Energy is a subject that is greatly misunderstood. Its role in our lives is truly amazing. We humans are able to live and move because of the energy that we get from food. We count this energy in calories.
Green plants are also energy dependent. In photosynthesis, plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into the glucose that they need to grow.
Ecosystems are energy dependent as well. The ecologist Howard T. Odum in Environment, Power, and Society explains that ecosystems self-organize in a way that maximizes the useful energy obtained by the group of plants and animals.
Economies created by humans are in some respects very similar to ecosystems. They, too, self-organize and seem to be energy dependent. The big difference is that over one million years ago, pre-humans learned to control fire. As a result, they were able to burn biomass and indirectly add the energy this provided to the food energy that they otherwise had available. The energy from burning biomass was an early form of supplemental energy. How important was this change?
How Humans Gained Dominion Over Other Animals
James C. Scott, in Against the Grain, explains that being able to burn biomass was sufficient to turn around who was in charge: pre-humans or large animals. In one cave in South Africa, he indicates that a lower layer of remains found in the cave did not show any carbon deposits, and hence were created before pre-humans occupying the cave gained control of fire. In this layer, skeletons of big cats were found, along with scattered gnawed bones of pre-humans.
In a higher layer, carbon deposits were found. In this layer, pre-humans were clearly in charge. Their skeletons were much more intact, and the bones of big cats were scattered about and showed signs of gnawing. Who was in charge had changed.
There is other evidence of human domination becoming possible with the controlled use of fire. Studies show a dramatic drop in numbers of large mammals not long after settlement by humans in several areas outside Africa. (Jeremy Lent, The Patterning Instinct, based on P. S. Martin’s “Prehistoric overkill: A global model” in Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution.)
In recent times, humans have added fossil fuel energy, hydroelectric energy and nuclear energy to their “toolbox.” All of these energy sources have allowed humans to stay in charge.
Whether humans’ control of energy is good or bad depends on a person’s point of view. Without humans being in charge, the human population would likely be similar in size to that of the populations of chimps or gorillas–in other words, tiny in comparison to today’s human population. Furthermore, humans would be located only in the warmer parts of the world. As we will see in the next section, humans would not have evolved in the direction they did. Instead, they would have continued with only the abilities they had as pre-humans. They would have continued living in the wild, eating raw food and spending half of the day chewing it.
How the Controlled Burning of Biomass Produced Amazing Results
Pre-humans learned to control the burning of sticks and other biomass over one million years ago. This new-found ability helped our ancestors in many ways:
(1) Pre-humans could cook part of their food. (Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human) The ability to cook food increased the variety of food that could be eaten because some foods need to be cooked to be edible. Chewing time could be greatly reduced (Chris Organ et al.), leaving more time for tool making. Moreover, cooking allowed nutrients in food to be better absorbed.
(2) Less of the energy from food was needed for the maintenance of large teeth, jaws, and guts. Instead, more energy could go into building a larger brain. In this way, our ancestors could outsmart their predators, instead of depending on their muscles and teeth.
(3) Pre-humans could use fire as a tool to burn down unwanted trees and brush, making it easier to capture prey and encouraging new plant growth of a type more suitable as human food. Also, the fire itself could be used to frighten predators.
(4) Stone tools could be made sharper using heat.
(5) The heat from fire could be used to enlarge the range where pre-humans were able to live.
(6) Larger brains and frequent gatherings around campfires allowed language to develop.
(7) Humans, with their larger brains, were able to selectively breed different types of plants and animals, choosing characteristics that were better suited to their needs. As humans tamed fire and animals, they themselves became (in some sense) tamer.
The Physics Reason Why Energy Is So Important
We are all familiar with how the energy from food allows humans to grow. We also know how solar energy allows green plants to grow. Most physics instruction focuses on thermodynamically closed systems—that is, systems to which no new energy supply is added. Sometimes isolated systems are discussed—again a situation where no additional energy is available. In these situations, there is no growth—only a gradual depletion of the available energy supply, leading ultimately to “heat death.”
More recent analysis has shown that thermodynamically open systems, which are characterized by inflows of energy, are very different. They can, and do, change and grow. Hurricanes grow when heat from warm seawater is available. Stars grow as the result of the chemical reactions taking place within them. All of these structures (known as dissipative structures) are temporary in that they cannot continue to exist when suitable flows of energy are no longer available. They can also be undone in other ways, such as too much pollution or by other forms of “entropy.”
On earth, the energy system we experience is an open system. Energy from the sun is constantly being supplied. Energy made available by burning biomass and from burning fossil fuels is also being supplied, as is nuclear energy, in the form of electricity. The energy obtained from burned fossil fuels, in fact, reflects the re-release of ancient solar energy that was once stored in the bodies of small plants and animals. Under the proper temperature and pressure conditions, this stored energy had been slowly transformed into fossil fuels.
The Hidden Nature of Energy Consumption
When humans burn fossil fuels today, they are able to access the use of this stored energy. Some researchers have talked about the ability to utilize fossil fuel energy as being similar to having “energy slaves.” In making this analogy, it has been observed that a human adult produces roughly the energy output of an always-on 100 watt light bulb. Even when humans were still hunter-gatherers, they made some use of energy slaves, approximately tripling the amount of energy available to the economy at that time. By the time the industrial period was reached, always-on watts per capita had climbed to 8000, indicating that energy available to industrialized humans was 80 times as high (8000/100 = 80) as the amount expected based on food energy alone. The huge increase represented primarily the use of fossil fuels.
Figure 1. Relationship between human energy use and population.
In Against the Grain, Scott finds that slave labor was very widely used in early civilizations. Male slaves were often used for tasks requiring heavy labor, such as mining and building roads. Today’s fossil fuel energy slaves can do these things and much more. For example, a truck operated on a road makes liberal use of fossil fuel energy slaves partly to make the road, partly to build the truck and partly as fuel to operate the truck.
Any commercial process requires energy in one or more forms. Part of the energy can be human energy. This human energy can be used in many ways such as typing on a computer, listening, thinking, operating machinery, speaking, digging in the ground, and walking. The rest of the energy is likely to consist partly of electricity and partly of fossil fuels burned for heat. (Some of this heat energy is converted to rotary motion in order to power vehicles.) Constructing a building requires a tremendous amount of energy; manufacturing a car is also energy-intensive. Heating and lighting a building require energy. Even obtaining a potable glass of cold water requires energy.
Figure 2 is a chart showing a breakdown of non-transportation energy consumption in the United States, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration.
Figure 2. United States non-transportation energy consumption by sector, based on information from the US Energy Information Administration.
The residential percentage of non-transportation energy consumption rose from 23% in 1949 to 29% in 2017. We don’t have a world estimate of the breakdown of energy consumption for residential use, but the United States is probably unusually high with its 29% residential share. According to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, China’s energy consumption was only 11% residential in 2014.
If people do not understand how much of our energy consumption is hidden, it is easy for them to overestimate the benefit that can be achieved through energy conservation by individual citizens. A major use of supplemental energy (that is, beyond that available from food consumption) is to provide finished goods of all sorts, such as cars, homes, electricity transmission lines and roads. Supplemental energy consumption also provides the gift of free time. Without modern agricultural equipment, many more of us would be working long hours in the fields, leaving little time for advanced education and other modern pursuits. Another benefit of supplemental energy consumption is a much longer life expectancy, thanks to such things as clean water and antibiotics. Indirectly, supplemental energy consumption also provides jobs that pay well. Without supplemental energy consumption, there would be few jobs other than digging in the ground with a stick, in an attempt to grow food.
In a very real sense, the availability of inexpensive energy supplies that work to power existing machinery and equipment is what allows today’s economy to function.
How Can We Tell If Human Carrying Capacity Has Been Reached?
If we are discussing primates such as chimpanzees, baboons and gorillas, it is fairly easy to tell when the carrying capacity of the environments they inhabit has been reached. These primates depend on local food and water supplies. If there is not enough food to go around, the weakest and the lowest ranking will find themselves without enough high quality food, bringing the population back below the carrying capacity. In some cases, as population density rises, there may be aggression toward immigrants to the territory. Females have even been observed to kill the infant newborns of community members.
Humans have control of various types of energy supplies, in addition to food. These energy supplies make it easier to produce enough food for the overall population. People today are used to having things that wild animals do not have, such as clothing, education, climate controlled homes, transportation, medical care and retirement benefits. It should not be surprising that in our case, the first sign of reaching carrying capacity is something other than running out of food. In fact, the laws of physics suggest that reaching human carrying capacity is unlikely to be signaled by running out of any energy product, such as oil.
Instead, the issue that tends to arise as humans reach carrying capacity is increasing wage disparity. This issue arose in the 1930s, and it seems to be rising again now. Increasing wage disparity is a way, within our economy, of squeezing out some members, if there are not enough energy supplies to go around. Providing climate-controlled homes, automobiles, paved roads and electricity transmission lines for people all over the world would take a huge amount of energy supplies–far more than we have available today. Wage disparity assures that some groups cannot afford these goods and services, thereby effectively holding down demand for these goods and services.
Many people believe that oil prices are likely to rise very high, if there is a shortage. However, if wage disparity grows sufficiently large, any spike in prices is likely to be short lived. Instead, the energy limit that we are reaching may be prices that do not rise high enough to encourage adequate production of energy products. Without sufficient production of these energy products, there will be a shortfall of finished goods and services.
Physicist François Roddier in Thermodynamique de l’évolution : Un essai de thermo-bio-sociologie explains that when there is inadequate energy for an economy, the situation is similar to some members of the economy being “frozen out” through low wages. The same forces allow a rising portion of the wages (and other wealth) to go to the very rich. This situation is like steam rising. These individuals do not use very much of their wages to purchase goods and services made with commodities. Instead, they tend to use their wages for services (such as tax avoidance) that are not very energy intensive. Also, they tend to use their wealth in ways that tends to drive up asset prices, without adding true value. For example, buying previously issued shares of stock can have this effect.
Eventually, the poor are frozen out. In fact, in cases of extreme wage disparity, the problems can spread further as governments find it impossible to collect enough taxes to finance their spending.
What Characteristics Do Energy Supplies Need to Have?
Unless we are willing to give up our dominion over other species, including microbes, humans need to secure a supply of energy products that grows with human population. These energy products must precisely match the needs of current infrastructure. They also need to be inexpensive and non-polluting. They cannot add new problems of their own–new types of entropy.
At this point, we are running into difficulties. Fossil fuels are becoming ever more expensive to extract. They also lead to carbon dioxide and other pollution problems. Nuclear energy seems to be quite dangerous, given the problems with waste disposal and multiple accidents, including the one at Fukushima.
Wind and solar, and indeed hydropower, are not really solutions, either. For one thing, they are not very controllable. If humans expect to control their environment, they need to be in control of their energy resources. Even waterpower can vary by a huge amount, from month to month and from year to year.
Figure 3. California Hydroelectric Generation by Year, Based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Hydroelectric, wind and solar can be used in limited amounts, as part of a portfolio of energy products, but they cannot be used on their own, unless they are hugely overbuilt. In that case, only a very small portion (which can then be controlled) is used. Many people believe that storage can be used as an alternative to backup energy supplies, but the cost of adequate storage seems to be extraordinarily high because of the long-term nature of required storage. (Note also the apparent need for multiple-year storage indicated by the pattern on hydroelectric generation shown in Figure 3.) If humans expect to be in control of other species, humans need to be in control of the supply of energy resources.
Of course, choosing not to be in control is another option. In such a case, we can expect human death rates to rise rapidly. If this happens, women will again be valued for their ability to produce large numbers of children. Men will be valued for their strong muscles. The world will become a very different place.
Bolton: US to act ‘very strongly’ if Syria uses chemical arms
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/bolton-act-strongly-syria-chemical-arms-180822081216464.html
Another fake gas attack is coming..Fourth times a charm?
chimpanzees and monkeys have entered the stone age
In the rainforests of west Africa, the woodlands of Brazil and the beaches of Thailand, archaeologists have unearthed some truly remarkable stone tools.
It’s not the workmanship that makes them special. If anything, a casual observer might struggle to even identify them as ancient tools. It’s not their antiquity that’s exceptional either: they’re only about the same age as the Egyptian pyramids.
What makes these tools noteworthy is that the hands that held them weren’t human.
These stone tools were wielded by chimpanzees, capuchins and macaques. The sites where they have been unearthed are the basis of a brand new field of science: primate archaeology.
The tools are crude. A chimpanzee or monkey stone hammer is hardly a work of art to rival the beauty of an ancient human hand axe. But that’s not the point. These primates have developed a culture that makes routine use of a stone-based technology. That means they have entered the Stone Age.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150818-chimps-living-in-the-stone-age
folks we are seeing real time evolution
Point being?
That as we humans go extinct, a new intelligent species will take our place?
yup
then in 100000 k years one of them will start a doomster website
Tell me when monkeys learn to control fire. Tools aren’t what made a change in humans.
large primates seem to have a max age of around 50 or so
humans are large primates
our age used to be that until we learned to use fire to extend it
We are gaining in average age, but not in length of age.
The oldest person we have firm records on died in the 1990’s (a French woman).
Even average age is decreasing in the US, and will probably continue on as we navigate this collapsing world habitat for humans.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/12/life-expectancy/548981/
gail big evolution change does not happen in years
it take thousand or million years
Right. Some say that even if widespread controlled use of fire by humans did not begin until 300,000 years ago, that would be long enough for adaptation to its use. But we could not expect overnight adaptation to the new benefits.
Brent price today?
Hmmm
OIL (BRENT) PRICE COMMODITY
74.20 USD +1.38 (1.90%)
Which disproves what, Duncan? Are you of the opinion that prices are on an upward trend from now on? When you talk about higher prices as reality it sounds like you imagine you are responding to a chorus of Finite Worlders who insist that prices can only go down…
Ultimately the gravitational pull of Gail’s affordability limit seems destined to win out but I’m not seeing a slew of comments suggesting that there is no possibility at all of supply-constraints pushing prices higher in the interim. In other words, you are tilting at windmills.
I disagree–
If you are paying attention, things are going to get tight.
Just keep your eyes open—-
OK, so, put your cards on the table then. You think we will see sustained higher prices due to a tightening of the market? Any notion as to how high you think they will climb?
We will see—-
Defiantly over 80 for Brent by year end.
Oil is a notoriously trading commodity, but the conditions warrant that–
You could be right- we shall see.
The numbers will tell us.
Over $80 at yearend means back up to where they were in May, briefly, or somewhat above this. It is not a very high goal, in the whole scheme of things.
It is still too low for most producers and too high for a lot of consumers.
Is The World Sleepwalking Into The Next Oil Crisis
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/23/is-the-world-sleepwalking-into-an-oil-crisis/#509edc8b44cf
Prices are going up,up,up!
Interesting–i learned from this that both plants and ecosystems are dependent on energy–maybe i knew that, but may forgotten it.
Mentions ‘thermodynamically open systems’–one of my favorite topics (its possible plants and ecosystems are open systems, even humans and civilizations). I’ve read some of H Odum; there is also a classic book ‘gibbs ensemble, biological ensemble’ by E Kerner (who worked with R Feynman in physics) which treats ecosystems as quasi-closed systems. (Gibbs along with Boltzmann are known for formulation of ‘entropy’ from basic principles—statistical mechanics, as opposed to thermodynamics–which is derived from statistical mechanics).
here’s a sort of modern view on open systems i came across today https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.11392
in language of category theory—i only know a bit of that language.
My real question is given that you know alot what do you think should be done? Nuclear? James Hansen i think promotes that. Degrowth?
I think it is really too late now to try to add new energy supplies. And wind and solar are fairly close to useless. Thus, in one sense, the best thing to do now is enjoy the life we have. Trying to bring the world’s population down to some sustainable number is not a goal that we can even consider. Cutting back on energy consumption would put an end to most of today’s jobs, creating a huge problem. Needless to say, the financial system would collapse.
If we look at the physics of the situation, it suggests that if energy supplies are insufficient, the least well adapted will be “frozen out” and that the energy will rise to the top, like steam. If we look at wage distributions, I think that is what we are seeing now. It is also what we saw around 1930.
Like 1930, there is conflict among nations, indirectly related to inadequate energy supplies. Both times, countries have tried to put tariffs up, to keep energy supplies and jobs close to home. The 1930s situation ultimately led to World War II. The extra demand of World War II helped add workers to the labor force, and led to more energy consumption. (World War I had somewhat the same effect, when coal supply peaked in the UK in 2014.) The catch is that this time, a world war probably would not have the same effect. It could bring population down quickly, I suppose.
Another freezing out scenario might occur if currency relativities increasingly marginalize some countries. In fact, different groups of countries could decide to work together, and squeeze out others.
A big issue with decreasing energy supplies is difficulty in keeping up tax collections. This could be “fixed” by transferring the programs back to the states, and letting them handle the programs as they choose.
Subsidies make no sense, if governments have fewer funds. I expect to see these go away. In particular, subsidies for renewable energy make little sense.
“Subsidies make no sense, if governments have fewer funds. I expect to see these go away. In particular, subsidies for renewable energy make little sense.”
Every Country (Spain, Germany) that has tried to go “Green” i.e. alternative energy has learned the hard way it’s a money pit.
A link to the post is here:
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/132-the-revenge-of-the-spider/
This is a link to the comments.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/132-the-revenge-of-the-spider/#comments
have anybody notice that only jews get so much publicity in holocaust
but not Romani people who 60 percent of population got genocide
get rarity recognized
Very good debate raging for past few days mainly on financial aspects of the “GFCII” / pre-collapse period at Dr. Tim’s Surplus..
Just to keep us on our toes:
“A scorching hot, dry summer has ended five years of plenty in many wheat producing countries and drawn down the reserves of major exporters to their lowest level since 2007/08, when low grain stocks contributed to food riots across Africa and Asia.”
https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/tillage/grain-prices/global-wheat-supply-falls-to-crisis-levels-big-china-stocks-wont-provide-relief-37240343.html
In contrast, the wheat harvest in my chosen Doomsday bolt-hole – northern Spain, just below the Pyrenees – was very good this year, just below the 2011 peak.
Vegetables and fruit have suffered, though, due to prolonged early rain followed by drought.
As to he actual quality of the wheat I do not know, only quantity.
Maybe the McGibb’s should go raiding in Spain, like the Vikings 1,000 years ago – left a lot of blue eyes! 🙂
and a few black ones by all accounts
I am very fond of Spain, although as a typical Brit I only know the south well. The idea of spending a little time down there, dispersing my genes as widely as possible and smacking people upside the head is in fact an enormously appealing one. I shall prepare the longship! 😀
well—-as long as your McComrades don’t buy you a single ticket and set fire to it as you leave Port Ellen quayside
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-oil-demand/slowdowns-in-china-and-india-eat-away-at-asian-oil-demand-idUSKBN1L00W4
Asia oil demand is where the IEA was hoping that future demand growth would come from. If it slows down, it is a big deal for world demand growth.
“President Trump appears to be sincere and determined in his intention to bring down the U.S.-China trade deficit, and he’s probably willing to hold China’s feet to the fire to accomplish his goal.
“China, however, really can’t afford to meet Trump’s demands, Duncan noted, and has to fight back, driving the likelihood that the trade war’s seriousness escalates further.
“For one, China’s economy is already in a crisis to begin with, he said, and it is probably in the greatest economic bubble in history. This happened because China has an export-led strategy since the 1980s, that saw total investment skyrocket, leading to tremendous excess capacity across every industry in China…
“”One world is just not big enough to absorb [or sufficiently energy-rich to afford] everything that China can produce,” Duncan said. “It’s very difficult to see how China is going to grow as matters are now, even without a trade war with the U.S. If we bring in a trade war … (where) President Trump has demanded that China reduce its trade surplus with the U.S. by $200 billion a year. … This would be enough to tip China’s already fragile economy into a very severe economic downturn. There’s no possibility that China is going to agree. That’s what makes this crisis so serious.”
“A protracted trade war between the United States and China would likely represent a major turning point in history, Duncan warned.
“It could kill China’s economic rise and even trigger an economic crisis, similar to what we saw in Japan after 1998.
“A serious, prolonged trade war would also do a great deal of damage to the United States economy, Duncan noted. Once the U.S. started running large trade deficits with other countries in the early 1980s, inflationary pressures were dramatically reduced due to two primary factors: cheaper goods and cheaper workers, particularly from China, Taiwan, and other emerging markets.
“As the inflation rate came down, interest rates fell from double-digit levels, making credit and borrowing more affordable. Consequently, this led to a multi-decade, credit-led economic boom in the U.S. and other nations as well.
“Duncan warns that a full-blown, all-out trade war between China and the U.S. would change this dramatically… and that investors don’t quite understand the risks that are at stake.
“If we see President Trump put 25 percent tariffs on everything imported from China, the inflation rate is likely to spike to 8 or 10 percent, and interest rates will likely shoot higher to around 13 percent, Duncan warned.
“Such a scenario could potentially throw the world into a new Great Depression and even into outright war, said Duncan.
“”If interest rates spike higher, that would, of course, make credit much less affordable,” Duncan said. “Rather than driving economic growth through credit expansion, we would see extreme credit contraction. The credit contraction alone would be enough to throw the U.S. into severe recession.”
“In addition, higher interest rates would cause the stock market and property market to crash, Duncan added, and we would experience an extreme negative wealth effect that would also by itself throw the U.S. into a severe recession.
“”Combined, the crashing asset prices and the contract of credit would be enough to throw the U.S. into a depression, most probably,” Duncan said.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4200795-richard-duncan-full-blown-trade-war-crash-global-economy
““[China’s] Local government officials never worry about repaying debts, they only worry that no one is lending them money,” Yin said at last year’s NPC gathering. “Part of the reason was that all local governments are part of a centralized authority that will eventually be bailed out.””
http://www.atimes.com/article/beneath-the-tip-of-chinas-nightmare-debt-mountain/
As I understand the situation, Chinese local governments are quite independent. The leaders are given five-year plans and targets, and are rewarded on how well they do, compared to plan. Years ago, the leaders figured out that building a lot of coal fired power plants was one way of meeting targets, so coal consumption (based on borrowed money) has shot up. Now more constraints are being put on energy infrastructure added.
Instead, the current way of trying to make employment and other targets seems to be to build infrastructure projects. These aren’t necessarily very worthwhile. They can be roads that are barely needed, or bullet trains that citizens cannot afford.
All of this stuff is financed by debt. There has not been a tradition of keeping track of this debt. Also, there are buried guarantees of debt of others. This part of what makes current debt levels so hard to figure out.
Target-led is so different to organic growth: when will they understand?
When I was in advertising, I met a woman who worked for Rupert Murdoch in a new
online venture.
He’d set a target.
As she said ‘We couldn’t disappoint Rupert, so we….lied!’
The special scholarly advisers who fed the Chinese Politburo this nuclear option of (tariff/sanction war) just never *occurs, must be hugely unloved these dayz..
ahhaaa hhhaa bwahahaa.. lolz..
*bribes, kickbacks, sweat deals across US establishment-biz circuit deemed enough
Now lesson learned the hard way, never ever trust the round eye Pirate, despite the false promise performance of past ~40yrs in mutual deals, which would supposedly never end.
sweat=sweet deals in China 🙂
The U.S has raised 10% tariffs on Chinese goods. The Chinese yuan has fallen 10% against the dollar.
Will Trump raise the tariffs to 25%?
The US has a deficit problem. If the US could actually collect the tariffs, they would help the deficit problem.
“The US stock market climbed to its highest ever level in afternoon trading in New York as it closed in on the longest bull run ever. The benchmark US index the S&P 500 has surged 320% since its crisis lows in March 2009. The nine-year rally has been underpinned by ultra low interest rates and central banks’ quantitative easing programmes, earning it the nickname of the most hated bull market on Wall Street.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/08/21/market-report-us-sp-500-hits-record-high-charges-bull-run-record/
“…nobody expects economic models to predict crises, future prices and recessions with total accuracy. But at least they should be able to explain the basic functioning of the economy… most tenured economics professors keep teaching the same simplistic, faith-based, empirically challenged models, combined with the belief that almost anything can be explained with a linear regression. So 10 years after Lehman, much remains to be explained and understood.”
https://www.ft.com/content/3e3c3dfa-a3c9-11e8-926a-7342fe5e173f
“As we learned in the GFC, poor vetting of borrowers can lead to repayment problems. And in a world where loans again are increasingly repackaged into structured securities and sold to other investors, the dominoes again are lining up for a potential fall.”
http://www.pionline.com/article/20180820/PRINT/180829994/the-very-real-horror-of-another-global-financial-crisis
“…[US] consumer credit outstanding is now 45% higher than its 2008 peak.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4201106-debt-recovery-10-years-later
“A decade ago, the imploding housing market wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, driven by a distinct set of market conditions that have been widely studied and discussed by policymakers and pundits alike. In 2018, similar conditions are surfacing in the auto lending market. Together, these disturbing trends raise questions about the auto finance industry’s future and should prompt discussion about how to prepare for a potential crisis.”
https://www.autofinancenews.net/three-warning-signs-for-the-auto-lending-market/
I linked to this image directly from the Seeking Alpha article on debt recovery:
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2018/8/22/saupload_mtg-shares.jpg
The line on top is to the most creditworthy customers– the 760+ group. I would expect that they would in general be richer than the others, but also be ones that paid their bills on time and had not been through bankruptcy.
It is the second line down that drops off a whole lot. This is loans to the second most creditworthy customers. Loans to this group had been quite high, but has dropped off remarkably. For some reason–perhaps the high prices of houses currently on the market–this group has dropped way down in their purchases.
Energy seems to be an issue few analysts are concerned about. Reaching limits of a finite world is definitely not part of current models.
Plato probably wouldn’t be disappointed. No educated person in the Ancient world ever suffered from the delusion that the mass of people are wise.
Germany is turning towards Eurasia?
https://mobile.twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1032000864934875136
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Our financial system is at risk right now. Some Plan B is needed.
The German foreign minister calls EU to act as counter power when the U.S crosses red lines.
Germany now views the U.S as the aggressor.
Too early to call, besides the big banks and industrialists already voted, i.e. lets swim with the US for a while longer..
These statements come only a few days after the meeting between Merkel and Putin.
European multinational are dependent on the dollar payment system…but what if they weren’t…if there was an alternativ?
I was thinking of adding Mosul to Strivetravel.com….
Perhaps not
https://youtu.be/pIqBQj_DyVg
Spending Boost Fails To Raise Production In The Permian
The U.S. shale industry is gearing up to spend more this year, despite assurances to maintain capital discipline.
In the second quarter, shale companies signaled their intention to lift capex. Part of the reason is that costs are on the rise, so some drillers have to spend more to produce the same amount of oil and gas. That was an unexpected development, and one that shareholders are not happy about.
A survey of 33 shale companies by Rystad Energy found that while the group revised up spending by about 8 percent, they only increased their expected production levels for this year by 1.4 percent. “This disconnect might suggest that the shale industry requires more capital than before to achieve healthy production growth,” Rystad said in a new report.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Spending-Boost-Fails-To-Raise-Production-In-The-Permian.html
“Some investors see fortunes to be made in the U.S.’s hottest oil field—by speculating in water, not crude.
Fledgling companies, many backed by private equity, are rushing to help shale drillers deal with one of their trickiest problems: what to do with the vast volumes of wastewater that are a byproduct of fracking wells.
When producers blast a mix of water, sand and chemicals to release oil and gas from rock formations miles underground, they not only unlock oil and gas, but also massive quantities of briny water long buried beneath the surface. Drillers in the Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas currently generate more than 1,000 Olympic-size swimming pools full of this murky, salty water every day. Handling it amounts to up to 25% of a well’s lease operating expense, according to analysts”.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-next-big-bet-in-fracking-water/ar-BBMhpjV?li=BBnb4R7
The Productivity Problem In The Permian
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Productivity-Problem-In-The-Permian.html
Gail always read and I learn from her notes.
Today there is something I want to tell you and it is your sequence of pre-human food, fire, cooking, tools and language.
The studies of the beginnings of the languages is a discussion that until today is still debated, there are very different positions, Atkinson, Pinker, Chosky, Levi Strauss to name a few, semiologists, linguists, anthropologists continue to have differences. As regards fire, cooking and tools, there are also different points of view.
You are acting and try not to let loose threads, in these cases the origin of culture (in a European sense) is a subject that brings much debate even.
If I know that the language is a substantial difference with the rest of the animals.
A big hug
You are right. Humans’ use of language is a big difference from animals.
Animals use tools as well. And tools used by humans seem to be available earlier than we know of humans using food. Humans gradually learned to develop more complex tools, as their brains became bigger.
I know that there are differences of opinions about the importance of being able to cook food. The direction the views are converging, I believe, is in the direction of controlled fire being all-important in eventually gaining control over other animals. The cave story is important in this regard.
Control over other animals also including other humans: the first fires lit the route to empire and enslavement……
I can believe that control over other animals also included potential control over other humans.
Back in 1957, Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover talked about how important energy products were for any country wanting to win a war. The ones that could most effectively make weapons using energy products won. He also understood the finite nature of economically extractable energy resources.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2007/07/02/speech-from-1957-predicting-peak-oil/
Oldie but goodie. Thanks!
i wondered who stole my playbook
Fire also plays an important part in priestly mass-religions: sacrifices, sacred meals made from sacrificed and cooked animals.
Even, in Persia – and Ancient Rome (Temple of Vesta) – the sacred fire which can never be allowed to go out.
Rome’s founders were reputed to be the children of woman who was impregnated when a divine phallus arose from the ashes of a fire she was making up in the morning…..
Mass religions always sanctify empires…..
I usually have a beautiful wood fire here in the winter, and people always make straight for it and immediately look much happier.
U.S. to release 11 million barrels of oil as Iran sanctions kick in
https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/u-s-to-release-11-million-barrels-of-oil-as-iran-sanctions-kick-in
Perhaps I should volunteer at the local high school as a guidance counsellor …
i tried that
they were a suspicious lot
That won’t really work.
Strange… not a peep about this in the NYT:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-21/internet-buzzing-after-julian-assanges-mother-implicates-seth-rich-dnc-leak
Or maybe not
Perhaps because they don’t report about baseless lunatic conspiracies theories?
They are busy reporting about the Russians poisoning Brits … WMD… and of course how an airplane knocked down a building…
What really happened was an army of engineers, between 500 and 1000 men strong, snuck into each of the twin towers, and another 500 or so snuck into building 7, on the weekend before the attack, and planted about 10 tons of explosives into each building. Then they timed them to go off starting at floor just below where the planes were scheduled to hit. And Dick Cheney was at the controls setting off the explosives. The whole thing was planned by the Deep State under the direction of George Bush.
hahahahaha…very good!!
The Mockingbird Media is State owned. So nothing they say or do surprises me anymore and why I have zero trust or faith in the MSM. It’s all State controlled propaganda.
Well, corporate/state propaganda.
If you notice, they seem to be the same people.
The Ted Baxter media, they used to be called.
https://youtu.be/Kyai4V4d9T4
A laser beam is made of photons. It can burn right through an iron plate…or…convert the iron atoms into light and leave a hole behind it.