It is impossible to tell the whole oil story, but perhaps I can offer a few insights regarding where we are today.
[1] We already seem to be back to the falling oil prices and refilling storage tanks scenario.
US crude oil stocks hit their low point on January 19, 2018 and have started to rise again. The amount of crude oil fill has averaged about 365,000 barrels per day since then. At the same time, prices of both Brent and WTI oil have fallen from their high points.
Figure 1. Average weekly spot Brent oil prices from EIA website, with circle pointing to recent downtick in prices.
Many people believe that the oil problem, when it hits, will be running out of oil. People with such a belief interpret a glut of oil to mean that we are still very far from any limit.
[2] An alternative story to running out of oil is that the economy is a self-organized system, operating under the laws of physics. With this story, too little demand for oil is as likely an outcome as a shortage of oil.
Oil and energy products are used to create everything, even jobs. If all humans have is energy from the sun, plus the energy that all animals have, then humans would be much more like chimpanzees. All humans would be able to do is gather plant food and catch a few easy-to-catch animals (earthworms and crickets, for example). They certainly could not extract oil or find uses for it.
It takes a self-organized economy to support the extraction and sale of energy products. We need a complex web that includes:
- Equipment to extract the oil
- Training for engineers and other workers
- Devices that use oil, such as vehicles, farm equipment, road paving equipment
- A financial system to enable transactions to purchase oil
- Buyers with jobs that pay well enough that they can afford to buy goods made with oil
The things that go wrong with this economy can be on the buyers’ end of the economy. Buyers can have jobs, but these jobs may not pay well enough for the buyers to afford the output of the economy. A falling share of the population may be able to afford cars, for example.
[3] It is possible that a recent rapid increase in oil supply is contributing to the current mismatch between supply and demand.
Data of the US Energy Information Administration indicates that US oil supply has recently begun to surge. It is not just crude oil production that is higher. Natural gas liquid production is higher as well. As a result, Total Liquids production is reported to have been more than 16 million barrels per day in November 2017.
Figure 2. US Liquids Production, based on International Energy Data provided by the US EIA.
Oil production of the rest of the world has been relatively flat, as planned.
Figure 3. World excluding the US oil production by type, based on EIA International Energy data through November 2017.
Total world production, combining the amounts on Figures 2 and 3, set a new record of 99.1 million barrels of oil per day for November 2017, based on EIA data. This level is above the November 2016 level, which was the previous record at 98.9 million barrels per day.
At this high level of production, it is not surprising that the economy cannot absorb the full amount of extra supply.
There are also a number of issues that affect buyers’ demand for oil.
[4] The percentage of US residents who can afford to buy a new automobile or light truck seems to be falling over time.
If we look at the number of autos and trucks sold in the US, per 1000 population, we see a pattern of falling humps, as a smaller and smaller share of the population can afford a new car or light truck, each year. The big drops occur during the gray recessionary periods marked on the chart.
Figure 4. Figure showing US Passenger Cars and Light Trucks Purchased per Year per 1000 Population. Original graph by FRED (Federal Reserve of St. Louis). Retitled by author, because units were confusing on original chart.
The first peak came in 1978, at 67.3 units. The second, slightly lower peak came in 1986, at 66.7. The third peak came in 2000 at 61.5 units. The fourth peak came in 2015, at 51.6 units. Early 2018 amounts suggest that the trend in units sold per 1000 population will continue its downward trend.
Part of what is happening is that vehicles are becoming longer-lasting, so that there is not as much need to buy new cars frequently. But having a short-lived, cheap car has an advantage, if it makes cars available to a larger percentage of the total population. With a vehicle, a person has a much better ability to participate in the US workforce. US Labor Force Participation Rates peaked in about the year 2000, which is about the time of the third peak in affordability.
Figure 5. US Labor Force Participation Rate. Chart by FRED (Federal Reserve of St. Louis).
[5] There was a steep rise in the cost of auto ownership in the 1995- 2008 period. This has since fallen back, but the cost is still high relative to the wages of many workers.
One estimate of the cost of auto ownership is the reimbursement rate that the US government allows businesses to pay workers who use their own cars for company business.
Figure 6. Auto reimbursement rates as compiled on this list. Amounts shown on “As Stated” basis, and also at the 2017 cost level, based on CPI Urban.
These costs peaked about 2008 and were reflected in high reimbursement rates for 2009 as well. More recently, buyers of cars have been helped by longer term loans and ultra-low interest rates. If interest rates rise at all, the share of people buying or leasing new vehicles can be expected to fall further from the level shown on Figure 4.
[6] Building homes also requires oil. There has been a sharp drop in US home building, both on an absolute basis, and on a per capita basis, since 2008.
Figure 7. US Housing Units Completed, related to US population. Population from Census Bureau; population from UN 2017 population summary.
Building homes is part of oil demand. It takes oil to transport all of the materials used (lumber, siding, wiring, pipes, appliances) to the place where the house will be built. Furthermore, many of the materials used in building a home are produced using petroleum products.
The number of homes built depends on the number of new households that can afford a separate place to live. The low level of building makes it look as if the economy is still seeing a pattern of young adults living with their parents much longer than in the past. If buildings are to be replaced every 75 years, my calculation suggests that about 6 housing units per 1000 residents need to be built each year. About 2.5 units per thousand are needed, just to keep up with rising population, if upgrading and remodeling can be done almost indefinitely.
The fact that there is little home building reduces the number of jobs available in the building industry. The lack of jobs in this industry helps hold down the demand for oil, because these workers would use their wages to buy goods for themselves, such as food and vehicles. Food is grown and transported using vehicles powered by oil.
The lack of home building also contributes to the nation’s homelessness problem. If there were plenty of inexpensive apartments, there would be fewer homeless people.
[7] There is no longer an oil price at which both oil exporters and oil importers are satisfied. Oil prices today are too low for oil exporters.
I started writing about oil producers complaining that oil prices were too low in early 2014. At that time, oil companies were looking back at prices of over $100 per barrel in 2013. They were saying that $100+ prices were too low to provide adequate funds for reinvestment in new fields. Now prices are in the $65 range, which is even farther below the desired level.
Oil exporters are especially unhappy about today’s low prices, because they need high prices in order to collect needed tax revenue. This is why OPEC members and Russia have been holding back production. The plan is to deplete the glut of oil in storage, and thus get prices up.
It is not at all clear, however, that consumers in oil importing countries can really withstand higher prices. The fact that Brent oil prices could only stay above $70 per barrel for one week on Figure 2 (in the red circle), suggests that consumers in major oil importing countries cannot really withstand oil prices at this high level. I have observed previously that a sustainable price, without adding a huge amount of debt each year, is only about $20 per barrel.
[8] If we analyze vehicle purchases by country, we can see that low oil prices since 2014 seem to be helping major oil importers but are hurting Tier 2 countries that are commodity-dependent.
Figure 8. New vehicles (private passenger and commercial combined) purchased per capita for selected groupings of countries. Amounts shown are from OICA estimates by country.
In this chart, the grouping of Advanced Economies includes:
- USA
- Europe
- Japan
- Canada
- Australia
For this grouping, growth in auto sales is again rising, but has not regained its prior level. This is somewhat similar to the indications in Figure 4, for the US only, looking at cars and light trucks. The main difference is in the last two years. Changes in currency relativities may be helping recent vehicle sales for the other countries in the grouping.
On this chart, the Tier 2 grouping includes:
- Brazil
- Russia
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Malaysia
- Mexico
This group includes several oil and other resource dependent countries. South Korea is perhaps more like the industrial countries in the first grouping. This grouping shows a downturn in the purchasing of vehicles in the last three years, when commodity prices have been depressed. If oil prices were higher, this group would probably be buying more vehicles.
Figure 8 shows that China’s auto sales have been growing rapidly. In fact, China has surpassed the Tier 2 average in per capita sales. In the past year, China’s growth in auto sales has flattened. But with China’s huge population, the absolute number of vehicles sold is still very high: 29.1 million vehicles, compared to 17.6 million for the United States, and compared to 20.9 million for Europe.
India and the Rest of the World account for surprisingly few vehicles sold. On Figure 8, their lines overlap at the bottom of the chart.
[9] The push toward raising interest rates and selling QE securities will tend to reduce oil prices and add to the oil glut.
I wrote about some of the issues involved in Raising Interest Rates Is Like Starting a Fission Chain Reaction. When interest rates are higher, economies are pushed in the direction of recession. All kinds of discretionary spending are reduced. Use of oil will almost certainly be reduced. This could lower oil prices significantly, as it did in 2008 (Figure 1).
[10] To a significant extent, China has been helping hold up world oil consumption, with its rapidly growing economy. It is hitting headwinds now, however.
The International Monetary Fund recently showed an exhibit indicating how China’s debt is growing very rapidly, but its growth in output is slowing. The combination could very easily lead to a credit crisis.
Figure 9. Exhibit from IMF Working Paper called Credit Booms: Is China Different?
Now, the rest of the world depends on China for many imported goods. If China should have problems, it would indirectly affect oil demand elsewhere as well.
Even China’s recent ban on importing certain types of materials for recycling can be expected to have an adverse impact on oil demand. Very often, if a container is sent from China to the US or to Europe, there will be no exported goods to send back to China, except for material for recycling. If China refuses to take recycling, containers will need to be returned empty.
Recycling generally needs to be subsidized. Part of what this subsidy is used for is to pay the cost of shipping material to be recycled to China. If China does not take the recycling, this payment for shipping materials in the otherwise-empty containers will not be made. The shipping company will need to charge exporters more for the one-way trip, if the shipping company is to be profitable. This higher cost, by itself, is a deterrent to trade. In many ways, the higher shipping cost is like a tariff.
[11] Conclusion.
My expectation is that the general direction of oil prices is likely downward, especially if interest rates rise. A major financial disruption of any kind would have a similar effect. Gluts of oil can be expected with lower prices.
Many groups, including the IEA, have been warning about oil shortages because of inadequate investment in new production. Oil shortages, and energy shortages in general, have a multitude of adverse impacts on economies. One of them is loss of jobs, because jobs require the use of energy, for example, to deliver goods in a truck. If many more people are unemployed, there is less demand for oil.
Thus, it is not at all clear that a shortage of oil leads to high prices; it may very well lead to lower prices. Many people are confused about this issue, because the word demand gives a misleading impression of the mechanism involved. Lack of demand comes from part of the population not being able to afford cars and homes. It also comes from cutbacks in government spending and from failing businesses. In an interconnected system, even failing banks tend to reduce oil demand.
Another adverse impact of oil and energy shortages tends to be fighting and wars. The fact that the US seems to be raising its energy production, in apparent disregard for countries that have been trying to cut back, is likely to make some oil exporting countries quite angry. It could sow the seeds for another war.
Economists do not seem to understand that GDP growth rates don’t tell very much about the well-being of individual citizens in an economy. A major issue is wage disparity. If there are many very low wage people, there is likely to be downward pressure on the sale of automobiles, and on the purchase of petroleum products. Economists are likely to think everything is fine, up until a major crisis occurs.
Millennials say anxiety about money is literally making them sick
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millennials-say-anxiety-about-money-is-literally-making-them-sick-2017-09-01?link=sfmw_tw
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-17/mike-rowe-americans-dont-value-work-anymore
There is a certain joy in work, no matter how humble. Being retired my work is now on a house that is at best a fixer upper(well, maybe not that bad). I am very slow, but over the past two years, much progress has been made and this summer I resume replacing windows. Maybe not a professional job anymore, but a job. Were things to get tough and were there work, I would hire out as a handyman and hold my head high. This would be a change from dance where things are considerably different, but I could still dance so not all is lost.
Be blessed, it is a wonderful world.
this comment on the Mike Rowe interview:
” Those Dirty Jobs workers have a better time when Rowe and his camera crew turn up. Does Rowe pay them some money to be on camera? If so, then everybody is happy life is great!
A lot of those jobs are [crappy], boring, repetitive and dangerous.
And most of those guys are f789ing stuck and would give their left nut to have a better job.”
work that is a good fit for a person’s ability and personality etc is a very good thing…
I like our “fake economy” where there are many kinds of jobs, so it’s much easier for a worker to find something that suits them…
too bad that in the future, with declining FF, the array of jobs will be severely declining as well.
It’s never good for one’s mental state… to be regressing…. to see that there is no future….or at least a very grim future…. in terms of opportunity…
Heaven forbid that the masses realize that there literally is… no future… other than suffering and death…..
Millennials are experiencing The Beaten Dog Syndrome — you can observe it if you visit any third world country … where unemployment is over 50% and what jobs there are pay barely enough to survive.
You will see large numbers of dejected men… men would have just given up on life… many scrounge money off their wives and spend it on cheap booze and drugs…
This creates the perception that they are lazy — that this is their fault….
I have been involved in a small project where me and Madame Fast funded the re-starting of an abandoned gold mining shaft … it was a very simple operation involving around 5k … all the workers had shares in what came out of that mine…. you wanna see ‘lazy’ bas tards come back to life….. this guys were working as if their lives depended on it….
Because they were given an opportunity.
Sadly after a couple of months of minimal results… the operation was shut down…
Which is probably for the better…. normally when these operations hit pay dirt the miners pis s away the cash on booze and hookers … ending up flat broke…. and I would have no doubt been tempted to join in the frenzy!!!
you never invited us—your real friends—to participate in your goldmining venture
I can belatedly invite everyone .. to share in the 5k loss 🙂
“About a third of the millennials surveyed said they were prone to excessive or frivolous spending, more than the 26% of those in Generation X and 19% of baby boomers who said this. About a third of millennials also said they have ended up spending money they budgeted for other things, like savings, on themselves. Just 15% of those in Generation X and 4% of baby boomers said this.
In fact, millennials spend more than an average of $2,300 per year than older generations on key items including groceries, gas, restaurants, coffee and cellphone bills…”
so, their own poor choices often add to their problems…boo hoo…
but hey, you know what? it would be great if all millennials could learn about the world situation of declining FF resources…
that might give them more anxiety and make them literally sicker, but it would be a good dose of reality.
They don’t want to know. Anybody who tries to explain can expect to be derided and dismissed as being too negative.
‘The Harms of Fracking’: New Report Details Increased Risks of Asthma, Birth Defects and Cancer
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/fracking-health-risk-asthma-birth-defects-cancer-w517809
It is pretty clear that nothing is a solution.
Going without energy products doesn’t work.
Wind and solar don’t work.
Fracking has drawbacks.
Is fracking worse than not having fossil fuel products, however? The trucks coming to Ohio from Pennsylvania are filled primarily with materials that were naturally occurring underground in Pennsylvania, but dissolved in the fracking fluid and came back up. The geology of Pennsylvania does not allow reinjection, so companies bring them to Ohio to be re-injected.
US Gross National Debt Spikes $1.2 Trillion in 6 Months, Hits $21 Trillion
by Wolf Richter • Mar 16, 2018 • 70 Comments
These dang trillions are flying by so fast, they’re hard to see.
The US gross national debt jumped by $72.8 billion in one day, on Thursday, the Treasury Department reported Friday afternoon. This March 16 is a historic date of gloomy proportions, because on this date, the US gross national debt punched through the $21 trillion mark and reached $21.03 trillion.
Here’s the thing: On September 7, 2017, a little over six months ago, just before Congress suspended the debt ceiling, the gross national debt stood at $19.84 trillion.
In those six-plus months – 132 reporting days, to be precise – the gross national debt spiked by $1.186 trillion. I tell you, these dang trillions are flying by so fast, they’re hard to see. And we wonder: What was that? Where did it go?
Whatever it was and wherever it went, it added 6% to the gross national debt in just 6 months.
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/03/16/us-gross-national-debt-spikes-1-2-trillion-in-6-months-hits-21-trillion/
The hamster is running very fast now….
Bobber
Mar 16, 2018 at 6:58 pm
The federal government must be planning to default on its debt. There is no other explanation.
Hahahaha… yes there is:
THE PERFECT STORM (see p. 58 onwards)
The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
I am not allowed to post on WS… because Wolf does not take kindly to those who demonstrate that he is often wrong.
He’s rather thin-skinned.
I got banned from Wolf as well.
Wolf?
More like…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Street_dog-Gianyar_Bali-2009.jpeg
again… this is not a big deal…
the scenario here is that (USA) govt debt is held down by the fake (always going to be raised) debt ceiling…
when congress raises the ceiling, the debt “spikes”…
then the debt gets flatter as the next ceiling approaches…
this happened a few times in Obama’s 8 years…
the bottom line is that it has averaged out to +$1 trillion per year for the past 9 years…
$21T, big deal… $30T is not too many years away.
It depends as to whether “independent” individual and institutional investor are still relevant actors in these debts schemes. I’d argue we are already past that point for several decades, yet the wealthy/owner’s class is always ready to be papered over by the issuance of new debt, promises of new tomorrows, negatives to be offloaded on the proles..
Until this perception changes, nothing brakes..
So, we are back to that pesky proverbial square one,
awaiting THE hard resource limits (incl. demography), and simply we are not there yet..
FE,
Chris Voss has written an interesting book, “Never Split the Difference…” It might be helpful to you.
Where’s the Immigration Crisis? U.S. Border Patrol Reports Illegal Border Crossings At Record Low
Between 2000 and 2017, the number of Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest border plummeted by approximately 80%, from a high of over 1.6 million in 2000 to around 300,000 in 2017.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2017/12/05/wheres-the-immigration-crisis-u-s-border-patrol-reports-illegal-border-crossings-at-record-low/#21deecfc4b73
Reading Ugo Bardi’s latest series of posts made me realise the fundamental problem with the “quasi-techno-optimistic” position taken by him and others. They don’t believe in infinite growth, but nevertheless hope that at some undefined point in the near/very near future, societies/cultures/etc will start being fine-tuned and micro-managed according to a grand plan which shall aim to radically alter both their structure and general trajectory. And of course, such plans shall involve *defying*, not *exploiting*, the larger environment (of human nature, probability of getting lucky, available resources, costs and risks associated with transition etc) that they inhabit.
Bardi thankfully never turns up the quasi-techno-optimism to max, and generally explains the possible disadvantages/obstacles honestly and clearly. In a strict academic sense it is a very respectable approach, but on a more practical level it is almost obtuse (in the service of quasi-techno-optimism).
Anyway, judge for yourselves. Here’s the article (about sustainable space mining) that triggered me and the above rant:
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.in/2018/03/the-view-from-les-houches-return-of.html
Well, at least he tries to explain. Sustainable space mining??
Sustainable space mining is my characterisation. In Bardi’s words:
“going to space to bring minerals back to Earth makes little sense, But, recently, I have been re-examining the concept and I discovered that there may be a logic in it if we just we change the target market from the Earth to space.”
Note that he says “may”. It may easily become “may not” if you pressed him hard enough. I can understand why, as a tenured professor, he would feel obligated to adopt a more-or-less impartial posture in such matters.
as i pointed out on one of those blogs, the technology to do it is dependent on existing earthbound industry, which is itself fossil fuel powered
we have maybe 20 years worth of that left if we’re lucky
so space mining will have to get ”off the ground” pretty quickly if it’s going to have any functional existence at all
but space mining technology is as yet just a dream, like fusion power
yes… just a (day)dream…
like Mars colonies…
like intergalactic travel…
I get it that in the past, some “dreams” have become reality…
but each “dream” should be examined on its own merits, and space mining fails the test.
“going to space to bring minerals back to Earth makes little sense, But, recently, I have been re-examining the concept and I discovered that there may be a logic in it if we just we change the target market from the Earth to space.”
no… this is absolutely absurd…
I’m not giving him a pass for having an “impartial posture”…
he is talking nonsense here, and should be called out for it…
space mining is essentially a science fiction type idea…
put it on your bookshelf next to colonies on Mars…
come on, people, this is really ridiculous.
“come on, people, this is really ridiculous.”
Yup.
‘America’s new Vietnam’: why a homelessness crisis seems unsolvable
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/16/us-homelessness-crisis-los-angeles-politicians
conclusion:
“Homelessness is a symbol of the failures of all our institutions.”
yes, failure due to the root cause of declining energy resources…
so, here’s why I think the “crisis seems unsolvable”…
because it is unsolvable.
Is The U.S. Economy Really Growing?
Most people are aware that GDP growth has been lower than expected in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC). For example, real GDP growth for the past decade has been closer to 1.5% than the 3% experienced in the 50 years prior to 2008. As a result of the combination of slow economic growth and deficit spending, most people are also aware that the debt/GDP ratio has been rising.
All government spending boosts GDP calculations, regardless of whether government spending is financed by tax collections or deficits financed by debt issuance.
Isolating the interaction between increases in TDO and the dollar amount of GDP growth, the data show a regime change post-2008 compared to the period 1971-2007.
In the period 1971-2007, the dollar amount of GDP growth exceeded increases in TDO except in years in which the economy was in recession.
In the period 2008-2017, annual increases in TDO regularly exceeded the dollar amount of GDP growth, which remarkably occurred during years that GDP was calculated to be growing.
In the period 2008-2017, the cumulative increase in TDO was a multiple of cumulative GDP growth. The dollar amount of GDP growth was completely dependent on deficit spending.
The efficiency of each dollar of deficit spending is declining, because the dollar amount of TDO is greater than the dollar amount of GDP growth.
In the period 2018-2021, the increase in TDO will continue to exceed GDP growth, per forecasts made by the BEA and CBO. That is, GDP growth will be dependent on continued deficit spending.
Importantly, if the economy slips into recession, it is possible TDO will grow at well over $2 trillion per year, meaning that the gap between TDO and GDP will get much larger.
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/is-the-u-s-economy-really-growing/
“That is, GDP growth will be dependent on continued deficit spending.”
The question we then need to ask is;
It appears from the article that as long as deficit spending can take place, GDP will be greater than 0 and therefore no official recession of two quarters in a row of negative growth can occur.
However, if the market for bonds dries up due to foreign or domestic bond holders concerns over debt levels, then a recession would ensue, but then what could be done then to break out of a recession?
Probably nothing, and that’s when collapse of the current system and writing off of massive debt would need to take place, and then the only question then is could the US economy be jolted back into coherence with a new system that doesn’t rely on deficit spending?
Answer: Either only for a small percentage of the population that weathered the recession and are in a position to restart, but then what happens to the rest of the population? OR, discovery of a new cheap energy source.
sort of an answer:
debt under Obama was up $8 trillion in 8 years (good trick, eh Barack?)…
no reason to think this won’t continue, so $21T debt now will go to $30T by the mid to late 2020s and perhaps $40T by the mid 2030s…
IF the economy stays quasi-BAU…
any recessions? could be turned around with massive (off the books) QE…
in other words, more of the same old playbook since 2009…
will it work?
I would guess that many “experts” 10 years ago would have said the USA would be toast if it ever got above $20T debt….
so, not even so-called experts (who often disagree, and how is that possible?) know what will happen…
that’s why we have the word “guesstimate”.
Higher Rates May Spell Private Debt Trouble, Study Finds
Hong Kong, Sweden, China and Australia could all find themselves in hot water over private-sector debt if borrowing costs rise, according to research by Oxford Economics.
https://www.bloomberg.com//news/articles/2018-03-15/higher-rates-may-spell-private-debt-trouble-study-finds
@Gail, thank you for cogently summarising the oil price issue. One comment:
“There is no longer an oil price at which both oil exporters and oil importers are satisfied. Oil prices today are too low for oil exporters.”
I think the market believes that, for the moment, it can get what it needs by way of production at $60-65, i.e., $40 lower than during the previous crisis. We will probably know that belief is valid by the end of this year.
Sorry, meant to say “WHETHER that belief is valid” in the last sentence…lol!
There’s a big time-delay force at work here: the money IS coming to keep the existing wells pumping, but it’s NOT coming to replace those wells with new ones, when they deplete (“diminishing returns” — it costs more and more, in “real” terms, to keep the oil supply up).
Where I work, in 2014, they were machining big chrome-steel blocks into parts for deep-water oil drilling (where the water pressure is many tons PSI) — in 2015, they cancelled the job, & returned the unused material — the customer (“FMC”) didn’t have confidence in making enough money on it, given the collapsed oil prices.
Yep, great way to put it, “.. ![there’s a big time-delay force at work here]! : the money IS coming to keep the existing wells pumping, but it’s NOT coming to replace those wells with new ones, when they deplete..”
Unfortunately, in general and on the macro front for the entire OFW debate-issues, only very tiny minority, very few, realistically predicted it’s going to be such long drawn can kicking exercise. As the first world per capita standard has been in stagnation since ~1970s and proceeds to slow decay, almost five decades have flown by now, and yet few more to come (additional 2-3x ?)..
Although a lot of people frame our problem as an oil problem, I don’t think that is a very good explanation for our problem. Our problem a world energy-per-capita problem. We need to have enough energy (of many different types), and the average cost needs to be low enough, relative to the wages of non-elite workers. There have been a lot of very vocal people concerned about oil, but oil is only one piece of our problem, as far as I can see.
We have been struggling for a very long time with the world energy per capita problem. Malthus was concerned about not having enough energy, and they we added coal. Things got better for a while, but UK coal supply peaked in 1913. We then had World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. All of the spending (debt) of World War II, got us out of this problem. It also helped ramp up oil consumption.
We did hit another bottleneck, with the peaking of the United States’ oil supply in 1970. Then we were bailed out by the oil production of the North Sea, Mexico, and Alaska.
We hit another bottleneck of low oil prices. The thing that bailed the rest of the world out was the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991. Japan’s growth also fell markedly in the 1990s.
More recently, from 2001 to 2015, the thing that bailed the world out was China’s coal (and to a lesser extent, India’s and Australia’s coal), from 2001 to more or less now.
In the last few years, China’s coal production has become a problem. No we seem to be bailed out by debt and more debt, and the use of QE to keep interest rates down.
There have been a lot of ingenious solutions to keep the world economy going. We are not solely dependent on oil.
I sold The Container to a guy who is an engineer on offshore rigs… he says he’s working on a big gas field off the coast of Broome Australia —- all the gas gets exported …
Even though Australia could use the gas domestically…
But .. as we know … the cost to get this gas across the country … would be prohibitive….
http://www.worldeasyguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Where-is-Broome-on-map-of-Australia-640×447.jpg
“almost five decades have flown by now, and yet few more to come (additional 2-3x ?)..”
I’m not so sure. I think 2020 or perhaps ’18 onwards will start to see collapse warming up (no offense to FE!) If the party does last 2-3 more decades, it’ll likely be a different kind of party within a decade. Like everyone starts to leave and the ones that don’t want to are either looking for someone/something interesting to do or are lucky enough to be doing so already.
Right now, the DJ has ironically put on a famous gay 90s song which is bringing a few laughs, but things are quieting down in general and an increasing minority are trying to find the ideal moment to casually encounter the host and say bye.
the only growth i see is in homeless populations, despite efforts to clear and move them from camping in public areas. an upside to their forced nomadic behavior is the surrounding land gets a (temporary) break from the septic build.
maybe convert empty retail shopping malls into homeless shelters? win-win.
” “almost five decades have flown by now, and yet few more to come (additional 2-3x ?)…”
“I’m not so sure. I think 2020 or perhaps ’18 onwards will start to see collapse warming up…”
and that is one of our OFW games… the timeline game… I’m also not so sure…
there are many signs that could be interpreted as “collapse warming up” even now…
but then the boiling point might not be reached for 10 or so years… or 10 or so months…
I assume there will be a big return to burning more coal in the 2020s…
and this will give IC a quasi-BAU until the 2030s…
or not.
we all know bau will coming to end
so Relax Everything ends. Everything. Nothing is eternal.
This is, however, as true of everything bad as everything good.
And remember also that the good is always around too. Food that tastes good and satisfies. Love. Beauty. The satisfaction of a soft bed (hopefully). The good times pass and return, just as the bad times do.
And everyone dies, and everything ends, and in that is freedom.
Your worry hurts you and helps no one else. By all means do things. If you can make a difference, and want to, go ahead. But once that all is done—
Don’t worry and be happy.
https://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU
yes!
relax and enjoy the good…
try to avoid what is not good…
so what that BAU will be ending in the next few decades and IC will totally collapse and almost all of the wealth will disappear and almost all people will be living in dire poverty…
ha! I laugh in the face of that future!
An adapted extract from the new book The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by the historian Timothy Snyder.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/16/vladimir-putin-russia-politics-of-eternity-timothy-snyder?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=The+Long+Read+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=267816&subid=23725399&CMP=longread_collection
The description of the book:
‘A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world’ YUVAL NOAH HARARI, author of SAPIENS The past is another country, the old saying goes. The same might be said of the future. But which country? For Europeans and Americans today, the answer is Russia. Today’s Russia is an oligarchy propped up by illusions and repression. But it also represents the fulfilment of tendencies already present in the West. And if Moscow’s drive to dissolve Western states and values succeeds, this could become our reality too. In this visionary work of contemporary history, Timothy Snyder shows how Russia works within the West to destroy the West; by supporting the far right in Europe, invading Ukraine in 2014, and waging a cyberwar during the 2016 presidential campaign and the EU referendum. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the creation of Donald Trump, an American failure deployed as a Russian weapon. But this threat presents an opportunity to better understand the pillars of our freedoms, confront our own complacency and seek renewal. History never ends, and this new challenge forces us to face the choices that will determine the future: equality or oligarchy, individualism or totalitarianism, truth or lies. The Road to Unfreedom helps us to see our world as if for the first time. It is necessary reading for any citizen of a democracy.
Snyder points to Russia as the culprit of the surge in inequality and the demise of democracy, not the underlying depletion of cheap to extract energy and ressources. If you read Snyders essay it could perhaps be reframed in this way: When it’s no longer enough cheap energy and ressources to go around the politics of inevitable progress gives way to the politics of eternal threats, democracy gives way to oligarchy?
Snyder’s “work” is basically just a rehash along the official propaganda in different-novel shade again, now establishing the concept of the decay of the west in somewhat the inevitable category, which for some mainstreamers not paying enough attention so far would be a bit of surprise. But in general it’s an obvious piece of joke and trashy material not worth attention.
In terms of individual arguments it’s beyond silly, Russian quasi support for “far right” in Europe (aka ~true nationalists) is like ~1/100th of the democracy meddling funds the West provides globally, so what.. ?!?
And the Donald claim is also weak, actually, from the point of TPTB it’s much better option to let install or at least gradually co-opting lazy and narcissistic pseudo billionaire of lower ranks playing fake nationalist than deal constantly with mentally very unstable workaholic b#%ch like madame Clinton.
Russia isn’t propped up by anything. Russia has more resources than any other nation on earth, relatively little debt, and a determined population that represent a threat to the Anglo-Zio-American banking cartel currently running the show. That scenario all vaporizes when Wile E Coyote looks down and sees US treasury junk bonds littering the canyon floor.
A curious form of logic granting absolution for someones sins by pointing the finger at a bigger sinner..
Not a Snyder fan—
The Jacobin weighs in:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/timothy-snyders-lies/
(a long read- probably a bit complex for this audience)
Thanks
I havn’t read that book, but the follow up, Black Earth is exellent. It offers new insights about what Holocaust really was. The Holocaust hat different parts, the first and most important in death toll was the mass killings during the colonial campaign Nazi-Germany launched eastwards into the territories of Poland, Belarus and the Baltic States, where state institutions already were destroyed by the Sovjets.
Snyder’s stuff is a bunch of pure bunk.
Is that meant as argument?
The last paragraph seems to be yours, rather than a quote from the book. You seem to be saying you don’t agree with Snyder; the issue is really a resource issue. When resources stretched to o thin, there is a tendency to fight; democracy gives rise to oligarchy. I agree with you in your assessment, regardless of what Snyder says.
US “Democracy” has already been an oligarchy for over a century now. Even in the late 1800s votes were frequently bought. Nowadays votes don’t need to be directly bought as large oligarchic companies own all of the US media, so they can shape the voters’ opinions that way while profiting from the venture.
and I would say that all democracy turns to oligarchy as soon as there is concentration of wealth to allow it to happen. This happened first in the US in the Victorian Age and culminated in the Roaring Twenties when the transition to de facto oligarchy was completed. In this latest round of Neo-gilded age development we’re just seeing competing factions of oligarchs which is making the oligarchy more apparent to more people.
Caterpillar closings impact 880 jobs, Illinois plant could be next
http://www.mortontimesnews.com/news/20180316/caterpillar-closings-impact-880-jobs-illinois-plant-could-be-next
so, upper management apparently finally tired of the endless poker playing in sales and manufacturing depts.
Strange… I have been seeing headlines that after years of declining profits… CAT had turned things around…
G-20 Sees Global Tension, End to Cheap Money as Risk to Growth
Geopolitical tensions, inward-looking policies, and the unexpectedly swift end to easy credit are the key risks to the broadest upturn in global growth since 2010, according to a draft statement by the G-20 group of leading economies.
The communique omitted any direct references to the fight against protectionism, an issue likely to loom over discussions following the U.S government’s move to slap import tariffs on steel and aluminum. But it did reference last year’s statement at the Hamburg Summit, where the groups’ members pledged to refrain from unfair trade practices. Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the G-20 are due to meet in Buenos Aires next week.
The group promised it would avoid competitive devaluations and stressed the importance of international trade as an engine of growth. The draft statement did, however, ring some alarm bells over crypto-assets, warning that they raised some concerns over tax evasion, money-laundering and terrorist financing. It suggested that these types of assets should be monitored with an eye to a possible multilateral response.
The EU and other foreign trading partners are seeking exemptions to the 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum that President Donald Trump announced this month.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-16/g-20-sees-global-tension-end-to-cheap-money-as-risk-to-growth
Like many historians who study past KKKKKlimate and weather, I stumbled across my topic – the KKKKKKKlimate history of North America – by accident.
As a graduate student, more than a decade ago, I was preparing a dissertation on the suitably obscure topic of agrarian crises in early modern Anatolia. What I discovered was that the Ottoman Empire, which then ruled the whole Eastern Mediterranean, had been unprepared for the onset of the coldest and (in that region) the driest phase of the Little Ice Age, from the late 1500s to late 1600s.
Freezing winters and droughts, harvest failures and the death of livestock brought famines and undercut provisioning systems that the empire needed to supply its cities and armies. Soldiers mutinied; peasants and pastoral tribes rose up in rebellion; rural populations perished or fled; and the empire barely survived the chaos.
https://www.historicalclimatology.com/blog/new-worlds-of-kkkkkkkkkkkkklimate-change-the-little-ice-age-and-the-colonization-of-north-america
Then from the late 1500s to the turn of the 17th century, a series of large volcanic eruptions brought global temperatures lower still. In 1601, for instance, the Rio Grande froze over near today’s Albuquerque; frost and drought brought famine to the Pueblos; and Juan de Oñate’s conquest of New Mexico nearly collapsed from hunger and desertions. French settlers in New England and Canada perished in the long winters that decade, and the little-remembered English colony at Sagadahoc, Maine gave up in 1608 after less than a year, its “hopes . . . frozen to death” in the words of one contemporary.
FE, wanna have your own little Kkkkkkk kkkkkk? Measure temperatures around your propery for one full year. Then hack down all the trees and till and glyphosate the plants. Observe.
I’m into a double header TS 1 — and I just found out there is a 2
1:14 mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLMxoDZDHDk
I could do with some of that when the end comes
Choose Logic
if you have the spare time FE, read the books by Brian Fagan of UCSB on topics of the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, etc. good reading.
FE thinks that WWWW GGGG is about some articles on the internet, LOL. Didn’t you hear about IPC C, and their reports, which are backed by multiple evidence gathered over decades? You’re so relentless in making fo ol of yourself.
Gail has specifically requested an end to this type of discussion. Anyway, it is boring.
Yes when an argument has been so definitively won… when the superiority of one team is so absolute…. when the facts and logic are just so overwhelming… I agree… any further discussion of the issue is…. boring….
It’s kinda like Mike Tyson beating the living sh it out of Peewee Herman…. and then having to listen to Peewee rant on and on and on about how next time he’s gonna kick Mike’s a ss.
The KKKK limmmmate is of course chaaaanging … some places are getting hotter … some are getting colder… some are getting more rain … some are getting less rain…..
Just like what happened in Medieval Europe… and pre-industrial revolution China… and Australia… etc etc etc….
The KKKKKKKKKKlimate chaaaaanged dramatically BEFORE we starting to burn fossil fuels — and it will change dramatically when we are extinct and there are no fossil fuels being burned
What part of this story do you not get????
I am standing by to assist…. I am The Donkey Whisperer.
with a global population of less than a billion, such fluctuations were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things
a population of 7.5 bn changes all that
Indeed it does…
But the fact of the matter is — the KKKKlimate was changing dramatically before we started to burn coal….
As has been pointed out in those articles — the major influences on kkkkklimate chhhange are – solar activity – and changes in the ocean.
As it was then — so it is today.
We have burned almost all the fossil fuels we are ever going to burn …. and the chaaaannnges in kkkkklimate are no greater than they have been during periods when we burned virtually no fossil fuels…
The evidence is in.
This is a non-story. It is fake. A ho ax.
It is a so obviously – as Gail has pointed out — misdirection ….
1. Create a problem that captures the attention of the masses
2. Deflect them from the real problem – the end of energy
3. Offer solutions that solve the fake problem + the real problem
4, But NEVER EVER mention the real problem — that is a big no no. Let sleeping dogs lie. Allow the fake problem to represent the real problem.
4. EVs and Renewable Energy are the solutions to the fake problem (which assumes they are the solutions to the unspoken problem).
Want to try out the theory? Ask a smart person if they think we are going to some day run out of oil. They will almost certainly say yes but not for many many years. Ask them if they are worried.
I guarantee you the answer will be no — because we are on the cusp of an EV/Renewable Energy revolution …. have you seen Australia has a Tesla battery to store electricity? We are almost there… we will innovate out of this long before we run out of oil.
The ho ax is going according to plan…. absolute perfection…. brilliant…. 7.8 billion suckers have been fooled.
Which is a good thing. The Donkeys must remain hopeful. Otherwise….
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/04/04/article-2596929-1CD3268C00000578-292_964x643.jpg
You are likely correct.
And on the 8th day…. Fast Eddy said to the DelusiSTANIS…
‘Let their be LIght!’
And…. there was
http://stephensizer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/hands-worship.jpg
And this as well
http://ver.h-cdn.co/assets/15/15/980×490/landscape-1428338513-leodicaprio.jpg
And the DelusiSTANIs chanted: Oh Fast Eddy .. bringer of clarity and truth … destroyer of MSM lies…. YOU have delivered us from ignorance and stripped us of Stuuupidity and Id iocy…. forgive us Fast Eddy —- for you are greater than the Son of Sam…. aaaaaaaaa—– mmmmmmeennnnnn!
Peace out.
I acknowledge your greatness FE!
Thank you kindly…. Fast Eddy’s head is on the verge of exploding….
I am told that Fast is waiting for the first Gloooby Wooooby to recant…
Step forward and show yourselves…. all together now…. (in unison…)
It was so obvious that XXXXXX XXXXXX ing was a ho ax How could I have been so foolish.
It was so obvious that XXXXXX XXXXXX ing was a ho ax How could I have been so foolish.
It was so obvious that XXXXXX XXXXXX ing was a ho ax How could I have been so foolish.
It was so obvious that XXXXXX XXXXXX ing was a ho ax How could I have been so foolish.
To celebrate the end of the ho ax…. I hereby declare March 3 Fast Eddy Day. This will be a global public holiday … and in honour of FE … everyone must burn as much fossil fuels as possible. Turn on the gas cooker for 24 hours… run the hot water night and day…. drive you car around the block while hauling a trailer filled with bricks… fling petrol into a bonfire…. Just Bloody Well Do It!
I am afraid that you are probably correct.
Northern hemisphere temperature reconstructions for the past 2,000 years
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) also known as the Medieval KKKKKKlimate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a time of warm KKKKKlimate in the North Atlantic region that may have been related to other warming events in other regions during that time, including China[1] and other areas,[2][3] lasting from c. 950 to c. 1250.[4]
Other regions were colder, such as the tropical Pacific. Averaged global mean temperatures have been calculated to be similar to early-mid 20th century warming.
Possible causes of the Medieval Warm Period include increased solar activity, decreased volcanic activity, and changes to ocean circulation.[5]
The period was followed by a cooler period in the North Atlantic and elsewhere termed the Little Ice Age. Some refer to the event as the Medieval KKKlimatic Anomaly as this term emphasizes that KKKKKKlimatic effects other than temperature were important.[6][7]
It is thought that between c. 950 and c. 1100 was the Northern Hemisphere’s warmest period since the Roman Warm Period. It was only in the 20th and 21st centuries that the Northern Hemisphere experienced warmer temperatures. KKKKKlimatic Proxy records show peak warmth occurred at different times for different regions, indicating that the Medieval Warm Period was not a globally uniform event.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Hmmmm…. sounds very similar to what we are experiencing now….
Records from Ancient China Reveal Link Between Epidemics and KKKKKlimate Chhhhhange
A new study suggests that long periods of cold, dry weather helped drive epidemics in ancient and pre-modern China
Interestingly, the study suggests that long periods of cold, dry weather were the primary facilitators of epidemics in the past. The records suggest that cold periods in ancient and pre-modern China were associated with an increase in the frequency of droughts, as well as attacks of locusts.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/records-from-ancient-china-reveal-link-between-epidemics-and-KKKKKKlimate-chhhhhhhange/
Strange… the KKKLimate was CHHHHANGGGING…. long before the industrial revolution ….
Now if I am not a DONKEY… and I previously though our burning of FFs was causing the kkkk to ccccc….
Then I would be reading what Fast Eddy has just posted (who is a legitimate genius — and a God — and World Champion – as opposed to the fake genius Hawkings)….
I would also be reading previous posts that indicate some parts of the word are indeed seeing hot temperatures (not records thought) as well as record cold temperatures…
And I would be having an epiphany — my brain would be saying….. this resembles what happened in China and Europe many hundreds of years ago …
And it was caused then by the solar activity – changes in ocean currents etc… it had NOTHING to do with burning fossil fuels…
And I would (if I were not a donkey) — conclude that the KKKK is always changing — the primary causes of the chhhhanges are completely out of our control…
And would shut the f789 up …
Oh and I would say Fast Eddy – you are the King of Kings…. you are the duckduckgo search master — the Opener of Eyes…. the Epiphany giver…
Repeat after Fast Eddy: ‘Fast Eddy – I apologize for doubting you – for you are the all-knowing Master of the Universe and Champion of the World (and man without a 20ft container therefore technically running naked and homeless).
Have a wonderful day!
Changing KKKKKlimate, Not Humans, Killed Australia’s Massive Mammals
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/changing-kkkkkkkklimate-not-humans-killed-australias-massive-mammals-180961911/#yHmIrmTRfYUJC7TD.99
I could go on … and on …. and on…..
oh, we know, you will…
Russia has ‘enormous’ underground bunkers ready for nuclear war
https://nypost.com/2017/06/29/russia-has-enormous-underground-bunkers-ready-for-nuclear-war/
That new Saudi Prince MBS. Is going to be on 60 minutes this Sunday.. ..
The ‘American Century’ Is Over, and It Died in Syria
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-08/the-american-century-is-over-putin-and-assad-killed-it
“Neither the Barack Obama administration, with its “red-line” fiasco of 2013, nor the Donald Trump administration, with its diplomatic disengagement from the conflict, has had an answer to this challenge.”
didn’t the Obama administration provide lots of weapons to one of the sides in this civil war?
Publisher’s Summary
A sweeping new history of how KKKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKKK and disease helped bring down the Roman Empire
Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that climate change and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome’s power – a story of nature’s triumph over human ambition.
More
https://www.audible.com/pd/History/The-Fate-of-Rome-Audiobook/B076TCCB4T?ref=a_a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=N0DB42VGM1WYQE929446&
HANG ON!!! Did the Romans drive cars and burn coal and use massive amounts of fossil fuels?
Of course they didn’t
Then how could KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKK bring down the empire?
WOT THE FOOOKK is GOING ON …. HERE>…
Publisher’s Summary
A sweeping new history of how KKKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKKK and disease helped bring down the Roman Empire
Here is the monumental retelling of one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. The Fate of Rome is the first book to examine the catastrophic role that KKKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKK and infectious diseases played in the collapse of Rome’s power – a story of nature’s triumph over human ambition.
More
https://www.audible.com/pd/History/The-Fate-of-Rome-Audiobook/B076TCCB4T?ref=a_a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=N0DB42VGM1WYQE929446&
HANG ON!!! Did the Romans drive cars and burn coal and use massive amounts of fossil fuels?
Of course they didn’t
Then how could KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK KKKKKKKKKK bring down the empire?
WOT THE FOOOKK is GOING ON …. HERE>…
America’s debt crisis is coming -interest payments will hit a trillion dollars a year
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/financenews/americas-debt-crisis-is-coming-interest-payments-will-hit-a-trillion-dollars-a-year/ar-BBKhxrf
“In our latest nonpartisan analysis, we found that interest payments will quadruple, topping $1 trillion per year in as little as a decade.”
no worries!
don’t forget, the Ds will have house of reps, senate and POTUS in 2021…
they will easily fix this…
Why Putin’s new ‘doomsday’ device is so much more deadly and horrific than a regular nuke
http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-doomsday-status-6-nuclear-weapon-2018-3
“A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of travelling at supersonic or high subsonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory.”
in other words, the USA also has unstoppable nuclear missiles.
Almost everyone with access to Russian or US technology has them.
Some have them on their own:
https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/india/
Who is more dead? A person who dies from a regular nuke or a person killed by a status 6 nuclear weapon?
What about someone who breathes in cesium as it wafts into their doomsday garden from the nearest burned up spent fuel pond(s)
Electric cars dreams may be shattered by 2050 on lack of cobalt, lithium supplies
http://www.mining.com/electric-cars-dreams-may-shattered-2050-lack-cobalt-lithium-supplies/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
That could present some problems for refiners, some analysts say. “The dirty secret of U.S. shale oil is not many people want it,” Bill Barnes of Pisgah Partners, an energy project development consultancy, told the FT. “It’s wrong to say the U.S. can add 1m-plus barrels a day of production capacity a year and it will immediately find a home in the world’s refining system.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Oil-Crisis-That-Cant-Be-Stopped.html
Reality check for SaudiAmerica.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Shales-Dirty-Secret.html
We shall see on shale—–
Profit doesn’t seem to be a issue (as few are making any money, if you look at the stats).
It is up to the people doing the financing- employees doing great, not so much the companies.
The Permian is still doing well (can you sat sweet spots?), but the Bakken and Eagle Ford are disappearing in the rear view mirror.
Bakken isn’t disappearing very quickly. North Dakota production for January 2018 was 1,122,683 barrels per day. I can see only a handful of months with higher production:
November 2014 – 1,124,679
December 2015 – 1,164,539
January 2015 – 1,128,489
March 2015 – 1,129,129
May 2015 -1,142,881
June 2015 – 1,152,942
July 2015 – 1,150,496
August 2015 – 1,130,976
November 2015 – 1,124,727
The latest production is about 97.6% of the highest production.
I’ve been following those North Dakota figures for a few years, and while production is up near record levels, daily oil per well is down to 95 bls/day from 144 bls/day in 2012. Also total producing wells is at a record high of 11,834.
I can’t see how anyone is making any money at current oil prices, yet they keep building more even though the best/sweetest spots have already been used. It seems to me the whole point is in creating more oil using cheap printed money, not in making a profit.
The alternative to not producing this oil, is expensive oil and all the problems (collapse of the economy) that that will bring. Therefore creating cheap oil by an artificial method seems to be the chosen path.
Of course the downside is lack of investment elsewhere, and associated future problems, but hey anything to kick the can down the road a couple of more years, no matter what the cost.
Bingo!
Someone is paying attention.
It is interesting from a financial perspective.
The discussion about not wanting a ramp up of shale because it produces too large a share of light products is this particular person’s view. If light products are what is available, the price of them will drop, and someone will figure out a use for them. All of the legislation banning diesel in cities in Europe will create a great deal more demand for gasoline, for example, and reduce demand for diesel.
If we have a fuel shortage, my guess is that gasoline would be a whole lot easier to partially substitute for diesel than electricity. Infrastructure (filling stations for example) are already in place. It would be the smaller vehicles that would most likely be changed to take gasoline (new models, perhaps).
Well, it’s already happening to a degree, most of European personal car sales are turning into pathetic specification of 3-piston gasoline engine (with turbine in the loop etc.) .. Don’t be fooled by the more luxurious spectrum of euro car imports (into the US).
Slovakia now faces some street protests regarding the murder of a couple, where the man was the journalist investigating dangerous things and the woman was an archaelogist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_J%C3%A1n_Kuciak
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/europe/jan-kuciak-slovakia-journalist-killed.html
My interpratation of this case is that the people with the increasing debt burden must accept more and more risky jobs. The couple took a mortgage, bought and older house and started the reconstruction of it. I think that the woman, who was part of this couple, created topics for her man, that were to dangerous to write about, as she was murdered with a shot into her head and he was murderd with a shot into his heart.
When we approach the limits, there will be more and more such collapses where people under the burden of the debt commit risky things, that are e.g. reserved only for professionaly equipped and armed police forces, not for the investigation by the journalists like in this case.
U.S. shale is surging, threatening to take even more market share away from OPEC. But the prospect of U.S. oil edging out barrels from the Middle East is not nearly as simple as it might seem.
Oil coming from the major shale plays in the U.S. is light and sweet, while a lot of oil coming from OPEC is medium or heavy, and often sour. A lot of refining capacity along the U.S. Gulf Coast, built up over years and decades, is equipped to handle heavier forms of oil. Before the shale revolution, refiners made their investments in downstream assets assuming the oil they would be using would come from places like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Lighter shale oil is perfectly fine for making gasoline, but not the best for making diesel and jet fuel. Medium and heavy oil is needed for that.
But refiners have a tidal wave of light sweet oil on their hands, perhaps too much. The U.S. refining industry could max out its ability to swallow up light sweet oil from the shale patch, as the FT reports, particularly as U.S. shale drillers are expected to add upwards of 4 million barrels per day (mb/d) over the next five years.
Meanwhile, heavy crude production has waned as of late, with sharp declines in output in Venezuela and Mexico in the past few years. Shipments from Canada face a bottleneck because of fixed pipeline capacity. The result has been a somewhat tighter market for heavy oil, which refiners want to process into jet fuel and diesel.
In the years ahead, demand for gasoline could start to slow down as vehicles become more efficient and EVs start to gain more market share. Meanwhile, diesel demand has grown much faster, and will likely jump in 2020 as new regulations on dirty fuels from the International Maritime Organization take effect. That could force the shipping industry to switch from residual fuels to diesel, perhaps adding as much as 2 mb/d of demand for diesel, the FT reports.
In other words, volumes of lighter oil suited for gasoline production are soaring while production of medium and heavy oil used for diesel is flatter, even as diesel demand is poised to grow quickly. And refining capacity capable of handling light oil might not be up to the task.
Related: Is Another Oil Price War Looming?
That could present some problems for refiners, some analysts say. “The dirty secret of U.S. shale oil is not many people want it,” Bill Barnes of Pisgah Partners, an energy project development consultancy, told the FT. “It’s wrong to say the U.S. can add 1m-plus barrels a day of production capacity a year and it will immediately find a home in the world’s refining system.”
Just because shale production is skyrocketing does not mean that refiners want the oil. Franco Magnani, the head of trading at Eni, told the FT that the company won’t rush out and by shale oil because its refineries were not made for that type of oil. “It could be a top-up in certain situations but not really a base diet [for Eni’s refineries],” Magnani told the FT. “[Shale’s] very light so either you have a refinery that’s geared towards that but maybe then it’s too light even for that. Or you use it only in very specific situations.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Shales-Dirty-Secret.html
See my comments in discussion thread below.
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Sears… completely empty… on Black Friday
I can smell death…. there must be rotting dead bodies in the change rooms
Perhaps all the shoppers are over at Toys R Us?
https://youtu.be/he9qwBXuaS4
It would seems that children are failing to develop the muscles to control a pencil or crayon, due to spending all their time running their finger tips over a screen…… (when they are not punching their siblings, one assumes!)
I understand that they are getting better at using their thumbs, however, in punching in keys on a phone.
years from now they will not be able to move their arthritic hands. maybe by then robots will do the work.
Why do they still call it Black Friday when retailers are no longer in the black?
Every time I go into the local Office Depot it is stone cold silent, except for one or two people. Can’t believe it is still in business.
BTW, they are now selling toilet paper and bottled water, prominently place on pallets up front. It seems they are getting desperate.
Office Depot and Staples merged not long ago. The Staples store here closed. But the Office Depot store still looks very empty.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/15/news/companies/sears-profit/index.html
Sears Posts a Small Profit
Earlier story:
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/15/news/companies/sears-profit-tax-reform/index.html
Sears to Post a Surprise Profit Thanks to Tax Reform Billl
Get ready for a new Chernobyl in Ukraine
With the onset of winter and the increasing strain on Ukraine’s energy system, the threat of a new nuclear disaster in Central Europe is becoming more than just a theoretical danger. According to analysts from Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS), there is an 80% probability of a “serious accident” at one of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants before the year 2020. This is due both to the increased burden on the nuclear plants caused by the widespread shutdowns of Ukraine’s thermal power plants (the raw material they consumed – coal from the Donbass – is in critically short supply) and also because of the severe physical deterioration of their Soviet-era nuclear equipment and the catastrophic underfunding of this industry.
Should such an incident occur, the EU would not only be faced with the potential environmental consequences, but also – given the recent introduction of visa-free travel – a large-scale exodus of Ukrainians out of contaminated areas.
https://orientalreview.org/2017/10/16/get-ready-for-a-new-chernobyl-in-ukraine/
look like Ukraine is about Abandoned forever in 10 to 15 years
Maybe, could, probabilty, Stay with the facts!
I can believe that underfunding, and inability to keep up non-nuclear electricity, would eventually lead to an accident of some sort. Perhaps not hugely catastrophic, but it could be.
The Ukraine is run by criminals, and a candy store owner is currently running the country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roshen
This is a prop for the West to counteract Russia.
Its days would number on one hand without huge support from the US.
It is rather humorous that the Russian State originated in the Ukraine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik_dynasty
Ukraine (Chernobyl) = Central Europe ?!
lolz..
In a huge shift, Norway’s Statoil will remove the word ‘oil’ from its name
Energy giant Statoil’s board of directors has proposed changing the company’s name to Equinor.
The new name combines “equi” — which the business said was the starting point for words such as equality and equilibrium — and “nor,” which reflects its Norwegian heritage.
“For us, this is an historic day,” Eldar Saetre, Statoil’s president and CEO, said in a statement Thursday. “Statoil has for almost 50 years served us well.”
“Looking towards the next 50 years, reflecting on the global energy transition and how we are developing as a broad energy company, it has become natural to change our name. The name Equinor captures our heritage and values, and what we aim to be in the future.”
The name Equinor will be proposed to shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting on May 15. Statoil’s majority shareholder, the Norwegian government, is to vote in favour of the resolution. The five unions that represent and organize Statoil employees also said that they supported the proposed name change.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/in-a-huge-shift-norways-statoil-will-remove-the-word-oil-from-its-name.html
i have better name suggest to statoil the name is not Allah oil
Norway admittedly does have a lot of hydroelectric.
Solar in Norway would be a no-go. Too far north.
Wind in Norway seems a bit pointless. I suppose that if they take some of the hydro power that they currently export, they could use it to back up the wind power. Like everyone else, they would need to keep the wind percentage pretty low, or start installing huge batteries for the unneeded electricity. Keeping wind from distorting electricity rates for other providers would be another issue.
I read of a scheme here in Yorkshire, where they are planning to install winch systems in disused coal mine shafts. The idea being excess energy from wind turbines being used to lift heavy weights, which can very rapidly be released to provide energy more efficiently than battery systems they claim.
I quite like such low tech solutions, though I understand they could only provide a very temporary back up.
The people who are figuring this out need to figure out all costs of operating this system. One part of the cost they are probably omitting is the cost of pumping the water out of the shaft. Also, the walls will tend to deteriorate with time.
The system is only low tech, because they have not figured out all of the high-tech supplementation that the system will need to make it actually work.
Here’s a link.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/abandoned-mine-shafts-energy-storage/
a giant coo-coo clock energy scheme!
Sounds like a lot of friction and losses. No chance of even get 80% of the energy back when the weight drops.
A hot topic currently beeing discussed in the norwegian parlament is whether or not Norway shall accept the third package of EU energy legislation https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/markets-and-consumers/market-legislation
The green party and large part of the environment movement want to join, seeing it as an opportunity for pushing forward the transformation of the elictrisity production towards more renewables. In solidarity with the common stuggle against GW the consumers and industri in Norway must accept that the prices for elictrisity rise weakly, is their argument.
Some leftwing parties and national orientated groups say no, and want to keep the cheap hydropower as a competitive advantage. It’s worth noting that Norway has a considerable exchange of elictrisity with it’s neighbours and with Europe already. But of course, new transmission cables have to build in the future if Norway accept the new EU legislation.
As I see it, intermittent renewables have several major problems:
1. They produce price distortions, which drive needed backup power out of the system. Thus, they push the whole system toward failure.
2. They tend to be expensive, if all of the costs of trying to make the system work are included.
3. They tend to make the overall cost of the electricity system higher. There is a real danger that it will start a cycle toward lower and lower productivity, because employers can afford to use less and less of it. Wages will tend to cycle downward, rather than upward. (Our current economic growth seems to be based on falling costs of energy services. Rising cost of energy services would be expected to have the reverse effect.)
4. The more intermittent renewables are added, the more complex the system becomes. The harder it becomes to keep the system from encountering a major problem. We have recently heard about the “slow clocks” problem on the European grid. It is easy to develop a lot worse problems.
I think the idea of adding very many intermittent renewables is crazy. I didn’t look at much of the details of your link. It sounds like they are desperate and searching for something.
Hier is a recent article in the Economist https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21738580-germany-has-led-europes-transition-high-cost-its-neighbours-europe-tries
Thanks! More needs to get out about these problems. This article isn’t very good in that it (like every other article) seems to assume that a few more transmission lines and more cooperation will fix the problem. Adding intermittent renewables will continue to make wholesale prices too low. As more is intermittent electricity is added, more problems will arise.
“Looking towards the next 50 years, reflecting on the global energy transition…”
ha ha… this is his funniest line.
Yoo hoo… prepper doomers… pay attention
Venezuela Faces The Return Of Forgotten Diseases
Recent reports from these last few days have been, for someone who understands the importance of the endemic diseases that had been under control, spreading quickly.
I am talking about serious stuff: Tuberculosis, Diptheria, Leishmaniasis. There have been adults and children who died because of these things. The diseases themselves, under normal conditions can be healed. But without the appropriate medications and proper nutrition, they become deadly.
Leishmaniasis
One of the worst endemic diseases that has been reported (this information arrived via social networking from confirmed, known sources) is Leishmaniasis. This is a parasite to which you should pay a lot of attention. With the lack of proper balanced feeding, a person’s natural defenses get lower, and it is much easier for them to get sick.
Traditionally there were programs all over the country to fumigate and keep the vectors under control. However, the last fumigation was a long time ago and this allowed the vectors to spread themselves again, reaching densely populated areas, and now without any modern medication to contain it.
Rodents, canines, are affected too. The main transmission vector is the mosquito, and their first manifestation is a skin lesion in the place of the bite. There are several forms of the disease, and most of them are deadly. This is a disease associated with the malnourishment, population displacement, poor living conditions, weak immune systems, and a general lack of resources. This is the exact scenario we have been living through and the description of an SHTF situation. It affects the liver and has permanent consequences if not treated properly.
Ehrlichiosis
Another disease we have present in our area is the Ehrlichiosis, a tropical variation of Lyme disease. Fortunately, we could find the antibiotics for this as well, but of course at incredible prices. Thankfully with a 2nd income, it could be obtained. My wife got better after weeks of feeling sick once we knew what it was.
Tuberculosis
Another disease that had an incredible increase is tuberculosis. It is known that tuberculosis is linked to malnutrition (source) and it is becoming increasingly widespread in Venezuela. As it is more or less known, improper nutrition is the main cause of this once-eradicated sickness in Venezuela. The cases were very few, and widely spread, mainly among drug addicts, homeless people, or even patients of psychiatric hospitals. This is a bacteria, and the infection damage is located especially in lungs.
More https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-15/venezuela-faces-return-forgotten-diseases
Malnutrition lowers immunity and opens the gates to all sorts of diseases. Hence the “alternative” explanation (championed by Peter Duesberg) for AIDS in the Third World being primarily caused by malnutrition and in the First World by destroying the immune system with long-term use of poppers (alkyl nitrite-based recreational drugs) and “unnatural” sexual practices with large numbers of partners.
Historically, increased susceptibly to diseases seems to be the reason why most people who died in collapses died of disease.
31,000 Toys ‘R’ Us employees: No job and no severance
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/16/news/companies/toys-r-us-employees/index.html?sr=twmoney031618n/a0432AMVODtopLink&linkId=49319510
Ya but I read that every employees is receiving 10 bottles of this … and a greeting card wishing them good luck going forward….
http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/14687818_BG2.jpg
demand for fossil fuels will come from governments spending up on an arms race as ww3 becomes a reality just turn on your tv have you noticed the ads for recruitment into the armed forces increase so the ponzi or bau will continue for quite a few more years maybe they will draft all the senior citizens as with negative interest rates pensions cannot exist
if you are predicting WW3, don’t you think you might be wrong?
anyway, modern armies must have FF…
in the 2030s and beyond, the last supplies of oil products may be hoarded by the world’s strongest armies.
Why can’t current pensions exist with negative interest rates?
If you have money saved in a fixed income product it will increase in value as interest decrease.
Falling interest rates have prolonged viability of retirement. Retirement for those currently a bit from retirement will of course not happen in the way most expect, it will more be like eternal unemployment.
Saudi crown prince threatens to develop a great “Islamic Nuclear bomb” as kingdom seeks foreign technology
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/saudi-crown-prince-threatens-to-build-nuke-as-kingdom-seeks-nuclear-tech.html
Donald Trump adds $1 trillion to national debt in 14 months
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/15/donald-trump-adds-1-trillion-national-debt-14-mont/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_campaign=pushnotify&utm_medium=push
All he has to do is say “Nope, that’s not true!” and his followers will fall right in line crying about fake news from a globalist conspiracy and how those numbers don’t take into account X, Y and Z and that America is actually making a gazillion dollars.
Obama added $8 trillion in 8 years…
so what else is new?
The deficit increase had gotten down to about .5T a year, so something’s changed for it to go up 1T in 14 mo’s. My guess is Corporate tax reduction from 35% to 21%.
The government accounting has gotten more complex, as I understand it. It is now running up debt for student loans, but also claiming that these students will pay the loans back. The loans don’t increase the deficit, but they do increase its debt. There may be other spending accounted for in this way, as well.
It’s the sensible thing to do!
Run the numbers. Explain how that big of a tax reduction is sensible.
People in the MMT world seem to confuse how you represent something with the thing itself. They rightly identify that tax cuts can increase consumption and the government can “self fund” deficits. But creating more claims on assets has limited availability to increase the productive base of goods and services. The ability to self fund, while technically true, is in reality ludicrous. As we are not sovereign in the sens of being free from the expectations and coercion of other nations whom we cannot force to accept dollars if they deem we are behaving in bad faith with our currency and that our economic collateral is not worth a damn.
People interested in MMT might like this Steve Keen interview – one of the few economists who at least includes resources in his thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7YyarcTLGo
You are way out of your class with understanding of MMT. I think the confusion is entirely yours. It’s simple, the MS government can always pay its bills. It doesn’t have to borrow or save its money to function. However there MUST be resources available for sale, which includes employment options.
As to being subject to loss of faith in the currency’s value by outsiders, any government acting on MMT knowledge will see its currency head skywards. An economy with full employment, with proper welfare , healthcare and living wages for all will boom. Simple again. You have to spend money to grow any economy. Governments cannot tax and cut their way to prosperity Duh!
” However there MUST be resources available for sale, which includes employment options.”
The resources are absolutely key. There needs to be a whole system in place that allows an economy to be built up, using a combination of human labor, supplemental energy of various types, and resources of various types.
Unfortunately, in today’s world, many of the keys to building up this whole system are in other countries.
I could not agree more that debt is needed to pull the economy forward. Austerity doesn’t work.
But the debt needs to have cheap-to-extract energy products to work on. If it does, then this cheap-to-produce energy can help the economy grow. Human labor can be leveraged with tools made with these cheap-to-extract energy products.
Expensive-to-produce energy products are essentially worthless, but people not realize this. Like the Chinese, they may lend money based on these expensive-to-produce energy products. The Chinese are smart enough to make this debt repayable in barrels of oil, not currency issued by Venezuela.
Your argument falls apart because of “However there MUST be resources available for sale, which includes employment options.” Diminishing returns is leading to fewer and fewer energy resources being available for sale cheaply. It takes energy to move atoms and molecules. (Of course, breaking certain molecules produces chemical reaction that give off energy–what we need.) Human energy can do some tasks very well, without the supplementation of other energy. For example, man can gather wild food, without supplemental energy. He can dig in the ground with a stick. But as soon as you start adding tools, you start needing energy supplies. As far back as 1,000,000 years ago, humans learned to harness the power of burning biomass. But with today’s high population, burning biomass is not sufficient.
“Unfortunately, in today’s world, many of the keys to building up this whole system are in other countries.”
If we are focusing on the USA, or on some sort of alliance centered on the USA (which seems reasonable to do), saying so helps to avoid confusion. Otherwise, in an interconnected world system, terms like “other countries” cause confusion. Countries other than which?
“I could not agree more that debt is needed to pull the economy forward. Austerity doesn’t work.”
Again, ordinary people might understand this somewhat if it is explained WHY debt is good in some instances but not in others. The average person might think that debt is something to avoid. What if they meet up on hard times and find repaying debt difficult? The collateral, which might be their house, could be taken away and they’d be homeless.
Those quotes are not mine, but deficit spending is the antidote to Austerity, although not to the attitude that gave rise to it. Plutocracy wants the austerity to keep the masses poor, deliberately.
Caitlin Johnstone writes about Jeff Bezos in Medium;
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/six-things-we-can-learn-about-us-plutocracy-by-looking-at-jeff-bezos-532ca4482ae2
As I see it a total collapse is what it will take to end this dysfunction.
John Doyle,
Highly impressed with the Bezos analysis. What an incredible MESS!!!!!
To a transplanted Caribbean person, your avatar image is a most welcome sight.
You are clueless.
“…the MS government can always pay its bills.” No, it cannot. That’s a tautology. It can only pay its bills in sovereign currency if it’s creditors are forced to accept payment in sovereign currency- in other words so long as they behave in good faith with accurately representing the money supply in correlation to the underlying collateral – i.e. the resource economy of goods and services. The demand for their currency can be destroyed.
I agree the MS doesn’t have to borrow or save. But creating entitlements to consume rather than obligations to pay are two forms of the same activity – creating a system of economic activity.
“…any government acting on MMT knowledge will see its currency head skywards.” is a statement of faith.
In general I agree with the assertion of MMT that using government programs to create full employment and full consumption (wellfare state – allowing consumption by those who cannot otherwise afford it) will produce the maximum amount of economic growth. However, this assumes that the malinvestment of the current system of rent-seeking and special interest is worse than the potential manlinvestment of hypothetical future programs.
For instance, creating money supply growth which exceeds the rate at which per-capita energy consumption can increase is mal-investment, as it misrepresents the strength of the economy – the underlying value of the real collateral which money only represents symbolically.
I agree 100%. Venezuela is running into this problem now. Even countries that are not doing as badly as Venezuela discover that overspending their revenue stream leads to their currency dropping, relative to other currencies. Then, their overspending just makes buying imported goods and services more expensive.
It is sensible because half of the listed companies in the US are apparently losing money…
This will help stop the bleeding and keep BAU alive
Jeremy Corbyn points to Iraq WMDs mistake as he casts doubt on Russian culpability for nerve agent attack
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-russia-spy-nerve-agent-iraq-war-wmd-labour-theresa-may-a8256021.html
http://www.moonofalabama.org/images6/maypowell-s.jpg
So true……Thanks for sharing Tim..
bloody ‘ell…
Which bathroom would something like this use?
the new third kind?
no peoplekind
Janitors closet…They can pee in the mop bucket!
Maybe the Russians are passively attending to their tulip gardens instead of trying to do anything to harm another individual. Let’s all cry for the poor Russians that have been so broadly painted as demons. I mean after all any country that has to have dash cams to prosecute people purposely causing accidents to make insurance money can’t be all bad. And then there are those kind hearted Oligarchs that surround Putin, putting so much money into the pockets of their populace. Also don’t forget about how FAIR their elections are – they really go to great lengths to make it a FAIR system. You know Putin wouldn’t get elected if the people didn’t want him as their leader. Then also remember how careful they are when they arrest someone, never doing anything to cause them bodily harm. So with such a free and loving leadership, how can people suggest they would poison someone that gave away important classified information about their country? Who I ask? (LOL)
Do you have a point to make, Comrade? Beyond the Russophobic sarcasm and the innuendo you’re treating us to, is there anything you’d like to contribute?
There’s a fascinating book about people with your habit, and about where you get it from.
http://russia-insider.com/sites/insider/files/styles/large/public/1%2AVNQR-S7dlExwGZ5xpvqDAA.jpeg?itok=VijFtf6p
Initially, I planned to write a ‘regular’ review of this book, but by the time I finished reading it I realize that nothing short of a standing ovation would do justice to this absolutely remarkable book. Guy Mettan produced a masterpiece which ought to be on the “must read” list of every person interested in Russia.
https://russia-insider.com/en/creating-russophobia-great-religious-schism-anti-putin-hysteria/ri21888
Do you have a point to make, Comrade? Beyond the Russophobic sarcasm and the innuendo you’re treating us to, is there anything you’d like to contribute?
Yeah, the sarcasm is intended to hopefully wake some people up to the garbage they are allowing themselves to believe, that Russia didn’t do this poisoning. Think about it. Who else had motive? The fact that you realized it was sarcasm is good. Maybe it will help you too.
In the secret world, everyone has a motive to kill; when and how is a matter of strategy.
There are no clean hands, no ethical actors.
Oh yeah, Russia had the motive. Poison a now non-entity just a few days out from a presidential election, and with the FIFA World Cup just around the corner.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/kmpz-p/images/i490451-6573125570390859503.jpg
Your credulousness is terminal, I’m afraid.
It reminds me of Syria a few years ago … Obama says ‘we will draw a line in the sand if Assad uses chemical weapons’
So a week or two later — what does Assad do — yes of course – he lobs a f789ing canister of CW into a residential neighbourhood….
Boy that Assad must be a really duuumb guy! A glutton for punishment!!!!
And whilst a UN mission sent specifically to investigate Syria’s alleged chemical weapons program was in Damascus!
https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s–6SDleJLi–/t_Preview/b_rgb:c62b29,c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1446164130/production/designs/76270_0.jpg
Winn-Dixie parent plans to file for bankruptcy, close 94 stores
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/15/news/companies/winn-dixie-bankruptcy/index.html
This kinda reminds me of 2006/2007… when oil was climbing to nearly 150 bucks… I recall thinking .. how can this be … surely this will blast inflation to the moon and cause a crisis… but the crisis never came… until it came
This is similar — how can so many retail outlets be closing — and yet no crisis… yet.
Oh but the US has 3% unemployment… these retrenched retailer workers are getting jobs doing what?
they are joining either alt right groups or sjw warriors groups
or they are doing drugs
This I was wondering too. Your unemployment rate is lower and lower, after each report Dow Jones and DAX ate going up further, but still, retailers are closing. Maybe everyone is working for Amazon now? Or riding a truck, delivering parcels?
“Employment” is always a lagging indicator in recessions. In other words, a lot of things have to go wrong, before the problems get widespread enough that they show up in job numbers. Profits of companies may drop. In fact, we know that this has happened for commodity-related companies already. People are likely to get behind on their repaying debts. This seems to be starting to happen now, but it is not very far along. Raising interest rates takes its time working through the system as well.
Anecdotally, it seems the people who are losing their retail jobs in this city are finding employment ,on the whole, but with inferior pay and conditions – zero-hours contracts, working in care homes (the new lowest-level savery) etc. So, sort of holding together for just now while steadily worsening…..
there was an article in resilience recently
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-03-12/home-care-cooperatives-future-work/
exactly how they came to the conclusion that working in care homes was the new employment boom i couldn’t figure out
Somehow long term care insurers, who are going bankrupt, will find money to pay for all of these extra workers.
Federal governments will pay. If profits continue to underwhelming corporate pensions will fail . Basically people entitled to pensions may be around long after the corporation has tanked. It’s easy for a federal monetary sovereign government to pay pensions and welfare. They simply stump up the money without any matching liability. MMT says why but it’s already custom to do so. Here in Aust pensions are not part of the annual accounts. The money is free. No one needs to worry until everything crashes and we can’t tell when that will be.
Whether or not the money is free, people cannot eat money. What they need is food, and materials to maintain roads and electric power lines. They would like to have trucks deliver the food to stores, and the stores to have electric lights and refrigeration. They would all like to have a way to get to and from the store as well. All of these things take energy products. Somehow, the quantity of these energy products, per capita, must stay high enough, for the whole system to work. We are getting to the point where this is not happening, in large part because of the decline in coal consumption.
Printing money can be aimed at trying to encourage more energy production and distribution. For example, Saudi Arabia is taking on a lot of debt, so that it can afford to continue to produce oil. But this is not a sustainable operation. They are, in a way, like Saudi Arabia.
Way too many countries don’t really have energy products that they can “produce” other than wind and solar. They are practically worthless, however. They depend on the whole rest of the system being available. They distort the pricing of other energy products. They don’t “scale up” well. They currently represent something like 1% of the world’s energy supply. They are just presented to the public as a solution, when they are not.
From astronaut food to waterproof matches, survivalist reveals how to stay alive in an apocalypse – without breaking the bank
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5798327/survivalist-apocalypse-prepper/
«“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”
Stephen Hawking has probably said lot of thoughtprovoking thinks, so it’s interesting what the Guardian picks out worth quoting. With technology and talking (spreading of ideas) the sky is not the limit.
https://www.google.no/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/14/best-stephen-hawking-quotes-quotations
as a Brit, wouldn’t he have learned a thing or two about the ways that FF production can swiftly decline?
but yes, talk is an excellent substitute for FF.
“With technology and talking (spreading of ideas) the sky is not the limit.”
bloody ‘ell…
The British are largely unaware of their predicament.
Hawking was an intellectual light-weight. And I mean that
I presume you’re speaking from experience.
Fast Eddy has no experience of light weight intellectualism … other than his interaction with the DelusiSTANI and other assorted More Ons who drop into FW on a regular basis — even though they inevitably get thrashed and scurry away to their caves with tails between legs
anyone who asserts that the human race can transpose itself onto another planet in order to survive is definetely not an intellectual of any weight—his intellect was on a narrow concentrated beam–to the exclusion of most other things
any planet benign enough to support human life unaided would have sentient beings in residence already
they would not take kindly to humans showing up
in any event hawking was proposing the use of sciences as yet not invented, our industrial system cannot exist long enough for such techniques to be developed.
++++++
this is one of the best about hawking:-
God (@TheTweetOfGod) tweeted at 4:46 a.m. on Wed, Mar 14, 2018:
It’s only been a few hours and Stephen Hawking already mathematically proved, to My face, that I don’t exist.
(https://twitter.com/TheTweetOfGod/status/973782276583587844?s=09)
Absoluteley – I’ve said elsewhere that the category of systems thinking or cybernetics escapes even very intelligent people. Focus on one narrow academic area blinds people to the whole story.
Would it be going too far to suggest Hawking was ………a MORE on?
http://www.51allout.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mutley.jpg
it’s certainly possible to have a field of genius that grows just one crop
and be oblivious to everything else
Nothing suggests that he was very smart…just overly studious.
Outside of discovering Hawking radiation, I’m not sure why he was hailed as being so brilliant for. What people seem to be celebrating about him and recognizing as smart are autistic traits–which would explain his ” Focus on one narrow academic areas” while being blind to other factors.
I’m almost certain that he did not have ALS, or if he did, he died a long time ago and was replaced. Almost all the facts about him seem to have been mythologized. His purpose seemed to be a spokesperson for the science field. Someone who would keep grant money forthcoming by making bold predictions that eternal life could be achieved through technological progress was around the corner. Hawkings served as a modern day prophet for BAU. The fact that they have allowed him to die, after pretending he had beat ALS though a combination of willpower and technology(no one with ALS could have lived as long as it is claimed that he did), is an ill omen. The credibility of self-driving cars is evaporating, no one is talking about cryptocurrencies anymore, and Facebook is on its facing unprecedented headwinds.
What will keep the perpetual wheel of Progress spinning with less enthusiasm about technological progress?
as ive pointed out before
Hawking had narrow beam intellect
Perhaps people just felt sorry for him….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2VFw9rDPU0
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-other-side-of-stephen-hawking-strippers-aliens-and-disturbing-abuse-claims
Grant money spent on lap dances?
it is a fundamental law of any cohesive society that might bear the title of ‘civilised’ that energy must be expended in order to create employment. if you live in a hunter-gatherer situation, then you take what you need from your surroundings with no commercial transaction involved—hence no ’employment’.
this is always the trap that the ‘downsizers’ fall into—that somehow we can consume/burn less and still have a lifestyle of full and gainful employment—and nothing can shake that certainty.—that it is possible to have a ‘modern’ society we will all become cobblers and carpenters or whatever in an endless circle of country crafts–all 7.5 billion of us
we are approaching the wall of unaffordability as far as oil is concerned, and when we can afford oil, we cant afford anything else
i’ve gone into it in a bit more depth here:
https://extranewsfeed.com/no-matter-how-much-oil-is-down-there-it-still-costs-too-much-f7142428849b
I think it is the average cost of all energy that matters, not the cost of oil in particular.
We run into a problem when the (energy) cost of educating a person with a college degree is higher than the extra income that person will earn from the degree. Interest expense must be considered in this calculation, since interest can only truly paid with energy products.
We run into a problem when the (energy) cost of extracting oil in Saudi Arabia, including all of the taxes the country needs to pay, to keep the country from collapsing, is higher than the market is able to pay as a price for the oil.
The EROEI calculation is not the right one, IMO. It is a total cost calculation that is needed, compared to the total benefit.
«We run into a problem when the (energy) cost of educating a person with a college degree is less than the extra income that person will earn from the degree.»
I presume you mean higher?
Right. I will fix it.
So what would happen if you pay the best educated people (who might be unemployed) to teach people without spending on a building; just teaching mental acuity, logic, learning how to learn, useful philosophy, plumbing, electricity, etc.? Ah, if you could only clone genius teachers…
Howard T. Odum with his theory of transformities talked about education ( as well as many other things) as being a use for energy. It takes more energy to educate a highly educated person than one with little education. Charles Hall got his Ph. D. under Howard T. Odum. Hall’s main contribution was to develop EROEI theory, which was related to transformities, but stripped out the energy used in education. Instead, it simply focused of fossil fuel use.
The need for energy in education comes from a lot more than building buildings:
–Farming needs to have a high enough investment of energy into it, so that both students and teachers can avoid working in the fields.
–Some people need to be involved with writing books and other educational material. These people also need to have time to work at something other than farming. They need food and clothing for their families. They need printing presses and ink.
–It is really the whole cost of education, including all of the fees that are added in. I know that in my husband’s university, fees have been added to support the building of a football stadium and a fancy new cafeteria with dozens of choices for food. Professors are now encouraged to write lots of academic papers, and the teaching is handed over as much as possible to low-paid adjunct faculty. Study after study shows high levels of irreproducibility in these papers. All of this cost must be paid for by students, often with debt.
–Interest on debt can only truly be paid with goods and services, made with energy products.
Thanks. This is probably as clear as I’m going to get it for now. It seems we could get rid of the building and the excessive professor’s papers requirements, however. The profs should help to sweep and fix things. But I appreciate the back up energy behind it all. Also, the old system win boarding schools where you had “houses” for given groups of students. And house masters. Houses would also form teams and compete in sports against each other. They didn’t repair the building and sweep floor, but they could have.
In other words, every student knows how to do everything, but they all have something extra to specialize in. They all have clusters or “houses” which focuses their activities which focus what they specialize in. .Sound a little kibbutzy to me. What happened to that system?
A fairly comprehensive look at recent Legislative Session in NM.
Greetings from Senator Stefanics Post-Legislative Session Part I
Part I was written right after the session ended in mid February…
The New Mexico Senate members worked hard and were effective during the short 2018 legislative session for the people of our state.
One thing that characterized this meeting of the Senate was its strongly bipartisan tone and work. This bipartisan spirit and conduct can be a road-map for the future, and I look forward to it.
We passed a Balanced Budget of $6.3 billion for the State for the coming year, containing a 4.3% overall increase.
Thanks to increased revenues resulting from stronger oil and gas prices, we were better able to address some key needs of our people.
We rebuilt the state’s Reserves to a healthy 10% for the first time in many years. This was important. We cannot see perfectly into the future, but we know from hard experience that New Mexico may see revenue downturns again; that a difficult fire season probably awaits us, and other demands may face us all, sooner or later.
At the start of this session, we passed the Nurse Licensure Compact fix, to make sure that 3,000 nurses in New Mexico are able to continue to work in our state. Our healthcare system would have been put in very real danger without early passage of this key legislation.
EDUCATION
We were successful in getting substantially more funding and resources for our public school classrooms, for educators, and for after-school programs and summer learning opportunities.
We passed real Pay Raises for all of our educators: 2.5% for teachers, and 2% for classified employees who are some of the lowest-paid workers in our schools – educational assistants, janitors and others who make our schools run.
Like our State Employees, who will also see a 2% pay raise because of our work in this session, all of them have not seen real improvement in their take-home pay in many years.
But that’s not all. We also increased the minimum salaries for all teacher levels by $2,000 annually.
We approved a special appropriation of $5 million of one-time compensation for exemplary teachers who meet certain requirements, too.
By improving the pay of teachers, we may begin to halt the departure of many of our most skillful and experienced educators, and also of our new and incoming teachers, who too often leave, seeking higher pay in surrounding states.
We were successful in getting more support for crucial Early Childhood Education initiatives totaling $34 million.
I am pleased that we were able to restore $15 million of the Cash Balances of local school districts that were swept during last year’s state budget crisis.
We cannot take School Safety for granted any longer. That is why we appropriated $40 million for school safety through the public school capital outlay process for a wide array of protective steps to make classrooms safer.
STATE EMPLOYEES
Our state workers – who will get a 2% pay increase this year – also do important work, without which our communities could not function.
Raising the salaries of educators and state employees is not only the right thing to do, it also leads to more jobs and economic activity, and helps grow small businesses, especially in rural and small-town New Mexico.
CRIME
We came together to make progress on other important issues, including crime reform. We combined five bills into one comprehensive Omnibus Public Safety package, House Bill 19. It takes the kind of balanced approach we have needed, but which has eluded us:
It stiffens penalties appropriately for violent felons who are caught in possession of a weapon
It gets treatment for those who need treatment.
It helps corrections facilities screen inmates for underlying health issues, connect them with treatment services, and enroll those eligible in Medicaid before they are released – encouraging access to behavioral health support and decreasing recidivism.
It provides bonuses to our most experienced police officers to help keep them on the force protecting our communities.
It increases the requirements for removal of an ignition interlock device for DWI offenders before a driver’s license is reinstated.
It sets new, realistic penalties for nonviolent crimes; gives us a fiscally responsible way to help our judiciary system better manage caseloads, and frees up the time for District Attorneys and Public Defenders to focus on serious crimes.
We have said all along that public safety is a top priority. But where we differ from the Executive is in our belief that prevention and rehabilitation are just as important as prosecution and punishment.
While there is still much more work to do to get the growing crime problem in parts of our state under control, I believe our good bipartisan work in this session will begin to make New Mexicans substantially safer, and will reduce crime.
We know that to really address crime successfully, we cannot only give prosecutors more funding. We must also fund the Public Defenders, who are required by the Constitution to represent the additional defendants who will be charged. And we must also fund the Courts for the additional judges and staff needed to process the new charges.
State Police officers, and corrections and probation officers will see an 8.5% pay raise. Prosecutors and DA staff, Judges and Public Defenders will see a 6.5% raise. Our court employees will see 4.5% more.
CRITICAL STATE NEEDS
We were successful in meeting some unanticipated, but urgent needs that faced communities in our state.
Since the federal government abandoned its responsibility in December to ensure free and fair internet nationwide, we called for legislation at the state level to put in place strong Net Neutrality requirements here in New Mexico. It is imperative that we protect students, families, small businesses and seniors from steep price hikes in their internet service, which will surely follow the Federal Communications Commission’s recent action. The legislation didn’t get a message from the Governor, unfortunately, but we will keep fighting for Net Neutrality here in the 60-day session next year.
ENVIRONMENT
We re-instated the Solar Tax Credit, to help working New Mexicans, small businesses and agriculture across the state make the transition to renewable energy, save money on their monthly energy bills, and increase their home values. This is just common sense. We may have more sunny days per year than anyplace in America, so why would we not try to increase the use of solar?
HEALTHCARE
We strongly supported more access to health coverage for families, putting in $18 million more for state Medicaid.
We provided $330,000 more for treatment services for the Victims of Sexual Assault.
We worked to help protect individuals in the guardianship system from falling victim to abuses at the hands of guardian agencies.
We called on the state Secretary of Health to use her existing authority to include Opioid use disorder as a qualifying condition for participation in the state’s Medical Cannabis program. Lives are being lost in our state every day that passes. Thousands of our neighbors and relatives are suffering, and so are families and communities. The time to act is now.
We directed $200,000 to host the National Senior Olympics in New Mexico in 2019. The Senior Olympics promotes healthy lifestyles for older adults through education, fitness and sport. We also provided $300,000 for the Special Olympics for New Mexicans with intellectual disabilities.
Remember, this is Part I written right after the session in mid February. Digest some of the contents of this newsletter and watch for the next installment – coming within a few days
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Senator Liz Stefanics
District 39
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I see EROEI theory as the theory of counting the size of tops of icebergs, when we know that the icebergs float at different levels, but we don’t know how high. We know that in the animal kingdom, something like 90% of energy goes to maintain the metabolic system of the animal and also allows for reproduction. This leaves 10% of the energy from food products that, in theory, can go into capturing the food.
EROEI theory for fossil fuels sort of has a 10% base as well, but it gets lost. Without this adjustment, an EROEI of 1:1 means, in effect, that an energy product likely uses 10 times as much energy as it ought to, given the economy’s need for energy to maintain the economic system. Talking about “Net Energy” by subtracting the size of the top of the iceberg from the output of the system produces complete nonsense, in my opinion. There is no reason any energy product should ever be at a 1:1 ratio.
There should be a firm base of 10:1, at a minimum in calculations, IMO. Thus, the energy contribution would be compared relative to what is needed to maintain the system. Otherwise, the calculation has to be expanded to include the full energy cost of the system.
A different issue is energy quality, which is completely left out of EROEI calculations. Intermittent electricity is treated the same as high quality electricity. Coal and oil may be treated the same. The EROEI of part of a system (the solar panel) is considered the whole EROEI, when considerable support from other sources (like battery backup) is required.
Get it right Norman: ‘Faerie Craefts’, (of Olde Englande) 🙂
And now for something completely different!
https://youtu.be/BkvEp_B5Kq8
bloody ‘ell…
Britain’s response, when Russia eventually gets loses its patience at it…
https://media.giphy.com/media/e1Lv6Gvd8bFFC/giphy.gif
that has to be one of the best yet
if not the best ever
thanks
too many faeries as it is here
I agree with you Norm. It really is pretty simple when you look at the big picture. We can’t have it all like you say. It is the End Of More!
I generally agree with Norm… when I disagree, I know I might be wrong…
“… that energy must be expended in order to create employment.”
yes, so less FF = less employment, not zero employment…
“we are approaching the wall of unaffordability as far as oil is concerned, and when we can [can’t?] afford oil, we cant afford anything else”
maybe… but if CBs print like bloody ‘ell and QE like bloody ‘ell, then oil can continue to be produced (even at a “loss”) in high quantities so that employment numbers can continue in high quantities…
yes, we are slowly slowly slowly approaching that “wall”…
speaking of employment (tomorrow), I gotta get my 7 hours tonight, so I haven’t read your link yet, Norm…
apologies for the typo
“Problem is, right now the best oilwells deliver only a 20:1 return…”
“Forget oil shales, tarsands and oil self sufficiency, at best they return around 6:1. That
figure makes those wells already non viable, they are sustained by the legacy-energy of older more productive wells.”
“But this is the only commercial system we understand, we are locked into it…”
yes yes yes yes yes… that’s it… that is the current system…
and 20:1 is big… not amazingly huge like decades ago…
but big… big enough to run the current system…
and of course, the system keeps showing bigger and bigger cracks…
my guess is the 20:1 oil remains in sufficient quantities into the 2030s…
then the system cracks so much that it stops running.
the oil return ratio isn’t the real problem
fighting over it is the real problem, and i dont think we’ve reached the real fighting over it yet.
as supplies get tighter, the realisation will dawn that things are not going to improve, though idiot politicians will insist that they are—but humankind can only react in one way the collective stress, and that’s conflict
And what I’m trying to model is a way not to fight over it.
we all want that
unfortunately our supplies of energy are decreasing
while our population is increasing
it is simple to figure out that without sufficient energy flowing into our economic system, swathes of humankind will die.
and just like any species we will resist death violently, as long as we have the strength and means to do so
if you are sitting in an ethiopian desert somewhere, with no physical means, then the liklihood is that you will keel over and die as a result of lack of resource/energy.
if on the other hand you are a gun owning person in a rich country, you will fight violently to survive.
this is why, as the usa enters resource depletion, violent unrest and civil war is inevitable and the ultimate installation of martial law and military dictatorship
though i genuinely wish you well in finding an alternative
‘And what I’m trying to model is a way not to fight over it’
Just ask John Lennon…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkZC7sqImaM
Or better still… try asking people like this to stop this nonsense..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWVV__VWw7Q
You could always try putting yeast cells into a cup of sugar and screaming at them to STOP consuming the sugar!!!
https://pinoyfoodandhome.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/yeast1.jpg
Time is short… you may want to use it in less futile ways….
Top US military general says war with North Korea will be all out or not at all
http://www.businessinsider.com/adm-harris-north-korea-war-bloody-nose-2018-3
so then… not at all…
reminder: NK has the 4th largest army in the world.
Still haven’t heard back from NK regarding a meeting with Trump?
It cited some “examples” of what will be prohibited:
“Click here to learn more about our no-risk cryptocurrency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world.”
“New ICO! Buy tokens at a 15% discount NOW!”
“Use your retirement funds to buy Bitcoin.”
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/03/14/google-joins-facebook-in-cryptocurrency-crackdown/
I am wondering why Bitcoin is not at 0.
Wolf Richter
Mar 14, 2018 at 8:34 pm
You’ll probably see these ads until June.
I’m split about this. I agree that advertising scams and fraud should be stopped. But there is a side of me that really doesn’t like what Google and Facebook are doing with this and other issues: They just DECIDE! Since they’re so huge, these decisions can crush businesses and stifle creativity simply because they cut off the money flow. And they’re starting to throw their weight around a lot these days. As publisher, I get to see some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. There are scary aspects to this. They can force me — and they have already forced me — to pull content by threatening that they will cut off advertising revenues.
ocop
Mar 14, 2018 at 9:30 pm
Thats concerning. What sort of content and how do they go about identifying it?
Wolf Richter
Mar 14, 2018 at 9:33 pm
Google’s internet-sweeping bots found it. It was a long comment by a commenter. It could be anything in the future.
If a site doesn’t live or die because of advertising revenue, it removes one source of pressure.
Yep….
some deaths from bridge collapse:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/several-dead-in-florida-bridge-collapse.html
is this a reminder that (most) infrastructure is built by the lowest bidder?
Also, that models don’t always work very well. The vibration of feet crossing a footbridge change the dynamics considerably.
May also be diminishing returns of complexity. Lot’s of modern construction tries to “pefabricate” in order to save on labor – building systems in a factory and then lifting them into place. It sounds like this bridge was prefabricated and dropped into place – seems like a good idea up front but room for big errors that would be caught with checks/balances of site built.
Its Florida, and the ‘Merican South.
Lucky it has lasted this long.
(Gail- I love Atlanta, contrary to my expectations- I was sent out to scout movie locations, and fell in love with the place)
A professional engineer should have been required for the cert of the design. However, there are usually exclusions of what is required to have a PE cert, such as height of a building, etc. Another question is how old is the bridge. Duncan, if you did not know it, states in the south require PEs to be certified, just like in the west.
The bridge was installed in the past week. It failed immediately.
But, a week is not bad for The South.
And no one was killed?
The bridge fell on top of several cars. Reports say, “multiple fatalities feared.” There were also workers on the bridge.
BREAKING NEWS!
Although there is no evidence, it has been determined the Putin caused that bridge to collapse. The US has announced that all Russian diplomats will be expelled on Monday.
Stay tuned for more MSM updates from your roving reporter — Fast Eddy…
And in other news … Gopher Warning is real… even though there are record cold temperatures in many parts of the world — don’t let that fool you
This is an article about the bridge design: https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2018/03/15/fiu-developed-technique-used-to-build-failed.html
FIU developed technique used to build failed pedestrian bridge as solution to nation’s infrastructure woes
I think they should have tested a model, with a large number of college students walking back and forth over a field, not far below. Testing it over a multiple lane road was crazy.
Also,
“… was designed at FIU using a new method called accelerated bridge construction (ABC).”
followed by Accelerated Bridge Destruction (ABD)…
but, no doubt it would have survived a cat 5 hurricane…
Not a flaw… designed to kill the homeless living below it… eating boiled rat
It appears the bridge was pretty much brand new…a prefab put into place on pedestals.
“It was built and designed by Munilla Construction Management in partnership with FIGG Bridge Engineers, the college said.”
I am curious if this was a “group design” project sponsored by a university. Perhaps Common Core math did not work quite rught here.
The issue that seems to be coming out now has to do with how the bridge was supported while it was under construction. Ultimately, it was to be held up with a large central support and cables, but that was not yet completed.
FIU’s pedestrian bridge installation left it vulnerable to collapse until complete, experts say
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/03/15/fiu-pedestrian-bridge-design/429978002/
The number of confirmed dead now stands at six.
Bitcoin mining no longer profitable?
at $8,000 each?
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/15/bad-news-for-bitcoin-miners-as-its-no-longer-profitable-to-create-the-cryptocurrency.html
“Fundstrat’s model incorporates three factors: the cost of equipment, electricity and other overhead such as maintaining cooling facilities.”
the cost of equipment is a sunk cost… it would be logical not to buy any more equipment and keep running already purchased equipment…
so, it seems Bitcoin mining still is profitable…
but perhaps not for long, especially if its price falls 50+% again.
You see the cheapest bit coins were mined first – the “first best” rule of mining bit coins. It turns out we’ll never run out of bitcoins. Rather, the cost of mining bitcoins will be higher than people buying bit coins can afford to pay for them.
Sounds familiar!
I like it!
and, somehow the “mining” of Bitcoins involves computations that are needed to process actual purchases of products using Bitcoin as payment…
so, when mining is no longer profitable, all miners will shut down, and the Bitcoin payment system will freeze up…
permanently…
forever…
then, the 20 million or so Bitcoins that already exist will probably be bought and sold at near $0 as there will still be those who irrationally think it will go back up…
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oops!
There are lots of bitcoins still available to mine – they have just been “shut in” by the high costs of extraction – and a lack of affordability among bitcoin buyers!
i repeat
money cannot exist without corresponding physical energy of equal value to back it up
there are no bitcoins ”out there”
A government can issue as much “money” as it would like. Look at Venezuela. There is no obligation of any other country to consider that it has any value at all. The other countries may not take it in trade for goods that they are selling.
Money has to have the illusion that there is something behind it. Perhaps that is what you mean.
well yes—thats what i meant
the zimbabwean currency ‘existed, as did the weimar mark—but if it takes a wheelbarrow full of notes to buy a loaf of bread, then it doesnt exist in practical terms
@Norman Pagette – it was a joke about bitcoin, comparing it to oil, but you raise an interesting thought:
“Money cannot exist without physical energy of equal value to back it up.”
Yes and no. The stone heads of Easter Island still exist as an artifact. Their role as “money” was a group-psychology phenomena. Perhaps most rigorously one could say promises can’t be made and accepted when both parties know they can’t be fulfilled.
We’re still making lots of promises that can’t be fulfilled – like pension contributions assuming a high rate of return. I would argue that it’s only the collective group-psychology of denial/ignorance (take your pick) preventing collapse.
One can promise to work off a debt, until it becomes obvious that I’m promising to give you 25 hours of work in a 24 hour day when we both know that isn’t possible. Slightly different is that I promise to do 3000 calories of labor a day for the next year on a 2000 calorie diet. This can carry on for some in-determinant amount of time. The promises will continue in our case long after the ability to repay has passed us by – because we are dealing with long time spans.
But yes, money will ultimately disappear entirely if and when present energy-based commitments can’t be met with present energy resources – since you can’t save energy and by and large all “future energy” (potential energy) exists now in the present. This is true even for the sun.
i can’t see the easter island heads being ‘money’, but that said, they existed in social context only so long as the easter islanders had sufficient indigenous energy to put them there
Maybe they had workers who were unemployed part of the year. They needed some work for them, so that they could “earn their keep” during part of the year. Instead of building cathedrals, they built oversized heads.
cathedrals or stone heads—the dynamic is the same i think
all comes down to bashing lumps of stone for years on end
I agree~
The comparison with Venezuela comes to mind….
@Norman Pagett: I was wrong about Easter Island. I meant these guys: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-island-of-stone-money
loose change
unexpected item in bagging area
Miami pedestrian bridge collapses, killing several, police say
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/miami-pedestrian-bridge-collapses-trapping-unknown-number-people-n857011
France calls Skripal poisoning ‘disgusting attack,’ warns of ‘firm’ response
https://www.rt.com/news/421437-skripal-disgusting-firmness-france/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=push_notifications
How Bankrupt Venezuela could ‘Shutdown’ world economies as Oil Catastrophe looms
VENEZUELA’S bankrupt regime has been labelled the biggest risk factor to the global financial markets according to the latest monthly report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/932160/Venezuela-economy-world-economy-oil-bankrupt-latest-news
We have been seeing the fall of Venezuela for 2+ years.
Like Cuba with Castro, Maduro will probably die of old age in office, still selling the largest quality of oil in the world.
Then agin, it could be over soon—-
that seems to be quite irrational hyperbole…
“Venezuela’s output dropped by 30,000 barrels a day to 1.68 million barrels in February and the country’s slowdown is a big part of the reason for OPEC’s stellar implementation of promises to curb production.”
OPEC’s production curbs have not caused much of a rise in oil prices…
and Venezuela is a minor player in the oil game…
1.68 mbpd is only about 1.5% of the world total.
The WSJ has an article up, Tesla’s make or break moment is fast approaching.
Clearly, it is nowhere close, now. And
“… Tesla had a score of 1.26, its lowest score for any quarter since 2014. Any company with a score below 1.8 is considered distressed by many investors. A score of 1.0 or lower suggests bankruptcy is likely within two years.”
so perhaps bankruptcy in about 3 years?
time will tell.
https://imgur.com/a/Mqymk
I wonder if that is actually true…
hmmmm…
but human nature doesn’t change…
too much truth (the inevitable nothingness of eternal death) has always bothered many people.
Russia to launch mission to Mars next year – Putin
Russia is launching an ambitious series of missions to the Red Planet, starting with an unmanned Mars mission in 2019, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview.
“We are planning unmanned and later manned launches – into deep space, as part of a lunar program and for Mars exploration. The closest mission is very soon, we are planning to launch a mission to Mars in 2019,” the president said in an interview shown in a new documentary by Andrey Kondrashov.
He added that the lunar exploration program would target the polar regions of the moon.
“Our specialists will try landing near the poles because there are reasons to expect water there. There is research to be done there, and from that, research of other planets and outer space can be undertaken,” Putin said.
The plans for Russia’s lunar program include a landing test at moons’ southern pole scheduled for 2019, testing technology that can be used for a permanent lunar outpost in 2023 and a soil retrieval mission in 2025. A base on the moon may be established sometime in the 2040s or 2050s.
https://www.rt.com/news/421356-russia-mission-mars-putin/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
elon musk has got competition of stupid things
Mars. How enticing is this: naked in the middle of the Sahara with your hands tied behind your back and plastic back sealed over your head with no water, food or shelter in sight. Sounds delightful no? If you think that is harsh, Mars is more so. Mars will NEVER be more habitable than Earth on any timescale that matters to humans.
but elon musk say we can Terraforming Mars /s
He should marry the Theranos woman. They could have a kid and name him Ethon. Imagine the dinner table conversations.
Elon – well Ethon, what did you do today?
Ethon- I cheated on my math test.
Elon – thatta boy.
Elizabeth – don’t forget to charge the kids who copied off of you. They grow up so fast!
A-
ding!
Come on. Anybody? Bueller, Bueller???
Think of all the possibilities? Mall strips, pizza parlours and filling stations on every corner. Mars, the next suburbia!
https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/mars-city.jpg
Non-partisan politics – just plain simple observation: Putin is learning from Trump the manipulative art of distraction.
Putin is aping Elon Musk…
wow…
that means the leader of Russia might be mentally unstable…
wow…
“… a permanent lunar outpost in 2023 and a soil retrieval mission in 2025. A base on the moon may be established sometime in the 2040s or 2050s.”
wow…
though, by the 2040s, Russia may be the only country with enough FF to even attempt such insanity…
and this lunar program could be quite entertaining through the 2020s.
Putin doesn’t get it
Musk doesn’t get it
there are only two types of journey purpose
1–where you make a journey and return with a greater store of energy than you set out with—that is called gainful employment, war, empire building–even tilling your vegetable plot — the dynamics are exactly the same.
2—where you make a journey and return with photographs and souvenirs—–that is called a holiday
space travel can never be more than a holiday, because there is nothing on any of the planets that can be brought back to earth as a greater store of energy than that used to make the journey in the first place
.
Mars or moon colonies cannot function outside earth support
yes–planet exploration can take place, but only in the sense of gaining technical advantage that will be useful on earth—ie something we can set fire to basically
ultimately space travel must be a negative sum game.
It really cannot happen because humans will die from exposure to the level of radiation you’d get spending that much time in interplanetary space.
Plus the amount of time you’d be spending out of Earth-level gravitational field would result in physical degeneration like bone density heading toward zero and developing blindness. These issues already present themselves for astronauts in extended stays in the ISS; a trip to Mars would be far more time in low gravity.
Think of space travel as yet another “service” that our economy can add, to provide employment to ever-more highly educated people.
A person doesn’t seen the energy used directly, because much of it is in education and later wages paid to high waged employees working on these issues.
We could build cathedrals instead.
a while ago i came to the conclusion that NASA is little more than a job creation program for PHd’s
the Astrobiology program certainly is so. NASA provides funds for postdoc salaries while they do program research and apply for jobs in government labs or academia.
I guess you mean that building cathedrals would be more longlasting and meaningful? At least that was the case historically. I havn’t read the books, but i think ken follett writes vividly about the great enterprise the catolic church initiated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillars_of_the_Earth
that’s so eleventh century, Gail. Notre Dame, Lincoln cathedral, El Domo, etc.