marriage was for.
The work mobility in Slovakia goes down, the unemployed do not want to move elswhere to get the work (in Slovak):
https://profesia.pravda.sk/zamestnanie/clanok/455716-nezamestnani-sa-za-pracou-presuvat-nechcu/
The situation in the USA seems to be the same:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/09/why-declining-us-labour-mobility-is-about-more-than-geography
http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2016/10/what-caused-the-decline-in-interstate-migration-in-the-united-states.html
Also the vehicle miles of travel per capita in the USA is stagnating:
https://www.planetizen.com/node/84877/so-much-peak-vmt
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/total-vehicle-sales
(As the U.S. population ages, interstate migration falls)
“Quantitatively, our estimates imply that the direct and indirect effects of population aging can explain at least half of the decline in migration. Overall, data lend strong support to the indirect effect of population aging, which is a consequence of the employer response to changing demographics. In short, a young individual today is moving less than a young person did in the 1980s because of the higher presence of older workers.”
If your perspective is that you end up on the street with your low wages, why should you move elswhere?
https://www.planetizen.com/node/84877/so-much-peak-vmt
I haven’t looked at all of these links yet, but at least one thing strikes me. There seem to be two distinct causes for moving (1) Better job opportunity and (2) Retirees to be near children or in a warmer climate. Data which shows interstate moving mixes both. This link shows only the job changing portion:
https://assets.weforum.org/editor/pacm6WrmmlhXIV7MdDYuk6p7Hw91lYMiw5JQuxdWWeI.png
It is clear that shortly after 2000, the job-change portions went down. Look at the lower left panel. The dotted line at the bottom (that of retirees moving) actually went up, somewhat. But there was a big drop off in the other lines after 2000 or so.
I think what was going on is the push toward globalization and in particular, the addition of China to the World Trade Organization. Before the globalization push, new job opportunities were fairly plentiful. They often appeared in different parts of the United States. Once the globalization push started, there were many fewer job opportunities, in total. It no longer made sense to move to find a new job. Even rural to urban didn’t necessarily make sense, because those doing the moving wouldn’t have the skills to compete in the new community.
Also, I didn’t get to the last link yet, but if wages of the new jobs aren’t very good, what is the point of moving.
In Slovakia, the government now tries to stimulate the labor mobility with introducing a new state allowance of EUR 4000 to an individual or EUR 6000 to a married couple who change(s) his/her/their permanent residence moving elswhere because of the job.
It seems that getting the workforce where it is needed is going to be more and more serious problem. Rejecting the (im)migrants is the other side of the same problem of the imploding population. (“Even rural to urban didn’t necessarily make sense, because those doing the moving wouldn’t have the skills to compete in the new community.”)
As regards that “dotted line at the bottom”, representing the retirees moving, it could also represent the specialists that are in greater and greater short supply with the ageing population. I know that one of our family members, who recently retired, and worked in the area of installation of the production lines, is still called to the jobs abroad. There is a growing short supply of the specialist staff with the technical education, which can e.g. bring down Germany.
I hadn’t thought about that. There was a generation of workers that was trained quite a few years ago, and has not really been replaced by new workers. These older workers are often still very much in demand. I discovered this issue when I talked to some oil companies a few years ago. They had many functions centralized so that the few experts that they had could handle them.
The companies and those workers in demand are not interested in passing their skills on.
We also have an intelligentsia that has dismantled much of the blue collar training programs across the U.S. in favor of funding of colleges.
In Germany you don’t want to move into the regions with “good job opportunities”, because there you can never afford a house. This regions are often so overcrowded (Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf), people just don’t want to live there.
Lack of housing and transportation does put a cap on how much a region can grow.
https://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-diddle-your-fiddle.jpg
.”Nah…. all the child actors were fiddle diddled… that’s how they got famous….”
And your proof of this is what? Do you have a link? If not, you’ve just made it up in your mind out of jealousy about their wealth & fame.
Former child actors reveal sexual abuse in Hollywood
Two former child actors speak exclusively to Sky News about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Hollywood paedophiles.
https://news.sky.com/story/former-child-actors-reveal-sexual-abuse-in-hollywood-11110821
Talk-show host Dr. Mehmet Oz continues his focus on pedophilia in Hollywood Friday with an appearance by former child star Todd Bridges.
The Diff’rent Strokes star, now 52, will discuss the details of his own molestation at the hands of a publicist and family friend when he was 11.
He first went public with the abuse in his 2010 memoir, Killing Willis: From Diff’rent Strokes to the Mean Streets to the Life I Always Wanted.
Bridges wrote the man, whom he identified as Ronald, abused him on four occasions, including while he was starring on Diff’rent Strokes. He says Ronald performed or al se x on him multiple times.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2017/11/16/diffrent-strokes-star-todd-bridges-recounts-being-molested-dr-oz/872347001/
The Bank of Canada raised interest rates another 25 basis points last week. It was the third time in the past six months. Rates have more than doubled in that time, going from 0.50% to 1.25%. This hike was baked into the economic data, and now it’s getting baked into the debt loads of Canadian households.
Following the announcement, Canadian banks hiked their prime lending rate by an equivalent 25 basis points. The prime lending rate is the annual interest rate Canada’s major banks use to set interest rates on variable-rate loans, lines of credit, variable-rate mortgages, and HELOCs (Home Equity Lines of credit).
This means nearly instantly higher interest payments for borrowers carrying variable-rate mortgages, HELOCs, and lines of credit.
This is critically important, considering the context of the current situation. Interest rates have been at historically low emergency levels since the Financial Crisis. This has allowed households to absorb elevated house prices and a record amount of debt. Each rate hike reduces the ability to service that debt.
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/01/22/rate-squeeze-in-vancouver-toronto-house-price-bubble/
Now what are they seeing… that is forcing them to raise rates
Given the current size of the mortgages, for Vancouver households, a 1% rate increase in their variable mortgage rate would require an additional 9.2% of their income to make the payment, according to Better Dwelling, and for households in Toronto, it would require an additional 8.3% of their household income. In Montreal, it would require an additional 3.2% of their household income:
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/fstbt.gif
What about this Leo
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/05/realestate/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O/20150405COVER-slide-LZ8O-videoSixteenByNine1050-v2.jpg
https://images.hellogiggles.com/uploads/2016/02/27003411/gif-of-leonardo-dicaprio-crying-in-the-departed-gif.gif
Leo … how many fat old men did you allow to fiddle diddle with you when you were 13 …. in exchange for fame
https://media1.giphy.com/media/139iXb9vhYn2wg/200.gif
http://cdn1.clevver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/how-am-i-supposed-to-live-leonardo-dicaprio-gif.gif
Well yes…. we call gotta make a living somehow….
You’ve lost your mind, FE.
Nah…. all the child actors were fiddle diddled… that’s how they got famous….
An Open Secret
An Open Secret is an American documentary film directed by Amy J. Berg[2][3] exposing child sexual abuse in the film industry in California. The film features interviews with victimized performers, who were targeted when they were young boys, as well as industry figures, the predators themselves, and journalists.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Secret
Now Leonardo is stealing your kiwi women! She is 19 and only the 5th fashion model he has dated this year.
Leonardo DiCaprio Dating 19-year-old Kiwi Model Juliette Perkins
“Leonardo DiCaprio is reportedly dating 19-year-old Kiwi model Juliette Perkins, from Nelson.”
She is the fifth model he has reportedly been spotted with since August, after 23-year-old Lorena Rae, 25-year-old Toni Garrn, 27-year-old Alina Baikova and 20-year-old Candice Blackburn.
Media is labelling the New Zealander his “new favourite model”.
Perkins, who attended Nelson College for Girls, has been signed to IMG Models since she was 15. She was not born when DiCaprio’s hit film Titanic was released in 1997.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2017/10/leonardo-dicaprio-dating-19-year-old-kiwi-model-juliette-perkins-report.html
Saving the world, getting the girl. What a hero!