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.
Thank you. Two more. I promise, the last ones 🙂
http://i.imgur.com/9EfPiXi.jpg
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1651/25652611936_6836dacff7_o.jpg
Of course, click to enlarge
N F me! 4 liters of beer. But Waw skyline is nice for Europe. Going to sleep at 5:30 am.
This was a reply to Aubrey Enoch, O_o
Never been in Warsaw—
But all things are judged from Paris in my world.
The US has San Francisco and New York, and then drops into insignifiance (I was born in LA).
Nice photos of Warsaw. 4th best modern skyline in Europe (after Frankfurt, London, and Paris)
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4690/38258568535_b19d731829_b.jpg
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4633/38702525184_81886141d9_o.jpg
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4349/37020418425_64d7f71684_h.jpg
Couple more towers are under construction right now, including the highest so far, which will be completed in 2020)
I’ve thought that it will be only links to photos. Sorry 🙂
Thanks for the photos. I don’t know what I thought Warsaw would look like but I did not expect that.
good thing they will be completed in 2020…
after that, things get iffy…
though somehow, somewhere, “towers” will probably be under construction right up until The Collapse.
John Bolton in – The Iran deal out
“The Obama people better start packing their sh@t!”
Someone wrote that Trump is securing US steel independence because he’s preparing a major war
“Someone wrote that Trump is securing US steel independence because he’s preparing a major war”
I wouldn’t be surprised. He claimed he wouldn’t sign another debt relief package like the one he just signed, but signed it because of all the added money for Defense (as he widely smiled). He also hired war hawk, psychopath Bolton. Plus when it comes to the military, that is the one thing he seems to light up with smiles the most about. The budget for Defense has been increased $100 billion more than the stratospheric number it was before. He once asked, “If we have all these nukes, why don’t we use them?” He also wouldn’t rule out war with Europe.
But most importantly, it is much more difficult to oust a standing president during a time of war. The mid-term elections are in November, and who knows when the Mueller investigation will conclude, so it’s a fairly good bet Trump will want to have a war (to change public opinion from a blue wave to a red wave because people apparently love war, because prez poll numbers always skyrocket during the early parts of a war), probably with Iran to begin in the next few months. Time for Steel Manuf. in the US to ramp up.
No, its not the Onion….
‘Tesla claims it has not been paid for more than a third of the electricity its batteries have generated in South Australia because they are providing it too fast to be counted.’
http://euanmearns.com
‘….batteries have generated’ noted by one commentator there….mmmm
At first I thought that this article was intended for April 1, 2018, but it is a little early.
If it really is fixing problems this quickly, it raises questions regarding whether wind and solar should be allowed in the grid without lots of battery backup, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine that high tech equipment wants fluctuations in its electricity supply, even for milliseconds.
At best the battery can store and output about 5% of the state’s electrical supply for an hour (which if done completely discharges the battery thus radically shortening its lifespan), and Tesla is claiming they’re “providing it too fast”? Almost makes me laugh until I realize that I’m living here having to pay for all this nonsense.
Talking to other people though it seems they’ve bought the “renewables” marketing 100%. Every person I’ve talked to here believes in the rhetoric even as we get charged a fortune for electricity and just blames the high prices on privatization.
Funny thing is there’s plenty of privately owned electrical utilities in other countries that don’t charge anywhere near as much. I suppose if I could show them this they’ll probably blame it on private ownership as well:
https://d32r1sh890xpii.cloudfront.net/tinymce/2017-10/gail2010N.png
I trust you are all as excited as I am about Earth Hour. Towns and cities around the world will this evening be turning off their lights for an hour as a ‘call to action’ on c c. Because of course there are *so many* options open to us and we are not at all impotent, confused and hypocritical.
Oh, I see I am late to the party and scorn has already been heaped. 😀
One of the best movies ever made! Must watch!
found it to be very disappointing
i’m confused from the trailer. they show a funreral pire being lit. there is no evidence of a metal tray to catch the ashes of the deceased. then how to they collect the ashes sans all the wood ashes after to make enough to place in a bag to be flushed at the airport toilet later? weird. nice costume design, very medieval.
Eugene de Kock
Other names Prime Evil
Occupation Member of the South African Police (SAP)
Known for Role in the apartheid-era counter-insurgency division of the SAP
Awards Police Cross at Sevran
Eugene Alexander de Kock (born 29 January 1949) is a former South African Police (SAP) colonel, torturer, and assassin, active under the apartheid government. Nicknamed “Prime Evil”[1][2][3] by the press, de Kock was the commanding officer of C10, a counter-insurgency unit of the SAP that kidnapped, tortured, and murdered numerous anti-apartheid activists from the 1980s to the early 1990s. C10’s victims included members of the African National Congress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_de_Kock
Funny how the victims learn from the oppressors…..
Just another day in Merica (you’ll be entertained)
https://www.wcpo.com/news/national/video-captures-brawl-at-ihop-in-memphis
Lots of videos like that over at http://www.minds.com/colinflaherty. Discerning viewers may notice a common theme.
I am HUGELY entertained!!!
Just wait till BAU ends… there is no calming Oxycontin available… and the rage is unleashed — and the beast is hungry…..
That may not be so … entertaining….
Exposing the great ‘poverty reduction’ lie
An IPL of $2.50 shows a poverty headcount of around 3.1 billion, almost triple what the World Bank and the Millennium Campaign would have us believe. It also shows that poverty is getting worse, not better, with nearly 353 million more people impoverished today than in 1981.
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/08/exposing-great-poverty-reductio-201481211590729809.html
And Bill Gates and Steven Pinker keep saying the world is getting better every year! Liars! The world bank just lowered the bar so low so they could legalize global slavery!
Interesting article, from 2014, but the arguments are perhaps also valid for the povertyline
set by the new goals if UN?
Warren Buffet once said ‘You don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut”…And we shouldn’t be asking the World Bank if Global Capitalism is creating a more prosperous world…
“The $1.25 threshold is absurdly low, but it remains in favour because it is the only baseline that shows any progress in the fight against poverty, and therefore justifies the present economic order.”
yes, the UN often can be absurd…
“Eradicating poverty in this more meaningful sense will require more than just using aid to tinker around the edges of the problem. It will require changing the rules of the global economy to make it fairer for the world’s majority.”
no chance of that happening…
also, “eradicating poverty” is a fantasy on the level of autonomous flying cars and Mars colonies…
it will require abundant cheap FF, which no longer exist…
Reality seems to favour poverty.
Weirdly enough slavery is still practised in the USA. The 13th amendment has a loophole that allows for those found guilty of a crime to be incarcerated in working plantations. like Angola. Angola still functions after being founded in about 1820. It has kept the name but is part of the correctional facilities in the US.
https://mic.com/articles/88461/a-modern-day-slave-plantation-exists-and-it-s-thriving-in-the-heart-of-america#.4aXZZVrYK
Articles posted by Mr Doyle have little to do with reality and our worsening energy/economic situation but everything to do with NPR like liberal causes. Typically pure slanted, left propaganda.
All TX state prisons used to be self supporting, ie, they grew all their own food. Just like this Louisiana prison use to be, until Federal judges forced it to end.
A fortunate result of the “End of More” will be the end of this kind of stuff posted by Mr Doyle.
I post nothing less relevant that many posters here. You are making a straw man observation. It’s ridiculous, The slavery article is just pointing out yet more failure to live up to the founding myths that the USA promotes, but fails to implement. What have you said that’s been useful here? Also why do you fail to use your real name? Why associate with an outlaw? What are you scared of?
You are a laughing stock…. a buff ooon… a not funny court jester… a light-weight… you do not belong here…
You are not even worth responding to…. that is how delusional you are
Got to surplus energy .com …. your id io cy will be embraced.
Say hi to Don for me would you
Mr Doyle, the US has NEVER lived up to its “A thousand points of lights” BS fake image and you know it.
But your equating the making of prisoners to do work with slavery is pure “left speak”. Actually , I would compare the Texas state prisons through the 70s, as a pretty good kind of prison to be in compared to historical standards, and to present standards. Texas prisoners had to work, raising food and other essential tasks. They probably ate better than many “freeman”.
Sure, we want prisoners treated well, but work is not slavery. Please do not dilute the term.
As many have pointed out, with our scarce FF future, we haven’t seen nothing yet when it comes to slavery.
As for my moniker, it is private. You have no need to know.
http://thegreatwesternmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/JesseJamesWanted.jpg
OK, I actually have a personal connection to the real Jesse James, through my grandfather, whose name also happened to be Jesse. There might actually be a snippet of the famous Mr James DNA on an antique that I own, given to me by my grand father when I was a kid.
Well at least you have a connection, even if not a true descendant. Now we need some others to own up and stop hiding behind a nom de plume, more than one in FE’s case.
isn’t everyone descended from Genghis Khan?
not in the West.
here Aldous Huxley talk about the future of civilization in 1958
https://youtu.be/3TQZ-2iMUR0
look almost all predictions has been correct
What were the predictions? I haven’t had time to look at the interview.
State and corporate mind-control employing new technologies; a drugged-up, over-medicated population; over-population, degradation of resources, loss of freedoms, etc. All spot on.
cool…
but did he predict the big one?
The Collapse of IC in the middle of this century?
Somehow this video brought out a dogmatic strain that I’ve been trying to supress: What matters are the visual effects on the cultural landscape. Each visible change comes with a program that is not visible. To control and inhibit unwanted programs is to control and inhibit changes to the landscape. “In an age of accelerating over population…” we need to contain the acceleration of human effects on the landscape. So to cut down no trees and demolish no building, however acceleration of population would have to adapt, would be an appropriate religious position for our situation. We could add, dig up no topsoil, build the house around the tree, add growing medium on top to the topsoil, situate the house on piers or pylons…
Not cutting the tree that’s right up against the side of my house involves more work, more continuously to cut back branches and see to effects on house foundation. My spouse isn’t impressed by this reasoning, but so far so good. And having a tree emerging through the roof is still thought to be insane. The developers, and their demand for ease, speed and efficiency, are still winning.
love that cigarette-smoking Mike Wallace! so PC-not these days.
Carl Jung, towards the end of his life, intuited that there would be a global catastrophe, potentially wiping out all life:
The S&P 500 closed at 2588 on Friday
The S&P 500 is having an awful time of it this year and is now perilously close to taking out the lows established on February 8th at 2581. History suggests this would set it up for a waterfall decline, in the double digits.
https://static.businessinsider.com/image/5a7cbd51d0307298068b4678-1200.jpg
Market breaking down again: Half of the S&P 500 in correction territory
The U.S. stock market is under pressure once again, with more than half the S&P 500 falling into correction territory.
More than 275 components in the broad index were down at least 10 percent from their 52-week highs as of 11:04 a.m. ET. Of those companies, 84 were in bear-market territory, or down at least 20 percent from their one-year high.
Sorry, for some reason the chart for the DOW got in by mistake. Here’s the one for the S&P 500.
http://www.latimes.com/resizer/6WmfuA1-6lre9_s-WH9BsG57pVY=/1400×0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/4RKL254TBFHLJMZTU6AGG3QYCA.png
It is hard to believe that the S&P 500 can even stay at its current level for very long.
If you think the S&P 500 is having a hard time of, how about the FTSE 100? This currently stands at 6922, which is below the level of 6930 it was at on the eve of the new millennium. That’s over eighteen years with zero growth. No wonder pension funds are struggling in the UK.
For comparison, the S&P 500 stood at 1469 at the end of the nineties. The Dow Jones has risen from 11497 to 23533 over this time period.
[Disclaimer: I cherry picked the starting date to highlight my point.]
Good point, however. There are big differences in stock markets.
the Dow was at 19,000+ when Trump took office on January 20, 2017…
so it’s still way up since then…
perhaps not for very long…
And when Trump was a candidate, the DOW, at 19,000, was in a bubble he said, but the DOW at 26,000, now he is president, was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Go figure…
Earth hour tonight!
I will be turning off almost all the lights in our house…
…when I go to bed.
no torches under the blanket remember
Let’s take a peak into a Green Groupie’s house…
Ok kids let’s all turn off the lights because it’s Earth Day … and we need to show that we are serious about saving the planet.
Ok daddy – let’s do it. But tomorrow can we drive to the Mall in the two – tonne SUV and buy more Stuff from China? Yes of course kids … but not before we stop at the Fair Trade Organic Coffee Shop because they have a special roast flown in from the Mars coffee plantation. And if you kids are really good tonight guess what – what daddy what? – we’re going to fly on an airplane to Leo’s Concrete Eco Resort in Belize for Easter!!!!
Hurrah hurrah hurrah daddy! We love saving the world!!!!
Breaking News:
Green Groupies were reportedly throwing bricks through windows of houses that had lights on this evening. A spokes PERSON for the snowflake group Green Groupies who Cry for the Planet left messages on Facebook and Twitter stating ‘If you refuse to save the planet by turning off the lights this year we break your window – next year we break your neck’
Meanwhile https://www.statista.com/statistics/580087/energy-use-of-facebook/
Here’s a wonderful homestead hypocrite for you FE: ‘Mrs Frugalwoods’. The joy of living with less…..
Less…. funny thing… I work with some people who pretend to live by this motto… but every years they expect more… as in salary raises….
Imagine if I were to say but why do you need More — when you are committed to living with Less?
There is no logic to your position….
Since you are unable to to control yourselves… and you are adamant that you will live with Less…
I will help you … I will restrict your ability to buy More…. and Live with less… but paying you Less….
We don’t want to shock the system too much so let’s do this in increments… we’ll reduce salaries by 10% each year for the next 5 years… then we will re-evaluate…
(and meanwhile – I will be paying myself bigger dividends = to the amount of the salary reductions.. and pissing the cash away on MORE MORE MORE!!! — in keeping with what Mr Jevon’s requires)
Our greepies knows even they can’t control themselves, so they mostly propose banning, rationing and taxing.
Venezuelans, Go Home: Xenophobia Haunts Refugees
For decades, the oil-rich citizens of a great nation were stereotyped by their poorer neighbors as haughty. Now comes the payback.
Panama’s hit single is about a Venezuelan woman who “fears nothing but immigration officers,” and “was famous in her own country but here does something else” — the something else presumably being prostitution.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse are crowding into cities and makeshift camps in Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador and throughout the region, the largest mass emigration in modern Latin American history. The resulting friction mirrors that in nations from the U.S., where immigration pervades the national debate, to Germany, where war refugees have upended politics, to Italy, where an anti-migrant party made stunning gains Sunday.
In Panama, the sympathy that greeted early arrivals from Venezuela, many wealthy professionals, is giving way to fear and resentment of the poor and desperate. It is evinced by outbreaks of nationalistic insults, harassment and even violence. Mr. Saik’s song brought him death threats from aggrieved migrants.
“The situation is so tense that people just react,” said Christian Maldonado, who represents the singer whose real name is Fernando Cabrera. He helped produce the song, whose title is a slang reference to Venezuelans. It’s ubiquitous in Panama City’s taxis and bars.
Venezuela’s slump since socialist autocrat President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013 is the deepest in the Americas in recent history. Oil output, the economy’s mainstay, has plunged as the state producer runs out of money — and as Maduro imprisons its officials and replaces them with military men. Hyperinflation has made the currency worthless, and malnutrition is now endemic.
Almost 2 million Venezuelans are living outside the country.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-05/venezuelans-go-home-xenophobia-spreads-as-refugees-flee-crisis
next refugee crisis in south america
At some point, there is a recognition that there are too many people. Hard to take in more.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-11/must-reads-of-2017-how-finance-ate-everything
‘At the same time, as Foroohar points out, “America’s ability to offer up even the appearance of growth” through financialization “is at an end.” The financial revolution has no solution for stagnant wages, income inequality and job insecurity. And there is no easy way to transition out of it, either, especially as demagogues do what they are best at: find scapegoats instead of solutions. decades ago, a revolution occurred in the world economy.
Today, we’re living through its extensive political consequences. This revolution consisted of financialization. Financial services, from banks and hedge funds to trading houses, became the largest industry in the U.S. The impact of this revolution has been incalculable. Accompanied by the rapid enrichment of a tiny few and stagnation and disappointment for many more. Now the only growth that remains is selling expensive services to each other. The financial revolution has no solution for stagnant wages, income inequality and job insecurity
At some point, it becomes clear that promises of energy are not the same as real energy.
I presume the reason the industrial revolution started in the UK because the UK had had experience with wood and charcoal, and had cut down quite a bit of forest. The added coal to save the forest. Places that did not have as much experience with wood and charcoal (also wind and water), would not have started using coal. Also, inventions were “waiting in the wings,” which could use coal, such as the steam engine.
What else does the movie say?
Quite a lot more … it goes into how the political system in the UK fostered innovation in both economics and technology…. and compares this to what happened in France which had a autocratic govt.
The UK focus on naval power is also discussed… they visit some really interesting sites in the Caribbean — which was an instrumental component of the building of the empire… there are ruins of old machinery at the plantations … they also visit the first coal powered water pump for coal mines….
It does take a whole system to make a change like a whole change to industrialization.
France was like Spain, you couldn’t really join the high aristocracy, you had to be born into it.
Whereas in Britain, from the early 17th century or even earlier, if you were very clever and made lots of money, as a lawyer or merchant, you could buy land, and then a title of some kind. Baronet was the entry-level title.
If you look at the family trees of most of the old and grand families, they often had humble beginnings.
They hide it, of course: the Percy family (Dukes of Northumberland) should be ‘Smythson-Percy’, and it was Mr Smythson who had the readies, being a rich London businessman. But that got conveniently forgotten.
Things tightened up in the 19th century, but by then the Industrial Revolution was well underway.
the uk was geologically lucky in sitting on a whole lot of coal and iron, and politically lucky in getting rid of autocratic kings and priests who stifled innovation.
we used iron to build ships and cannon—the rest as they say—was history
Or perhaps the Brits took the opportunities that were handed to them. Luck is a convenient explanation by leftists and commies.
Anyway, I can not fathom how my existence would be without the Brits bootstrapping industrial civilization. (and the ‘Muricans following it up with cheap oil)
All hail the Brits and USA!
the luck was in having coal iron ore and river transport available within yards of each other–and a government that didn’t interfere with commerce
the critical date for changing the world was 10th Jan 1709, when the first coke fired blast furnace became operational (Darby).
Iron became ultra cheap.
The USA picked up the industrial baton in the following century, and ran with it, having vastly more materials available than we brits did–and hence became prime global power when brit power began to fade
Your narrative is missing the important part of two world wars fought to keep Germany from arising as a power that could challenge the Anglo-American one.
if germany and japan had won ww2, there would have been a period of murderous unpleasantness, for a generation or so, when subjected races/nations would have been enslaved and exploited as energy resources—but enslaved nations are ultimately destructive, not productive, because they need constant military subjection, which consumes too much energy in the long run
So by 1970/80 or so, the same problems would have kicked in, with germany and japan running up against each other over resource shortages, just like we do now.
And what would have been the battleground?
Germany sweeps east, Japan sweeps west—where do they meet? the middle east—just like now
All conflicts are over energy resources—like i keep banging on
It is impossible to dodge that
I also read that the British fondness for drinking tea, which of course entails boiling water, may have played a crucial role in allowing larger urban centres to form than had previously been possible in an era when cholera, dysentery, typhoid etc. were prevalent. Also tea polyphenols have themselves proven to be effective in preventing infections of the alimentary canal.
And of course boiling water is protective against the various things that live in water. China, Japan, and India also drink tea.
The countries that do not generally drink coffee (which has antioxidants) or use beer or wine mixed with water to kill microbes. Drinking water without purification is a dead-end, in a densely populated world.
Human’s ability to boil water was perhaps as important as its ability to cook part of its food. The ability to boil water allowed much denser population, since contaminated water did not have to be a major problem. Alcohol worked too. Now we have lots of fancy techniques for water purification. All of these techniques require energy of some sort.
tea tended to be the preserve of the well-to-do, maybe till 19th c
hard to say when it became really widespread—certainly those diseases were common throughour 19th c
Yet if one chose death over such an existence THAT would somehow be perceived as a tragedy by most. Bah.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43523797
“A Pennsylvania superintendent has described his unique measure to protect students from potential school shooters – arming them with buckets of stones.”
In the event of an ACTIVE SHOOTER… Snowflakes are instructed to group hug… (have a brief cry) … then form a snowball… and self-propel the snowball into the head of the ACTIVE SHOOTER… knocking him down… and saving the day.
Then to celebrate the Snowflakes should sing Koombaya to the Pacified Shooter — offer him cookies and milk… and explain why it is bad thing to shoot people and do whatever it takes to improve his self-esteem including focusing on his good points… and providing him with Excellent Effort Gold Stars and Hugs and Kisses.
And finally, he should be given a signed photo of Justin Trudeau crying for him… and driven home to begin his new life as a lovely person.
The thing is…
If people could overcome this bull sh it belief that humans are basically good … that everyone deserves a chance….that there should be equality for all and all that nonsene….
And realize that basically we are a plague — that if a few million or even a billion of us die…. so what — we are all going to die anyway…. what’s a few here and there… (as long as it is not me)
Then it is possible to get into the minds of the people who really run this sh it show…. and their minions…
Rumsfeld does not give a a sh it about collateral damage…. nor Blair… nor Obama .. nor the El ders….
Because they look at the big picture….
And because they take a look at humans in general .. and think … what a bunch of vermin …. stuuuupid f789ing More ons…. useless eaters…. Facebooking re ta rds….. no smarter than yeast… worse than rats the way we breed…
They look at the species with justified contempt…. and I am sure they think that when some innocents get killed in a war — it is no different than a bug hitting the windshield of a car…. or seeing a cockroach scuttling across the floor… and stepping on it….
Big deal….
And they are right. at the end of the day … who gives a f789…. humans are no different than bugs… or barnyard animals that we are quite happy to torture (in fact we are not even up to the level of barnyard animals … because they do not engage in torture)….
So long as it’s not you hitting the windshield….
I know a guy that does time travel. He said the big staple, after tshtf , is what they called “upright pork”. He said upright pork from homesteader types was at a premium because it wasn’t so contaminated with chemicals and pharmaceuticals. He said a hungry human is a different animal.
yes, I can confirm this…
I also do a lot of time travel…
“sauces” will also be at a premium…
Thanks David. Sauces is the answer to the future. Forget a!l that solar panel nonsense. I’m going to work on sauces for rancid upright pork and BBQ rat. I’ll be rich.
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/art511_h/emerging10/TaylorF_DNA_Proj1/DNA_splicing_page/animal_human_pig.jpg
sauces… and spices…
and other condiments, too…
Imagine if this crack just kept getting bigger and deeper… and the planet split into two pieces
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-43501954/huge-crack-opens-in-kenya-s-rift-valley
it probably will, because it’s a RIFT valley, as in pull-apart, crustal extension, upwelling mantle plume, plate tectonics. someone should collect some gas samples and check for elevated 3He/4He, a sure sign of a new fault extending down the the upper mantle.
I’d like to see California crack and fall into the ocean drowning all members of the Sierra Club…. and other assorted Snowflake/DelusisTANI and Green Groupie organizations
might be a few ofw doomsters as well though—not so good
“Imagine if this crack just kept getting bigger and deeper… and the planet split into two pieces…”
uh oh…
now that you’ve posted that…
drum roll please…
somebody “out there” will begin to prep for it…
How to Survive When Shit Hits the Fan | The Harvard Crimson
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/3/22/massachusetts-preppers/
Minister sites climate change in rejection of open cast coal mine.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/23/minister-rejects-opencast-coal-mine-northumberland-citing-climate-change-fears
A landmark decision. Normally nothing would ever be allowed to prevent the extraction of fossil fuels in the UK.
so, the decision to not allow this small mine was based on the fear that it would make a major negative impact on the cli mate of this planet which has a circumference of 25,000 miles…
wow… that’s a bizarre decision making process…
it seems to me (here in the USA) that the UK needs all the FF it can produce…
any chance this “minister” could change his mind or be overruled?
” Two coal power stations this year have already announced closure plans, after which the UK will have just six coal plants.”
is the leadership of the UK going insayne?
any comments from those of you who live there?
The kew word “Minister sites”—
We already have someone who has lost control of reality, and embraces a cosmic jewish zombie that is control of this flat planet.
https://www.bloomberg.com/energy
WTI up 1.58 to 65.88 & Brent breaks 70. going up 1.54 to $70.45 as of the time of this posting. I’m not making a point one way or another about this, just posting prices because price has been going up lately.
All 1,472 employees of Facebook, Inc. reportedly burst out in uncontrollable laughter Wednesday following Albuquerque resident Jason Herrick’s attempts to protect his personal information from exploitation on the social-networking site.
“Look, he’s clicking ‘Friends Only’ for his e-mail address. Like that’s going to make a difference!” howled infrastructure manager Evan Hollingsworth, tears streaming down his face, to several of his doubled-over coworkers.
“Oh, sure, by all means, Jason, ‘delete’ that photo. Man, this is so rich.”
According to internal sources, the entire staff of Facebook was left gasping for air minutes later when the “hilarious” Herrick believed he had actually blocked third-party ads.
https://www.theonion.com/entire-facebook-staff-laughs-as-man-tightens-privacy-se-1819571532
CRACKS NOW APPEARING IN THE WORLD’S MAJOR OIL INDUSTRY
https://srsroccoreport.com/cracks-now-appearing-in-the-worlds-major-oil-industry/#comment-60638
The CBs are busy filling in the cracks with free money .. to keep the oil majors alive
Number of children in poverty surges by 100,000 in a year, figures show
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-poverty-increase-children-family-benefit-households-a8268191.html
I reckon the guvs should be adding Xanax to the water…. I suspect it is being discussed….
Some salacious gossip relating to Elon Musk because I know you all love it. 😀
Poor Elon. First Amber Heard and now this!
“Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s estranged father has had a baby with his own stepdaughter who is 42 years his junior, MailOnline can reveal.
“The extraordinary revelation could provide the truth behind the bitter family feud that has engulfed one of the world’s richest families.
“Errol, 72, was branded ‘evil’ and ‘a terrible human being’ by the Tesla Motors chief, who said his father had done ‘almost every evil thing you can possibly think of’.
“Now MailOnline can reveal that South African businessman Errol has fathered a 10-month-old baby son by his stepdaughter Jana Bezuidenhout, 30, who was four when he married her mother…”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5536883/Truth-billionaire-Elon-Musks-inter-galactic-family-feud.html
Gail,
Enjoyed your commentary as always.
Regarding the affordability of cars.
I just bought a new Toyota.
It ain’t your dad’s car. Nor even a younger Fred’s car. Basically, it is a computer on four wheels. And the various components that make up its separate parts are extraordinarily expensive. For example, the motor that powers the sunroof is a $4,500 repair/replacement item. This one motor is worth the cost of a used car!
And the car is made up of MANY such component parts.
What I see happening is that these vehicles, although very reliable over perhaps a seven or eight year time frame, will become essentially unrepairable after a relatively short total service life. I believe the end result will be that we will lose our mobility much faster than most Peak Oilers imagine. We will not be able to fall back into a “salvage economy” the likes of which the Cubans were able to put into place after the U.S. pulled the rug out from under the Cuban economy after Castro seized power in 1960.
It is very possible to keep a 1958 Buick running for ten, twenty, thirty, even forty years after the end of its normal service life with resourcefulness and mechanical knowhow, but the new “computers on four wheels”? NOT a chance.
I had wanted to buy a more “basic” kind of new vehicle because I am aware and concerned about my future ability to keep paying vehicle upkeep. But ALL the new cars are now made with extremely expensive subassemblies bases on the micro-chip. These features are standard equipment and it is not possible to buy a simple, robust, mechanical (versus computer chipped) car.
Fred
Good points. I read a book about travels through Ethiopia: it’s quite incredible what an inspired/drunk/drugged mechanic-driver can do to keep a basic, non-computerised, vehicle running, somehow……..
Yes indeed. The best known British vehicle from the same era is the Morris minor, simple, over engineered and not very reliable, but endlessly repairable with a supply of parts, basic tools and some enthusiasm.
And as for the Honda 90 or the Land Rover…
Depends on your market, there are still some budget brands in Europe with potential extended lifespan, where the only electronics are in the engine (retro swap possible), info cluster (not necessary), theft protection (optional), ABS (not necessary), electric/hydro steering assist (could be a problem), ..
Agree with you about the cars. I don’t own one now but have been thinking of getting one. Would like one without all the bells and whistles.
Ice skates are far superior to those of 20 years ago…. far lighter… and the blades hold an edge far longer…
As are hockey sticks… the new carbon jobs blow away the old wooden sticks… better feel… harder shots…
I think you are exactly correct.
The same principle applies with trains. If trains were the simplest type made, perhaps with wooden benches for seats, they would be repairable indefinitely. Instead, we have very fancy door opening and closing systems, and fancy heating and air conditioning, and many other systems that can become unrepairable. High speed trains are especially bad.
So much is over engineered today. Perhaps looking for van advantage that a buyer will choose> Cars are particularly affected.
http://www.drive.com.au/motor-feature/car-technology-that-is-going-backwards-20160322-gno4mq.html
If we changed to selling for the ‘need’ not the ‘want’ we would have a completely different dynamic.
I have 3 vehicles with a combined purchase value under NZ $12k, and thats with full petrol tanks! All are around 30 yrs old, I can repair them easily, and they are more solid and more fun to drive than any new vehicle I have been in recently. Why anybody buys these new frankenstein cars bewilders me. There are speed limits where I live and I get places as fast as anyone else does.
My recent conversations with panel repair shops seems to indicate new cars are getting more and more difficult to repair; complete panel replacements are becoming the norm.
The ‘right to repair’ group re tractor owners/apple etc etc in US sums everything up well. You don’t buy new cars/phones, you merely put in a claim to borrow/use them… IMHO.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a25246/right-to-repair-legislation-under-fire-in-nebraska/
I remember the – rather smelly – old London commuter trains: you had to lean out of the open window (pushed down by hand) in order to open the stiff door handle from the outside.
Very durable, and no electronics to fail, cheap to maintain: just a drop of oil and tightening some screws I suppose. I doubt they run on any line now.
Vulnerability through computerisation just seems to be accelerating. I watched a film about British Army Pathfinders in Afghanistan: a Jackal vehicle broke down and had to be towed when its controlling computer failed – mission aborted at 7 days when they were meant to be in the mountains for 42. The mechanic could do nothing.
Distance running is a valuable skill.
Yup
Yes yes yes. I can’t stand the newer cars, so much complexity for no good reason. A very good example is cars with automatic engaging of the secondary brake (hand brake). I have a 10 year old car where this system has failed numerous times already. $700 or so to replace (one of) the servo motors that applies the brake.
Sleepwalking Into The Next Oil Crisis -Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/23/is-the-world-sleepwalking-into-an-oil-crisis/#3dd6e74344cf
My friend from the Peak OIl FB group wrote this. He asked me for sources to help him write it. This is a must read for everyone! Best peak oil article written in a decade! Share this shit!
Except there is no reason to believe that prices will spike, except briefly by a small amount.
The real issue is falling energy per capita. That is determined by coal consumption as much as everything else.
Next I am going to get Robert to write about the Natural Gas shortage coming soon as well! Baby Doomer won’t be out doomed! EVER!!!
Shell forecasts global Natural Gas supply shortage in mid-2020s
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/26/shell-warns-of-lng-shortage-as-demand-for-liquefied-natural-gas-booms.html
Chevron expects global Natural Gas supply shortage by 2025
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chevron-lng/chevron-expects-lng-supply-shortage-by-2025-idUSKCN1GI2EH
Robert is a “Peak Oiler.” He firmly believes supplies will run out and prices will rise. You two should get along well.
Sometime both of you should learn about networked systems.
Art Berman also talks about limitations on US gas supply by 2025
so once prices drop even lower interest rates will have to drop into negative rates to allow the oil companies to keep on pumping at the same time as energy per capita is dropping and we end up with a de-growth world or bau-lite world. The only problem they need to address is eliminating paper currency that way bank runs cannot happen once the interest rate is negative on your savings account.
… or getting everyone into debt so they can’t bank run.
Hi Gail,
It probably depends on what you define as briefly for an oil price spike. Oil prices spiked for several years last time, around 2005-8 until the economy’s of the world started to crash.
People who have the means will continue to buy oil at high prices during depletion, until they no longer can. Then oil will crash in price again.
The whole system has momentum built into it, hence why CBs and economists seem to get it wrong on macro settings so often.
Once depletion really starts reducing oil supply, prices will spike, inflation will go up, and the usual responses of interest rate rises will kick in. By the time the demand destruction gets noticed in the official figures (always lagging), prices will have overshot upwards, before crashing, IMO to a higher level than the previous bottom prices (because depletion will continue).
China, as an example seems to be able to afford an increasing consumption of oil……..
from R. Rapier in forbes……
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/09/18/chinas-oil-demand-is-growing-at-more-than-double-last-years-pace/#516268873ec0
“China’s oil demand rose by 690,000 BPD in July, marking a 6% year-over-year (YOY) increase. China’s total oil demand reached 11.67 million BPD in July. Year-to-date data indicates an average growth of 550,000 BPD, more than double the 210,000 BPD growth recorded during the same period in 2016.”
Auto sales in China are up to around 25m/yr (2017), over double that of 2009. India car sales are up 7.7% YOY, Russia (from a low base) are growing sales at 25%.
These are new auto sales to new ‘wealthy’ outside developed countries, so while oil, demand will fall earlier in the ‘service’ economies, the momentum lag is IMO likely to lead oil prices higher for longer before a crash.
https://www.best-selling-cars.com/international/2018-january-february-international-worldwide-car-sales/
Once we add oil depletion to the impact of falling use, due to recession/depression, price is still possible to stay higher for longer than most expect. Depletion and falling supply is not something we have experienced yet associated with recession/depression, so the future prices, because of oil’s utility, is going to be different to anything experienced before.
We currently pay $A1.30/litre here, at $A2.50/litre my personal demand will not change much. Businesses can take those prices for a period of time, how much time is the big question?
Thanks for pointing this out.
I think China is the big player in the growing oil consumption. Somehow, China has been able to get its true economic growth rate up in 2017 compared to 2016. (I don’t think we will ever know true growth rates from what is published.) Presumably, the true higher growth was possible partly because China was able to use more coal in 2017 than in 2016. Also more debt.
I don’t think the price spike this time can be as high as in the past. You are right that timing is difficult. It may take a while.
Inside Skid Row: America’s Homelessness Capital
Skid Row is a sprawling tent city in the heart of downtown Los Angeles where you’ll find thousands of people sleeping on the streets, diseases, no toilets, no food or water.
https://youtu.be/vTJWdtX90C0
this remind me of Mumbai poverty
I have visited Mumbai. I agree.
Back in the early 1960s, drugs that supposedly treated schizophrenia and depression were developed. The US government came up with a plan to empty the mental hospitals, using the new drugs. They paid general practitioner doctors (including my father) to go back to school, to become psychiatrists.
My father is no longer alive. My only brother is also a psychiatrist. He says that a large share of the people he treats are those with today’s drug problems. They have mental health problems, and self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. In the condition they are in, no one wants to hire them.
Taking the prescription pills on a regular basis requires a much more stable environment than most of these people have. They often don’t work very well, either.
Most Doctors now of days are nothing more than disorder mongers! The DSM is a laughable book updated constantly by Big Pharma shills…The last time they updated it the American Association of Psychiatry stated that 50% of all Americans will suffer from some form of mental illness in their lives.
They have even turned a woman’s natural menstrual cycles into a disorder (PMS)…Anything to get people on Pills so they keep coming back to see the Doctor. The US and New Zealand are the only two countries on earth that allow drug companies to advertise on Television. Its been banned everywhere else. And the average American watches ten drug company commercials a day. America is also 4.5% of the worlds population and consumes 50% of all the worlds drugs. And the US doesn’t even follow an evidence based science protocol for our healthcare system, like.Europe and Canada And if you believe the fake disorders they label people with then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy! If you don’t believe things like depression exist you won’t ever get depressed! Mind over matter!
All you need is love!
https://www.freep.com/story/news/2017/09/01/antidepressants-great-lakes-fish/621938001/
Even American fish are on antidepressants.
Paul Ehrlich: ‘Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades’
http://images.slideplayer.com/16/5025385/slides/slide_7.jpg
Fifty years after the publication of his controversial book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich warns overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge.
A shattering collapse of civilisation is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich.
In May, it will be 50 years since the eminent biologist published his most famous and controversial book, The Population Bomb. But Ehrlich remains as outspoken as ever.
The world’s optimum population is less than two billion people – 5.6 billion fewer than on the planet today, he argues…
Ehrlich is far too polite, or naive, to substitute “near certainty” with certainty, and 2 billion people left over from population crash doesn’t seem realistic either, given how much we have overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. More like BAU lite. I’d be surprised if there’s more than 70-80 million of us remaining, when the (radioactive) dust settles.
unless the powers that be have a plan b there will be no one left the radiation will kill us all that is why i have all my money on a plan b which involves de-population they have had nearly fifty years to prepare for this just because their is no evidence of a plan does not mean their is no plan
For me, most interesting thing is how will world look like in year 2100, or 2200? Will people still remember industrial civilization? What they will think of us?
There will be many, many monuments to the huge bubble that was “”human progress” over the past 200+ years. People being what they are will probably consider it to have been a Golden Age, and wonder, like some Pacific Island cargo cult, how to make it come back again.
Read the sci-fi novel “Earth Abides”. They will quickly forget, aside from possibly treasuring an old sledge hammer.
Earth Abides is such a good book I highly recommend it.
some 15 years ago one of most greatest scene of american empire
if there are any people living after 100 years they will remember this scene as the start decline of the american empire
https://youtu.be/T0kcaziP-0o
i still remember this thing watch on tv when i was 9 year old
Twp, we poisened Iraq, we poisoned ourselves. The slow death i experience isn’t much better than the fast blow you just posted. Progression is a bitch. Thanks for posting.
Btw, i’m Dutch, not an American. Guilty as hell though.
Trump has a big job to catch the Bush/Cheney Regime.
Possibly killed 1 million Iraqis.
I just don’t think he has the talent.
He has. We all have. We just ran out of Iraqis.
Over a million Iraqis ran into Syria. We got them there!
We shall see——
I doubt it.
Here in this growth hub, the streets are looking very gappy – the turning pint was this January.
Rents and business taxes are simply crazy, and for many it is clearly no longer worth the candle, even for prime locations.
The places selling food you wouldn’t give to a dog are doing OK though: always packed.
“The optimism about synchronized accelerating global growth has underpinned the advance in equity markets for much of the past several months, but recent fragility in commodities may well be signaling the beginning of a slowdown, according to Simon Derrick, chief currency strategist at BNY Mellon.
“The strategist likens the recent bout of weakness in commodities to the period back in 2008, when staples such as corn and soybean prices fell significantly, then signaling that global growth was screeching to a halt…”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-commodities-may-be-signaling-a-global-economic-slowdown-2018-03-22
I would agree. All commodities tend to rise and fall together.
In perhaps the most Orwellian statement of the day, the head of South Africa’s radical Marxist opposition party – who declared his party was “cutting the throat of whiteness” – called Australia a “racist country” for offering fleeing white farmers a refuge.
As we have detailed previously, last month, South Africa’s parliament voted in favour of a motion, brought by the EFF and supported by the ruling African National Congress, to begin the process of expropriating white-owned land without compensation.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-22/south-african-politician-blasts-racist-australia-harboring-fleeing-white-farmers
Didn’t we have a Doomie Permie on FW who had set up a farm in SA?
How’s that going? Still time to get out…. if you stick around you’ll end up in the pot.
Of that there can be no doubt
Oh my… kill kill kill.. the white man…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=47&v=DaOc7ntmQj0
https://sputniknews.com/africa/201803211062764375-south-africa-white-farmers-attacks/
https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/images/106276/14/1062761442.jpg
With a planned confiscation of white-owned land without compensation already on the South African parliament’s table, reports claim that at least one white farmer has been killed every five days in the country this year.
You aint seen nothin yet…b bbbb baby….
Mr Doyle — see the part where in 2008 it cost 50 billion Zimbabwe dollars to buy….. a loaf of bread
Is that Africa or South London in 2011?
The Reality of South African Farm Murders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCLJRVbaMyQ
Lauren Southern was detained and denied entry when she tried to enter the UK recently. I myself was summoned to explain myself to Taxi Licensing two weeks ago after being reported by customers (bloody leftist teachers) I had picked up from the movie Black Panther. I had talked about what is really happening in South Africa. Taxi Licensing told me from now on I can only talk about the weather with passengers. Yawn. Free speech in the UK is now officially dead.
the northern white races invaded the lands of the southern black african races, starting about 400 years ago
we had guns, they did not, but they were too genetically strong to be wiped out.
they were seen as inferior, there to be used as an energy resource, or otherwise displaced and disposed of
what’s happening now is unfortunate, but it is a repercussion for events that we kicked off all those years ago
Debatable. South Africa contained only a few scattered nomadic tribes when the whites arrived. The whites were farmers and settlers and not colonisers, because there was no prior civilization to colonise. No attempt was made to wipe out the blacks, whose numbers increased dramatically once the whites arrived.
i placed the start of it at 400 years ago—obviously things started slowly and accelerated over time
the record of the white races in the colonisation of Africa has been consistently bad.
in 1885 the Europeans convened a conference that literally divided Africa up between them. That inevitably has had an ongoing long term effect on black/white relations. The effects of it are still well within living memory
this is bound to worsen as economic conditions decline. There is very little to create a viable economically sound society, unemployment is 60% among younger workers. Obviously, they are going to rob the ‘haves’. Check out what happened during the apartheid era. That has ended, but they see little change.
‘western’ industrial society has created a ‘wish environment’ for Africa. They see stuff they realise they can never have, so they steal it.
Norman,
I don’t dispute anything you’ve written there, but to describe as merely “unfortunate” the torture, murder and genocide of people who have farmed the land for eight or nine generations and who had no part themselves in any atrocities committed against blacks is somewhat of an understatement.
‘understatement’ tends to be my writing style—it’s just me.
i allow the reader to fill in the details from their own range of mental imagery, rather than writing in every gory detail. I know it—they know it.
we are all going to face the results of the stupidity of our ancestors, one way or another
Might is right … always…
And right now … those farmers are in the position of the Africans that were displaced hundreds of years ago…
Boo hoo.
i know it’s a different region
but for gory detail , anyone interested should read up on the treatment of africans by belgians
in any society, memories can be long and unforgiving—in africa the white man has always been the oppressor
This is outstanding
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period.[1] The book succeeded in increasing public awareness of these Belgian colonial crimes.[2]
It was refused by nine of the 10 U.S. publishing houses to which an outline was submitted, but became an unexpected bestseller and won the prestigious Mark Lynton History Prize for literary style. It also won the 1999 Duff Cooper Prize. By 2013 more than 600,000 copies were in print in a dozen languages.
The book is the basis of a 2006 documentary film of the same name, directed by Pippa Scott and narrated by Don Cheadle.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Leopold%27s_Ghost
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uYKV08Ey1xY/maxresdefault.jpg
The San were present in South Africa.
But you are right, Western Euro’s and migrating Black Africans arrived in South Africa about the same time.
But the results are coming down now—
(disclaimer: I have many Caucasian South African friends)
“we are all going to face the results of the stupidity of our ancestors, one way or another”
Yet do you we blame our ancestors for the position we find ourselves in or seek retribution against any of our contemporaries?
someone inclined to rob and murder to acquire material possessions is unlikely to have the sort of mind that can range over 400 years searching for reasons for his impoverished condition.
nevertheless it doesnt alter those reasons
if africa had been left to its own devices, none of it would have happened—unfortunately africa was and still in a vast energy resource.
the continent is being looted, leaving individuals impoverished—the usa is in the same situation, not as far advanced yet, but getting there.—the godnuts there want control
as Gail points out—healthcare without birth control means catastrophe
Africa’s fossil fuel energy resources are only so-so. It has a little oil and gas, especially in North Africa; some coal in the southern part of Africa. There is probably more, if we looked more closely. I am sure people there would like to have the things the people in the US have, but there is no way that the wealth can go everywhere.
Few people understand how important the increase in Africa’s population was in creating problems for the country. It seemed like a good idea to give as many people as possible the benefits of modern sanitation and to hand out antibiotics and other drugs that could cure some illnesses. Birth control was not high on the agenda, and was objected to by many.
To be sustainable, “energy per capita” must remain high enough. If the “capita” part rises, the population suddenly has difficulty supporting itself. Africa generally doesn’t need heating or cooling, so population easily could explode, when people were given healthcare without birth control. They also needed a changed culture that would make birth control useful. Usually, government promises of pensions are part of this. We all know how sustainable they really are.
The languages of the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and other black nations of Southern Africa are so similar that it’s believed the arrival of their progenitors has been in modern times, displacing the true indigenous. So I’m told.
Source?
Interesting, and somewhat sinister,Yorchichan.
It is your traditional right, as an English taxi driver, to talk at your customers, about whatever you like.
That is precisely what a legal professional from my union told me. I am in the process of seeking official clarification from Taxi Licensing. It would be far from the first time a council overreached its authority.
is this not karma for Boer white African who oppressed
black south Africans for many years
Yes, the way that human justice works is that the punishment (or karma or “blowback” if you prefer a more neutral term) for the sins of the fathers who get away with murder, torture, terrorism and thievery on a national scale and set up a nice rentier existence for themselves are eventually visited upon their grandchildren and great-grandchildren who try to continue to maintain that nice niche their grandfathers made for them.
The idea that humans “care” for their children (beyond the minimum of making sure they survive until maturity) is complete hogwash. Nothing we do shows any sign that we (in the aggregate) give a whit about what kind of world we are leaving for our heirs. Everything is about the goodies we can squeeze out in the here and now.
plus south African youth unemployment is at 50 percent
so there need a enemy who can make them forget the problems in there life
who can better than white boers
we are not genetically programmed to care about descendants we will never see or know
we attend to the needs of kids under our roof, and want to see them succeed —and their kids to a lesser degree—but when it comes to g-grandkids and beyond, they are too far removed, probably too far away, and must get on with their lives as best they can
There is a great deal of pent up anger in the third world… that will be directed towards whitey…. at the moment they indigenous people are showing restraint — because if they go too far the international community will demand punishment….
But just wait till the gloves come off….. the worst of the worst of the worst will be in control… and even the Uncle Tom types will not be able to help whitey …. when the nasty men are raping and torturing whitey and his family — the Uncle Tom’s will (wisely) stand by and watch … and say and do … nothing.
This is one reason I got the f789 out of Bali…. I fear
really ? What make you think so ?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/23/french-police-called-to-trebes-supermarket-amid-hostage-reports-shootings
Yes, he had a plan to hide out behind a mountain barrier with one access point ,as far as I recall. Good luck to him.
Yes… good luck indeed…
Hm, being partial to some S. African vine brands seems like a loosing habit now, grrr, I noticed recently of all places India is now increasingly pushing into this market, well unfortunately I’d never ever buy such sh#ite..
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-22/snowden-explains-deep-states-influence-presidents-obama-trump
Oh come on Edward… you know it goes much higher than that…
As the saying goes.. follow the money…. but don’t stop …. go right to the source…
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/21/f2/b9/21f2b90db040f963b30712bc4506f025.jpg
https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/U5dtRwebSprzX9xKhenYowwWNhaZhqH_1680x8400.jpg
http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/Blair1-661593.jpg
Barack Obama’s $400,000 speaking fees reveal what few want to admit
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/01/barack-obama-speaking-fees-economic-racial-justice
I admit it … the El ders reward minions….
The crown jewel of Artificial Intelligence shattered when Uber’s autonomous SUV ran over Ms. Elaine Herzberg at the corner of Curry and Mill Street in Tempe, Arizona. And the concept of Internet community vaporized when news reports alleged that Cambridge Analytica improperly retained Facebook profiles of 50 million users. Facebook promptly lost 7% of its stock market value in yesterday’s trading, and other big tech names fell by 3% to 4%.
All the hype in the world can’t stand up to the ugly fact of a dead human body on the road. A few skeptics, including the distinguished physicist and venture capitalist Dr. Henry Kressel, have warned that AI in general and self-driving cars, in particular, are mainly hype. As Kressel wrote last year in Asia Times:
In a well-controlled environment (like driving on a track), the computer can be expected to respond to situations consistent with programmed information. The problematic situations are the accidental ones when something happens on the track that requires a quick response different from the programmed actions. This is where the awareness and quick response of a human driver come into play and where the response of a computer making the decisions is quite another matter. And this is the skill that differentiates race-car drivers from the rest of us – and computers from all of us.
A glance at the intersection where Uber’s vehicle killed Ms. Herzberg tells the whole story. It is one of those massive, amorphous, ill-designed and opaque suburban crossings that human drivers traverse in fear of their lives. One makes eye contact with other drivers and pedestrians, taps the breaks, and proceeds with extreme caution. To ask a computer to navigate through this sort of mess is foolish. We do not know the precise circumstances of Ms. Herzberg’s death; we only are surprised that it did not happen before. If that seems complex, try fighting the yellow cabs in Manhattan with a self-driving car.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-22/facebook-uber-and-end-great-american-tech-delusion
Formula One drivers… jobs’ are secure…..
Imagine an auto race of AI cars …
It goes something like this
When this comment gets released .. it will result in:
https://nataliaantonova.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/cannot-handle-the-hysterical-laughter.gif
Global energy demand grew by 2.1% in 2017, and carbon emissions rose for the first time since 2014
Global energy demand rose by 2.1% in 2017, more than twice the previous year’s rate, boosted by strong global economic growth, with oil, gas and coal meeting most of the increase in demand for energy, and renewables seeing impressive gains.
Over 70% of global energy demand growth was met by oil, natural gas and coal, while renewables accounted for almost all of the rest. Improvements in energy efficiency slowed down last year. As a result of these trends, global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased by 1.4% in 2017, after three years of remaining flat.
But carbon emissions, which reached a historical high of 32.5 gigatonnes in 2017, did not rise everywhere. While most major economies saw a rise, others – the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Japan – experienced declines. The biggest drop in emissions came from the United States, driven by higher renewables deployment
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/march/global-energy-demand-grew-by-21-in-2017-and-carbon-emissions-rose-for-the-firs.html
but we were tell by msm that renewable energy is gonna save us /s
“Global energy demand rose by 2.1% in 2017.” Interesting. If accurate that is an uptick in per capita energy consumption.
Thanks for pointing this out. A link to the IEA report (free) is https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/GECO2017.pdf
The 2.1% increase, and the increases by pieces, correspond roughly to what I have been observing. I believe that the higher prices of oil have been primarily driven by this growing demand.
China is the country that has been pulling the world economy along. It could not do that with shrinking coal supply, that it had in 2015 and 2016. It raised its coal consumption. This (together with a lot more debt to enable the growth in coal consumption) is what saved the world economy from collapsing.
I see coal as the key type of energy supply, because it acts to keep the average price down. With a lower average price of energy, it is possible to increase supply.
That in turn makes you wonder – how much of the drop-off in Chinese coal consumption in 2015/16 stemmed from weakening demand as they (temporarily) attempted to rein in debt-growth and how much stemmed from an attempt to address pollution issues? Perhaps it was a combination of both.
I do recall that they had a winter heating crisis last year, which caused them to burn more coal than they had planned to, polluted air being preferable to death by freezing.
The reason China has given for closing mines is that they were losing money, at the low prices coal was trading for. This is a chart I made earlier.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/asian-coal-prices-2000-2016.png
In 2017, prices were higher, partly because of China (more debt-driven demand) and partly because of issues with Australian imports, because Cyclone Debbie knocked out some of its export capacity. But the US came to the rescue. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/04/after-cyclone-debbie-china-replaces-australian-coal-with-us-cargoes.html
Now, as a result of what we’re witnessing, we’re also seeing something else and that is, there is a proliferation around the country right now of empty storefronts. We took a walk in New York two weeks ago from 59th street to 79th on Madison Avenue, and we lost count of how many empty storefronts there were in Manhattan. It reminded me of the cataclysmic financial crisis in 2008. But what’s happening is very simple, the rent structures for the last 5 to 10 years, have been rising at historic rates and retailers do not have the amount of customers they had during these last 5 to 10 years and could no longer economically survive.
So they’re closing stores and as a result of this, I can promise you just like I predicted in 2014 that rents are coming down and landlords are going to have to get religion, or else their stores are going to stay empty. And we’re already beginning to see a different level of reception in terms of what we believe the cost of occupancy should be. And this is going to bode extremely well, specifically for us. We’re adding almost 700 new Starbucks stores a year. And so we are going to take full advantage of the economic reality of this situation. And as we go forward two, three, four, five years out even though labor is going up in terms of cost of labor, we believe rents are going down and the economic model of Starbucks is going to be enhanced as a result of this macro situation. And we’re just at the beginning of this trend.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-22/starbucks-chairman-we-took-walk-madison-avenue-it-reminded-me-financial-crisis-2008
Queue hysterical laughter:
https://nataliaantonova.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/cannot-handle-the-hysterical-laughter.gif
Is he in for a surprise!
Alcohol abuse more prevalent than opioid abuse, says founder of local treatment center
http://wqad.com/2018/03/20/alcohol-abuse-more-prevalent-than-opioid-abuse/
There is a lot of overlap.
It seems the whole social system is abusive. Look at US schools today.
The author thinks going after gun law is missing the real problem;
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2018/03/24/march-for-our-lives-the-limitations-of-the-childrens-crusade/
The US is undercounting opioid-related overdoses by 20 to 35 percent, according to a new study
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/03/22/595787272/omissions-on-death-certificates-lead-to-undercounting-of-opioid-overdoses
According to the CDC over doses increased by 30 percent last year. So really according to this latest study it could be around 50 to 60 percent last year…That is insane!
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0306-vs-opioids-overdoses.html
Your conclusion is wrong. “According to the CDC over doses increased by 30 percent last year. So really according to this latest study it could be around 50 to 60 percent last year…That is insane!”
The CDC report is based on emergency room visits, collected in certain districts. It should give a reasonable indication of the rise in overdoses. This is where the 30% comes from.
The report of undercounting has to do with analyses based on debt certificates. If deaths are consistently undercounted, what will happen is that the calculated percentage increase based on death certificates will appear too high. This is because the base increases, the growth percentage tends to slow.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world
Trump just replaced McMaster with Bolton as National Security Advisor.
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201803171062621509-john-bolton-pursue-war-with-iran/
“John Bolton as National Security Adviser Would Pursue War With Iran – Historian”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/17/bolton-u-s-might-have-attack-north-korea/959331001/
Bolton: U.S. might have to attack North Korea
Raise your hand if you’re excited about the new National Security Advisor, war hawk, Bolton.
Jesus General has some insight into Bolton:
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com
(a search is often necessary)
Trump is the greatest gift the deep state globalist’s could ever wish for. Tax cuts to the rich and for wall street big businesses…More funding to the military in peace times. And now more endless wars and regime changes around the world. They really got their money’s worth and all it took was changing a few thousand votes in a few states with a computer!
“They really got their money’s worth and all it took was changing a few thousand votes in a few states with a computer!”
Yes, exactly BD. In a very close election there is an expected variation in %’s up to about 5%. But many elections are being decided by less than 2%, so that leaves 3% to hack and change. Grab 3%, flip it to your guy that’s enough to win the election without raising suspicion. Do that in a few states in a prez election and presto, the hacking wins the election (but only a few know about it and their silent). Rinse-repeat…
Tax cuts for corporations so that they don’t collapse into bankruptcy resulting the retrenchment of millions of middle class workers resulting in a deflationary death spiral and the extinction of all of us
But ya… rich shareholders are going to get bigger dividends as a side effect…
FYI:
Half Of U.S. Companies Are Losing Money
https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/03/what-economic-recovery-half-of-u-s-companies-are-losing-money/
A surprisingly small share of US government revenue came from taxes on corporations, before the tax cut. About 9%, according to this Wolfstreet post. https://wolfstreet.com/2018/02/19/us-treasury-posts-gigantic-1-16-trillion-shortfall-in-fiscal-2017-hilariously-points-out-where-we-are-headed/
He is batsh*t crazy, even by Neocon standards.
I’ve often wondered how this crazy of a homo sapien can gain this much power.
It is late stage capitalism, and we are pressing Rome and a horse in the Senate, but Bolton?
Bat — crazy!
isn’t it true that sociopaths and even psychopaths often rise to high levels of power essentially because their personalities take them in that direction?
That is sorta a myth from what a have read, its only like five percent of CEO’S are psychos in America…Its not like the movie “America Psycho”..
That’s the best movie ever.
Nah… every successful business owner is a ‘psycho’… to a certain extent… not a psycho in that they are serial killers.. although there are definitely quite a few who would be happy to kill off their competitors — I mean literally kill them.
But virtually all are cut throat — if you are not you are dead meat… because there are always dogs circling you … seeing you nice hunk of meat… and working out ways to get it from you…
There ain’t no room for a Koombaya in the business world
Mr ‘Bat-sh*t Crazy’, meet Mr ‘Mad-dog Mattis’; what could possibly go wrong?
The dice are getting loaded.
I saw this clip on the news of Bolton at a news conference and he was literally losing his temper while ranting about and I’m recalling the best I can: “The UN doesn’t even really exist. The building in NY holding the UN has 38 floors. Remove 10 and nobody in the world will notice. There is only one predominant country and that’s the US.”
While he’s ranting you can see him raising his adrenaline like he’s hooked up to dual intravenous tubes pumping him full of anger and rage.
That guy’s in the White House?
I want to see Trump and Bolton have an on air argument. Now that would be entertaining.
The UN is a joke.
Trump does not replace anyone who is a key foreign policy wonk….
Those decisions are made by a higher power… as in the men who control BAU…. they do not leave important decisions to their minions
“The UN is a joke.”
Yes, but is the US the predominant country now with China quickly approaching parity in many ways? And why was he losing his temper over it? Apparently the guy loses it a lot!
Or maybe he is just playing his role — and entertaining you…. tweeting absurd comments… acting like a buffoon… firing people (didn’t have a teevee show where he did that?) … pretending to be angry….
China has a major problem.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/china-energy-production-to-2016-bp.png
China has gotten its coal production up a little in 2017, so things are not quite as bad now. China has to overstate its GDP growth, to cover up its problems. It was doing well for a while, but it has a lot of problems now. For example, it needs to keep pumping out steel, even though there is not much internal demand for steel, given how overbuilt the housing situation is. This is what is graph based information of the World Steel Association.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/china-steel-production-and-consumption.png
If China stops pumping out unneeded products, the price of all commodities drop, and the whole system fails.
‘National (In)security Advisor’?
Like the British (Screwing Up) Foreign Relations Secretary, Boris Johnson.
Things can only get more ‘interesting’ as our system creaks and groans into decline and collapse.
Buffett to Berkshire Shareholders: Be Prepared to Lose Half Your Money
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buffett-berkshire-shareholders-prepared-lose-133100821.html
then be prepared to lose the other half…
Davidinagodzillionyears to all shareholders of any stocks anywhere:
be prepared to lose all your money.
I don’t know about this. Things still don’t ‘feel’ very crashy, despite the recent 90% down days, Twitter firings and trade wars. Never underestimate the power of sheer, dumb hope and greed, and it seems those haven’t yet depleted completely.
Hope Jahren. 2017. Lab Girl. Vintage
‘Our world is falling apart quietly. Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four-hundred-million-year-old life form, into three things: food, medicine, and wood. In our relentless and ever-intensifying obsession with obtaining a higher volume, potency, and variety of these three things, we have devastated plant ecology to an extent that millions of years of natural disaster could not. Roads have grown like a manic fungus, and the endless miles of ditches that bracket these roads serve as hasty graves for perhaps millions of plant species extinguished in the name of progress. Planet Earth is nearly a Dr. Seuss book made real: every year since 1990 we have created more than eight billion new stumps. If we continue to fell healthy trees at this rate, less than six hundred years from now, every tree on the planet will have been reduced to a stump. My job is about making sure there will be some evidence that someone cared about the great tragedy that unfolded during our age.’
http://energyskeptic.com
Instead, we talk about how we can continue to have BAU by using more “renewable resources” like biofuels. We have been overusing our biomass for a very long time. Just because it is renewable, doesn’t mean we can scale up the amount we are using. Scaling it down would be a better idea.
It’s just about feeding even more bio-mass into the industrial system, on a non-seasonal basis.
Ignore biological growth cycles, and it isn’t a ‘renewable’ system anymore, just building a one-off funeral pyre.
“If we continue to fell healthy trees at this rate, less than six hundred years from now, every tree on the planet will have been reduced to a stump.”
yes, indeed… and after FF declines severely, the rate will go up…
there is the epic possibility that the entire world could go treeless a la Easter Island…
ever see pictures of the rolling grassy hills of Scotland?
they were once all forests.
Mankind did a lot with bronze and iron axes, followed up with sheep and goats.
But the chainsaw was perhaps the single dummest bright idea Man ever had.
Mass felling by idiots in the blink of an eye.
Stump-grinders being the icing on the poisoned birthday cake, so to speak.
Euan doing an interesting job evaluating externalities of various electricity generation systems.
“Most biomass electricity currently resides in Europe, where much of the fuel is imported from North America. In evaluating biomass we need to consider the whole supply chain from timber operations in N America, transport to and from the wood pellet factory, transport across the Atlantic Ocean, off-loading and transport to power station. We then need to consider the externalities associated with power generation.”
http://euanmearns.com/energy-externalities-day-3-biomass-fired-electricity/#more-21353
I had a brief run looking at collecting logging waste behind my logging crews; 2 large bales of harvested logging waste had theoretically the same electrical-energy value as a barrel of oil (all my info was European sourced). I was going to deliver to a local pulp mill which has a co-gen plant.
If you ignored the capital costs involved, the running costs may just be covered by your returns. I ignored the EROI stuff completely…you know how much diesel/oil/labour/transport that was being wasted that could have been used for electricity directly!!
Seems to be a similar situation with Oil today. How ironic.
I didn’t go ahead. The pr**ks at the pulp mill were just going to screw me over on price once I had indebted myself then they would taken over my gear. They had the cheek to want to know my designs for baling said waste. Duh.
Uber’s self driving cars have killed people at roughly 25 times the rate of a typical human-driven car
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/video-suggests-huge-problems-with-ubers-driverless-car-program/
This seems to be the place that our current ‘hegemon’ and her followers/allies seem to be at the moment.
‘It’s a cold and scary place for would-be dispensers of truth, there at the end of an era of abstraction. It’s not just that nobody’s willing to shut up and listen to them, either. Tolerably often, they themselves begin to notice that the abstract generalizations they’ve been peddling as truth don’t actually work so well. Human nature being what it is, their usual response is to double down and get shrill about it, and to add as much physical violence to the equation as local custom permits.’
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-twilight-of-authority/
It would seem most ‘experts’ are slowly being found out at the moment; the financial presstitutes, the intelligence agencies, the military strategists, the health industry, renewable groupthink etc etc….all are/have been based on assumptions that are struggling for legitimacy. Intellectuals yet idiots Mr Telab (?) called them I believe.
‘People get very defensive about their favorite abstract generalizations. If you question the logic behind them, you can expect to be told that you’re ignorant, and quite probably that you’re evil as well.’
Jordan Peterson — perfect example.
We are entering a huuuuuuge experiment on human behaviour; spoilt brats are about to lose very many toys very suddenly.
the psychology of the end of progress will be very interesting…
people in the 1950s and 1960s had X amount of stuff on average…
they were happy to have X, because their parents and/or grandparents probably had 1/2 X…
when young people today, growing up with X+++, are reduced to X in the coming decades, how happy will they be?
and if many are very unhappy, what behaviors will result?
Today everyone is convinced we have progressed because we have smartphones.
As long as we have smarterphones …
I have a pretty good idea how the Grand Experiment will end…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts85TH-jaD4
The lights went back on that time… now imagine what happens when the masses realize that the lights are never going back on … and the cupboard is nearly bare….
However, in a totalitarian system, which is what is developing as we go into the down-slope, , the fact that the public might know that what they are being told about reality,and what they are to think, is all nonsense, they still have to buckle under, or else…….
Zimbabwe releasing 2000 prisoners because can’t afford to keep them incarcerated. All part of collapse staircase.
‘The cash-strapped government has battled to feed, provide clothing and adequate health care to inmates. In 2013 over 100 prisoners died in the country’s jails.
‘http://punchng.com/zimbabwe-pardons-3000-prisoners-to-clear-packed-jails/
And Namibia has sent thousands of its soldiers home, as it is struggling to afford an army:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nation.co.ke/news/africa/Namibia-runs-out-of-money-/1066-4286824-view-asAMP-fe29pa/index.html
people can only be kept in a non-productive capacity as long as the nation keeping them has sufficient surplus to do so
problem is this applies to all aspects of labour—nurses, firemen, policemen teachers and so on
eventually you are left with only basic energy-producers
the stage after that is hunter-gathering again
“basic energy-producers”…
basic energy: do you mean food and FF?
is there anything else?
chopping wood, perhaps?
very little else
basic energy providers are essentially the food providers, after that the heat providers, clothing and so on
ofw ranters come way down the food chain i’m afraid
Afford = provide energy services, such as food
Triple Digit Oil Prices: Are You Ready?
https://investoralmanac.com/2018/03/21/triple-digit-oil-prices-are-you-ready/
yes, actually, I am ready…
I would rather pay 50% less for oil products than for those same products with crude oil in triple digits…
and the accompanying recession will downgrade life here in the USA a bit more…
but, yeah… I’m ready…
bring it on!
Wall Street is nervous about a trade war: Dow sinks 500 points
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/22/investing/dow-jones-trade-war-china/index.html
DOE Down 725 for the day. This trade war has the potential to totally chop our feet off.
I listened to Mr. Powell’s press conference yesterday, the transcript of which I’ve linked. Lasting nearly 45 minutes, “growth” was mentioned eleven times, yet resources of any kind were not mentioned at all.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/mediacenter/files/FOMCpresconf20180321.pdf
What are these folk thinking of?
When is the last time a govt acknowledged it went to war over resources?
There is a reason they refrain from doing so — it creates the perception (exposes the reality) that our way of life is 100% based on things… that are obviously scarce… and fast depleting…
And that is a dog that is best left asleep….
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/upshot/the-population-slowdown-in-the-outer-suburbs-of-the-east-and-midwest.html
Sounds like good news to me. More deaths than births is great news. We need that everywhere on the planet (except Iceland).
I agree—
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f2f563a4b38472f64d4c477ad6c49b5ec02d06d8/0_98_3340_2004/master/3340.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=99bc675e7890d092ed8269680a2af733
Iceland without FF…. Not good. Small island. Very little growth in the short summer.
Very cold. Completely overpopulated.
Saint Mathews Island except for the local geothermal power. I’m sure they’ll think of something. Cod fishing?
“Completely overpopulated.”
337,780 3per k
US 325.7 million
91.4 people per square mile
0.386102 per k per sq mile.
The US is hundreds of times more populated per square mile.
Nothing grows there. Very large glacier in center…
lets be rational–
“What exactly is Icelandic food?” was the most popular question I was asked after returning from a week in Iceland. (Second place goes to: “Did everyone look like Björk?”) To answer the first, the basic diet hasn’t changed too much since the Viking Age, though of course chefs have become more imaginative with preparations over the years. The mainstays include: lamb, skyr, potatoes, fish, and other seafood. A lot of seafood. And how could they not being surrounded by bountiful Arctic waters of cod, haddock, monkfish, herring, skate, lobster, and salmon.
Icelanders will tell you their lamb is better than any other lamb in the world, and it is really, really good. Probably because they let their sheep merrily roam free in the highlands and valleys to much on grass and herbs before being corralled in the winter. The result of such a luxurious life is very tender meat with a gently gamey flavor. We ate lamb one night with a Moroccan guy who said his mom’s lamb was the best, until that night in Reykjavik (Moroccan Mom, you never read that).
There’s plenty of meat available in Iceland that we didn’t try: horse, reindeer steak, sheep’s head, and fermented shark. (Ever see the No Reservations episode in Iceland where Anthony Bourdain calls fermented shark the worst thing he’s ever—ever, ever—eaten?) The “try it once” rule didn’t apply here for us.
Iceland has a lot of greenhouses, powered by geothermal electricity. They grow a lot of tomatoes and other salad ingredients there.
Of course, they need the rest of the world to make replacement parts for them.
Grow hot house food. Probably already done there. At least they have plenty of fresh water, clear blue glacial ice for cocktails.
When you stop posting — we will know why…..
At least Iceland has jailed it’s corrupt bankers. As for the single biggest problem on Earth. It is the perpetual growth scenario which requires the on-going population growth of humans. Our form of capitalism needs to be replaced with something that can minimize the pain of a decreasing population and economy. There is NO other way.
The fact that humans need to cook their food is behind our problems. This ability allows us to be smarter than other animals, and because of this our population can grow. (Less effort in chewing and digesting allows more effort for brain development.) We don’t have a good way of stopping population growth. Even if we did, we end up with a lot of problems with decreasing population. We start needing less of everything. The possibility of jobs for everyone goes down.
It is a moral issue. Humans have destroyed huge amounts wilderness, ecosystems, animal and plant populations (including extinctions). Stopping population growth needs to happen one way or another. We must elevate out existence by removing greed and ego. If not, we will die off and most likely kill off the majority of life on the planet.
Wait Jonzo…if we die off, that would be very bad for the economy – so I don’t think that can be allowed to happen.
Just scanning the media, many people seem to believe that Veganism and UBI are the answer to our predicament.. Hilarious.
The plan, as it is , is just to blame white people for everything, have them stop breeding and let everyone else carry on as before. There is a huge Critical Theory component to climate change, which is why there is NO PRESSURE by any politically active people to ask non-white countries to use less fossil fuels.
” Our form of capitalism needs to be replaced with something that can minimize the pain of a decreasing population and economy.” Whenever someone starts thinking like that we end up with forced sterilization and mass murder. No population of any living beings voluntarily decide to decline. It will be painful.