BP recently published energy data through December 31, 2017, in its Statistical Review of World Energy 2018. The following are a few points we observe, looking at the data:
[1] The world is making limited progress toward moving away from fossil fuels.
The two bands that top fossil fuels that are relatively easy to see are nuclear electric power and hydroelectricity. Solar, wind, and “geothermal, biomass, and other” are small quantities at the top that are hard to distinguish.
Figure 1. World energy consumption divided between fossil fuels and non-fossil fuel energy sources, based on data from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
Wind provided 1.9% of total energy supplies in 2017; solar provided 0.7% of total energy supplies. Fossil fuels provided 85% of energy supplies in 2017. We are moving away from fossil fuels, but not quickly.
Of the 252 million tons of oil equivalent (MTOE) energy consumption added in 2017, wind added 37 MTOE and solar added 26 MTOE. Thus, wind and solar amounted to about 25% of total energy consumption added in 2017. Fossil fuels added 67% of total energy consumption added in 2017, and other categories added the remaining 8%.
[2] World per capita energy consumption is still on a plateau.
In recent posts, we have remarked that per capita energy consumption seems to be on a plateau. With the addition of data through 2017, this still seems to be the case. The reason why flat energy consumption per capita is concerning is because energy consumption per capita normally rises, based on data since 1820.1 This is explained further in Note 1 at the end of this article. Another reference is my article, The Depression of the 1930s Was an Energy Crisis.
Figure 2. World energy consumption per capita, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
While total energy consumption is up by 2.2%, world population is up by about 1.1%, leading to a situation where energy consumption per capita is rising by about 1.1% per year. This is within the range of normal variation.
One thing that helped energy consumption per capita to rise a bit in 2017 relates to the fact that oil prices were down below the $100+ per barrel range seen in the 2011-2014 period. In addition, the US dollar was relatively low compared to other currencies, making prices more attractive to non-US buyers. Thus, 2017 represented a period of relative affordability of oil to buyers, especially outside the US.
[3] If we view the path of consumption of major fuels, we see that coal follows a much more variable path than oil and natural gas. One reason for the slight upturn in per capita energy consumption noted in [2] is a slight upturn in coal consumption in 2017.
Figure 3. World oil, coal, and natural gas consumption through 2017, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
Coal is different from oil and gas, in that it is more of a “dig it as you need it” fuel. In many parts of the world, coal mines have a high ratio of human labor to capital investment. If prices are high enough, coal will be extracted and consumed. If prices are not sufficiently high, coal will be left in the ground and the workers laid off. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018, coal prices in 2017 were higher than prices in both 2015 and 2016 in all seven markets for which they provide indications. Typically, prices in 2017 were more than 25% higher than those for 2015 and 2016.
The production of oil and natural gas seems to be less responsive to price fluctuations than coal.2 In part, this has to do with the very substantial upfront investment that needs to be made. It also has to do with the dependence of governments on the high level of tax revenue that they can obtain if oil and gas prices are high. Oil exporters are especially concerned about this issue. All players want to maintain their “share” of the world market. They are reluctant to reduce production, regardless of what prices do in the short term.
[4] China is one country whose coal production has recently ticked upward in response to higher coal prices.
Figure 4. China’s energy production by fuel, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
China has been able to bridge the gap by using an increasing amount of imported fuels. In fact, according to BP, China was the world’s largest importer of oil and coal in 2017. It was second only to Japan in the quantity of imported natural gas.
[5] China’s overall energy pattern appears worrying, despite the uptick in coal production.
Figure 5. China’s energy production by fuel plus its total energy consumption, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
If China expects to maintain its high GDP growth ratio as a manufacturing country, it will need to keep its energy consumption growth up. Doing this will require an increasing share of world exports of fossil fuels of all kinds. It is not clear that this is even possible unless other areas can ramp up their production and also add necessary transportation infrastructure.
Oil consumption, in particular, is rising quickly, thanks to rising imports. (Compare Figure 6, below, with Figure 4.)
Figure 6. China’s energy consumption by fuel, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
[6] India, like China, seems to be a country whose energy production is falling far behind what is needed to support planned economic growth. In fact, as a percentage, its energy imports are greater than China’s, and the gap is widening each year.
The big gap between energy production and consumption would not be a problem if India could afford to buy these imported fuels, and if it could use these imported fuels to make exports that it could profitably sell to the export market. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Figure 7. India’s energy production by fuel, together with its total energy consumption, based upon BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
India’s electricity sector seems to be having major problems recently. The Financial Times reports, “The power sector is at the heart of a wave of corporate defaults that threatens to cripple the financial sector.” While higher coal prices were good for coal producers and helped enable coal imports, the resulting electricity is more expensive than many customers can afford.
[7] It is becoming increasingly clear that proved reserves reported by BP and others provide little useful information.
BP provides reserve data for oil, natural gas, and coal. It also calculates R/P ratios (Reserves/Production ratios), using reported “proved reserves” and production in the latest year. The purpose of these ratios seems to be to assure readers that there are plenty of years of future production available. Current worldwide average R/P ratios are
- Oil: 50 years
- Natural Gas: 53 years
- Coal: 134 years
The reason for using the R/P ratios is the fact that geologists, including the famous M. King Hubbert, have looked at future energy production based on reserves in a particular area. Thus, geologists seem to depend upon reserve data for their calculations. Why shouldn’t a similar technique work in the aggregate?
For one thing, geologists are looking at particular fields where conditions seem to be favorable for extraction. They can safely assume that (a) prices will be high enough, (b) there will be adequate investment capital available and (c) other conditions will be right, including political stability and pollution issues. If we are looking at the situation more generally, the reasons why fossil fuels are not extracted from the ground seem to revolve around (a), (b) and (c), rather than not having enough fossil fuels in the ground.
Let’s look at a couple of examples. China’s coal production dropped in Figure 4 because low prices made coal extraction unprofitable in some fields. There is no hint of that issue in China’s reported R/P ratio for coal of 39.
Although not as dramatic, Figure 4 also shows that China’s oil production has dropped in recent years, during a period when prices have been relatively low. China’s R/P ratio for oil is 18, so theoretically it should have plenty of oil available. The Chinese figured out that in some cases, it could import oil more cheaply than it could produce it themselves. As a result, China’s production has dropped.
In Figure 7, India’s coal production is not rising as rapidly as needed to keep production up. Its R/P ratio for coal is 137. Its oil production has been declining since 2012. Its R/P for oil is shown to be 14.4 years.
Another example is Venezuela. As many people are aware, Venezuela has been having severe economic problems recently. We can see this in its falling oil production and its related falling oil exports and consumption.
Figure 8. Venezuela’s oil production, consumption and exports, based on data of BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
Yet Venezuela reports the highest “Proved oil reserves” in the world. Its reported R/P ratio is 394. In fact, its proved reserves increased during 2017, despite its very poor production results. Part of the problem is that proved oil reserves are often not audited amounts, so proved reserves can be as high as an exporting country wants to make them. Another part of the problem is that price is extremely important in determining which reserves can be extracted and which cannot. Clearly, Venezuela needs much higher prices than have been available recently to make it possible to extract its reserves. Venezuela also seems to have had low production in the 1980s when oil prices were low.
I was one of the co-authors of an academic paper pointing out that oil prices may not rise high enough to extract the resources that seem to be available. It can be found at this link: An Oil Production Forecast for China Considering Economic Limits. The problem is an affordability problem. The wages of manual laborers and other non-elite workers need to be high enough that they can afford to buy the goods and services made by the economy. If there is too much wage disparity, demand tends to fall too low. As a result, prices do not rise to the level that fossil fuel producers need. The limit on fossil fuel extraction may very well be how high prices can rise, rather than the amount of fossil fuels in the ground.
[8] Nuclear power seems to be gradually headed for closure without replacement in many parts of the world. This makes it more difficult to create a low carbon electricity supply.
A chart of nuclear electricity production by part of the world shows the following information:
Figure 9. Nuclear electric power production by part of the world, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018. FSU is “Former Soviet Union” countries.
The peak in nuclear power production took place in 2006. A big step-down in nuclear power generation took place after the Fukushima nuclear power accident in Japan in 2011. Europe now seems to be taking steps toward phasing out its nuclear power plants. If nothing else, new safety standards tend to make nuclear power plants very expensive. The high price makes it too expensive to replace aging nuclear power plants with new plants, at least in the parts of the world where safety standards are considered very important.
In 2017, wind and solar together produced about 59% as much electricity as nuclear power, on a worldwide basis. It would take a major effort simply to replace nuclear with wind and solar, and the results would not provide as stable an output level as is currently available.
Of course, some countries will go forward with nuclear, in spite of safety concerns. Much of the recent growth in nuclear power has been in China. Countries belonging to the former Soviet Union (FSU) have been adding new nuclear production. Also, Iran is known for its nuclear power program.
Conclusion
We live in challenging times!
Notes:
(1) There is more than one way of seeing that energy consumption per capita needs to rise, despite rising efficiency.
One basic issue is that enough energy consumption needs to get back to individual citizens, particularly citizens with few skills, so that they can continue to have the basic level of goods and services that they need. This includes food, clothing, housing, transportation, education and other services, such as medical services. Unfortunately, history shows that efficiency gains don’t do enough to offset several other countervailing forces that tend to offset the benefits of efficiency gains. The forces working against unskilled workers getting enough goods and services include the following:
(a) Diminishing returns ensures that an increasing share of energy supplies must be used to dig deeper wells or provide water desalination, to operate mines for all kinds of minerals, and to extract fossil fuels. This means that less of the energy that is available can get back to workers.
(b) Governments need to grow because of promises that they have made to citizens. Retirement benefits in particular are an issue, as populations age. This takes another “cut” out of what is available.
(c) Increased use of technology tends to produce a much more hierarchical workforce structure. People at the top of the organization are paid significantly more than those near the bottom. Globalization tends to add to this effect. It is the low wages of those at the bottom of the hierarchy that becomes a problem because those workers cannot afford to buy the goods and services that they need to provide for themselves and their families.
(d) Increasing use of technology can often produce replacements for manual labor. For example, robots and computers can replace some jobs, leaving many would-be workers unemployed. The companies that produce the replacements for manual labor are often international companies that are difficult to tax. Governments can try to raise taxes to provide benefits to those excluded from the economy as a consequence of the growing use of technology, but this simply exacerbates the problem described as (b) above.
(e) The world economy always has some countries that are doing better than others in terms of GDP growth. These countries are nearly always countries whose energy use per capita is growing. Current examples include China and India. If world resources per capita are flat, there must be others whose energy consumption per capita is falling. Examples today would include Venezuela, Greece and the UK. It is the countries with falling energy consumption per capita that have the more severe difficulties. Our networked world economy cannot get along without these failing economies.
Besides the issue of enough goods and services getting back to those with limited skills, a second basic issue is having enough energy-based goods and services to actually fulfill promises that have been made. One type of promise is debt and related interest payments. Another type of promise is that made by pension plans, whether government sponsored or available from private industry. A third type of promise is represented by asset prices available in the marketplace, such as prices of shares of stock and real estate prices.
The problem is that promises of all types can, in theory, be exchanged for goods and services. The stock of goods and services cannot rise very quickly, if energy consumption is only rising at the per-capita rate. Even if more money is issued, the problem becomes dividing up a not-very-rapidly growing pie into ever-smaller pieces, to try to fulfill all of the promises.
(2) With respect to oil, the one major deviation from its flat pattern occurred in the early 1980s, when world oil consumption fell by 11% between 1979 and 1983. This happened as the result of a concerted effort to change home heating and electricity production to other fuels. It also involved a change from large inefficient cars to smaller, more fuel efficient cars. After the 2007-2009 recession, there was another small step downward. This downward step may reflect less building of new homes and commercial spaces in some parts of the world, including the US.
“Growth Based On Debt Is Unsustainable, Artificial”
But as you read that stuff never, I repeat, NEVER, will the subject of shale oil (un)profitability, or its massive amount of accumulated debt, come up. Not a word. It is though that part of the equation does not exist in the #shale world. Between $260B and $300B of long term debt (Thompson Reuters) is a shit pot of money, man. The US shale oil industry owes more money that the total national debts of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia combined.
US shale oil industry has to produce, starting tomorrow morning, over 12-13 billion MORE barrels of oil just to pay its debt back. Just to get back to even. If you don’t like my arithmetic, or want to add a little gas revenue (but not too much!); go ahead. Knock off a couple of billion barrels. Whatever it is, its about 3-5 billion MORE barrels of oil than it has already produced in the decade the US shale oil industry has been in business.
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/single-post/2018/06/18/Growth-Based-On-Debt-Is-Unsustainable-Artificial
Comment below:
“Howdy again, Daniel. Thanks. I’ve been “into” well economics over 50 years and there are actually a bunch of us in the oil business that understand the shale business model pretty well and know that it is not working.
I am not in the least bit surprised to hear people actually IN the shale oil business ignore where all the money is coming from to fund the party. Its rare to find someone who is capable, and willing, to disassociate big production numbers from the bottom line, from profit and no profit. There is a very unrealistic focus on “hope” for higher oil prices for the shale oil industry to get its dick out of the dirt. And you know what Upton Sinclair says.”
I would argue that pretty much all growth requires promises of some form. These usually take the form of debt, but can also take the form of shareholders’ equity. Energy that is sufficiently cheap is needed to repay these promises, with the required interest. A major problem occurs when the required energy is not inexpensive enough to produce, or has too many “entropy” problems.
The US spends 1600 billion per year on war so an additional 100 billion per year on the fuel bill is no big deal. Just a cost of doing business here at the end of the world as we know it.
If I had to guess…. the Fed is helping this along in a big way…. and punters are following….
Just like the stock market….
I am not sure I really looked at this article before. It is really good, but I am not sure I would have named it what it was named.
The author talks about the actual expense the company has:
Notice that the oil industry (at least in Texas) is already paying $17.50 in taxes and royalties per barrel of oil. This is in addition to income taxes, if they ever make money on the oil. So the oil industry is paying taxes, whether it makes money or not.
I would expect at least part of past profitability assumptions of these companies has to do with using the income tax loss on past years to offset future income tax. But that ability is tending to go away, with the tax changes that have been made.
Jose Manuel Barroso; Chairman, Goldman Sachs International
https://imgur.com/a/3CeAVUL
Not artificial, in my opinion. All growth is unsustainable.
I see growth as a subset of evolutionary processes. It’s a necessary function within the algorithm for adaptation to take place. In other words… to get from here to there. A “bug” that allows survival to take hold. And it has not done badly over the last billion years on this planet.
Since it may all be the result of a “bug” then there may be no real purpose to any of it. But while we’re here… most organisms and systems grow to a peak and then enter a period of decline. There is no real sustaining of anything. I reserve the term collapse for the final implosion.
What differs from system to system is the duration of the period of decline and the quality of it. For example a human can reach peak at 21 and due to poor health rapidly decline until death at 30. Another human may also reach peak at 21 and live a relatively long period of decline in good health until later years eventually collapsing at 100.
I’m certain that alternative economic systems could have been experimented with that would have led to longer, healthier periods of decline than the one we have had forced upon us. But since it’s a little late in the day to be experimenting we may never find out.
It may be that life on this planet as a whole reached peak some time ago and has been in a period of decline with the continuing mass extinction of species. It could be that there was never any escaping the inevitability of it all and that techno optimism and dreams of solar system colonisation are just palliative coping mechanisms administered by the system attempting to maintain equilibrium until the final release.
Perhaps it is a bug. It could also be a feature, if the literal Higher Power behind the whole self-organized system intended this outcome. After all, the direction of the universe is toward higher energy density, and human economies seem to provide the highest energy density.
Well the Higher Power does work in mysterious ways or so they say…
I have also speculated at times that we are a stepping stone to further evolutionary processes to take hold. But that still doesn’t require any previous planning, just the impulse to keep adapting and surviving.
… said one dinosaur to another, just as a bright flash erupted in the sky…
it’s fairly well established that our hunter gatherer forbears were 6” taller than us on average
they died younger of course, and a lot of them got hunted and gathered themselves, but we live into old age on an artificial life support system—industrialised medicine—prior to that, our age maxed out around 50/60—just as theirs did
our problem is that we still have their brains, and think we can go on hunting and gathering into infinity
My elderly parents would agree with the idea that they are on an artificial life support system. We are reminded of this with every trip to the chemist for bagfuls of drugs. I always add that a daily micro dose of cannabis wouldn’t hurt.
Here’s an angle that’s new to most folks. H. sapiens is one of a relatively few species of animals that is genetically disposed to suffer from hypoascorbemia because, in essence, like other primates and unlike most of our four-legged, winged, flippered and scaly friends, we can’t synthesize ascorbate—vitamin C in our livers.
While we were hunting and gathering and being hunted and gathered, this was not much of a problem. As our remote ancestors ate a great deal of vitamin C-rich foods such as wild roots and berries, we got plenty in the diet as long as we had enough to eat, and so tens of millions of years back we evolved into creatures that couldn’t make our own because we didn’t need to.
But then, relatively recently, agriculture came along and our diet changed, and even more recently, industrial food came along, and now we are hypoascorbemic because the standard modern diet doesn’t give us enough vitamin C to remain healthy. The gross deficiency of vitamin C results in scurvy, in which the gums bleed, the teeth loosen, the eyes bulge, the skin goes scaly, dry and brownish, and the blood vessels collapse leaving the patient very susceptible to bleeding and bruising, not unlike some of the symptoms of Ebola. Most of us get enough to avoid outright scurvy, but many of us don’t get nearly enough to overcome the constant free radical damage that eventually leads all the way to heat attacks, strokes, cancer and multiple organ failure.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YAzW7tx06Ho/T90m5kZPirI/AAAAAAAAEQI/CnkEO0LqyYY/s400/1.jpg
It’s a similar story with niacin—vitamin B3, the gross deficiency of which results in pellagra, a disease that can be summed in in the three DS—dermatitis, dementia and death. Our bodies can synthesize this vitamin, but not in sufficient amounts to remain healthy. Like most of the B vitamins, there is a lot of niacin in wheat brand and rice bran; and the pandemic of pellagra that killed several million people in the early part of the last century stemmed from the improvements in milling technology that made white flour and white rice affordable and the fad that made it fashionable.
https://previews.123rf.com/images/molekuul/molekuul1709/molekuul170900311/85870856-vitamin-b3-niacin-molecule-skeletal-formula-.jpg
Smart people who are in the know and getting on in years and who can afford it, supplement their diets with these two vitamins to the tune of a gram or two or three a day, both to feel better, think more clearly, and as an insurance policy against the hundreds of diseases of age that are manifestations of the deficiency. More-ons laugh at people who waste their money on this sort of health insurance, and then they come down with diabetes, cancer, a stroke, a heart attack, or one of the myriad conditions that result from not having enough of these two molecules circulating in the bloodstream.
++++
And without debt there would be very minimal growth…
I came to the conclusion recently that claymite change is just a placeholder for whatever one wishes to avoid thinking about. Either it’s real and a right-wing conspiracy to prevent techno-disneyland, or it’s unreal and thus SJW conspiracy to prevent techno-disneyland. In both cases, it’s the personification of a vague perception of BAU’s decline. For Crazy Eddy it’s the stewpid delusistan contrast to his urbane hysterical nihilism. The reality of course being that AGW is real, cannot be stopped with FF-based renewables, and will eventually end after BAU itself.
Anyway, you can apply the same reasoning to most political issues today. All placeholders for a vague perception of some broader reality one wishes to block out. Even opposing placeholders are helpful because they are just one more layer of opacity after all! As Steve from Virginia put it (far more succinctly) – when everything is a non-sequitur the term loses its meaning.
I agree. Climate change is an interesting diversion. It especially appeals to those who believe that humans are in charge of energy consumption, and that we can change whatever we choose to.
Seem my response to Lastcall. http://ourfiniteworld.com/2018/06/22/eight-insights-based-on-december-2017-energy-data/comment-page-25/#comment-178901
It’s all cooked up by the Ministry of Truth… along with solar wind EVs fusion Tesla Mars colonies cryptocurrencies recycling …. etc etc etc…. a full court press to distract us from the apocalypse soon…. there is a flavour for everyone.
I don’t believe that climate change is an interesting diversions or those who are badly affected by it.
The salient point being made here, I think, is that amongst the global forces that will define humanity’s future climate change is a latecomer, and not the first order disruptor by any means. A nuisance yes, and responses to it will add to the burgeoning costs (money and energy) of running a complex global society. Thousands of kilometres of sea walls won’t come cheap, either in money or energy / resource terms.
BP questions pace of US tight oil growth as productivity fades -Platts
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hYcbpV05ZzYJ:https://www.platts.com/latest-news/oil/london/bp-questions-pace-of-us-tight-oil-growth-as-productivity-26973295+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
If you Google that article..The link to Platts doesn’t work..That is why I had to post the “cache” copy..
And there is one other site that has reprinted this article called “DisealGasoil” and their link doesn’t work either..But their “Cache” copy does/.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8FMibkNQC9UJ:dieselgasoil.com/refining/platts/bp-questions-pace-of-us-tight-oil-growth-as-productivity-fades/+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
I checked the way back machine and neither original articles were available..Strange..
“It does perhaps suggest that the very rapid increases in tight oil productivity that characterized much of the initial phase of the shale revolution may be beginning to fade,” Dale said.
“More recently, increasing bottlenecks within the supply chain, together with signs that investors are becoming less willing to finance continued high levels of investment, suggest there may be some limits to the speed with which tight oil can grow going forward,” he said.
This sounds like he is saying shale might have peaked..If so this is YUUUGE news!
No wonder its been “memory holed” from the net.. lol
… and the KSA is being asked to pump more….
… and HSBC predicts a squeeze by the end of this year…..
I just ordered some furniture for the house…. perhaps I should take the installment plan….
Another possible false flag that is going to be pinned on Russia..(again)
Right before the Trump and Putin meeting and during the middle of the world cup…lol
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1014367875102961664
Is there a Subway in Salisbury?
😀
https://twitter.com/aeberman12/status/1014141706491645952
If vehicle miles has flatlined, that means that vehicle miles per capita is falling. This is an issue, because it could be showing economic contraction.
I haven’t had time to look at this in any depth but the IEA is reporting that while US coal and gas consumption fell in 2017, petroleum consumption rose. Can’t have risen by much, looking that graph.
https://triblive.com/usworld/world/13830012-74/report-2017-fossil-fuel-energy-consumption-lowest-since-1902
The growth in natural gas consumption was all outside the United States. Canada used 6.0% more. Europe used 5.5% more, presumable to balance all of their wind and solar. Spain and Italy especially increased their shares. The Middle East increased their natural gas usage by 5.7%; oil consumption in the Middle East only increased by 1.2%. It seems likely that the Middle East is gradually switching its electricity production to natural gas from oil, so that they have more oil for exporting. China, Bangladesh and India all had natural gas increases in the 5.0% to 5.2% range.
The increases in coal took place in many parts of the Asia Pacific region.
Now THIS is reality tee vee worth watching!
https://youtu.be/Qc61iAsVeY8
More excellent watching here https://www.rt.com/usa/431664-proud-boy-punch-antifa-portland/
And there is more!
https://youtu.be/bcwfqIr2_BI
Let’s keep going
https://youtu.be/O9g1uuI62m0
My favourite… gotta love that jazz horn
https://youtu.be/YjecCL1_HdI
I would recommend that these people dress in black spiderman outfits with hoods… and pull out AK47s…. and let rip.
Who is going to raise the bar?????
Sure. Let’s ramp it up. How about a million man march on Washington DC with AR15s and a platoon of technicals sporting 50cals
Surely those patriotic military dudes wouldn’t fire on their own citizens… would they?
To be honest… the antifa ninjas look lean and mean with their all black get up and a diet of ramen noodles and meth. Meanwhile… the conservative patriots look a little out of shape but don’t let the blobbiness decieve you… a herd of tattooed neckbeards rushing you is a terrifying sight like no other.
Who is going to raise the bar????? maybe former police?
Seattle Police Officers Are Leaving the Department in a ‘Mass Exodus’
Police sources said Seattle officers are leaving to go to other police departments because of atrocious city politics.
Seattle, WA – Morale has gotten so low at the Seattle Police Department that officers are afraid to do their jobs, and they’re leaving the police force.
Records showed that 41 officers left the Seattle PD in the first five months of 2018, meaning they’re likely to exceed last year’s total of 79 departures by quite a bit, KTTH reported.
One officer told KTTH that 21 of his colleagues left, or announced their upcoming separation from the department, over a period of one week recently.
Not all of the officers leaving the department are retiring or getting out of law enforcement. Twenty of the officers who left went to other police departments.
“There are lots of people walking out the door,” another officer told KTTH “This is a mass exodus. We’re losing people left and right. Why stick around when the City Council doesn’t appreciate you? [These officers are] fleeing the ‘Seattle mentality.’”
While Seattle’s population has grown exponentially over the past 40 years, the size of the city’s police force has stayed almost the same, the city’s police union told KCPQ.
“I have never seen the number of officers who are leaving and the way they are leaving,” Seattle Police Guild Vice President Rich O’Neill said.
A police source told KCPQ that younger officers are frustrated over city politics and are departing Seattle for greener pastures.
“Worker bees on the street, they don’t feel appreciated. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” he said.
The union also called the situation “a mass exodus” and said they believe it will have a direct impact on public safety, KCPQ reported.
“Less officers on the streets, less safe for the citizens — and when you have all these officers you have invested all this money in and they are leaving for Tacoma, Olympia, Pierce County and Snohomish County,” O’Neill said.
He said that city leaders have sent the message that officers can’t be proactive in their policing, and as a result, many Seattle officers have become afraid to do their jobs.
“It’s just depressing to serve in a place where many City Council members who are coming out at times with negative comments about the police,” O’Neill said.
He said officials have allowed certain crimes to go on without accountability, and have discouraged officers from enforcing the law with homeless individuals.
“It’s told from the start it’s not a priority, homeless issues also bring with it car prowls, break-ins, open-air drug market, needles all over the ground, it’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” O’Neill said.
https://needtoknow.news/2018/07/seattle-police-officers-leaving-department-mass-exodus/
Milan. Interesting stuff.
I’ve long thought that homeless should be forcefully removed from city streets and housed where they can recieve help. Many are drug addicts, mentally ill, abuse victims etc and you have to draw the line somewhere.
Obviously city authorities are choosing the other option and we can see the results. People choose not to visit your city and police resign in disgust.
It takes money and resources to provide help for the homeless and addicts.
But there’s “hand outs,” and there’s “hand ups:”
Although I think “land reform” has a snowball’s chance in Hades in the US, there could be a lot worse things than nationalize a few big corporate farms and put subsistence farmers on them.
I don’t think subsistence farms work today. The would-be farmers need to have skills. They need to have some kinds of tools. The land is sufficiently degraded that they need chemicals of various sorts. They need to earn enough to pay for a place to live. Food prices are awfully low today–even fairly big knowledgable farmers cannot make farming work. The poor people literally would starve.
Well, they do work for many people, but I agree with your arguments against.
As I said, I do agree than you can’t just dump people onto the land and expect them to survive, let alone flourish.
So, to continue with Hal Borland’s fantasy of some 50 years ago, how about if these poor folk were given apprenticeships with functioning small subsistence farms, instead? The government covers room and board, and they work at it for five years or so, with the promise that they’ll get their own land with a rudimentary setup afterward.
I’m thinking a house on ten acres with a few farm animals and basic hand tools won’t cost any more than what we currently end up spending on these people.
I’ve got a neighbour…. he’s a pretty rugged guy… big into guns and hunting … deer boar etc….
He has a lot of guns… and ammo….
I have a lot of guns and ammo ….
I have a truck and about 400 litres of diesel stored here….
When BAU goes down… I think I will walk over to his place and ask him if he’d like to raid a DP farm…. I bet he’d be on for that…. much easier to shoot a cow than a deer.
he forget to suggest marrying a woman big and strong enough to pull the plough
seems good to me
Better get on it… and start repairing the soil NOW
Soil that is farmed using petro-chemical inputs — will support no crop once the additives are stopped – without years of intensive rejuvenation involving organic inputs
Effect of Pesticides on soil fertility (beneficial soil microorganisms)
Heavy treatment of soil with pesticides can cause populations of beneficial soil microorganisms to decline. According to the soil scientist Dr. Elaine Ingham, “If we lose both bacteria and fungi, then the soil degrades. Overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have effects on the soil organisms that are similar to human overuse of antibiotics.
Indiscriminate use of chemicals might work for a few years, but after awhile, there aren’t enough beneficial soil organisms to hold onto the nutrients” (Savonen, 1997). For example, plants depend on a variety of soil microorganisms to transform atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates, which plants can use. Common landscape herbicides disrupt this process: triclopyr inhibits soil bacteria that transform ammonia into nitrite (Pell et al., 1998); glyphosate reduces the growth and activity of free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria in soil (Santos and Flores, 1995) and 2,4-D reduces nitrogen fixation by the bacteria that live on the roots of bean plants (Arias and Fabra, 1993; Fabra et al., 1997), reduces the growth and activity of nitrogen-fixing blue-green algae (Singh and Singh, 1989; Tözüm-Çalgan and Sivaci-Güner, 1993), and inhibits the transformation of ammonia into nitrates by soil bacteria (Frankenberger et al., 1991, Martens and Bremner, 1993).
Mycorrhizal fungi grow with the roots of many plants and aid in nutrient uptake. These fungi can also be damaged by herbicides in the soil. One study found that oryzalin and trifluralin both inhibited the growth of certain species of mycorrhizal fungi (Kelley and South, 1978). Roundup has been shown to be toxic to mycorrhizal fungi in laboratory studies, and some damaging effects were seen at concentrations lower than those found in soil following typical applications (Chakravarty and Sidhu, 1987; Estok et al., 1989). Triclopyr was also found to be toxic to several species of mycorrhizal fungi (Chakravarty and Sidhu, 1987) and oxadiazon reduced the number of mycorrhizal fungal spores (Moorman, 1989).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984095/
Organic inputs will be hard to come by considering nothing can be grown – and most if not all animals are killed and eaten.
Less than 1% of all farmland globally is farmed organically.
Get ready to starve. No matter where you are:
https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/agriculture3.png
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/08/which-countries-have-the-most-organic-agricultural-land/ (note – most organic land in Australia is rubbish and supports sheep only)
We have dug our grave… and it is VERY DEEP.
My think tank has come up with this to kill off the homeless:
Free Fentanyl flavoured Chicken McNuggest for all.
Maddy Albright is the CEO of this new venture …. I don’t pay her the big bucks for nothing … this was her idea…
McDonald’s shares spiked on this news
A use for empty shopping malls
Hmm, Weimar Republic Mk 2?
The greatest danger to the future of most of those marchers is not the other side, but their own bloated and unexercised bodies. Some splendid bellies on display there.
Fat, rightwing, out of shape, stupid.
The outcome is not going to be good.
So Michael Moore must be right wing then?
I like the way lefties think they’re really really smaaart.
Stupidity and obesity is universal.
I have a large dose of venom for liberals…. more so than conservatives…. because liberals act so holy and righteous… I really have grown to hate them… Fox-fans are just stuuuupid bufffoons…. entertaining.
Our right wing friends are realizing that Antifa is not a organization you want to confront–
You are going to get your butt kicked!
“The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed. When the British forgot that they got a revolution. And, as a result, we Americans got a Constitution; a Constitution that, as those who wrote it were determined, would keep men free. If we give up part of that Constitution we give up part of our freedom and increase the chance that we will lose it all.” ~Ronald Reagan
Let the shooting begin. I’m with FE it will be entertaining.
With robot drone helicopters providing the TV and sports casters the color commentary it will be great.
Look at the 4th ave and Broadway intersection the Antifa are trying to flank east, but over at 5th and Park Ave the Buba’s are driving to break through the line…. Pass the popcorn.
Let the betting begin
The first kill will be by antifa 1/1, bubas 1/1
the first kill will be by baseball bat 1/3, knife 1/3, gun 1/3
I’ll take antifa with a baseball bat for a hundred Bob.
I would go with antifa also. Lets be honest– the right is unfit and not very bright— and if you took away the beer and fast food, they would starve.
There may be some truth to this … afterall …. look at what the left did in the soviet union… gulags… murder… torture… pograms…
The limp wristed left is a myth…. they are at the end of the day … humans… top level predators…
Who would the US military side with….
With too low energy per capita, governments are among the first system to be stressed. They cannot afford all of the programs that they have promised to everyone, especially retirement income and health care.
I was watching a clip about stabbings in London … in one area where there has been a spate of attacks… they mentioned that two police stations had been shuttered….
left right right left….. as long as they are beating each other … who cares…. I want MOAR entertainment!
BTW – who has most of the guns and ammo?
And who spends their time at the Organic Coffee Shop discussing TG washrooms, the latest iphone release and the price of avocados?
My money is on the people with the guns.
My money is on the people with the biggest guns.
Drones, helicopters, tanks, nerve gas…
The US military!? They’re with Trump apparently. But we shall see.
They may just decide to sit the civil war out and let the “conservative” and “progressive” civilian factions duke it out.
Remember Deagel is still forecasting the US population will drop to less than a third of its present size by 2025.
http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx
See the note below the table for an explanation.
See the note below the table for an explanation.
Thats a sobering read.
“The American downfall is set to be far worse than the Soviet Union’s one. A confluence of crisis with a devastating result.
Historically a change in the economic paradigm has resulted in a death toll that is rarely highlighted by mainstream historians. When the transition from rural areas to large cities happened in Europe many people unable to accept the new paradigm killed themselves.”
Anti-KKKKKlimate Change Posts By Peterson Damage His Credibility
https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/77kifx/antiKKKKKKKlimate_change_posts_by_peterson_damage_his/
He is certainly correct when it comes to this issue
From some of the comments criticising Peterson;
‘Climate science has settled the fact that
Global warming is happening and
It is primarily anthropogenic’
Nothing is more dangerous than a person whom is certain of something. These guys/gals are plonkers; born followers looking to join a vendetta.
My money ($0.00) is on sun spot cycles being a far greater concern. But who cares, I am enjoying a great (v cold) winter down here in NZ.
Going to plant a few thousand more trees this winter. Its what I do.
From what I can see, the climate change story is based on a firm belief that this time is different.
In the past, when economies hit energy per capita limits, they eventually collapsed. Or they found some other part of the world to expand to, so that energy per capita for the wider economy could rise again.
The view this time is that instead of collapse, we are headed for a new and different situation. Our increasing technology will allow us to extract all of the fossil fuel resources that seem to be in the ground. Rising complexity will not lead to hierarchical behavior and collapse. It will also not reach diminishing returns as Joseph Tainter writes about. With the benefit of all of this fossil fuel, models have been put together showing that C02 levels will rise very high and the earth will become very hot, because of the miraculous powers of humans. Nearly all climate scientists have fallen for the nonsense regarding humans having almost infinite powers. So they believe these models.
If past patterns happen, the economy will collapse in the not too distant future. Whatever damage that has been done to date by the overall system (which humans do not really have the power to change) will occur, plus whatever other changes are “baked into the cake.”
But worrying about the issue will not fix anything, and we do not have very much we can do about the situation. So-called renewables don’t really work, and nuclear has major difficulties. What we can do is plant trees. We can discourage high birth rates in Africa and the Middle East. We can take care of our own health and reduce the stress on the environment by eating more locally grown plant foods (especially root vegetables and legumes), and reduce the large amount of meat we are eating. We can also reduce the large amount of industrialized foods we are eating, instead eating foods that are closer to the form in which they are grown. We can make the best use possible of the time we have before collapse effects become overwhelming.
«reduce the large amount of meat we are eating. We can also reduce the large amount of industrialized foods we are eating, instead eating foods that are closer to the form in which they are grown.»
I can agree with this on an individual and personal level. On the other hand: given the sheer size of the agrobuisness. If everyone should follow your example, it would have serious repercussions.
You are right. The food industry needs people to eat large amounts of food that are unhealthy for them.
It’s about time somebody genetically engineered a tree that grows cakes instead of dreary fruit, then everybody would be happy.
Yes Gail the climate change STORY as advertised to the masses assumes increasing energy use, BAU forever, human mastery of progress, unsupportable theories of economics and renewables hopium…
BUT the climate change REALITY as kept from the masses includes none of those things. It recognises the present destruction of agriculture and water resources and the very near term changes which are baked in.
And which we can do nothing about.
We can do the right thing and keep burning more fossil fuels … and keep BAU going for as long as possible…
For those seeking proof …. consider this:
The men who run the world KNOW F789(ing) well that it is IMPOSSIBLE to replace fossil fuels (that are supposedly causing GG WWWWW) with ‘renewable’ energy ….
They are obviously aware of the obvious http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
They can see that after trillions of dollars of investment — renewables are barely a rounding error….
So they KNOW that we have NO choice. We MUST burn more fossil fuels — otherwise civilization ends. TINA
So why – if they know this — would they bother to raise the issue of man caused GGG WWWWW … even it is were so — why not let that sleeping dog lie? Because there is NOTHING we can do about it. Nothing.
Imagine there was a massive asteroid — that was on a path to destroy earth in 2030.
Would the MSM be reporting this? NO F789ing WAY!!!! Why panic the sheeple and cause chaos.
Similarly with GG WWWW…. it is a ruse…. create a fake problem — create fake solutions (renewables and EVs)…. because the sheeple MUST believe there is a future…
The sheeple can see that fossil fuels will run out … so they MUST be fed a good story….
If not then why bother mentioning GG WWW at all? Why pummel the sheeple with movies and endless news stories — about a topic…. which is MOOT?
Give yer heads a shake Wormers. Are you really this gullible?
Simple answer. Yes they are.
I like what you said and the way that you said it. But there’s something that doesn’t add up.
Why create the greatest cause of mass hysteria among the population the world has ever seen knowing full well that there are no real solutions… to exploit that gullibility with a temporary gain from the renewables industry?
There is more to the grand plan than meets the eye. And keeping the general population dosed to the eyeballs with Hopium is a huuuuge part of it.
Tesla to the Moon, Crypto will save us from the evil banksters, Crispr will make us all immortal, vertical farms will feed the 10 billion etc etc
I think that they truly believe they can keep things going for themselves after collapse and half the pop dies off. It’s in all their literature and planning documents. They are preparing for this and even engineering it wherever possible. So that makes them either incredibly delusional or they really know it’s possible.
It may be that the human race has been delusional since we took imagination and ran with. It’s led to incredible achievements but also the building of the ultimate Tower of Babel.
But there is a solution – at least most people believe there is.
Anyone in doubt try this (I have many times).
Ask someone about peak oil — they will scoff …
But then say hang on — oil is finite right? — they will generally agree.
Then say – so it will run out at some point no?
They will agree.
They will also say but we have lots of oil left — we are in no danger of running out — and before we do we will have transitioned to renewable energy. And we will be driving EVs
They firmly believe there is a solution to finite oil and it’s proxy GG wWWW….
The Ministry of Truth does NOT want to focus on the finite oil issue…. that is too scary …. so they distract with this ‘proxy’ GWWWWW ….. this is also a rallying cry — we must stop the planet from burning up ….it is a powerful message… far more powerful than ‘someday we will run out of oil – let’s shift to renewables’
Notice how the MSM is constantly planting stories about renewables… as of recent the sheeple have started to get wind of the fact that storage is a major problem due to intermittency …. so what do we get — Tesla drops a big expensive battery into Australia — that cannot even power a single refinery for 8 minutes… and the masses look at that and say — this is a starting point…the transition is just around the corner… always around the corner…
Then we have countries announcing banning of ICE vehicles… just around the corner… see you naysayers… It is happening!!!!
The Ministry of Truth employs the best PR men in the business… these are the same consultants who put dead babies on the beach to elicit support for bombing countries into the stone age….
They are ruthless… they are clever….. and they have launched The Great Ho ax known as GGGG WWWW…
It is absolutely brilliant…. such a subtle way to address fear … without actually discussing the cause of the fear.
Look at how many people on FW continue to be fooled… people who understand that the solutions are bogus…. who understand we are never getting off of FF… who understand that we must continue burning record amounts of FF to the bitter end….
They have seen through part of the PR play … but they continue to be forever mired in delusion with respect to the other half …. a fake problem with no solution
It is quite sad to see otherwise switched on people here…. get suckered like this….
And no amount of facts or logic … will get them to see the light
You get it.
Other people not so much.
We’re being scammed beyond comprehension.
And they lap it up like a dog laps up a plate of warm vomit.
You know you are being scammed when: every time there is a hot day anywhere in the world… or a hurricane… the MSM immediately SCREAMS … gerbel werming
Meanwhile if there is a record cold day — or no hurricanes for many years…. they remain silent
And the latest green groopie initiative is all about plastic bags….
Plastic bags in our countries is not what is causing the mess in the oceans … our bags end up in highly controlled landfills or incinerated at very high heat.
What is causing the problem is plastic in third world countries – countries that do not have proper waste management.
I know – because I lived there for 7 years. The plastic gets dumped in the river… or burned in an open fire.
Want to end plastic in the oceans — green grooopies should donate 10% of their salaries to paying for dump trucks and waste management facilities across the third world…. how about paying for reusable bags for people in these countries?
Nope. That ain’t gonna happen.
This is all part of the hopium machine… the feel good movement… it accomplishes zero (ban plastic grocery bags — people will buy plastic garbage bin liner bags…) …
But it makes people feel like they are Saving the Planet.
Just like buying an EV charged with coal — does.
T’is madness… but there is a method here
If you took all the waste and burned it you could tap some of the energy.
I think I read something recently that china did burn plastic trash in their power plant mix….
The same formula applies to the job numbers…
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/07/03/why-vacant-stores-zombie-malls-are-much-bigger-than-mall-vacancy-rates-indicate/
Right. If you don’t like the ratio, fix the denominator. Remove people who aren’t looking for a job, or stores that are no longer being marketed as retail sales places.
Another place this works is for renewable energy targets for electricity. If the total quantity of electricity goes down enough, the renewables percentage rises!
https://www.energycentral.com/c/gr/perils-cryptocurrency-mining-utilities?utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=grid_net&utm_content=493855&utm_source=2018_07_03
The Perils Of Cryptocurrency Mining For Utilities
Funny, how some proponents of cryptocurrencies say mining doesn’t use as much power as some people think.
The second – and more important – reason why Saudi Arabia won’t comply with Trump’s wishes to add another 2 mb/d onto the market is that they don’t want to. Ramping up that much would leave the oil market dangerously low on spare capacity, cutting it down to less than 1 mb/d. At that point, any supply disruption would send oil prices skyrocketing. Indeed, it wouldn’t even take a tangible disruption – the mere possibility of another outage would lead to a significant volatility.
Of course, Saudi Arabia is aware of this, which is why it is extremely hard to imagine them adding 2 mb/d. Perhaps that is why the White House walked back President Trump’s comments when they published details of Trump’s conversation with King Salman. “In response to the President’s assessment of a deficit in the oil market, King Salman affirmed that the Kingdom maintains a two million barrel per day spare capacity, which it will prudently use if and when necessary to ensure market balance and stability,” the statement from the White House read.
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/07/03/saudi-arabia-wont-bring-2-million-bpd-online/
Ya… and the punk on the corner tells Don Corleone to f789 off when he makes a suggestion…
https://youtu.be/jrgDW64OvKM
Harder to kill than a vampire… perhaps a stake through Enron Musk’s heart?
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesla-elon-musk-orders-engineers-to-stop-brake-and-roll-testing-2018-6?r=US&IR=T
https://i.imgur.com/5WqWAyJ.png
Normally the SEC would investigate for fraud…
Enron Must appears to be … above the law
Of course he is… he is manufacturing hopium… and he is easily hitting the targets….
The world has many Hopium factories chuffing away pouring their vapors into the atmosphere. You cannot escape it. It is everywhere. And the Press lapp it all up and regurgitate it into the mouths of millions of expectant man babies.
I used to struggle to understand how this magic works on grown adults since such deception should really only work on children i.e. santa claus coming down the chimney, the tooth fairy, religion etc.
Then I realised that these so called adults are adults in appearance only. We have bred generations of man children that obssess over plastic toys, tv shows and video games and that’s ok cause it keeps the economy ticking.
And I like those things too. Leisure is good as they say. But I’m a bit worried… in fact I’m terrified… I think we may be running out of the most vital resource… we may be running out of Hopium juice.
Funny how adults would laugh if you said you believed in Santa …. yet they believe in things that are as easily disproved… that are as obviously inane
The MSM is controlled by the Ministry of Truth… it’s primary purpose is to control what the masses think.
That is actually a good thing… humans are little different from barnyard animals… that need to be fenced in otherwise they would ruin the farm.
See Century of Self….
One of my faves!
https://i.redd.it/pnw1pzcm1c711.jpg
Easier said than done… probably impossible to any great extent…
US reliance on Opec endures despite shale boom
US shale output has helped total domestic production more than double since 2010 to nearly 11m barrels a day. But the US remains heavily reliant on imported crude oil, bringing in about 8m b/d so far in 2018.
While that import level is about a third lower from 12 years ago, with a significant amount coming from Canada, it still brings in nearly 3m b/d from Opec countries. That US reliance leaves it exposed to international prices, despite the rhetoric around energy independence.
The country’s refineries also require heavier grades of crude. Lighter US crude from shale fields is not always well suited.
With the US midterm elections in November in view, US president Donald Trump blasted Opec for “artificially” raising prices. But it was his aggressive stance on Iran that took prices a leg higher.
US State Department reluctance to grant widespread waivers to big consumers of Iran’s oil has added to bullish sentiment.
“I’m stunned by this latest US decision,” said Helima Croft at RBC Capital Markets, who said the hardline position was only stoking prices. “The US just needs to hope no other producer goes down. This is a high stakes game . . . There is no margin for error,” she added.
https://www.ft.com/content/1169e0cc-79f6-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475
Two versions of the news, both wrong. Leave the TV off!
I would revise that to – ignore all news/commentary which you haven’t spent the rest of your free time thinking about or researching. If you don’t wish to spend free time like that, be completely ignorant of all “issues”. Such ignorance is far superior in every respect to half-baked awareness.
TV news is absolutely worthless… it is pure spin … sound bites…
Print/internet news is slightly more in depth and one can extract a few kernels of truth if one reads from a wide range of sources…
‘
Intelligence analysts used to read all Russian MSM during the cold war… they could form a rough picture of what was actually going on by doing so
I’ve been liking Joe Rogan podcast more and more. I could see you on it, but the OFW subject matter is probably to dark and intense. I don’t know, on the other hand it’s a brave new world.
Someone suggested I watched a Rogan podcast re the Russian steroid issue… I watched a few minutes — it was basically the MSM version of — the Russians are all doping — the US athletes are not ….
And that was the end of Joe Rogan for me.
Joe Rogans interview with Paul Stamets is worth listening to. Paul is a fungi specialist and his book ‘Mycelium Running’ is also excellent. When you watch and read Paul’s work you can not help but think what on earth have we done to our environment. Also thanks too to Harry, I have so little time to squeeze all the reading in and your summaries are much appreciated. You are the Automatic Earth of Our Finite World 😬
Joe Rogan, Richard Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, Robert Sapolsky, Michael Shermer, Bill Gates, all deny overpopulation, peak oil, collapse etc..
Can you find something involving this issue as discussed by Peterson.
I would not be surprised if he did not get it…. lots of highly intelligent people are unable to understand this issue…. fear does that to people….
Thanks HD2UK!
World GDP was $80.68T in current dollars in 2017 and that is a new record high.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2017&start=1960&view=chart
Well of course, every year must be a new record high or we collapse.
Grow or die is Capitalisms mantra.
So you think your schooling’s phony
I guess it’s hard not to agree
You say it all depends on money
And who is in your family tree..
Right, (Right), you’re bloody well right
You got a bloody right to say..
-Supertramp
https://imgur.com/a/a7OLtAt
Eleven in a row. A new record. Impressive!
We aim to please.
“The list of emerging market economies that are in crisis mode is beginning to get really long. Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey, Brazil and South Africa are some of the more prominent examples. If the chaos in emerging markets continues to intensify, the rush for the exits is going to become a stampede.”
https://etfdailynews.com/2018/07/02/investors-pulling-money-out-of-emerging-markets-etfs-at-rapid-pace-eem/
“The [South African] rand was weaker against major global currencies on Monday afternoon, with both global events and local news providing few reasons to cheer.”
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/markets/2018-07-02-rand-weakens-as-bad-news-mounts/
“Turkey’s consumer price index climbed 15.4 percent in June from the same month in 2017 on an annual basis, up from 12.2 percent in May, which was higher than estimates, official data has shown.”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-inflation-rate-jumps-to-15-4-percent-in-june-134101
“The Iranian central bank’s efforts to stem the rial’s decline and stamp out the currency black market have backfired, undercutting President Hassan Rouhani’s case that he can parry the U.S. war on the Iranian economy. Rather than choking off the illegal transactions, the introduction of a fixed exchange rate in April has encouraged some traders to profiteer by charging higher black market prices for goods they imported with dollars…”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-02/iran-s-currency-policy-backfires-as-u-s-girds-for-economic-war
Our problem–the world really needs the Iranian oil.
Yep—-
Iran holds so many trump cards, but most can’t see them.
SA knows some of them, and the fear is obvious.
in today’s press, there was a piece about Iran’s clouds and snow being stolen by Israel, hence their ongoing drought
ya couldn’t make it up
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/982961/Iran-accuses-Israel-stealing-clouds-affecting-country-climate-change-news-weather
This is a article published by Brookings called QE exit and the Emerging Market Challenge. It was published in August 2013, and part of this larger report https://www.brookings.edu/research/think-tank-20-the-g-20-and-central-banks-in-the-new-world-of-unconventional-monetary-policy/
It predicts that selling QE securities will have a very adverse impact on emerging markets.
“China’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) readings for last month, released last Saturday, showed a gauge of export orders tumbling into contraction, the clearest sign yet that the oncoming trade war is having a real, negative impact on growth.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/chinas-export-orders-tumble-amid-trade-row
“Fears of a repeat in the renminbi’s falls in August 2015 and January 2016 are gnawing away at the market psyche, as analysts scramble to explain the current depreciation of China’s currency. One explanation behind the slide is reawakening a source of market anxiety about China: that Beijing may be deliberately allowing the renminbi to fall as a tool in its trade dispute with the US.”
https://www.ft.com/content/c2f1db5a-7dfd-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475
“Beijing has signalled a softer stance in its campaign to cut debt from the economy, removing a key statement of intent from a monetary policy document. The move to downplay its deleveraging ambitions appears to be a reaction to slowing economic growth, an increase in credit defaults, and the devaluation of the yuan amid rising tensions over trade with the US in the past month.”
http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/2153540/beijing-softens-tone-debt-crackdown-trade-tensions-threaten
“China is zooming to a record year of corporate-bond defaults, with the 2018 total already more than three-quarters of the previous high even before an expected economic slowdown bites… Strains are set to get worse if the trends of credit-rating companies are anything to go by — agencies including Dagong Global Rating Co. have been downgrading firms by an unprecedented margin.”
https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2018/07/02/china-heads-for-record-defaults-and-downgrades-tip-further-pain
Softening the deleveraging seems like a good idea, given everything else that is happening.
Thank you – Harry Gibbs – for these posts and the summaries of the articles. I especially appreciate how you group them by subject. Thanks must also go to our host for allowing/encouraging your posts.
You are welcome, Pintada. Thank you for the kind words. 🙂
++++++++
“A slew of global developments are convening to threaten economic growth, according to one investment manager, who believes that the risks of a recession next year have now “significantly increased.”
“Global growth stood at 3.8 percent in 2017 and it is set to add another 3.9 percent this year and the next, according to forecasts by the International Monetary Fund [largely pseudo-growth based on unsustainable credit-expansion]. But, the escalation of trade tensions, coupled with other factors, could reverse this trend, Beat Wittmann, a partner at financial consultancy Porta Advisors, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
““I think the risk of a global recession in 2019 has significantly increased,” he said.
““We have normalization of monetary conditions, that’s one thing, so we are in a late stage environment. Then we have this escalation in tariffs and trade … We have things like Brexit. All of these things lead to losses of investment confidence and I mean real economic investment confidence,” Wiitman warned.
“”Central banks have started ending to their crisis-era accommodative policies, with the U.S. Federal Reserve, in particular, increasing interest rates — which are set to translate into higher mortgage payouts and less available income for consumers.
“At the same time, the U.S. has imposed new tariffs against global trade partners and these nations have retaliated…
“…he warned that it is becoming increasingly difficult to invest in those stocks that are not sensitive to global growth fluctuations, the so-called defensive stocks.
““It does look like global growth has peaked, it does look like equity market behavior is telling you that things aren’t looking so special, the cyclicals (stocks sensitive to global growth) are selling off,” he warned.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/global-recession-risk-has-significantly-increased-strategist-warns.html
“Before long Mr Trump’s trade wars could easily surge through the trillion-dollar mark. That is likely to be economically consequential for both the US and the world.”
https://www.ft.com/content/fa9a6c04-7e28-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d
“Trade tariffs and political interference have started to hurt cross-border megadeals, a report from Mergermarket showed Tuesday.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/trade-and-politics-hit-cross-border-megadeals.html
Reported economic growth is likely overstated in recent years by China and perhaps by a number of other countries. The PPP weighting used in getting to world GDP growth puts China as the largest economy in the world, and India as fourth largest. Thus, any overstatement in these countries gets quite high weighting in the world numbers. So the world growth rate is likely already down from the claimed numbers.
“Reported economic growth is likely overstated in recent years by China and perhaps by a number of other countries.”
Definitely. I recall that Chen Qiufa, the governor of Liaoning province, admitted as much last year:
“China’s northeastern Liaoning province, which relies on steel production as its growth engine, had inflated its GDP figures from 2011 to 2014, said province governor Chen Qiufa on Jan. 17 in his annual work report, according to the state newspaper People’s Daily (link in Chinese). It is the first time the Chinese government has publicly admitted to faking official statistics at any level.
“Fiscal revenues were inflated by at least 20% during the period, and some other economic data were also made up, the People’s Daily said.”
https://qz.com/887709/chinas-liaoning-province-admitted-that-it-inflated-gdp-figures-from-2011-to-2014/
I’m also highly sceptical about the UK’s positive GDP figure, given the slew of negative data we’ve had recently.
Don’t forget, estimated prostitution and crime is now part of GDP. Crime is rising in Britain, so I am quietly confident in the integrity of the figures and the probity of HMG.
‘Things Are Getting Better, Comrades!! ‘
(And Uncle Joe will be calling round to fix your boiler sometime tomorrow morning. Put the samovar on for him……)
This forum is perhaps not ment to be the place to deal with what is happening inside of us as things get worse. But there is some bad stuff going on out there now and it does affect me. I even had some bad dreams last night.
A terror group in Libya have boiled three men alive. The picture was awful. They were tied like pigs and their skin was boiled red. It’s a sick thing to do.
Playing football with someones head is so yesteryear.
The most important thing – because we are toast financially – is perhaps to find a philosophy that is helpful in dealing with the mounting irrationality and criminality, so as not to go mad oneself.
Or you could just go stark raving mad and entertain the neighbours.
I wonder what they tasted like.
To be fair…
Things are not getting worse.
They’ve always been really, really bad for most living things.
Eaten alive or death by horrible disease is the norm.
To be restored after a temporary glitch due to cheap fossil fuel consumption.
ISIS winning strategy was to go into a village and slaughter every man, woman, child, cat and dog. They didn’t have to ask the village.
Trump has been dealing with the mob all his life. Trump just wiped out Mosul and Raqqa.
Vlad is the Don of Russia. He has blood on his hands. He has already been hailed in the glorious title of Fuhrer.
Trump is cleaning out MS-13 to make him the Don.
Trump will one day be glorified by the MAGA crowd during an excited Trump rally when they raise their hands and shout: Sieg Heil!
I feel like a furry chicken under the wings of Big Mutti Merkel.
ISIS didn’t have to ask the NEXT village.
Village?
Big deal… we wipe out entire countries… we introduce then to stone age living
I was speaking with a hockey buddy who rents out high end properties to tourists in Queenstown…
He said the Chinese frequently will only rent out expensive properties — the higher the price the better…
He said recently that one family left behind about $600 of the best meat you can buy… (he of course took it home)….
His comment — where is all this money coming from?
And the answer is:
Prior to 2008, Chinese policy on debt had been fairly conservative. What we’ve witnessed since has been a truly breath-taking change. Stated at 2017 values, Chinese GDP and debt in 2007 were, respectively, RMB 37 trillion and RMB 60tn. Today, those numbers are RMB 81tn (a 120% rise in GDP) and RMB 251tn (a 320% leap in debt). Whilst GDP has expanded by RMB 44tn, debt has soared by RMB 191tn.
Even more strikingly, the rate at which China has been borrowing over the last decade has averaged RMB 19tn annually. GDP has averaged RMB 60tn over the same period.
So, on average, China borrows close to 32% of GDP each year.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/130-grand-bargains-dangerous-choices/
That article really lays bare just how desperate the situation is …
it’s not surprising that China is also creating huge amounts of money on their central bank computers…
what could possibly go wrong?
We live in the era of money on demand: after the 2008 crash, it became obvious, that the profits are being damaged and that money has to be constantly injected into the economy.
There is no supply and demand anymore; only demand is left.
To get demand, mostly you need to get adequate wages to non-elite workers. The world economy has increasingly been unable to do this. This is why demand cannot bring prices up to what producers need, for any sustained period. They are trying to rise now, but whether the price rise can stick is doubtful.
So I think that the problem is lack of demand as much as lack of supply.
Also, a lot of the debt, in China and elsewhere indirectly goes into paying workers. This is one major way it acts to create demand. The debt can also be used directly to purchase resources (steel, coal, etc). Doing this tends to bid up prices, and thus encourage suppliers to increasing supplies. So increased debt tends to increase both demand and supply.
Money was never created by “profit.” New money always had to be injected into the economy to allow it to grow. Only other options is for prices to decrease, making investment and production hard.
Since the end of the gold standard the government “prints” all money. How much they print, who gets it, and under what terms it is distributed can shape results – such as full employment vs asset inflation.
The problem is returns on capital – or the easiest way to say it is that the cost of all inputs is increasing because of diminishing marginal returns – requiring more energy intensive capital per unit of growth.
Not a reason to print less – all the reason to print moar!
How much they print, who gets it, and under what terms it is distributed can shape results
POWER!
Many people are affraid of the dictatorship by some leaders, but, in fact, there is no dictatorship of the people, but there is a growing dictatorship of the machines we must rely on more and more.
If you do not charge your smartphone, you are lost.
If you do not log into a social network, you are lost.
If you do not react to the automatically generated message in the name of the state authorities, you are lost.
If you do not replace your broken home appliance, you are lost.
If you do not repair your clogged or broken pipeline or an interrupted electric cable, you are lost.
If you do not switch on your computer or TV to get the needed or latest information, you are lost.
It is the machines that control us, not the people. Our existence is more and more dependent on the machines and they are the real dictators. The people on the billboards, or the names on the nameplates are just trained actors representing the system.
We are increasingly unable to repair individual items, we increasingly need to replace one module for another module, produced by computer and robots, as there are no humans able to do that.
In reality, is the machines that are behind the scenes, that we are growingly dependent on. They secure our energy supply. When they are out of order or unable meet the goals, then we are really doomed.
same thing can also said about agriculture before industrial civilization
https://imgur.com/a/idgglLg
I had him as one of my Profs in a Future Of Man class in 1970 at UCSB.
But with the ageing populations, the machines lose control over people… When we are aging, it seems to us that the clocks are running faster and faster…
The ageing is the process of slowing, so you simply can not make slowing populations run faster…
If the machines break and we are not able to fix them, we are “Up a creek, without a paddle,” as the saying goes.
time to get into the paddlemaking business i guess
https://twitter.com/BloombergQuint/status/1013957721308127233
over $74…
I tell ya, 100 days from now, its going to be $200+…
I’m betting on a plus– real time.
200? Don’t think so——
today in Venezuela, protests about lack of clean water:
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/07/02/venezuela-further-protests-country-begins-running-water/
so some of them still have the (food) energy to protest…
We can see how people die of disease. If the only water to drink is polluted, diseases spread quickly. Boiling the water is an option, but this takes fuel.
Deforestation was a huge problem pre coal… and now we have millions of high quality sharp steel axes… and 7.8 billion people
It’s still a huge problem – we are cutting down an area of forest equivalent to the size of Italy each year.
Wow! Impressive.
And we’re replanting how much?
Brietbart?
Isn’t that comedy, or fantasy?
Creative writing, but not of 101 passing?
Breitbart is Zioniminism Central. Israeli outpost.
Looked like they still have many pounds to lose.
The limits to growth… are here
In U.S., Record-Low 47% Extremely Proud to Be Americans
https://news.gallup.com/poll/236420/record-low-extremely-proud-americans.aspx
and who is proud to be a human being?
I say no…
The thought of being human unsettles me.
I’d rather be something else but what else could I be?
nothing(ness)…
I think I’d want to be a falcon… or an eagle…. or perhaps my dog… she has such a wonderful life… … never goes hungry… gets to chase rabbits… sleeps in a nice warm bed… gets scratched whenever she wants… we don’t beat her… totally stress free life.
I have hopes of evolving into a true human being one day……
Are you not a god… in a human body?
Jesus Christ 2.0?
As opposed to the non true human being that you are today?
Me I’m a trans-dimensional conciousness choosing to have an experience in the 3D realm until my credits run out. I’m going to try 5D next. I’ve heard it’s wild!
It’s that high?
Collapse haiku
The light is gone
Fireflies
shine brighter
I like it!
cool…
BAU the tree
has grown tall with energy
then bigger the crash
Excellent JMS. And in your native tongue, please?
In my native language it would be something like this:
Haiku do colapso
Foram-se as luzes
Os pirilampos
brilham mais
Companies buying back their own shares is the only thing keeping the stock market afloat right now
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/corporate-buybacks-are-the-only-thing-keeping-the-stock-market-afloat.html
YES. I looked at one company EPS flat OK. But number of share down by 40%!!!!
The companies need to keep alive the illusion of growth in earnings, even if it is simply because of share buybacks.
The historical transience of capital
The downward trend in the rate of profit since XIX century
The downward trend of the rate of profit, its empirical confirmation, highlights the historically limited nature of capitalist production. If the rate of profit marks the vitality of the system, the logical conclusion is that it approaches further to an endpoint..
Grossmann´s quote:
“as these countertendencies are gradually enmasculated, the antagonisms of world capitalism become progressively sharper and the tendency towards breakdown increasingly approaches its final form of an absolute collapse.”
https://www.scribd.com/document/382867288/The-Historical-Transience-of-Capital-the-Downward-Trend-in-the-Rate-of-Profit-Since-XIX-Century
https://imgur.com/a/C6iyMKB
I am having a hard time believing the findings, especially fro the 1869 to 1911 period. The only way they would seem to make sense is if there was very little actually invested in these early years. The percentage return was high, but the dollar return was not. Perhaps most funds remained with the individual small farmer. They were not making much in the way of investments. It was a few businesses that gathered these very high returns.
Investments used coal in this period, I expect.
The supply of energy used by the populations, e.g. first coal, then oil, then nuclear, then natural gas, varies around the world and its timing is different arround the world, so this chart is a nonsense. Whose profit is the world rate of profit? The companies, the individuals, the states?
This is a chart of GDP per capita during the period that I tend to believe.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/productivity-ind-revolutions8-17a-charles-hugh-smith.png
We know that world population growth was very low in the early periods, because energy consumption growth was low. The world could not afford very many more people. So GDP growth was low in early periods. The high profitability seems bizarre.
My uncle was short, thinn and mean. I once stoped him from a fight…he almost broke my bones.
He once took me to Leningrad. I remember vodka, hookers drinking vodka from my navel, fist fights with the mob…and losing…waking up in different beds with different woman and wondering who I am. Russia was really tough.
I remember my uncle dropping me off at home and looking at me with despise: You f**king p*ssy!
that sounds more like Muellers dossier on the don
Let me recount a story about a very mean person ….
My father’s older brother was 6ft tall and 230lbs… my father used to tell us how when he was young he would go out and look for fights… sometimes taking on more than one opponent at a time…
He also used to drink an entire 40 ounce bottle of whiskey (first mixing with water then hitting it straight) … if the Montreal Canadiens won the Saturday night hockey game you would want to steer well clear of him … (he despised the French) … he’d beat the living sh it out of his wife and two boys…. and I mean beat… as in broken bones beat… which I saw on a couple of occasions including one Christmas eve
I remember going fishing with him — once – and never again — rip roaring drunk by the time we got to the bush — and someone else had set up in the spot he wanted… he roared at them with profanity and was ready to kill kill kill…. I took out a book of poetry to him to get him to calm down….
People like this belong in a prison cell… permanently…. I am not sure how he avoided that….
theres some krazy uncles on this forum
Or in a mental hospital
He was a shift boss at a mine … that no doubt kept him from a really bad outcome.
My concern is that we would encounter a lot more such people once TSHTF. All around us.
Yes… there are loads of people like him …. and much worse… ready to tear into the herd….
DPs do not stand a chance.
I am not impressed with those who down entire bottles of whiskey. Watched my nephew die of liver poisoning. Not a pleasant way to go.
He shut all this down in his 50’s /// and lived well into his 70’s….
My uncle did some jail time after trying to kill his second wife when she filed for divorce.
I have never seen him in so good spirits as during those years. He seemed to enjoy the time with the boys.
Occasionally he got out on vacation. He was dressed as a gangster in high heels (this was in the 70’s). He even got him self a tattoo of a naked woman on his arm.
He later married a Russian woman who somehow could deal with his temper…actually I saw pride in her eyes when his verbal rage was directed towards her.
These are arguments in favour of death squads…
While on this topic… we have these biker gangs in NZ…. the mongrel mob etc… they are known criminals … and they walk around with their leather jackets and patches that say ‘I am a criminal’
So why don’t the police harass the f789 out of them … make their lives miserable … follow them.. or better still…
Why not make it legal to run the f789ers and their bikes off the road at high speed… terrorizing the terrorizers?
F789 the Green Party … I am going to form a new party here in NZ … Kill the Bikers Party…
I bet I’d go a long way on that ticket…
Again from the comments section;
‘According to J.S. Mill, value isn’t lost when a bubble bursts – that’s simply the recognition of value already destroyed by malinvestment. So, if cheap money has created bubbles all over the place, value is already being destroyed at huge scale – we just haven’t recognised it yet.’
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/130-grand-bargains-dangerous-choices/#comments
I am trying to think this through. Maybe the commenter is thinking about situations such as the many purchasers of Tesla stock. The value has been bid up to a very high value. The shares never have had that value, so the situation seems to be as the commenter described.
I can think of another situation that is different. The Chinese government encouraged the building of condominium apartment homes for many of the Chinese people, thinking that their earnings would be sufficient to pay for them. Their earnings really are not, in a lot of cases, especially if the economy slows at all. The investment has been beneficial in many ways for the Chinese people–they now have homes in high rise buildings with electricity, and their own private flush toilets, instead of shared out-house type arrangements. They can have air conditioning, if they can afford it. As long as the Chinese economy “stays together,” the bubble doesn’t pop. But if it does, it seems like the whole economy goes down, because these apartments are such a big piece of the total. The lack of value of these apartment building perhaps should have been recognized years ago, but the investment still has had value to those living in the apartments for a long time. Perhaps the question is “value to whom?” The apartments have value to the owner; it is the banks holding the mortgages that are likely to see the effect of the debt bubble pop. I can agree; this lack of value should have been recognized long ago, but it is needed to keep the economy operating, I expect.
” So, if cheap money has created bubbles all over the place…”
so really, we have “money” that was created in too large of a proportion to the value of all assets…
so the price of these assets goes up…
but not the real value…
because it was just “money” created out of nothing that has pushed the asset prices higher…
the bubble pops, and the reality sinks in that the $300K house was really only worth $200K…
I don’t see this as “value destroyed”…
it’s just that an asset in a bubble has a monetary value that is inflated by the investment of “money” which is just created out of nothing…
a good portion of the asset price is destroyed when the bubble pops…
Climbing back down the energy ladder from emporer oil to king coal.
‘Chinese energy consumption has increased by 46% over a decade (and it’s far from coincidental that prosperity has expanded by a similar 41% over the same period). But sustaining this critical growth-driver is looking distinctly problematic. Whilst China will seek out every oil supply deal it can get its hands on – helped, perhaps, by the mutual hostility between Washington and Tehran – switching towards coal seems the favoured strategy. America, too, may re-emphasise coal. In neither instance, though, is coal likely to be an effective fix.’
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
I found the paragraph you quoted, but I never found any explanation as to why Tim Morgan didn’t think it would work. I am not convinced that China ever left coal as its primary energy source. EV cars are clearly another way to use coal. Their public transportation is nearly all coal powered. The US is a long way away from coal, so I can see his point.
Why do all the experts say that “growth” is needed to maintain the economy and this growth is dependent on maintaining the birth rate of high IQ population, which as I understand, is declining in qestern countries, if not over the entire globe.
Although in some areas like Medicine, nes technologies require
More specialization, for instance the MRI requires more tech to run them and service them. But in other industries like manufacturing, robotics should cause a net decrease in labor.True, you have train technicians to design, build, and servicd them, but result should be a net loss of workers.
Instead of the mantra of needing to increase the high IQ birth rates, why can’t people look at the other side of the coin? Simply clean up the debt and economic dependence on future cost shifting and then an economy doesn’t have to keep on this ever accerelating debt hamster wheel. Of course, it is too late for that, but I just wish these economist would get out of their myopic mind set that an economy can exist in a make believe world where energy and raw material are endless.
And for who survives the “Crunch, “the term used by James Wesley, Rawles in his book “Patriots a Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse, “to descibe the collapse, I think who survives will be quite variable and unpredictable , except for those who live in and are confined in big urban centers who I think have a poorer chance. Some groups would do ok, but some whom you would think would be well prepared won’t make it and then there some whom you would think absolutely wouldn’t have chance some how make it. The Tiaga family who survived in the Russian mountains for decades after fleeing the communist regime. WWII passed them by!
And the Tiaga family will die out. The last one is in her 60s.
The truth is, those who are closest to power are the most likely to live. Always was,always will.
The Easter Island civilization did not die until 1860s when the Peruvial slavers kidnapped the able-bodied population, 260 years after the last Moai was built.
And, the survivors were all descended from the elites of 1600s, again when the last Moai was erected.
Tell that to the French. The elite was guillotined out of existence.
(I did have a De Burbon friend, so some did survive)
Growth certainly is needed to maintain the economy; without growth, it collapses.
But this doesn’t have anything to do with high IQs of individuals, as far as I can see. It has to do with a growing supply of cheap energy.
This is just for the sake of a little intellectual indulgence. Do you think there may exist hitherto unknown forces of nature — or of the supernatural — which can enable us actually to transcend or be liberated from the normal limitations that define our physical existence? By enabling us to go on without food, for instance?
https://paranormalscholar.com/breatharianism/
Poppycock. I don’t believe a word of it.
i’m willing to try this, until lunchtime.
I gave up and had a snack. I thought about it some more and it might be possible. I need to get ready for dinner so I’m going to think about it some more after dinner.
There is a force that can liberate us from the normal limitations of our *mental* existence, as in our selfish desires and drives. It’s called the conscious mind, and it’s tucked away safely inside our skulls. To unlock its full potential we have to value reason above everything else at all times, even if that entails misery and the scorn of others.
In DelusiSTAN… anything is possible
https://imgur.com/a/FJThH9A
‘Bodies can’t take it’: Fentanyl involved in nearly half of drug overdose deaths
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/07/02/fentanyl-more-deadly-than-heroin-involved-nearly-50-percent-overdoses/731614002/?csp=chromepush
Libyan oil production nearly ground to a halt
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/8694b489-59ed-30ba-b9c1-338b4a607e2a/ss_libyan-oil-production-nearly.html
Trump Wants Oil That the World Doesn’t Have to Give
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-wants-oil-that-the-world-doesn-t-have-to-give/ar-AAzsIy3?ocid=ob-tw-enus-677
On the topic of trade wars for fun and profit:
“Revisionist historians assert that the 1930s Smoot-Hawley tariffs caused the Great Depression. They didn’t. However, today’s tariffs WILL be the catalyst for the impending depression. The difference being that the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 came AFTER the market crashed in 1929, whereas today’s tariffs are coming prior to a crash. As we see via today’s markets (currency, credit, stocks), Trump’s “fun and easy” trade war is adding substantial instability to the late cycle global economy, having already turned the “global synchronized recovery” into a global synchronized slowdown…
And yet, as batsh*t crazy as Trump is, he still manages to be smarter than the rest of the Republican party, which is quite something to realize. Trump knows that *Free* trade is a farce and the only country that actually ever had free trade was the U.S. Which means that there never really was such a thing as free trade, since it was all one-sided. Prior to 1980, the U.S. never believed in Free Trade either, which is how the U.S. amassed its gold reserves – via trade surpluses. So now Trump is threatening punitive tariffs if other countries don’t drop all of their tariffs. It won’t work.”
http://ponziworld.blogspot.com/2018/06/globalization-is-imploding-in-real-time.html
Flat per capita energy consumption caused the Great Depression; it is causing our current problems. Tariffs are a symptom. The system will collapse without rising per capita energy consumption.
We’re seeing the greatest asset inflation bubble in 20 years, fund manager warns
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/were-seeing-the-greatest-asset-inflation-bubble-in-20-years.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain
Today’s assets are tomorrow’s junk.
The problem or the trick to perform if you will, is to move into speculative assets in massive allocation (leverage or using other’s funds is a plus), that gain immediately offload onto 2nd, 3rd wave of also runs and get quick rich wannabees, then sell and diversify into wide pallet of assets. That’s why are some of the smarter “perennial” rich able to *transfer wealth through generations, centuries, revolutions, regime changes and what have you..
*skipping discussion of the other important a/social skills for this particular debate now
“Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has won the Mexican presidential election:
“Lopez Obrador, better known by his initials AMLO, will be the first candidate from the left-wing political coalition Juntos Haremos Historia to hold the Mexican presidency after Sunday’s election.
“A late-night official quick count from electoral authorities forecast that Mr Lopez Obrador would win with between 53 and 53.8 per cent of the vote, a remarkable margin not seen in the country for many years…
“Lopez Obrador, 64, has fiercely opposed Trump’s policies on immigration, saying it is ‘a human right’ for people around the world to be able to resettle in America…”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5907867/Andres-Manuel-Lopez-Obrador-wins-Mexican-presidential-election.html
“German interior minister Horst Seehofer offered his resignation to party colleagues late on Sunday, escalating a row over migration with chancellor Angela Merkel that threatens her fragile government.
“Mr Seehofer said he was ready to step down as minister and as chair of his Christian Social Union (CSU) at a meeting where his party’s leadership was discussing whether to accept immigration proposals Ms Merkel brought back from Brussels last week.
“This latest development casts the future of the chancellor’s government into yet more uncertainty…”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-interior-minister-horst-seehofer-resigns-angela-merkel-immigration-a8426026.html
More and more, countries seem to be bifurcating into those with far left and far right leadership, depending on which looks better from the voters perspective. The middle tends to lose out.
I would expect the middle ground to loose out when a group is desperate. In the case of desperation the means to achieve the ends is usually extreme.
Although both political polarities will always flatter themselves they hold the moral high ground, historically it has been the tension between the two that has been the bedrock of a healthy democracy (or republic).
Unfortunately, as we move further into this era of physically diminishing returns, that tension becomes too great and the political sphere turns pathological as voters correctly intuit that their economic prospects are constrained and/or threatened, and that the distribution of wealth is becoming increasingly inequitable. It will only get uglier from here on in, sadly.
Well, there is nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos, according to one of my Texas friends.
+++++++
“Debt at UK listed companies has soared to hit a record high of £390bn as companies have scrambled to maintain dividend payouts in response to shareholder demand despite weak profitability. UK plc’s net debt has surpassed pre-crisis levels to reach £390.7bn in the 2017-18 financial year, according to analysis from Link Asset Services, which assessed balance sheet data from 440 UK listed companies…
BP and Royal Dutch Shell are among the most heavily indebted companies, accounting for £1 in every £7 of all UK plc’s net debts in the latest financial year.
https://www.ft.com/content/90672e50-7d0e-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d
Historically, pension plans have been heavily invested in oil company stocks, because of the high dividends that they have been able to pay. (This has been one way that they have been able to distribute their energy surplus.) Dropping the dividend would be a big blow to pension plans.
But if oil prices are too low for oil companies to maintain their operations without borrowing, it indicates that the economy cannot really afford high-priced oil. Companies need to borrow (claim that they can provide low-priced oil in the future), in order to fund future dividends.
“Overseas investors have pulled out nearly Rs 48,000 crore from Indian capital markets in the first six months of 2018, making it the steepest outflow in a decade, following high crude oil prices and trade war worries.”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/fpis-outflow-hits-10-year-high-at-rs-48000-crore-in-h1-2018/articleshow/64813079.cms
“India’s top banking institution Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released data showing that India’s external debt crossed half a trillion ($529 billion) by the end of March 2018. India’s foreign currency debt grew by 12.4 percent as compared to the figure same time last year.”
http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/424919/India-s-external-debt-crosses-half-a-trillion-mark-rupee-depreciates
Oops! Forecasts are for the US dollar to rise ever-higher, and the US sells QE securities and raises short term interest rates. This will make India’s problems much worse.
“Increasing concern about the effect of a possible trade war between the US and China has forced investors in equity funds to head for the exits. Investors pulled $29.7bn from equity funds in the week ended June 27, the second largest weekly outflow since the beginning of the millennium, according to data provider EPFR.”
https://www.ft.com/content/70d21778-7938-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d
“A host of large bond funds from companies such as Pictet Asset Management, Pimco and Allianz Global Investors have been butchered in the rout of emerging markets. Plunging returns and large outflows have caused some funds to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, with one AllianzGI fund shrinking by two-thirds this year.
“Pictet’s $5.6bn Global Emerging Debt fund suffered $809m of outflows in May alone and Pimco’s $2.5bn GIS Emerging Local Bond fund bled $596m the same month, according to Morningstar, the data provider.”
https://www.ft.com/content/5c240f6c-7b94-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475
If energy is in short supply, globalization has to scale back. Trade wars are a likely way of achieving this result.
Trades wars seem to be more a symptom of scaling back globalisation, than a means to it.
That is probably a good way of putting the situation.
All the investors are really just parasites feeding on a dying carcass. It is hard to make long term profits on a system that is no longer viable.
Right! I was trying to imagine where as an investor I would currently feel comfortable investing and I couldn’t think of a single area of the global economy that inspires confidence – no equity or asset or bond or currency looks like a really safe bet for a reasonable return (assuming the totality hang together for a while longer). If I had to stick money somewhere it’d be in a vulture hedge fund, distressed debt hedge fund or similar at this point.
It seems that investing time and money into certain ventures used to spur job growth and wage increases and generally improving standards of living. Now it seems investors are just looking for any kind of short term quick financial gain no matter how destructive or devious they are.
Parasites. Vultures. Maggots.
Sounds about right.
But someone has to pick the bones clean when the rot sets in.
“Pour yourself a stiff one, the party’s nearly over. That was the message issued by the International Monetary Fund last week.
“The global economic momentum enjoyed in recent times is set to fade. The deadline? Probably the end of 2019.
“However, even that timeline has been called into question by the global lender of last resort. Risks termed by the fund as “clouds” on the horizon amid “sunshine” are now “closer than we had anticipated”, according to deputy director Mitsuhiro Furusawa…
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/world-s-economic-party-over-as-warning-signs-flash-red-20180702-p4zoy1.html
“Asian exporters lost momentum last month even before tariffs on U.S. and Chinese goods kick in this week, pressuring regional factory activity in a worrying sign the Trump administration’s “America First” protectionist policies could derail global growth.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-economy/asian-factories-lose-momentum-even-before-trumps-tariffs-kick-in-idUSKBN1JS0JE
“China looks more exposed to the impact of worsening trade relations with the US than just a few months ago. Economic data for May came in below expectations, and the slide looks likely to continue in June.”
https://businessmirror.com.ph/beijing-digs-in-on-trade-as-tariffs-near-economy-deepens-slowdown/
“Canada began imposing tariffs Sunday on US$12.6 billion in US goods as retaliation for the Trump administration’s new taxes on steel and aluminium imported to the United States.”
http://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2153346/shots-fired-us-canada-trade-war-tariffs-us126
Derail global growth, good. It will bring jobs back to America.
Unfortunately those jobs require energy and resources to sustain. Just last week Trump asked the Saudis to another 2 million barrels per day of oil production increases. We just can’t keep IC going forever.
you can’t have long term sustainable productive employment without burning cheap surplus fuel
Not to worry Norman. I’m working on it as we speak. You should see my basement! I’m almost done. Basically, it’s a magic box. You put Hopium in one end and get cheap, clean energy out the other. One in every home! That’s my slogan.
People can hope. That is what all of the actions are about.
Wrong wrong wrong
Wrong
Wrong wrong
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong
Wrongwrongwrongwrong
https://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Wrong-landscape.jpg
At this stage in the game I do agree that there was absolutely no need for these policies. The economy has been unabashedly global for such a long time that any pretense that reversal to times gone by was going to somehow right the ship is pure folly.
The only reason for any of this is so that when things go south – which they know is inevitable – this admin can take the blame.
And why would the controllers want this particular admin to take the blame for the next big crash? Supposedly, it would be the nail in the coffin for american style capitalism and once and for all chinese style authoritarian gov could be rolled out for the whole world.
But wait… to have this as a plan along with an unchained United Nations there would have to be a strong belief in the continuation of BAU or at least some radically hacked version of it.
For example, if the controllers had alternative systems waiting in the wings to be deployed as and when the current system crashes, how long would it take a new economic/ energy/ gov/ population control system to emerge?
I would say at least 30 years.
I’m assuming that the minute we hear the collapse warning sirens everyone will be running to the banks. It doesn’t matter that it’s next year or in ten years. The effect will be the same. Total chaos.
So if the controllers wanted to replace the current system with a new experimental one that also would allow them to sit on top for a while longer… why not crash and deploy sooner?
I mean… surely the current system has been milked until it’s raw. If that was the intention.
Or maybe there really is no door number four… we went off the cliff long ago… there is no redemption… no extra time… and the controllers are a figment of our collective halucination.
I’d like to shine a ray of light … into an otherwise dark valley…..
Nations around the world are building coal-fired power plants at a faster rate than those being decommissioned.
The plants under construction reflect a 10 per cent increase to the total global generation powered by coal.
New electricity generated by coal-fired plants will outstrip that which was retired in 2015 and 2016 by a factor of five.
The parliamentary library paper showed that 321 gigawatts of new generation would come from coal plants under construction globally. In 2015 and 2016, total coal generation retired amounted to 64 gigawatts.
Worldwide, the paper showed, there were currently 5973 units of coal-fired power generation. There are often multiple power-generating units within a power station. The number of new units under construction totalled 621.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/world-building-new-coal-plants-faster-than-it-shuts-them/news-story/6b39ea6a51636ba074c0ad86aa5f05f0
oh fast eddy you got misinformation
the amount of new coal power plants in construction is not 621
but 267 coal stations under construction
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/16/world-going-slow-coal-misinformation-distorting-facts.
Meaningless distinction… 621 coal units being built. The world will go back to coal one day.
I am surprised the Guardian did not just turn the numbers around 126… then ask for more money because their campaign to end coal is gaining traction
I notice you have referenced the Bible of Green … The Guardian…. that’s the one that asks me to donate after each article because they are fighting gg www etc…. and they must create the perception of progress….
I’ll take my sources… unlike the Guardian they have no agenda…
The parliamentary library paper showed that 321 gigawatts of new generation would come from coal plants under construction globally. In 2015 and 2016, total coal generation retired amounted to 64 gigawatts.
Worldwide, the paper showed, there were currently 5973 units of coal-fired power generation. There are often multiple power-generating units within a power station. The number of new units under construction totalled 621.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/world-building-new-coal-plants-faster-than-it-shuts-them/news-story/6b39ea6a51636ba074c0ad86aa5f05f0
To be honest… I now immediately discard anything remotely linking to The Guardian, The NYT, etc etc etc… there’s a very long list.
Much of the so called alternative media is joining that list too.
And I’m apolitical.
But there’s only so much left wing propaganda (or right wing for that matter) one can stomach before throwing up. We have been so systematically brainwashed in all areas of life that it’s actually very rare that anyone has an original thought anymore. Most people just parrot whatever 2 minute soundbites they have been fed so they can sound clever in front of others but have never researched anything they’re twittering about in depth. It’s a shame because they are usually very intelligent people or at least like to think they are until you point something out that makes them question their beliefs and biases.
The usual excuse is that they don’t have the time to look into things more deeply but of course that’s hogwash. The real reason is that they are terrified of the truth, of how it would turn their whole lives upside down. They are extremely comfortable where they are and will punch you in the nose if you nudge them too far out of their comfort zone.
These people – so sure of themselves – don’t seek the truth. About anything. They seek comfort and gravitate towards it while they are able to find it.
Once the comfortable facade evaporates they will be left in a stew of cognitive dissonance and be rendered entirely disfunctional. In fact, many don’t make it that far. Their whole world collapsed the minute you know who became president. They’re already collectively on megadoses of Ambien.
And people here should know better. It doesn’t matter which individuals you place at the helm from here on. They will all be desperately bailing water along with everyone else.
But back to reality.
I prefer to look at where we are thusly… still about 98% of energy use in the world is provided by fossil fuels.
We are completely and utterly still dependent on these fuels and will be until the rug is pulled out from under us.
That’s why the whole world is scrambling to grab what’s left. They all know the situation we’re in even if they don’t explicitly say it.
I even did the whole doubling thing about every two years in favor of renewables which on the surface would lead to 100% renewable energy by 2030!
But of course there’s a lot more to it than that.
The same could have been said about nuclear power 50 years ago. And yet that is also been sidelined much to the chagrain of the elite engineers. They thought they would be powering the world by now. Energy to cheap to meter! How did that work out?
If we’d just burned the cheap coal and managed pollution as best as possible for the past fifty years instead of struggling to add 1 or 2% renewables wouldn’t we actually have been better off?
Think about it… the millions and millions of pages written since The Club of Rome and Limits to Growth decided that CO2 – a trace gas – was pure evil and had to be controlled and the way to achieve this nirvana was by rolling out ridiculously inefficient and unreliable renewables.
What utter asshattery.
Hmmm… we could have done without all of that and without all of the self righteous cult like thumping from the green brigade for so long.
Since none of it made any difference whatsoever.
And now I can’t even get a plastic bag at my local grocers.
Well said… are you new to FW and if so where did you come from … or are you a reincarnation?
As for the MSM and most alternative media … it is mostly useless…. ZH has a few useful bits and pieces…. FW is the best source of info on the planet….nothing else comes close
I am a Reincarnation!
I’m sure Gail can see the connection between all my past schizophrenic iterations!
What I will add is that with every reincarnation I have advanced to the next stage of grief! I’m a proud acceptance level club member now so I think I’m done with the reinvention.
Zerohedge may not be perfect but it’s the only place I care to scan a few headlines. I just don’t want to get sucked into the black hole that is the comment section any more. I much pefer to come here and skim the stream of posts with excellent quality links.
I will confess to scanning Next Big Future occasionally because it’s a laff to witness really smart people speculate about space elevators, moon bases and such. It just tickles my b*lls!
I only mention suspicion around a fair swathe of alternative media after seeing substantial evidence that they are in cohoots with the “elders” and zionisimism nism. In effect, that would mean that the somewhat informed among us are being shepherded into a false sense of salvation.
If what we know to be true is true… then what the … is going on. Somebody somewhere knows more about this than meets the eye. They have all the pieces to the puzzle. And that takes us all the way back to… if they have all the pieces to the puzzle, they also have solutions that are being held back to be revealed when SHTF. Imagine the adulation after having rescued half of humanity from certain death. It’s a play that I would want to have in my playbook. A trump card so to speak.
The reason I now dismiss such ideas boils down to economies of scale. 1 billion selected for continuation of life along with GRIN technologies doesn’t make sense any longer. I don’t know. I’m not good with math. How much pop do you need to sustain microchip development and associated materials aquisition while maintaining costs below a certain threshold?
Yes, I noticed your previous incarnation under a different posting name.
Now we just need for Jan to see the light… sell the farm… change his handle… and regale us with tales of a End of the World Global Debauchery Tour. Kicking off in Bangkok ….
anti-establishment candidate is the winner in Mexico:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-elections-center-disgust-corruption-violence-040938821.html
unfortunately the Mexican people are going to have a rude awakening when they find out that there is no political solution for their economic problems…
Mexico, one of the largest suppliers of oil to the United States, has a big problem: Its production of crude is falling fast.
EIA says Mexico will have to start importing oil by 2020.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/17/news/economy/mexico-oil/index.html
A bit of spin there… ‘if they allowed foreign companies in production would rise’ — bull sh it …
As of now… I just see another domino teetering on its edge… another country in the queue waiting to implode.
Interesting to see who or what manages to hold on to the bitter end as the veil of civilisation slides and reveals the ugliness that lies beneath…
Does anyone recall celebrities making a stand when this happened…. it went on for quite a long time so they would have had a lot of opportunities to protest….
https://youtu.be/omnskeu-puE
FE, thank you for remembering. Yes, this was and remains an epic demonstration of how the ruling class views human life.
Technically … they are right…. we crush bugs without a second thought…. we poison rats because they are destructive….
Those making these decisions have simply rejected the hypocrisy….
I have read that there are more humans than rats on the planet….
As you know I am all in favor of the big cull 99.9% Just prefer to start with Madeleine and her kind.
Now you are getting with the program!
Bug squashing needs to be done strategically… you have to identify which bugs to squash … there are 7.8 B of them….
That’s what Maddy would say.
You would squash her… to no benefit… she would squash 500k children … and we get cheap oil…
You could say that both India and China have a population surplus of one billion… each!
And after squashing those 2 billion both countries would still have the largest national populations on the planet!
Imagine adding a billion people to america right now… A billion more potential consumers? Or a billion useless eaters scraping about in the dirt waiting for the signal to violently restore balance?
Also, I’ve heard it often but it’s entirely unfair to compare these national population numbers with those of africa or europe. There are no nation states in these regions that come anywhere near to the absurdity we see in china and india.
There has been some pretty absurd population growth from smaller bases, particularly in oil exporting nations. Saudi Arabia and Yemen come to mind, but I am sure that there are many others. If tax revenue is used to pump income back to the population and if oil prices are set at artificially low levels, it can very much stimulate temporary population growth.
every species has evolved to reproduce itself, and not only that—enjoy the act of doing so
i should know, in a previous life i was a boy spider—i died to further my genetic footprints—-all 8 of them
my first date was the best—i promise
Nigeria also. They had a fertility rate of 5.59 births per woman in 2015. The UN released a report recently projecting that Nigeria would become the world’s third most populous nation by 2050.
If we squash the 0.1% – and get over the guilty pleasure of doing so – wouldn’t another 0.1% – potentially worse than the last lot – rise to fill that spot?
It certainly would be worth considering. And you wouldn’t actually have to squash them. Just round them up. A few football stadiums would probably be enough to contain them.
And you wouldn’t need as many football stadiums anyway because the masses would be liberated from the patronising bread and circuses tactics of the ruling elite.
Who knows… clearing the air like this could even open up a novel approach to banking and all other such affairs… y’know without the usury and the extortion called taxation and other daylight robbery.
We can all dream but something tells me we are at this juncture because it had to be. The organism went supernova like shaking a coke bottle and spraying the contents everywhere. There’s no controlling it. Or thinking there’s a better way. It’s too late for that. Just take cover and brace for impact.
https://sidoxia.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/whack-a-mole.jpg
100% tax on all ownership over 100 million dollars work for me. You make it we take it, so calm down and enjoy life, go to the beach.
They don’t care about true atrocities. All that matters is they want to hate Trump for imagined atrocities.
if my existence depended on something being run by a 4x bankrupt, proven liar and all round misogynist molester in charge of the world’s most powerful military,
I’d be worried
how bout you?
Can he possibly be worse than Obama?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/81/88/1d/81881ddf6731e57ad8dc83a93686cb4e.jpg
(of course POTUS only cuts the ribbon on each war… he is a minion)
I am quaking… actually, Trump is still a bit of a mystery. A documented member of the “system”, whom I expected to start a war by now, at least a shooting war. But his actions …well I like many of them.
As for your issues with him, a bit juvenile Norman.
4x bankrupt…. bankruptcy laws exist for a reason. They have apparently been on the books for quite a while.
“Proven liar” this is choice…..includes most politicians
“All around misogynist molester”….quite the claim. Yea….multiple divorces, a rich man making the most of his position with women. You make it Sound really like it never happened before. Hoe about Bill Clinton. So….we did not elect a preacher to man our pulpit. We elected a leader, and compared to previous tenants of the whitehouse, he is leading in quite an effective manner.
“In charge of the worlds most powerful military”. I assume this is a dig that he will start a reckless war. This was/is one of my concerns. But, I think all our latest presidents for 20 yrs or so have been idiots or plain psychopaths….so nothing new there.
and when (not if) the economy collapses and he is forced to assume emergency powers (temporarily of course) to put down widespread civil disorder, with the jesusfreaks backing him up, convincing him he’s gods messenger
what then?
What then? Collapse.
Greg and Jesse
i agree with you
but what you missed is the bit between the don in absolute denial, along with his prayerhappies—-and the final total collapse in real terms
thats the part which is going to get very unpleasant indeed, and that could struggle on for 10 years or more—if you can’t see that, check venezueala
collapse will not arrive ”tomorrow”
A true concern…martial law. Could and would be done by any President. Could be dicey.
My personal take is that they, the feds, cannot control everything they “think” they can control. For instance, a nationwide drivers strike would shut the nation down, as happened in Brazil recently. And other “types” of resistance, …could happen.
I do fear that Trump, could be the type to implement martial,law in a pinch, and to sacrifice cherished liberties. But I think any President would.
but he would not surrender martial law—his posturing tells you that
A couple of weeks of that… then total chaos?
Exactly FE, a couple of weeks of martial law….and the economy is toast.
Ahaha… but will he be the Moshiach Ben Yosef or the Moshiach Ben David?
And who will play the role of the Dajal?
And will the true Christ return from outer space or be genetically engineered in a deep underground military base? Meaning that he’s not the true Christ but actually a sneaky attempt to con the true Beliebers?
Tune in next week for the latest update from Prophecy Whackos – your most reliable source for predictions that are truer than Truth itself.
of course its happened before
but usually without the blatant bragging about it
If you aint bragging about somthin you aint a player.
Just kidding. I get it. It’s a personality thing. I’ve never liked the brash loud mouths either. But what would you prefer? A demure, myopic, limp wristed, sweaty palmed civil servant type with zero charisma?
It shouldn’t really matter. Should it. What matters is getting the job done. Whatever that means. Since there may not be much of a job left to do if you’re in the pessimist camp.
What we’ve seen and what we’ve been subjected to is probably the most comprehensive hit job and character assasination by the mainstream media in the history of politics. Two years or more of daily bashing hasn’t actually made much of a dent in the mans ego. So you could say it was all a waste of time and effort.
But boy… did everyone on the left take the bait and fall headlong into a fiery pit of Trump derangement syndrome. Many leftists may never be the same again. They are lost forever. Because a man had big hair, talks funny and wasn’t a lyin lawyer like most other politicians.
fraid the don would have him deported as an undocumented alien
I hope we make it to the next US election …..
That will be very entertaining
Your knees would have been trembling an awful lot all throughout history then!
God forbid you were a subject of Vlad the Impaler. But pick any emperor, pharoah or king in the past. Be my guest.
i wasnt dealing with history i was dealing with our now
back then they had their own problems to contend with
knee trembling is another matter entirely
In that case… May your knees tremble in perpetuity… For all the right reasons.
my doctor says at my age i should try to cut back on knee trembling
+++
Pity the billionaire..
How about you stop digging your own hole by posting round the clock left wing propaganda?
Surely on OFW we are above and beyond the left right paradigm by now? It seems a few of you – no names (Norman) – can’t get past this level of thinking even after years of exercising your intelect in the big picture arena.
Wouldn’t you say it’s a little bit naive to think that the self organising system that is the global superorganism cares one bit about the puppets that one particular species selects and gossips about?
bone-deep they know this is a necessary evil. a price to be payed for the wealthy life they live.
What really surprises me is that they haven’t done it more. They seem to be holding back. The chatter among the elite has always revolved around “too many peasants” in one way or another. Admittedly they found very effective ways of controlling large numbers of the herd.
But they are reaching the point where more drastic measures should have been deployed by now… and they haven’t. Curious.
Widespread famine, water shortages, possible large scale war, a killer plague or two are waiting in the wings and would certainly shave a bit off the bottom but it’s not really where the problem lies… is it?
Removing a couple billion low IQ useless eaters from the pool probably wouldn’t rearrange the chairs that much on the plantation. Let’s face it… it’s the people that have a lot to lose that care about any of this. For everyone else – and there are billions of them – it’s always only been about daily survival.
And… here’s where Gail says that we need to constantly add more units to the pool to keep the economy growing otherwise the whole thing collapses.
And she has a point. Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen more drastic attempts at population reduction because the superorganism wants to maintain growth at all cost. That’s the imperitive, the impulse, for better or worse. Until it runs out of steam.
What I fail to understand is how adding billions of people that can’t afford houses and cars and fancy electronic goods to the pool changes anything. Surely it doesn’t and that’s why we haven’t seen any real growth for the longest time.
If it were possible, we should have rewritten the code of the economy a long time ago.
We have to add energy per capita, not just more population. Recently, the growth has all been in China, India, and neighboring countries.
This is a chart of average growth in ten-year energy consumption, split between population growth and per capita energy consumption growth:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/world-energy-consumption-divided-between-population-growth-and-living-standards-change.png
We are mostly getting population growth now, especially outside of Asia.
Yeah, I think Asia have definitely peaked!
Wouldn’t hurt to redistribute some of that pop around the emptier parts of the world.
So… pop growth is a requirement. All we need is a new, clean, cheap source of energy to keep this ball rolling forwards.
Super. I’ll get on it right away. Should be able to have a device ready by tomorrow afternoon. No patent or royalties required. It shall be my gift to the world for all the good times.
I wouldn’t mind a title though. Lord Tsubion has a certain ring to it.
as long as you dont start claiming the old droit de seigneur thing—its gone out of fashion lately, and knee trembling while wearing a suit of armour will get you a squirt of wd40 in short order
Not that I want the sleeping dog to wake up … but Keith is taking my advice and he is working on it….
Norman. I will not be demanding First Dibs from brides. Perish the thought! Sloppy Seconds will be perfectly acceptable.
I’ll crawl back to my hole now.