The world economy can appear to be operating quite well but can be hiding a major problem that causes it to be fragile. My presentation The World’s Fragile Economic Condition (PDF) explains why we should expect financial problems if energy consumption stops growing sufficiently rapidly. In fact, a global sell off in the equity markets, such as we have started to see recently, is one of the kinds of energy-related impacts we would expect.
This is Part 2 of a two-part write up of the presentation. In Part 1 (The World’s Fragile Economic Condition – Part 1), I explained that a large portion of the story that we usually hear about how the world economy operates and the role energy plays is not really correct. I explained that the world economy is a self-organized system that depends upon energy growth to support its own growth. In fact, there seems to be a dose-response. The faster energy consumption grows, the faster the world economy seems to grow. The period with fastest growth occurred between 1940 and 1980. During this period, interest rates were rising and workers saw their wages increase as fast as, or faster than, inflation. After 1980, the rate of growth in energy consumption fell, and the world needed to tackle its growth problems with a different approach, namely growing debt.
In this post, I explain how debt (and its partner, the sale of shares of stock) help pull the economy forward. With these types of financing, investment in new production becomes almost effortless as long as the return on investment stays high enough to repay debt with interest and to repay shareholders adequately. At some point, however, diminishing returns sets in because the most productive investments are made first.
The way diminishing returns plays out in energy extraction is by raising the cost of producing energy products. In order for the sales prices of energy products to rise to match the rising cost of production, rising demand is needed to give an upward “tug” on sales prices. This rising demand is normally produced by adding increasing amounts of debt at ever-lower interest rates. At some point, the debt bubble created in this manner becomes overstretched. We seem to be reaching that point now, especially in vulnerable parts of the world economy.
Slide 34
Let’s first look at a slide from Part 1, explaining the way in which the economy works like a giant factory.
Slide 20
As long as energy products are very inexpensive, it is possible for the economy to expand very rapidly. When this happens, the Goods and Services produced in Box 4 are able to grow so rapidly that all of the Resource Providers in Box 1 can be well compensated, simply by using a quasi-barter arrangement, facilitated by the use of money. With this approach, Resource Providers can get adequately paid using the Goods and Services produced in close to the same time period. Something of this nature occurred prior to 1970, when inflation-adjusted oil prices were less than $20 per barrel (Part 1, Slide 26).
Slide 35
If the growth of the economy slows, so that not enough Goods and Services are being created by the economy to use this approach, it is possible to work around the problem by adding debt. Adding debt makes it possible to substitute promised future Goods and Services for already produced Goods and Services.
Slide 36
Added debt makes it seem like more goods and services are available to pay resource providers.
Selling shares of stock acts very much like debt, because the funds provided by these shares also provide access to goods and services that others have already produced. In the case of the sale of shares of stock, the promises are for future dividends, capital appreciation, and partial ownership of the company.
Slide 37
Growing debt looks like it can solve all problems! No wonder that Keynesian economists found it so useful. But the return must remain high enough to repay debt with interest.
Slide 38
Borrowing money generally comes with the requirement that the amount borrowed be repaid with interest. If the energy purchased using debt allows the economy to grow fast enough, there is no difficulty in repaying debt with interest. If energy is very inexpensive (equivalent to oil cost less than $20 per barrel in inflation-adjusted price), this payback system generally works because a large amount of energy can be purchased for a small quantity of debt.
If the price of the energy rises, much more debt is required for the same amount of energy produced. For example, if oil is $80 per barrel, the affordability is much lower. It takes four times as much debt to pay for a barrel of oil. Repayment of debt with interest becomes more difficult.
Slide 39
In Part 1, we observed that US long-term interest rates have been falling almost continuously since 1981. This situation of falling interest rates led to falling mortgage payments for a given amount borrowed. Because of the lower monthly payments, homes became more affordable; in other words, there tended to be more potential buyers for homes at a given price level. Indirectly, the increased affordability of home ownership tended to raise the resale value of homes. It also encouraged the building of additional homes.
Building homes indirectly requires the use of many different types of commodities. Metals are used in pipes and in wiring. Wood is used for framing. Concrete is often used for the basement. Oil is needed to haul these goods to the site where the home is to be built. Thus, indirectly, falling interest rates tend to raise commodity prices.
Slide 40
Many assets are purchased with debt. If interest rates are very low, purchasing these assets becomes more affordable. The sale of shares of stock provides another way of raising capital for a company. In the case of oil-producing companies, the purchasers of shares of stock often think, “If extraction costs are rising, surely oil prices and other energy prices will rise as well.” This belief allows the price of shares of stock to be bid up to a high level.
Slide 41
When asset prices rise, economists sometimes refer to the wealth effect. Homeowners feel richer if their homes are worth more, and they can borrow more against them. Owners of shares of stock feel richer if their shares of stock have higher values. Owners of pension plans are happy when stock prices are high, because it looks as if these shares can be sold, allowing the plans to meet their pension obligations.
If the debt bubble stops growing, then the commodity price bubble cannot continue to grow. In fact, it may abruptly pop. This is what happened in the second half of 2008, when oil prices dropped precipitously, from $147 per barrel to the low $30s.
Slide 42
Government pension plans such as Social Security are not treated as debt because they are not guaranteed, but they act in much the same way as debt.
Slide 43
The gray bars on Slide 43 indicate recessions. These recessions often seem to be intentionally caused. If a person looks closely, it is possible to see that in most cases, increases in US short-term interest rates preceded recessions. In fact, if a person looks at the minutes of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee, it is sometimes clear that the Open Market Committee raised interest rates to intentionally pop asset bubbles in order to “reduce volatile food and energy prices.”
Slide 44
The huge interest rate spike to 18% in 1981 on Slide 43 corresponds with the big drop in oil prices on Slide 44. Interest rates were so high that buyers could no longer afford new homes or factories. Prices seem to have been brought down by falling demand.
Slide 45
If we look at recent oil prices, we can also see that they also depend very much on interest rates. In my paper, Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis, I show that the US debt bubble popped precisely when oil prices hit a peak in July 2008. That is when US consumer credit and mortgage debt started falling.
On Slide 45, QE stands for Quantitative Easing. This was a program that allowed lower long-term interest rates in addition to lower short-term interest rates. Thus, it gave the Federal Reserve (and other central banks) the power to reduce interest rates to an even greater extent than was possible by reducing short-term interest rates alone.
Slide 46
The Federal Reserve seems to have been instrumental in causing the Great Recession, as well. Slide 46 shows a larger scale of the same information about oil prices and short-term interest rates shown on Slide 43. There can be several years between the time interest rates are raised and the resulting recession occurs, so most people miss the role that intentionally raising short-term interest rates plays.
Also, high oil prices also tend to have an adverse impact on the economy because energy prices rise, but wages do not rise at the same time (Part 1, Slide 28). Consumers are forced to cut back on discretionary goods when the cost of necessities (such as the cost of commuting and the cost of food) rise.
In fact, it seems to be the combination of rising energy prices and increased interest rates that leads to recessions.
Slide 47
On this chart, I show some of the comments heard about oil prices. In mid-2008, it was clear that high oil prices were becoming a problem, especially for those with subprime mortgages who were living in homes that were distant from their work. By early 2014, we started hearing that oil prices had been too low for oil producers in 2013. Because of the unprofitability of oil production, some oil producers were cutting back on investment in new production. See my post, Beginning of the End? Oil Companies Cut Back on Spending.
Now, it is fairly clear that no oil price will work for both producers and consumers. Today’s Brent oil price of about $80 per barrel is both too low for producers and too high for some consumers. Consumers who are particularly affected are those whose currencies are falling relative to the dollar, such as consumers in Turkey and Argentina. Even countries with more modest decreases, such as China and India, are cutting back on automobile purchases. This change will affect future oil demand.
If, by some chance, oil prices should spike to a high level such as $100 per barrel, the affordability problem pretty much guarantees that oil prices will fall back fairly quickly. This issue, by itself, makes it impossible to believe that oil prices will increase endlessly.
I should mention, too, that we are also at a point where no interest rate works for everyone. Those buying new homes and new cars need low interest rates, in order for these goods to be affordable. Pension plans, on the other hand, need high interest rates, in order to meet their pension promises. There is no one interest rate that works for every purpose.
Thus, we have a combination problem: no interest rate works for everyone, and no set of energy prices works for everyone.
Slide 48
The Federal Reserve is now in the process of raising short-term interest rates (see Slide 43). It is also selling the QE securities that it previously acquired to reduce long-term interest rates. If buying these QE securities lowered long-term interest rates, selling them should raise long-term interest rates. Raising both short- and long-term interest rates sounds like a formula for creating a huge number of debt defaults and lowering prices of shares of stock. It is likely that these actions will also start a major recession.
Slide 49
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Slide 50
On Slide 50, “earlier” refers to Slide 16 in Part 1 of this presentation. From Part 1, we remember that the first small peak refers to the California gold rush; the second larger peak about 1910 refers to “Electrification and Early Farm Mechanization.” The third peak about 1970 refers to the “Postwar Boom.” The last small peak refers to the expansion made possible by China’s growth, and the growth of other Asian countries.
Slide 50 shows that the troughs refer to periods that were bubble collapses, or the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union. Slide 51 (next) gives details with respect to these low periods. These were bad times for economies: depression, debt collapses, and periods with significant wage disparity. They were not periods with high energy prices.
Slide 51
Clearly, none of these low periods was a good period for the economy. While we can see that there was low energy consumption during the periods, the primary reason for this low energy consumption was the collapse of a debt bubble or of a government.
Slide 52
Peak coal occurred in the United Kingdom in 1913, and World War I began shortly thereafter, in 1914. When peak coal occurred, wages for workers were very low, because diminishing returns had made the operation of coal mines increasingly expensive, but those purchasing coal could not afford higher coal prices. Thus, mining companies could not afford to pay workers adequate wages. World War I gave an alternative employment opportunity for coal miners and others with low wages.
Entering World War I was a very successful strategy for the UK. The fact that the UK was on the winning side allowed the UK to retain its role as the holder of the reserve currency. In this position, it was fairly easy for the UK to borrow the funds needed to obtain coal and other energy imports.
Germany seems to have encountered peak coal about the time World War II began. Was this an attempt to cover up Peak Coal? We don’t know for certain, but the timing certainly looks suspicious.
In both of these cases, low energy supply seems to have led to fighting, rather than high prices.
Slide 53
The collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union seems to have been an indirect impact of the long term low oil prices in the 1981-1991 period. The high oil prices of the 1970s had encouraged the Soviet Union to ramp up oil production. Once the US raised interest rates and oil prices fell, there were no longer funds for investing in new oil production. The Soviet Union was dependent on oil exports. It was able to continue for quite a few years with low prices, but eventually its central government collapsed. Over the long term, consumption has continued to be much lower, reflecting the permanent loss of industry.
Slide 55
Slide 55 is a graph of the “peaks” on Slide 50. If we listen to mainstream economists (including Paul Romer and William Nordhaus, who recently received the Nobel Prize in economics), improved technology can allow the world economy to become increasingly efficient, and thus overcome the problem of diminishing returns. Slide 55 shows that over a period of nearly 200 years, this has never happened in the past. The troughs represent collapses of one kind or another. These low periods did not represent sustainable situations.
The problem is that diminishing returns leads to the need for very different techniques to work around new problems. For example, if there are diminishing returns with respect to extracting fresh water from wells, the first alternative is to dig deeper wells. Efficiency gains can somewhat help offset the cost of deeper wells. But once the problem advances to the point where desalination is needed, plus remineralizing the water with the correct minerals after desalination, the cost of fresh water becomes much higher. It becomes impossible for improved technology to work around the very large increase in costs that diminishing returns seems to cause.
We haven’t been able to work around diminishing returns with increased efficiency before; we are likely kidding ourselves if we think we can do so now.
Slide 56
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Slide 57
–
Slide 58
The point that should be emphasized is that the reason why the United States economy now looks fairly good is because we are at the top of a debt bubble. This bubble is partly the result of world’s long running low interest rates, and partly because of the United States’ recent tax cuts. Thus, the situation today is a lot like 1929 before the debt bubble collapsed, or a lot like 2007 before the economy derailed. Things look good, but they won’t necessarily stay favorable for very long.
Slide 59
Separate Additional Conclusions for Various Audiences
At this writing, I have actually given variations on this talk three different times, to different audiences. The first audience (which is the one I mentioned at the beginning of Part 1) was a meeting of about 100 property-casualty actuaries. These actuaries help determine rates and financial statement amounts for lines of insurance such as automobile, homeowners, and medical malpractice. The specialized conclusions I added for that audience were the following:
Slide 61
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Slide 62
The second version of my talk was given at the 2018 Bermuda International Life and Annuity Conference, to a group of 300+ insurance executives of various kinds. This talk was called Energy Economics: Is a Discontinuity Ahead? This audience was especially interested in my talk because interest rates are central to the operation of pension plans. If interest rates do not rise, this is a major concern for this group.
The conclusion slides to that presentation were the following:
Conclusions -Slide 1 of 2 – Life/Pension version
–
Conclusions for Life and Annuity Providers – Slide 2 of 2
The third version of the presentation I gave was to a group of followers of Peak Oil theory. This presentation was somewhat shorter and slightly rearranged. The title of this presentation was How the Energy System Really Works and What Seems to Be Going Wrong.
Its short conclusions’ sheet mentions the following dangers:
Conclusions of Shorter Version
“Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the City watchdog, warned that a crash in emerging economies with “debt-sustainability issues” is a risk as the post-crisis period of low interest rates concludes…
“Earlier this month the IMF warned of a potential emerging markets crisis: “An intensification of concerns about emerging markets, a broader rise in trade tensions, the realisation of political and policy uncertainty, or a faster-than-expected tightening in monetary normalization could all lead to a sharp tightening in financial conditions,” the organisation said.”
http://www.cityam.com/267339/emerging-market-meltdown-threatens-uk-financial-system-says
“A far-right, pro-gun, pro-torture populist has been elected as Brazil’s next president after a drama-filled and deeply divisive election that looks set to radically reforge the future of the world’s fourth biggest democracy…
“However, for the tens of millions of voters who backed Bolsonaro, he represents change after years of economic recession and eye-watering corruption scandals.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/28/jair-bolsonaro-wins-brazil-presidential-election
“Turkish construction companies have been hard hit by the country’s economic tribulations this year, which include a loss of almost 40 per cent of the lira’s value against the dollar. 70 percent of private construction companies had to cancel projects due to the fall in the lira’s value, the head of the Turkish Construction Contractors Confederation reported in September.”
https://ahvalnews.com/economic-crisis/turkeys-leading-paint-factory-stops-production-five-days-due-economic-crisis
“Two decades ago, the Asian financial crisis revealed Indonesia to be the weakest link.
“While the trouble started in Thailand, it was the collapse of Jakarta’s financial system that generated full-blown contagion.”
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Why-Indonesia-is-on-the-brink-again
“The South Korean stock market is reeling from the shock waves of its “black October.” As if recreating the plunge in stock values that happened with the global financial crisis’s arrival in Oct. 2008, KOSPI experienced its biggest monthly drop in ten years. Future prospects also appear bleak: in addition to external risk factors like the US-China trade war and US interest hikes, the numerous potential drags of stock prices include a stagnant domestic economy, investor flight, and escalating panic.”
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/867853.html
The problem with universal franchise democracy such ghastly people get in.
You need ghastly people to try to undo laws that assumed much more resources than are really available.
Unfixable
Brazil’s Offshore Boom Is Facing The Same Problem As U.S. Shale
Brazil and Petrobras show something in common with U.S. LTO: even with a lot of debt and desire, and a strong resource base it is difficult to raise production in the face of high decline rates.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Brazils-Offshore-Boom-Is-Facing-The-Same-Problem-As-US-Shale.html
Thanks! That post is a good find. This is a link to where it was originally posted on the Peak Oil Barrel. The author is George Kaplan.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/brazil-reserves-and-production-update-1h2018/
WSJ: Credit-Card Spending Limits in the Crosshairs as Issuers Grow Cautious: Capital One and Discover are pulling back on some consumers as economy ‘almost feels too good to be true’
So it sounds like its the credit cards that target the lower income folks that are dialing back on the limits they are giving.
“Italy’s economy is already on the cusp of recession and faces an imminent credit crunch as Brussels piles on the pressure, with increasingly dangerous knock-on effects for the rest of Europe.
“Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi, chairman of Societe Generale and a former member of the ECB board, said events were repeating the onset of the eurozone debt crisis in 2011, when surging bond yields caused a contraction in credit. “Italy is going straight into a wall,” he said.
“”The economy risks tipping into recession in the fourth quarter. The banks have already cut loans over the summer, as soon as the spreads began to rise. The Italian government has not understood this.
“”You can’t see the wall yet, but the crash is going to be violent,” he said.
“Mr Bini-Smaghi told Avvenire that the budget deficit for 2019 will be 3.5 per cent of GDP, far higher than the 2.4 per cent estimate that Brussels immediately rejected as too high.
“”This is going to unleash mass selling by investors, and risks a snowball effect,” he said.
“The Italian banks hold €380 billion ($611 billion) of the country’s -sovereign bonds. Insurer Generali alone holds another €60 billion. The rising spreads will cause mark-to-market losses and erode the capital buffers of the banks, forcing them to rein in credit. “The whole banking system, whether big institutions or small, risks running out of funds for the real economy,” he said.”
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/the-crash-is-going-to-be-violent-italy-headed-for-crisis-warns-banker-20181029-p50ckf.html
“…the euro zone is not prepared enough to face a new economic crisis, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told daily Le Parisien on Sunday. The European Commission rejected Italy’s draft 2019 budget earlier this week for breaking EU rules on public spending, and asked Rome to submit a new one within three weeks or face disciplinary action… Le Maire also said French banks with branches in Italy had issued corporate and household loans totaling 280 billion euros ($319 billion).”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-france/euro-zone-not-prepared-enough-to-face-new-crisis-french-finance-minister-idUSKCN1N2099
“Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing gave himself one year to turn around the lender. Six months into his tenure, urgent questions about the future are becoming louder as the stock slumps to record lows…
““The low share price is locking Deutsche Bank deeper into its vicious circle.””
https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/financial-services/2018-10-28-deutsche-ceo-struggles-to-turn-bank-around-as-stock-slumps/
“Philip Hammond has admitted a no-deal Brexit would require an emergency Budget, as he indicated Theresa May’s promise to end the era of austerity would also be in jeopardy.
“In a stark warning, the chancellor said the government would need to look at a “different approach” to the future of the UK’s economy if the prime minister fails to secure a deal with the European Union.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-no-deal-budget-leave-eu-chancellor-philip-hammond-march-a8605136.html
It seems like indirectly, the problems of Italy and the UK would hurt Deutche bank as well. And the falling car sales around the world cannot be good, either.
The trend of falling car sales is certainly very ominous in its universality.
I see that Merkel’s days are numbered:
“Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and her coalition partner in Berlin, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), saw heavy losses in the state election in Hesse. The left-wing Greens and right-wing, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) saw their share of the vote increase dramatically.”
There’s that polarisation again.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/29/hesse-election-result-bad-for-merkel-cdu-and-the-spd.html
Germany seems to be headed in the direction of many other countries. I expect that their days of adding much in the way of renewables are numbered.
I wonder if those sky high electricity charges caused by the foray into ‘renewable’ energy are denting the beliefs of the German Green Groopies….
More ons can ignore reality … but not the consequences of ignoring reality
Forgot water, toilet, heating and electricity.
This was for tiny plastic house.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-28/brutally-honest-facebook-removes-then-restores-images-yemen
Look at what we humans have done!!!! Bravo!!!!
https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/https_%252F%252Fs3-us-west-2.amazonaws%20%283%29_17.jpg
The thing is… most people understand that FB is a bucket of wet sh it…. but they just can’t help themselves…. because they are stewpid mor onics.
even if they tried, they may not be able to get her back from that severe state. very sad.
Yup, totally agree, it’s sickening what we do to each other. At least animals in the wild kill each other quickly and usually it’s to eat. However, humans have a tendency through their evil to inflict as much pain with the end result of death on as many people as it possibly can and the longer it goes on the better for the evil bas tards.
Madeline Albright once told the world that the death of 500K Iraqi children was well worth the price for the US Gov’t in order to achieve its goals.
Spent fuel ponds be damned, I’m buying more food storage this weekend. The energy apocalypse might get us all, but I’m not watching my kids starve to death. Jesus.
The famine to end all famines…. is imminent.
Stocking up only delays the inevitable… and it may actually make things worse for your children and yourself — when the bad guys realize you have food …. they will come.
It will be particularly … difficult…. for females…. I would definitely not want to be a young female… when BAU ends…. the situation for them will be … grim… apocalyptic even….
Bad guys will be bad guys.
I would have a plan b in place … choose a nice rock cut to drive your car into at high speed….
Given you were foolish enough to have children knowing how f789 up the world already was back then…. you owe it to them not to suffer….
It is important that one acknowledges that no matter what one does… one will die. There is no surviving this.
Failure to do so … will only lead to … more suffering.
c’mon Eddy
there’s bound to be someone out there who will fancy you
Alas… I have a Plan B… so won’t find out…
lets hope for your sake Mrs Fast doesnt find out either
I bought a resin shed for La Esposa to keep tools in. Very cheap. Much against my will, I helped assemble it today, and halfway through I realized I really liked this resin thing a lot. The walls were around 5/8th inch thick and constructed like cardboard. It is of course infinitely more durable than cardboard, and is certain to outlive us all. Two people (unlike us) who were practiced at it could construct one in two hours. So labor might cost $100? The shed itself costs less than $500. Wouldn’t the price go down if you bought a million? So let’s say You could furnish a homeless shelter for any homeless under 6′ tall for $500? Two people can lift and remove it at will. It can be made better insulated by piling earth up the sides to window level. So why can even a badly strapped society not afford to house its homeless people?
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Keter-Common-4-ft-x-6-ft-Actual-Interior-Dimensions-3-641-ft-x-5-808-ft-Manor-Gable-Storage-Shed/50162201
Most places have zoning laws, as you know. Other types as laws as well–probably minimum square footage, existence of bathrooms, ventilation. If you could get rid of governmental oversight, you could probably do this. This is why there are so many shanty towns on the edges of big cities around the world (except China, where this practice is forbidden).
Governments don’t seem capable of willingly relinquishing those oversight roles. Usually quite mindless and harmful. Local groups have to stretch the envelope of what’s allowed, as well and do a lot of mildly subversive things.
Gail said: “Dressing up” always used to be part of church-going. Now young people have neither the time nor the money for such activities. Can’t afford the expensive clothes. Public transport may not operate on Sundays. Schools schedule athletic events that conflict.”
You can always tell where energy flows are going in any complex society by following what is growing and what is shrinking. Governments (education is part of this. There is gov money in almost every educational institution) and corporations, Community life, marriages, and lately I’d say Art are in decline or are being “deconstructed” so more resources can be directed towards the growing things.
Growing education and growing government are both part of growing complexity.
If young people are less able to afford homes and cars, they live on their cell phones, and the games that they can play with them. Social life and marriages declines. Parents send text messages to their kids, calling them to eat. But then they sit in front of a television to eat it.
African immigrants in London certainly dress up for church – they often cause traffic jams on Sundays, too, although the buses are now pretty good in London every day of the week.
I once had a amusing late-night chat on a London bus with a man who claimed to have been deep into drugs, but had found Jesus and was organist at the church. Amen, brothers and sisters!
lol
and always with that overriding need to tell you about it
Quite: I don’t recall asking: ‘So what do you do, crazy man?’ In fact I tried very hard to look out of the window and not catch his eye!
there’s a fixed law on London buses—which no one is exempt from
The nutter ALWAYS comes and sits by YOU
I thought everybody knew that
I was once driven in a very comfortable limousine from the airport in Detroit through the Michigan countryside to a small town a hundred miles to the north. The driver, an early middle aged white guy, spent a portion of the journey telling me about how he had previously been a heroine addict and had been in total despair but he had been saved by Amazing Grace and had gone on to get a steady job, marry and settle down, and was taking great care not to slip back into the abyss and loose what peace and security he had managed to to grab hold of.
The impression I had was that he was like a shipwrecked sailor who had managed to find a lifeboat but was still far from the shore. I could sense it was hard work for him to go on living the straight life from day to day, and I felt a sense of admiration for him at the effort he was making.
The name Elon Musk has been well chosen; it defies categorization as to race, class, religion, etc.Ever met or even heard or read of an Elon, or a Musk? So rare a combination as to have no established profile.
People of a certain kind, created in large numbers by our education system, can project themselves onto the Elon image, and feel very pleased with themselves. ‘He’s young, cool, hopeful, clever and rich, cosmopolitan just like me,and will take us to another world now this sad old mud ball is nearly finished!’
We are witnessing one of the most brilliant propaganda creations, appropriate for late-stage industrial, mass, civilization!
It’s really quite staggering that the propaganda and mind-conditioning system is projecting Elon Musk as the man to solve ALL our problems, and that this is being pushed energetically on children in school.
The Soviet Union could not have done better: it’s Uncle Joe Stalin – he’d even pop up and fix your car if it broke down, with a cheery smile and a ‘No problem, Comrade!’ as he lit his pipe and waved you on your way.
The majority of people are so historically ignorant -and have been kept so – that they can’t see this for what it is.
https://imgur.com/a/xBpeJMX
Elon… renewable energy … EVs…. gabble walming …. recyling…. eliminating plastic bags…. all parts of a massive, coordinated, PR campaign….
Soooo, when on Monday is it all going down? 8am? 12? 3pm? I kind of need to know. I have a dr appointment and then I need to do laundry. I’m hoping to squeeze the collapse in between.
The US stock market seems to be up over 300, so far today. The WSJ has the following to say about other markets:
So more concerns about China showing up, but markets mostly up elsewhere, so far.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8VNsN1T0rjY
Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short, Moneyball and more, joined Jim Braude to discuss his latest book, The Fifth Risk, and his fears about the bureaucrats behind the wheel of the Trump administration.
Of course, if Trump wants to make a sharp change from what his predecessors were doing, (and even shrink the size of government), it doesn’t make sense for him to appoint new people to be in charge, who learn from the prior administration, and do the same things.
This is late stage capitalism, led by a psychopath.
Reformist strategies are far in the rear view mirror.
Perfect ruler for the present.
Lead by an errand boy… just as Obama was an errand boy…
And btw – the US killed a whole lot of people while Obama the head errand boy was running errands…
He seems to have enjoyed that … I don’t recall him ever saying no….
Psychopath?
Nah… pragmatic…
“And btw – the US killed a whole lot of people while Obama the head errand boy was running errands…”
Deported more as well, probably aided by the NDAA which Trump admin no doubt cites as precedent.
Try some new gasses, FE, then you’ll see Obama’s halo…….
‘Glasses’, but of course some kind of inhalation might help too… 🙂
Perhaps it means that the people who are running Trump … really do want to kill off the Beak Nosed Men and their minions — otherwise known as the Deep State… and their errand boys (bureaucrats…) .. and Take America Back!
It is difficult to know what is really going on
It’s just a battle of the beaks that’s got you baffled.
AMAZING OR WHAT?
I liked the music!
Amazing
What does she wear under her kilt?
So naughty!
my kinda woman
loved it
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-28/billionaire-thai-owner-leicester-city-fc-was-board-crashed-helicopter
I guess instead of making a big show of it and being picked up on the pitch by a chopper after every game…. he should have used a car…..
This is actually hugely entertaining…
Quite. Helicopters: one pays an awful lot for a much higher risk of death….
What is happening to our country?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-is-happening-to-our-country/2018/10/27/47b462f6-da13-11e8-aeb7-ddcad4a0a54e_story.html?fbclid=IwAR1_d1w8qyxpgCuuGs6A8ChdIXGimsvIswyP_TmWFOqN4a5G9k1wIYb_7ts&noredirect=on&utm_term=.00805e8bb5ff
Ha ha ha… what a steaming pile of dung… I can see the flies buzzing around it …
‘This is not what America is about.’
Of course it is what America is about — it’s the home of Paris and Kim – and lip synching superstars…. a place where you can shoot someone for stepping onto your lawn…. where there are mass shootings every couple of weeks….
At some point … people like this author (and other f789tards) need to take a step back… and acknowledge…. that America is a cesspool… a crass … seething swamp … there has not been much in the way of civility for a very long time…
I can imagine … as the cookie crumbles…. a charismatic leader… emerging … in America…. intent on completing what H it ler…. started…. with the full support of the vast majority of Americans….
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46010087
If I were one of the beaked nose men…. what I would have done when I took control…. is rebranding …. the brand J e w…. has too many negatives associated with it… you have to admit … when you hear that word it does not generate happy thoughts…
Even Beaked Nose Men sounds better than that….
Ah ha….. Parrot….. perfect!
As in …. The Parrots went to the s.ynagogue to pray….
Now that word s.ynagogue has to go … SIN-agogue…. WTF is that? A place where you go to SIN… a place with naked gogo girls dancing about inviting SIN?
I do like the word Torah though…. that sounds… I advise keeping that and tossing everything else in the bin and re-inventing the wheel
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/fa/12/4d/fa124df257d3e4847e0d2569b0b02fa1.jpg
Saudi Arabia says it is a beacon of light fighting ‘dark’ Iran
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/27/saudi-arabia-beacon-of-light-iran-darkness-jamal-khashoggi-turkey
You can’t make this stuff up!
https://www.godlikeproductions.com/sm/c3549d16.gif
Deera Square
After Friday prayers, police and other officials clear the area to make way for the execution to take place. After the beheading of the condemned, the head is stitched to the body which is wrapped up and taken away for the final rites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deera_Square
what were you saying about ‘cool’ religions? 🙁
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/25/israel-white-phosphorus-gaza
https://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/iraq-war-crimes-photographer-captures-torture-abuse-and-murder-by-the-wrong-side/news-story/77f7f003313cc9c58d952b3f6999ec20
All people of all religions commit barbaric acts
Also, people who claim to be atheists.
Nobody has ever killed anyone in the name of Atheism..Atheist have killed people, but not because of Atheism..
Governments come up with all kinds of supposed causes. It could be to protect the world from some particular objectionable leader. It could be in the name of protecting the world from communism and allowing people to live in democracy. It could be supposedly for some kind of religious cause.
The real reason as often as not had to do with resource shortages, and a need to fight a particular country or group, to try to directly or indirectly get those resources. I doubt that any religion is the real reason for a war.
Religion is just one of many excuses given by governments, to avoid talking about the real issues. I wouldn’t blame the religions. The religions help keep particular groups together.
Virtually all wars are related to resources…. religion nationalism etc… are simply the means to get the masses to buy into the wars…
If the leaders told the masses they were fighting for resources… they would not be willing to killkillkill… even though fighting over resources is a far better reason to go to war than religion or a flag….
People are … as we know … stuuuupid more ons
Think religion makes society less violent? Think again.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1101-zuckerman-violence-secularism-20151101-story.html
I think basing a split on high energy consumption versus low would give very similar results. As energy consumption per capita rises, violence falls.
Once a country has a government who will allegedly save its citizens from all ills, there is no longer a need for religion. Governments can claim to give pensions (which they cannot really afford). This is very popular. They can give a social safety net, so citizens no longer have to worry about the many poor among them.
Once we lose the protection of the government, many different religions will spring up again, if there are remaining people.
“The 10 states with the lowest levels of belief in God are Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Alaska, Oregon and California.”
The 10 states most expensive to live in (based on cost of living rankings): New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, Alaska, New York, Massachusetts, California, Hawaii.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/28/these-are-americas-most-expensive-states-to-live-in-for-2018.html
Notice an overlap? Once governments have high safety net of programs (and charge for it in their taxes) and residents can access the debt market for high levels of debt for their homes, people seem to have no need for another god; the government is already their god. A high level of urban density is also a marker for drawing a lot of energy resources from other parts of the country.
The article also says, “The most secular societies today include Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Czech Republic, Estonia, Japan, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Hungary, China and Belgium. The most religious societies include Nigeria, Uganda, the Philippines, Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Colombia, Senegal, Malawi, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Jordan, Algeria, Ghana, Venezuela, Mexico and Sierra Leone.”
The Material Footprint of Nations seems to be a way that the UN is now tracking countries. It tries to look at material consumption by countries, per capita, netting out imports and exports. This is a map of the amounts as of 2008. I would imagine that China has moved up a notch or two by now. Clearly the countries with huge material flows are very over-represented on the non-religious list of countries. The countries with much less material wealth tend to be the religious countries.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/wiedmann-et-al-material-footprint-per-capita-in-2008.png
Source: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6271
The material footprint of nations
Thomas O. Wiedmann, Heinz Schandl, Manfred Lenzen, Daniel Moran, Sangwon Suh, James West, and Keiichiro Kanemoto
PNAS May 19, 2015 112 (20) 6271-6276
Secular Societies Fare Better Than Religious Societies
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies
Secular societies can grow when there are lots of fossil fuel resources. They grow in states in “rich” states–where per capita income is high. When people believe that man can save himself, thanks to all of his wealth, there is no need for religion.
I am not sure that the article says anything differently. The most religious states are the ones with the most poor people. Who would have guessed?
So, lack of religion is a function of resource abundance.
Oh, how quaint.
You are more stupid as resources get limited?
As resources get abundant, you put into place all kinds of government programs that will save you from ills of all types –health problems, old age, unemployment. Also, debt buys you nicer and nicer homes, and you get the appreciation from that home to help your life style.
For those living closer to the edge, all of these promises clearly would be nonsense. Religious promises make more sense.
Government promises, of course, are nonsense. But as long as the fruits of these promises seem to be available, people assume they will last forever. Once the fruits start to disappear, it becomes clear that resource shortages are upon the people, and the government will not do anything for them.
Far more trendy to pray to the techno god …. when you are making 200k per year living in San Fran… shopping at Whole Foods… and driving your Tesla down to the organic coffee shop….
Who needs Jesus when you have Elon? Or instead of God you have Steve Jobs?
However if you are living in a slum in Rio… without a 200k job… no Tesla… no organic coffee… and Elon has no relevance …..
Jesus is appealing.
Not stuuupid…. desperate…. grasping… for hope….. salvation…. something better….
@Gail I am firmly on your side on this topic, even though I am firmly an atheist as well. Blaming religion for *natural* human irrationality is about as reasonable as praising it for natural human rationality or morality.
religion can motivate ignorant people
the Weremacht had Gott mitt Unz stamped on their belt buckles
how can we lose when god is on our side is everyone’s favourite warcry
Nonsense concepts like God do not refer to anything real, so they help us to block out the parts of reality we dislike. In my humble opinion religion doesn’t have monopoly over such concepts.
god is real to those who believe
just as the earth is flat to those who believe it is flat
or 6000 years old to those who are certain that it is 6000 years old (currently 46% of Americans I believe.)
scoff all you like, but there are millions who would willingly kill you for denying their beliefs—so ingrained are they into their existence (and not just in Saudi or somewhere.)
Maybe religion doesn’t have a monopoly over such concepts—but I’d say it has a big majority. Our priests have been forced to give up such powers, but Pence et al are doing their best to take them back
Bolsonaro states he is going to run Brazil according to bible law—I bet Pence and his chums are delighted about that
Models present valid views of the future in the eyes of those who put them together. They become a way of proving that BAU will continue indefinitely–even though BAU continuing forever is one of the underlying assumptions of the models. Governments can prove that they are right, based on models.
God isn’t real to anyone. What is real are our visceral lusts, emotional attachments and fears. Religious concepts are just placeholders for those things. They are ways of rationalising and exculpating our chaotic and mostly irrational minds, which 99% of us will never try to understand let alone improve.
but that’s your take on it (and mine more or less)
but I had a jwitness uncle—long departed to his watchtower in the sky—who was utterly convinced of god being a tangible entity—and there was nothing we could do to shake him of it.
Present any evidence—made no difference–the world was created in 4004 bc—end of argument–fossils—carbon dating—all wrong, put there by his god for some as yet unknown purpose….to confuse the likes of you and me. Up close and personal you could see his certainty. Daft–but there it is. maybe an easier way to be
that eejit Ken Ham is the same—early man /domesticated dinosaurs is his take on it. to provide explanations for everything.
And there are millions like him in other religions—all nonsense, but real nonetheless as far as they are concerned
Hmmm…. reminds me of…. reminds me of…
Oh yes…
Girbol Worming …and there is nothing we could do to shake people of it…
And renewable energy …
And EVs…..
And fusion ….
etc
or the other way round of course
Not possible:
KKKLIMATE DATA FAKED
by John Bates (leading kkklimate scientist)
In the following sections, I provide the details of how Mr. Karl failed to disclose critical information to NOAA, Science Magazine, and Chairman Smith regarding the datasets used in K15. I have extensive documentation that provides independent verification of the story below. I also provide my suggestions for how we might keep such a flagrant manipulation of scientific integrity guidelines and scientific publication standards from happening in the future. Finally, I provide some links to examples of what well documented CDRs look like that readers might contrast and compare with what Mr. Karl has provided.
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/04/c limate-scientists-versus-c limate-data/
“All people of all religions commit barbaric acts”
You can safely remove Jehovah’s Witnesses from that group.
And Quakers.
maybe not surprizingly, Jehovah’s Witnesses were number one on the Na zi P arty hit list.
Now that I like…. How do I apply for the job?
when they come to your door, invite them in for coffee or tea. accept their complimentary copies of the latest Watchtower and Awake editions. they will be back to sign you up.
for an assignment in my college introductory geochemistry course, i had to debunk their arguments about the fallacy of radiocarbon dating, because they literally believe the 6000 year old Earth per the Holy Bible.
Sadly … I am never visited by such people in NZ…. maybe they are not active here?
I think if they were to knock on my door…. I would invite them in …. then I would make chicken squawking noises…. then I’d move to pig grunting…. then I’d bark like a dog…. followed by a rendition of greatest howls…..
You ever take your dog out for a sh it? I had mine out on the beach earlier….. she’s urging her intestines to make the deposit … squatting in a very un-ladylike position — all the while staring at me … not an ounce of shame there…. it’s like she’s saying ‘check me out Fast – I’m taking a sh it in front of you’
The reason I mention that is because if the JWs did show up … and I did entertain them with my animal noises… I’d be sure to look them in the eye…. just like my dog does…. no shame… no smile … just a sober look …. that says – check me out…. I am a chicken… now I am a pig… now a dog…
and they are most unpleasant to backsliders
no godly kindness there.
Quakers are probably the most (relatively) sane—though they happily made cannon for non pacifists
You can keep Quakers on that barbaric acts list.
They’ve been caught lacing their oats with Roundup.
Circumcisors vs. circumcisors, halal vs. kosher. Pleased to watch them total each other.
“Religion is poison”
-Mao
(He occasionally got things right)
What was his view on Maoism?
Have to make sure the corpse is just right for Resurrection day – how dreadful to be resurrected without one’s head!
I’m not dreadfully shocked by decapitation, if done well: starving millions to death is far, far worse. As is life imprisonment.
When the Papacy really ruled Rome, as a state, they had criminals beaten to death in public by two thugs with clubs. That continued until the late 18th century, and the introduction of the guillotine.
+++
It’s just a bit macabre to chop the heads in a public square…
I am not sure why we must make executions so brutal… if I was on death row … I’d ask that a large dose of Fentanyl be stuffed randomly into one of my meals…. what a great way to go!
1929 — US: Stock Exchange collapses (Black Friday), starting the Great Depression, & world economic crisis. (This source suspect, since it also cites 29 October as “Blue Monday”; another “lost” weekend?)
Round and round it goes
Circling around the drain as it does
Faster and faster as it goes
Nearer and nearer to the point it blows
Down the drain it goes
Plop…. that is the end as we know
The amount of news coming out in the last 30 days are probably more than what we had in month in the 1980s.
As what Norm says… Supernova… intense bright light when it explodes and cold darkness after that… great one Norm…
ty CTG—mine own
Yes and as you wisely pointed out we can’t even go back to 1985 technology without collapsing supply chains. Won’t be long now.
Tap, tap, tap, I’m waiting…
“The amount of news coming out in the last 30 days are probably more than what we had in month in the 1980s.”
What news?
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims
notice one thing about this article
This article is nine years old. We’ve never heard anything about this again during this time
and plus For some reason, six months later he wasn’t an UN advisor no more
Great find, TWP.
As the Roman said: ‘Money doesn’t stink’, whatever the source……
Drug money is suspected to be a source of revenue for United States intelligence operations around the world.
We know that drugs have been used by the previous global empire, the British Empire to undermine nation-states they couldn’t easily overpower.
My high school economics teacher said that the war on drugs was a farce because there are too many people in government and among the elite involved in the illegal drug trade as dealers.
Gail, you’ve been all quiet on the western front about revenue from illegal drugs. Is it a taboo subject?
I don’t know too much about the subject. As you note, it hasn’t been in papers much lately. this is the website of a Washington DC non-profit that tries to track this kind of thing.
https://www.gfintegrity.org/about/
This is a report called “Illicit Financial Flows to and from Developing Countries: 2005-2014”
https://www.gfintegrity.org/report/illicit-financial-flows-to-and-from-developing-countries-2005-2014/
Their bullet points regarding the report (which can be downloaded, free) are as follows:
An average of 87 percent of illicit financial outflows over the 2005-2014 period were due to the fraudulent misinvoicing of trade.
Illicit financial outflows from Sub-Saharan Africa ranged from 5.3 percent to 9.9 percent of total trade in 2014, a ratio higher than any other geographic region studied.
Total illicit financial flows (outflows plus inflows) grew at an average rate of between 8.5 percent and 10.1 percent a year over the ten-year period.
In 2014, outflows [from developing countries] are estimated to have ranged between $620 billion and $970 billion, while inflows ranged between $1.4 trillion and $2.5 trillion.
Thanks for replying, Gail. This market is part of the informal market and is a source of income for many people. Where that money goes may contribute to housing bubbles since property can still be bought with illegal activity.
Right. Also, without taxes, it can “go farther” than it would otherwise go.
I was thinking of taking my new friend to Queenstown…. but…. (it would appear that eating her… would be a bad idea)
Can I have a penguin as a pet?
No, all the species of penguin found in New Zealand and in most other countries are protected species and it is thus illegal for individuals to hold them in captivity.
Penguins are also difficult for an individual to keep in captivity. They require large quantities of top-quality fish and access to water for swimming. The penguin species found in New Zealand do not readily domesticate, that is they have to be force-fed and usually try to bite your fingers off at every opportunity!
Do penguins bite?
Yes, penguins defend themselves and their nest sites with their beaks and wings. They bite fiercely and also use their thick, strap-like, wings to beat their opponent. Blue penguins and most of the crested species are regular fighters, often getting into bloody brawls during the breeding season. The more reclusive species, like yellow-eyed penguins, rarely fight among themselves, but are still prepared to bite anybody that comes too close.
Like most penguins, the species in New Zealand do not like being handled by humans. The closest thing to being beaten up by a penguin is being grabbed with a pair of needle-nosed pliers and beaten with sandals!
http://penguin.net.nz/faq/faq2.html
I have taken on a blue penguin… and won…. World Champion!
http://www.penguins-world.com/wp-content/uploads/little_blue.jpg
well penguins are also good at pimp themselves
https://youtu.be/tAgAim926s0
Fast Eddy has turned sentimental. The end is nigh.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/10/27/tesla-just-outsold-mercedes-benz-audi-acura-infinity-in-america-about-to-crush-bmw-lexus-in-q4/#7dbb69317d1e
‘Tesla Just Outsold Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Acura, Infiniti In America, About To Crush BMW, Lexus In Q4’
“…outsold Mercedes-Benz (66,542), Audi (59,478), Acura (41,830) and Infiniti (33,079) in America with close to 70,000 vehicles sold, our current sales estimate indicates that Tesla is on track to surpass Lexus (78,622) and BMW (71,679) in the final quarter of this year.”
How about them apples?
Tesla is booking cars as sold even though they are stacked up in parking lots… the advance payments they have are for 35k vehicles… not 50k
This is Enron 2.0.
Do we know this, or just suspect this?
Given Elon Musk is a complete fool … it would not be hard to imagine him faking numbers…. so we are somewhere between strong suspicion and knowing….
Every company betrayed me! I’m fed up with this world.
Oh and even if this were reality who gives a f789 … Tesla’s are powered by coal. Since I know carbon burning is irrelevant… I should buy one — expect that I had waiting hours to charge the battery
Today, we have 100 years anniversary of the formation of Czechoslovakia – that originated when the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed. There is a famous picture from the central square in Prague, where the formation of Czechoslovakia was declared. Today, my attention was caught by the name on the building stating “Jos. Procházka”, with the mining symbols in front of it and behind it. I have reasearched it, and it is the name of the coal dealer of those times, who supplied coal for heating purposes.
So, there you have it: it was coal, that formed Czechoslovakia, and made Austria and Hungary energy poor countries, which in turn, helped the rise of fascism:
https://otevrenenoviny.cz/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/28.%C5%99%C3%ADjen-1918_V%C3%A1clavsk%C3%A9-n%C3%A1m%C4%9Bst%C3%AD.jpg
It seems like coal has been the starting point for a huge number of countries. It was only when coal started being in short supply in UK and Germany that oil became of much more interest. Oil may be energy dense and easy to dispense (since it is a liquid), but coal has a lot of other characteristics that were helpful. It was available close to home. It provides lots of jobs locally. It is usually quite cheap to produce. It could save forests, which were increasingly being cut down to provide charcoal.
After World War 2, the Soviet Union stole part of Slovakia and annexed it to Ukraine, where it has remained to this day.
Before World War 2, between 1918 and 1938, Czechoslovakia had somewhat over 3 million Germans but only around 2 million Slovaks. That was its big problem. After World War 2, the vast majority of Czechoslovakia’s Germans were expelled.
In the 1990s, the Czech Republic and Slovakia exchanged a few villages in order to straighten their common border, which shortened it by around 22 miles.
The point was really to be close to the coal producing center. It does not matter much, if you have a larger or a smaller area, but when this area contains no energy that you can use, it is mostly burden. Together with the people who live in bad conditions due to the energy poverty.
https://youtu.be/EvBF3Lxla98
“The front-runner in Sunday’s runoff election, Jair Bolsonaro, 63, has waxed poetic about the generals who led Brazil from 1964 to 1985 — their biggest flaw, he argues, is that they didn’t kill enough dissidents. If he wins, he has vowed to stock his cabinet with retired officers, throw leftists in jail, outlaw land-rights groups, weed liberal thought from schools and encourage police to use lethal force.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/brazil-shed-a-military-dictatorship-now-it-looks-again-toward-iron-fisted-rule/2018/10/26/63fecfc4-d6de-11e8-8384-bcc5492fef49_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f1e7d3ec7954
no matter who wins…
no matter what he does…
Brazil seems headed for Venezuela 2.0…
there is no political solution to declining surplus energy…
Then Mexico… or perhaps the UK…
This is exactly the sort of person that is required… as countries descend into chaos
Fine political programme.
Bet he likes dogs particularly alsatians – and is very kind to small children
Except street children, children of Leftists, etc.
“In 2011, he said he would rather his son die in a car accident than be gay.”
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/wtf/is-this-the-worlds-most-repulsive-politician/news-story/926a4a59cf6132f770dfdbd46f610e97
“In 2011, he said he would rather his son die in a car accident than be gay.”
This is bad because according to learned people, gay is good.
http://oneglobalfaith.org/images/jewish_clergy.jpg
Gay does help reduce population growth rates.
Car accidents help too.
‘This is an authoritarian era’ — and investors should be worried, says Richard Haass
“For 70, 75 years, we’ve had this rules-based international system, no great power wars, muted rivalries … and now when I look at the world and the people running the world, it gives me pause. I’m worried that when historians look back on this moment, they’re going to see this is the beginning of the unraveling.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/26/this-is-an-authoritarian-era-investors-should-worry-richard-haass.html?__source=twitter
When energy per capita falls too low, or perhaps just fails to rise enough, we have a problem with maintaining the systems we have. This is why the great unraveling starts.
Alec Baldwin: ‘We Need To Overthrow The Government’
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alec-baldwin-overthrow-the-government_us_5bc4171fe4b0bd9ed55b87e6
The tax cut will force the government to borrow more, which will raise treasury yields, which in turn will raise interests rates, which will tank the markets and the economy, since everyone is dependent on falling interests rates.
https://northmantrader.com/2018/05/15/the-tax-cut-recession/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
The article ends,”The only choice the Fed will eventually have to influence this new supply demand equation in the debt markets is to go back to being a player in the very market they left. In short: QE is coming back. It’s just a matter of when, not if.”
I would agree, if there is a happily ever after ending. There may not be any solution. Or the higher interest rates in the US could (perhaps) drive more investment in the US, protecting the US somewhat from collapse, as other nations collapse.
As for happy endings, this is an article that resonated with me;
(lets see if this gets thru..)
‘In the modern world, control of the imagination is exercised by means of audio-visual media, television, cinema, Internet and virtual reality computer games, ubiquitous and luring advertisements, and the employment of millions of images. Modern society is a society in which the cult of selfishness and sensual gratification reigns. And, yes, sexual energy, is stimulated, sublimated, and manipulated in this way in society which is permeated with sensuality and sexuality, a society which screams about itself and establishes selfishness as the social norm. This is a society of inexplicable frenzy, the triumph of the corruption of the spirit and the flesh – the total shift of attention to the mere carnal side of life which is rationalized and logically explained in Giordano Bruno’s conceptualization.’
http://katehon.com/article/great-manipulator-magic-and-modern-society
‘Peter Culianu says that the erotic magic system of Bruno aims to allow the tool to control the isolated individuals and the masses. “Its fundamental presupposition is that a big tool for manipulation exists – Eros in the most general sense of the word: that which we love. “Giordano Bruno reduces all human passions, all feelings, both lowland and sublime to love, because vanity is love of honor, greed is love of wealth, envy is love of self, which does not tolerate equality and even the superiority of another. Hatred, which is particularly Bruno stands out as a monitoring tool, it is also love, but with a negative sign. The most successful manipulation, Bruno says, is feasible if it is possible to ignite the manipulated self-love, Philautia, selfishness. In the study we found his description of love as “the most exalted relationship, the most common and the most important.” In the magical formulas used in book of Bruno, love is called “the great demon” (Daemon Magnus).’
What I am wondering is….
How does watching hard core p o rn from a very early age (and I guarantee they do) …. impact children as they grow older.
A Uuuuuuuge experiment with a bad null hypothesis methinks.
Development cant help but be skewed away from human connections to machine distractions.
I digress…
Soooo… when I arrived on the coast … I entered the garage…. and found a baby penguin nesting in there… I caught it and boiled it in a pot and me and the dog ate it .. tastes like… fish…
Actually no … we did not eat it … but the dog really really wanted to …. the dog likes to kill things… small children are her favourite…
Later that night I had another look and momma was there — back from fishing… as expected the dog wanted to kill the mother too…
Anway … today I decided I needed to evict them from the garage because they sh it and pi ss everywhere and it stinks… so I made a little house for them out back….
I went to check and the baby had died 🙁 but momma was there … I put on a glove and attempted to catch her and relocated her to the new house (Marlin Perkins Mutual of Omaha could have made a great episode!)…. I finally tossed a blanket over her and picked her up … she was befuddled… unable to snap me … so badly wanting to poke my eyes out and eat them…
But… might makes right… and she soon worked out who was The Boss.
I then stuffed her in the hole at the front of the new box house…. I am hoping that she is happy in the box… I put some sh it there like dead flax and bits of her other next… because if she stays I can monetize her by letting tourists now that if they rent our shack they are guaranteed to see penguin(s)…
Hopefully tomorrow night she is still in her condo.
I may buy her some fish tomorrow as a peace offering … if she stays and I get a lot of bookings I’ll feed her fish every day….
Stay Tuned!
“How does watching hard core p o rn from a very early age impact children as they grow older.”
They end up falling in love with penguins. Yuck.
People have always been wagging their fingers and saying ‘There’s too much sex going on today!’
Rampant sex, making money, enslaving others if you can, has been a constant since civilization came into being.
Just another distraction from the fact that we have ruined and exhausted the topsoil, aquifers, etc.
Trump is forcing the Fed to change its policy? Tax cuts, ZIRP and QE. The best of all worlds.
I have noticed that only Jason Burack at http://www.wallstreetformainstreet.com has discussed trader Vic Sperandeo’s statement that the FED has changed the rules with the large commercial banks, whereby they are now allowed to acquire, with no asset reserves, essentially an unlimited amount of USTs. They can mark the value of these to market, there is a 3% interest paid by the FED, and these banks can presumably pledge these USTs as collateral to issue more debt, 10 to 1 in a fractional reserve system, and thereby continue to loan low interest rate money to corporations for stock repurchases -for the benefit of the corporations’s executives or the banks’ own trading desks.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-rules-of-the-bond-game_2600435.html
This would argue for a bottomless pit to park all this debt inssuance by the FED. After all, many of these banks have tens of billions in derivatives. What is a few hundred billion more in USTs?
So basically QE still goes on, the money printing has just shifted from the Fed to the commercial banks.
The commercial banks prints all the money needed to by all the T-bills the treasury issues. The T-bills have a guaranteed value according to Basel lll rules and the commercial banks can collect the interest on those T-bills risk free.
Everything is fine then.
Thanks! That is a great find. The second article was written back in July.
I can believe it works that way, because in some cases, the way the accounting works is similar for insurance companies (of course, without lending the money out).
As Yoshua says, “basically QE still goes on, the money printing has just shifted from the Fed to commercial banks.” We probably have less idea regarding the amount, since the amounts are buried in many banks.
Way back when, I remember someone suggesting that a new requirement could be added the a certain percentage of the funds of 401k accounts be in treasuries, or even that they all be moved to treasuries. There seem to be lots of games that can be played.
That site cannot be accessed
This would be a good one. Already social security trust fund owns most of the debt. Requiring 401k’s to hold some seems like a good idea to me.
Japan is monetizing around half of its debt …. interest rates have not risen…
I don’t see why the US can’t do the same ….
Agreed. Keep spending on infrastructure and make-work projects. Print money, pay people to sweep the streets, and slide slowly into 2nd world status.
i believel they do have a plan b their plan can be found at a website called mission 2020 under the report the climate turning point .read that report thoroughly and you may reach the conclusion i have reached that their is a plan b.i truly believe they have been working on a plan b for a very long time and they have cleverly deceived the world into co-operating towards a solution for the problem we are facing .is their a solution or is this solution destined for failure
On Monday? Right? It has to be Monday.
yes, Monday…
haven’t you been paying attention?
weeks ago, I figured out it’s October 29…
better party tonight…
and all day tomorrow…
2018
no more BAU, baby!
lights out on Monday…
probably no more internet…
oh, well…
OFW has been fun…
all things must pass…
hopefully we will still have enough daily food…
probably nothing else…
everybody switches their lights to compact fluorescent?
https://www.insidehook.com/nation/sol-motors-pocket-rocket?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_3381851
Must see photo of an electric bike called the pocket rocket.
Wow! I remember quite a while ago reading that China was having trouble on motorized scooters disturbing their separate bike lanes. This electric bike would be a real problem.
a flashy website and an Indiegogo funding link for a purchase. NO THANKS
Plus it’s designed for commuting Like all bikes and motorcycles not really great for winter. No second seat for a passenger no rack for carrying groceries. Plus it’s 9000 euros or about 10500 dollars. What a joke.
Powered by coal-generated electricity — excellent!
I am fascinated by MORE ons who get excited by electric powered vehicles…. do they not pause to think about where the electricity comes from?
Ah yes of course … the Triumvirate of Lies has told them what to think…. they believe that soon all electricity will be from renewable sources…. this development also solves the robal rorming problem (which is a proxy for solving the problem of running out of oil — which cannot be mentioned…. because the mere thought of that would cause panic….)
https://insideevs.com/vw-battery-gigafactory-sk-innovation/
‘VW Planning Its Own Battery Gigafactory With Help From SK Innovation’
“The example of the successful and profitable partnership between Tesla and Panasonic in the Tesla Gigafactory project, as well as the scale of further Volkswagen EV plans, encourages it to consider its own battery gigafactory and contracted with a battery manufacturer.”
Great – we need more coal to be burned. Demand is crucial.
Cool, James Cameron liked one of my tweets, a doomer response in a conversation below one of his old tweets. Maybe he woke up in a bad mood
How about pasting in that doomer response and can you provide a link?
Sadly it was from a fake account
I really hate Twitter
The S&P is now broken. So what happens next?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DqcZZDmWoAEh5jE?format=jpg
Inflated values go away, and actually values arise?
The debt to equity would double?
Someone wrote that the Fed will not intervene in the stock market and that they will only save the bond market.
If the stock market collapses investors lose their money, but if the bond market collapses nations go broke.
The Fed has to make a choice?
Pensions lose either way. They seem to be heavily invested in both the stock and bond market.
The bond market is much bigger. Its collapsing would likely bring down the stock market. Banks would tend to fail at the same time as the bond market.
Saving the bond market and the banks is the only option then.
Yes, Russia is getting ready for war – in case US attacks, diplomat tells UN
https://www.rt.com/news/442407-russia-war-preparation-inf/
It’s funny how countries with resources we ‘d like are suddenly become major enemies after years of non hostile relations.
Here is my plan b.
[Message to El Mar: Try again. Your post did not link properly to what you were trying to display. Copy the URL link to the image you see. It should end in PNG or JPG.]
Mike Tyson – “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. When Mike Tyson was asked by a reporter whether he was worried about Evander Holyfield and his fight plan he answered; “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
I believe there are no “plan B”s and even if there are plan Bs, it may never work because we have a system that is too interconnected and too complex. It is way too complex for anyone to model or fathom.
Fukushima – there are contingency plans for tsunami but unfortunately, it is not adequate. Diesel generators at the basement of the facility.
Questions :
-Where is the diesel stored?
– Easily deliverable to the generator?
– Pipes? What if it breaks?
– who has the keys? to the generator? to the room? to the room that holds the keys?
– do you need electricity to access the generator (lifts? electric locks?)
– Is it easy for water to contaminate the diesel?
– is the switch next to the generator or far away in another buidling?
– how many people are trained to do it? Are they available at all times?
– Is there anything that may block the pathway to the generator?
– the generators are tested regularly (I hope so) but is the test done in a controlled environment and not like after a tsunami (“let us be gentle to the switch”, don’t push this button too hard, balance this otherwise, it will not start”)
– a lot more issues and questions that I cannot of
Any of the above would render the generators useless and “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” (in this case, punched by the tsunami)
The present financial crisis – is this real? (not sure). Do they have a plan? (not sure)
What I do know is that I felt that we humans will never be able to weather another crisis. The end of dollar hegemony, the collapse of assets prices, etc may cripple the supply chain, costing jobs and food supply disruption. It can also cause the disruption of fuel, petrol, electricity, etc. Our modern civilization cannot go without them.
Don’t believe me? Check out below
1985 – Internet? What is that?
2000 – internet improves productivity
2018 – without internet, many people will be out of work and logistics company will grind a halt.
Do we have a backup? No. Do we have a plan? No.
I agree. We are way too dependent on the internet.
And the economy has become so complex that we can’t fathom how a backup for the financial system would have to be structured. Authorities have accepted a totally wrong explanation of how the economy operates as “true,” making the real situation very confusing.
And people fantasize about going back to Little House On The Prairie. Our way of life the fossil fuel system created was designed to move forward not backwards and to become ever more complex because fossil fuels made it all possible and we never thought that eventually we would pick all the low hanging fruit. Well we are past that point of low hanging fruit.
And we are way to dependent on software developers. When dotcom bust IT was minimised for a year or three.
Now almost every company depends on developers constantly tweaking the code.
Complexity increases, need for developers increases, quality of developers decreases. There is no way back.
Welcome to the codecalypse.
Also, who wants to go into computer security? It is almost certainly a losing proposition, with all of the people who have an interest in obtaining information online, or in disturbing things like electricity or fresh water distribution. When something goes wrong, you are likely to be blamed.
Just keeping a very complex system operating is a problem; adding people who want to disturb the system adds a new dimension.
No forethought, no plan.
At each step up in complexity, no one gave any thought to resilience – only profit streams.
With JIT, managed using the internet, combined with vast supply-chains, we discarded one of the the fundamental principles of civilization: the storage of surpluses ready at hand.
The early Italian capitalists often had to wait many years for profit – in the wool trade for instance, from buying raw wool to selling the last bale of cloth at a trade fair.
Over the last two centuries, aided by machines and tools only made possible by fossil fuels, every effort has been expended to accelerate and shorten the profit cycle, and no thought given to any other factor.
I was informed by a green groopies that the plastic bag problem is fixed… now the focus needs to be on the packaging..
It turns out that about 90 percent of all the plastic that reaches the world’s oceans gets flushed through just 10 rivers: The Yangtze, the Indus, Yellow River, Hai River, the Nile, the Ganges, Pearl River, Amur River, the Niger, and the Mekong (in that order).
https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-from-just-10-rivers/a-41581484
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahleung/2018/04/21/five-asian-countries-dump-more-plastic-than-anyone-else-combined-how-you-can-help/#3eb77c891234
Yup .. NZ is banning plastic grocery bags (so I buy glad plastic bin liner bags now) — so the problem is fixed.
The MSM is doing a great job on this issue…. we are taking action … we are repairing the planet!!!!
The oceans, via Asia, must be where a lot of our “recycling” really goes. China at least has had the good sense not to accept more of the paper/plastic that it cannot really recycle.
But if China cuts off taking imported paper and plastic recycling, that action tends to mess up the economics of shipping. This happens because if China will take our (subsidized) recycling, it acts to fill up empty containers that previously held goods sold to the US with a cargo that pays for the return trip for the containers. Without the trash, it become more expensive to ship goods to the US, if the shipping companies are to cover their costs.
The second article talks about a few ways to reduce trash. How about more location-cooked foods? Back in the 1950s and 1960s, “lunch ladies” cooked set menu (varying each day) for lunch in the school cafeterias. The choice was take it or bring a lunch from home. Packaging was minimal, since it only affected the bulk commodities that the school purchased to go into the lunches.
It seems like big businesses did something similar. They had a company cafeteria, where local employees took commodities and made lunches using these commodities. The selection of choices was very limited. Portion sizes were probably smaller than today, and could vary with the amount individuals going through the line wanted.
These things would cut out a lot of waste, and add local jobs. Of course, if they paid well, the price of food away from home would rise.
A lot of the plastics we send for recycling goes to the trash landfills anyway. But plastics in the ocean is becoming a problem that has and will impact the human monkey in the future even more. It is negatively impacting the food chain with fish and ocean creatures digesting it and in many cases, killing them.
I came across and posted a link to a story here recently that 90% of the salts we use now contain plastics.
Here it is:
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/salt-in-the-world-contains-microplastics/
https://www.ecowatch.com/table-salt-mircroplastics-2613395969.html
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/sea-salt-around-world-contaminated-by-plastic-studies
I can imagine what a graph of sea salt sales looks like. Next question: What will come of sea salt manufacturers? Will they simply pass their product off as regular salt?
I would not put it past them. But fortunately the Serfs they haven’t gotten the message yet from the MSM. They’re too busy staring at their latest iFruit phone posting comments on Farcebook and following people on Twitter to really care.
If this is real …then surely all seafoods have plastic inside them… it’s kinda like trying to avoid eating Round Up…. impossible
it’s like Winnie the Poo, counting all the bees in the hive. keeps ’em busy, therefore, no worries.
The plastic in the ocean originate in rivers in very poor areas of the world – areas without trash collection – so the people can burn the plastic — or toss it in the river….
The thing is… these green groopies appear to not be aware of this — if we wanted to do something about this — we’d need to pay for trash collection in these sprawling poverty stricken regions…
Hands up anyone who is ok with paying say $250 in extra taxes per year… to really do something about the plastic in the ocean….
Of course the wealthy Californians who jet their kids off the Bali Green School have their hands up … but almost nobody else
I don’t understand China… why don’t they continue to accept the West’s rubbish … and continue throwing it in the ocean?
As the populations concentrate in the urban areas due to the access to services and easier and cheaper maintenance of the utilities, the transportation and storage of the food becomes an increasing problem. The local food is not possible for such areas with the concentrated population.
Exactly, up until the early 19th century London was surrounded by market gardens -you could stand on the north bank of the Thames and look across to them. Farms and gardeners just a few miles from the very centre…..
and deliverable by horse and cart, or boat, that kept population to 1m max
now its 7m + and has food flown in from all over the world.
Interesting how that 1 to 7 ratio is the same as world population
The father of the great painter Turner used to ride up to London on a cart delivering to the famous fruit and veg market at Covent Garden every day.
I had to spend a month in London recently, and the sociological and racial changes are fascinating. So many Nigerians, and lots of Columbians in one borough.
But most of all it feels totally over-packed with people, and even the jets are flying lower and more frequently it seems – the sheer noise drove me mad!
hearing English in central London is becoming a raity these days
But centrol London in Turner’s day would’ve been just as awful—if different
FE
several months ago naked capitalism linked to an article on plastic in the oceans.
The plastic bags and packaging are bad and a problem but as a focal point it is a distraction. Turns out the real problem is the tons and tons of plastic fishing nets lost and dumped by commercial.fisherman But you will not hear much about that
Just like the real problem with overuse of antibiotics is not ppl but factory met production.
So diversions to protect industries from costs
I hadn’t thought about all of the plastic fishing nets. Probably goes with the over-fishing.
We end up with such a large set of problems that only the most visible get talked about. The “polar bear” syndrome.
Of course, the issue is the combined impact of all of the problems.
Yes of course…. see http://deathbydesignfilm.com/ (you can download it on vimeo for 5 bucks)
That is a massive problem … but I do not see the MSM urging people to stop buying electronic gear…
Once again … the MSM is on the job … telling people what to think…. distracting… deluding….
I have NEVER seen a plastic bag in a lake or the ocean here in NZ… yet we MUST urgently ban all plastic shopping bags (then buy more plastic bags for bin liners)
In disconcerting news for major oil producing countries, particularly production heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Russia, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday that the world’s largest oil producing nations are under unprecedented pressure to cut their reliance on energy revenues amid advances in fuel efficiencies and that electric vehicles threaten to undercut demand and erode their finances.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-IEAs-Warning-To-Oil-Producers.html
It’s a joke … right?
April Fools is early?
Actual grapes = depletion of finite cheap resources.
Sour grapes = cheaper and better alternatives obsoleting currently vital yet abundant cheap resources.
This is how people’s concern is distracted from the real problems. Politicians start from desired answer and work backwards. The IEA is the mouth piece for the OECD. They are the ones without enough oil. They have to have a happily ever after ending. So “fuel efficiencies and electric vehicles” are their supposed solutions.
Not just the OECD thinks in this way;
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/
“Sustainable development” represents a contradiction in terms, unfortunately. People everywhere seem to believe in BAU forever, if someone gives them some sort of supposed “plan” to get to that end.
Let’s talk about gggggg wwwww … it’s a wonderful distraction …. from some very REAL issues that we are facing … that actually will bring on the end of the world
on AGW this is worth a look—if not all of it (Though it’s all good)—just from 26min to about 31.
Explains what ”cooling” is
nice job on explaining CO2 glo ball werming, then he goes on to present false hopes of replacing FFs with PV panels and wind mills. i guess telling the truth would not get him any new seminar gigs.
thats why i itemised minutes 26/31—-his take on solar panels etc was a daydream
but he undoubtedly knows his other stuff
yes, he’s a critical thinker. i suspect he’s a critical thinker about all topics, so what he presented on PV panels and wind turbines appears to be dishonest, to be blunt about it. on the batteries needed to store the intermittent energy, he waffles that “they will think of something”. what about the heat needed to melt all that PV panel silica, the vast amounts of minor elements like Se, Ga, In to make the PV panels work? wind turbines need FF to manufacture, transport, install and maintain. where are the all-electric trucks, boats and cranes needed?
what i love about Gail and her blog is she honestly confronts the issue of lack of any reasonable alternatives to FF, among other topics.
that’s where his thinking falls down at the end of his lecture
but for the first part he knows his stuff in depth about AGW
4 hours ago
[Message to Fast Eddy: Your link is good; I deleted the comment you made with it. It was too “over the top.”]
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-26/bloodbath
Excerpts:
The S&P 500 had dropped 15 times this month. That was the most for a full month since October 2008, when the world’s biggest central banks cut interest rates and U.S. money-market funds got a bailout.
It’s been ugly:
Dow down 9% from record high (down 4 of last 5 weeks)
S&P down 10.1% from record high (down 4 of last 5 weeks)
Nasdaq down 13% from record high (down 4 weeks in a row)
Dow Transports down 15.2% from record high (down 6 weeks in a row)
Small Caps down 15.8% from record high (down 6 weeks in a row)
With all the major US equity indices languishing below their 200 Day Moving Averages…
Only Nasdaq remains green for 2018…
Global Systemically Important Banks had their worst week since March, tumbling for the 5th week in a row to the lowest since Nov 2016…down 30% from their highs…
I can’t recall what my comment was…
what a week this was!
and now only 2 days until October 29…
a Monday!
then what will we see?
The Implosion?
1000 point drop in DOW. sell off continues.
The Shale Boom Calmed Oil Markets, but for How Much Longer?
Supply worries are back: As U.S. bonanza nears limits, the world is thirstier than ever for crude
For the past decade, enough oil has flowed from America’s shale boom to allay worries that demand for the world’s most important commodity would outstrip supply.
Now, new volatility in global oil prices—which are up 15% since the start of the year—signals that the calming effect of the shale bonanza is reaching its limits.
For perspective on shale’s impact, rewind to 2007, when some industry leaders saw world demand hitting a wall once it rose to 100 million barrels a day—a level they thought supplies would have trouble matching.
“Where is all that going to come from?” said James Mulva, the former chief executive of ConocoPhillips, that year, when the world produced and consumed about 85 million barrels a day.
In August, global oil demand reached 100 million barrels a day, and the world hardly noticed. What happened? Shale.
Using techniques such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, U.S. oil drillers figured out how to get crude oil from ultradense shale rocks in North Dakota, Texas and Oklahoma. U.S. oil output rose from 5 million barrels a day in 2007, when Mr. Mulva raised his concerns, to a record of nearly 11 million a day in August, a remarkable increase that has rarely been replicated anywhere in the history of oil.
While this has helped the world meet rising demand for years, it cannot go on forever. Signs are mounting that shale won’t keep growing at the same rate in the U.S. Drillers face pipeline bottlenecks moving crude out of West Texas. This week, Halliburton Co. Chief Executive Jeff Miller said its oil-producing clients were facing “budget exhaustion” and he expected some to take extended breaks from drilling new shale wells. That is coinciding with warnings of plateauing, or even declining, production elsewhere in the world.
All the while, global economic growth has been strong for several quarters and oil demand continues to grow. Since its last year-over-year decline at the end of 2011, oil demand has grown annually by 1.5 million barrels a day, according to International Energy Agency data.
The steady upward march of oil demand has left oil markets prone to price swings and spikes. The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the leading global benchmark, is up to near $77 a barrel, from $67 at the beginning of the year.
If U.S. production fails to grow at recent rates, it is far from clear that the world’s two other oil superpowers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, can pick up the slack. Russia is already pumping 10.8 million barrels a day of crude, a level unseen since the Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia, currently at 10.4 million barrels a day, is headed toward record-level output.
“The Saudis are just about out of spare capacity,” said Robert McNally, a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush who heads the Rapidan Energy Group, a Washington consulting firm.
Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said this week, according to Russian news agency TASS, that the country would bump up its production to 11 million barrels a day to cool off the oil market, although some oil observers wonder if the kingdom would be able to fulfill this promise.
Meanwhile, exports from two other key oil-producing nations are falling.
In the midst of an economic meltdown under President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, has seen its production fall to 1.2 million barrels a day today from 3.2 million barrels in 2006, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil sector are set to take effect Nov. 4, barring companies from buying Iranian exports. Oil traders are still assessing how effective those sanctions will be at crimping Iran’s oil industry, but analysts say they could remove anywhere from 1 million to 1.5 million barrels a day from global oil markets.
“This is the year geopolitics came back to the oil markets and it is back with a vengeance,” said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. In recent weeks, the oil market has carefully watched growing strains in the U.S.-Saudi relationship over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The impact of Iranian sanctions or Venezuela’s falling output would have been muted a couple of years ago, when supply was plentiful. The rising demand means this is no longer the case.
“Geopolitics matter more when markets are tight,” said Sarah O. Ladislaw, director of the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
There are so far no signs of any actual supply squeeze and some believe that without the current geopolitical uncertainties, oil prices would still be stable. “Based on market fundamentals, there is absolutely no reason oil prices should be at this level,” said Ali Moshiri, chairman of Amos Global Energy LLC, a Houston-based oil producer and a longtime Chevron Corp. executive.
But if oil demand continues to rise—and Iranian exports are curtailed—prices could rise dramatically. A couple of years ago, such a rise might have been short-lived as shale producers accelerated operations and added more oil to the global market.
Geopolitical shifts also make for uncertain longer-term forecasts and price swings. While the U.S. hardline approach to Iran could lead to a rise in oil prices now, down the line the trade policies could erode oil demand and lead to future price drops.
For the U.S. to pursue both Iran sanctions and toughening trade policy at the same time “is a really big risk,” said Philip Verleger, an energy economist. “If we’re not careful, we could have a repeat of 2008 when oil prices started at $90 a barrel, went up to $140 and ended around $30,” he said.
For years, shale helped keep enough spare capacity in global markets that volatility began to feel like a relic of the past. In the years to come, the world may no longer have that shale shock absorber, ending a relatively peaceful decade in oil markets.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-shale-boom-calmed-oil-markets-but-for-how-much-longer-1540546200
And when shale boom doesn’t calm markets, what happens? High prices or wars, perhaps financial wars? Economists have created a theory of high prices being the solution to a shortage of oil. History shows that “not enough energy per capita” has led to conflict rather than high prices. Depressions can also happen. Peak prices of the 1970s came when per capita energy consumption growth was at its peak, not when it was collapsing.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/world-growth-rate-in-per-capita-energy-consumption-2017.png
https://www.thisisinsider.com/gdp-trump-tariff-trade-war-us-china-2018-10
“GDP rose at an annualized rate of 3.5% in the third quarter. But the contribution of net exports of goods and services — the measure of how much trade added or subtracted to GDP growth — was a dismal -1.78 percentage points.
• It was the largest negative contribution to GDP growth for trade in 33 years; in the second quarter of 1985, trade subtracted 1.91 points.
• In other words, if trade were a net neutral, neither adding to nor subtracting from GDP growth, third-quarter GDP growth would have been a dynamite 5.3%.”
No wonder, even at 3.5%, the Fed have been raising interest rates.
But it’s also interesting that if there was no trade war, GDP growth would have been a whopping 5.3%, just 1.2% less than China’s latest GDP growth of 6.5%.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/government-and-military-spending-fuel-u-s-growth-1540459800
This article says (in part)
Growing government debt helped make this possible, I expect.
Well we are posting 1+ trillion $ deficits – Trickle down alive and well.
Did you think the king of debt would be outdone by a community organizer – Winning!!!!
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Australian-Drivers-Refuse-To-Fill-Up-After-Gas-Price-Hike.html
“More than 160,000 drivers in Australia have launched a boycott of fuel stations after a sharp rise in prices at the pump to more than US$1.20 (A41.70) per liter, the daily Mail reports. Dubbed the National Fuel Strike, the initiative began today, with drivers refusing to fuel up and sharing pictures of empty fuel stations.”
There are 3.78541 liters per gallon. At $1.20 US a liter, that’s $4.54 a gallon.
Yep, that will do it!
Same boycott is happening in NZ. Urban sprawl, congested roads, and oversize vehicles would cause greater costs, but that would require some introspection….and hey this is the age of ‘blame and shame’ so get on-board now!
If enough people strike… that will solve this peak cheap oil problem !!!
That is not a bad price…Guessing the lion share is tax on one level or another.
WSJ: Tesla Faces Deepening Criminal Probe Over Whether It Misstated Production Figures
This seems to have to do with statements during 2017 about how many Model 3s would be produced.
Musk appears to be not a US citizen. He can run his thing at anywhere he feels like.
That aside, too much money is bet on Tesla. They will not let their investment go to zero that easily. Plus the armada of talents Musk assembled will mean a lot.
Yes that is why I refuse to go short or long. The game is rigged
GE also had the game rigged.
Now they are a money maker
Also, for those who want the guillotines back, there is a little-read postscript.
The nobles, or the relatives of them, returned and recovered a lot of their properties.Charles X, the last Bourbon King, was actually more reactionary than anyone who was before. He issued a lot of bonds to the nobles so they could buy their lands at a low price, which they duly did, often using cunning and guile to drive the farmers out.
That bankrupted the French Kingdom and Charles was driven from the throne, but the nobles held on to their properties and they still do so to this day. They did learn to behave a bit nicer to the locals, and try to keep a lower profile to not attract Paris’ attention, but they still hold perhaps 50% of their pre 1789 power and money.
“but they still hold perhaps 50% of their pre 1789 power and money.”
Evidence?
[Message to Kulm: Your links are OK. I deleted your comment which went with the links as inappropriate].
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37655777
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/french-nobles-give-bastille-day-right-royal-non-1.1462071
https://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/10/Screenshot_2018-10-26-Minnesota-Police-Train-at-Military-Base-as-Line-3-Pipeline-Protests-Escalate-1024×537.png
Well—
Looks like they are headed to Afghanistan but no that is your friendly neighborhood sheriff. Land of the free home of the brave my a$$.
“… but the nobles held on to their properties and they still do so to this day.”
actually, they have all been dead for about 200 years…
perhaps it’s too easy to be outraged by the inequalities of the human race…
when in the long run, we all live micro-short lives and then enter the nothingness of eternal death…
all “nobles” included, of course…
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45996655
Ok, the FBI found the person that sent the bombs to Trump’s worst enemies. Those enemies did not mail them to themselves.
yes… the guy is so men-tally unstable that he most likely helped all anti-Trump candidates by launching his plan 2 weeks before the elections…
guys like this are usually termed re-tard and more-on…
Talking of fire…
“Power is like fire – a good servant, but a bad master and the misuse of power is one of the greatest faults of any government; indeed, it is a crime against the people.”
– Donald Sangster,
The misuse of fire too.
Wikipedia: “In physics, power is the rate of doing work or transferring heat, the amount of energy transferred or converted per unit time.”
Energy and power are very closely related.
Yes Mam I learned that in grade 7 in a third world country
Some of our leaders have forgotten about this connection, however.
Still common to read articles where kW and kWh are confused.
Billionaires made more money in 2017 than in any year in recorded history
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/26/worlds-billionaires-became-20-richer-in-2017-report-reveals
https://imgur.com/a/hxtNylK
Billionaires spent more money on security in 2017 than in any year in recorded history…
And I suspect that trend will continue as global tensions between the Elite and the Serfs continues to rise.
if only there were no Billionaires and Elites…
the world would be paradise!
there should be a revolution…
that ALWAYS makes things better…
For centuries there has always been conflict between the Rich and the Poor and that will continue until one day we are all shown the door. My favorite quote is by Gerald Celente who is the founder of Trends Research and in his own words it’s pretty easy to figure out the breaking point when a Revolution is right around the corner. He says:
“When people lose EVERYTHING and have nothing else to lose, THEY LOSE IT !”
Maritime rule change stirs fears of diesel shortage: Kemp
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-prices-kemp/maritime-rule-change-stirs-fears-of-diesel-shortage-kemp-idUSKCN1MZ2EM
According to the article:
“Under IMO rules, ship owners have two routes to comply with the reduced sulfur caps: switch consumption to fuels containing less sulfur or install exhaust gas cleaning systems commonly known as scrubbers.”
When ships go the scrubber route, what do they do with the pollution they pull out of the air? I would imagine that they dump it in the ocean. They certainly don’t bring it into, say, Hong Kong and drop it off at a land location. Isn’t most of what is extracted sulfur compounds?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_cycle
According to the Wikipedia article,
“There is no significant amount of sulfur held in the atmosphere with all of it coming from either sea spray or windblown sulfur rich dust, neither of which is long lived in the atmosphere. In recent times the large annual input of sulfur from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels adds a substantial amount SO2 which acts as an air pollutant. In the geologic past, igneous intrusions into coal measures have caused large scale burning of these measures, and consequential release of sulfur to the atmosphere. This has led to substantial disruption to the climate system, and is one of the proposed causes of the great dying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_measures
It seems that coal spontaneously combusts. I think that the previous paragraph means that spontaneous ignition of some of the coal in the past was what led to too much sulfur in the atmosphere. I am not certain to what extent that these underground coal fires are contributing to the sulfur in air pollution problem today.
https://saferenvironment.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/underground-coal-fire-emerging-as-a-global-threat-with-significant-economic-social-and-ecological-impacts/
The above blog post from 2009 says,
Also,
Abandoned coal mines can particularly be a problem, if they are not properly closed. Coal mines are being closed because they are unprofitable. This is not a formula for spending extra effort on preventing fires.
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/6296-The-world-s-longest-burning-fires-China-s-unseen-story
Coal extraction remains a higher priority than putting out China’s huge underground coal fires
My question: It seems to me that these spontaneous coal fires may be a much bigger deal than the sulfur in the individual ships. Is anyone evaluating the relative contributions of different sources of sulfur air pollution? China and India are likely big sources this problem.
The Red Queen says to Alice, “To stay in one place, you must run as fast as you can. If you want to get anywhere, you must run twice as fast. If you run too fast, You die”
Why this far-right candidate could win Brazil’s election
Brazil is set to hold the most important election in its history. Two candidates are facing off on October 28th. Fernando Haddad represents the Workers’ Party, which has been in power for much of the past two decades. The second candidate, far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro, has positioned himself as an outsider. With soaring crime and rampant corruption in government, voters are ready for a change — a desire Bolsonaro has capitalized on. But with his deeply offensive rhetoric toward minorities, many Brazilians are worried about their safety and the future of their country’s democracy.
https://youtu.be/H1DXtQua074
btw trump in 80s was more understand than today
here is the example
https://youtu.be/SEPs17_AkTI
https://imgur.com/a/N7foX9Z
Bingo!
We have a winner—
Being able to live with cognitive dissonance and denial really does look like it was an important evolutionary step for us (though ultimately also destructive).
this is why we become one of most destructive species
in the history of planet earth
Same story everywhere. Economy goes sour and people are looking for strong men to tell them who the scapegoat is.
democracy never outlives poverty
this looks like Venezuela Mk 2, and the Don will be watching closely.
‘I’m proud to have become a Muslim’: Sinead O’Connor announces she has converted from Catholicism – and says she’s now called Shuhada Davitt
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6317761/Sinead-OConnor-announces-conversion-Islam-video.html
“She was ordained a priest by the Irish Orthodox and Apostolic Church in the 1990s, shocking members of the Roman Catholic Church where women can’t be priests.”
“O’Connor has spoken previously about how she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder more than a decade ago and has struggled with depression and post traumatic stress for years.”
She is definitely trying to find out where is the problem…
I’m with Morrissey on this one.
When I was in Uzbekistan… it occurred to me that Islam would be a really cool religion to join … if one was religious…
I recall hearing the call to prayer coming from dozens of mosques when in Morocco — I was drawn to the theatre of it all…
I should join just to go to mecca and watch the thousands go round and round the black box…
Maybe Elon can have his followers circle a Tesla?
careful what you wish for Eddy–no turning back
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/04/egyptian-parliament-considers-outlawing-atheism/1005441001/
I would say that it is similar to the inquisition when the Medieval Ages was collapsing: the catholic church started to lose influence and the people were trying to move back to some witches, charms etc. But this time, it is a step further to the end: a fear that there is no higher power that can save human species here on Earth. The muslim religion experiences tough times: we already have muslim kamikaze attackers with bombs attached on their bodies. It is the fear of atheism that makes them to adopt such laws. But there are always various personal beliefs in some higher power, although the people do not have to belong to any organized church.
It is the energy that is needed to run the institutions that makes the people to shrink from those institutions, as they do not have energy for celebrating anything, when they are trying to survive from day to day…
“Dressing up” always used to be part of church-going. Now young people have neither the time nor the money for such activities. Can’t afford the expensive clothes. Public transport may not operate on Sundays. Schools schedule athletic events that conflict.
LOL!
Maybe we should be worshipping Jerome Powell, William Nordhous, Robert Solow, John Maynard Keynes, and all of the others who seem to make eternal growth look possible. Create wrong theories and put people in high places to administer them. Humans are in charge; we can make anything happen that we want to happen.
Dear me, all rows of those primitives, barefoot and in shabby robes, with their ar ses in the air. Circumcision, halal, sacrifice, all day praying.
With a too poor population and in cold climate, you can not practice Islam. It is these complicated and risky (e.g. circumcision) institutional requirements that cause that the people become atheists (although, inside, they still believe in some higher power).
I would worry more about their large families and the possibility of the wealthy having multiple wives. But this is not true everywhere. Iran seems to have its fertility rate under control. Iraq, not so much.
The biggest problem of the countries with warm climate is the food. The biggest problem of the countries with cold climate is the cold. You have to spent extra energy preparating for the winter. You are more concentrated on the survival of the existing humans (i.e. you and your family), less on creating more progeny.
Therefore, the women in the cold countries are not so open to propagation. They more often suffer from being abandoned by their male partners. It is much harder for them to survive in the cold climate.
The man in warm countries does not have to care about the warmth during the cold seasons. This means accumulating energy for winter. Living in cold climate and accumulating enough energy for several wives and your children from such relationships is not possible, because you always compete for energy for surviving the winter with others.
I can see how it would give life meaning…. false meaning… but meaning…
Will there be a future wholo coast of European mu slims? One can hope.
I do not think that there will be such thing as wholo coast of European muslims. The muslims will simply become atheists, as the cheaper energy disappears. I guess this partial and temorary spread of islam into colder climates is caused not only by social benefits, but also by the use of natural gas for heating during the winter in the recent decades. Surviving the winter is much easier. Also the increasing use of floor heating allows for more religious activities on the floor (i.e. this favours also buddhism).
as cheap surplus energy disappears, people will look to their god to refill oilwells
when that doesnt happen, they will blame unbelievers
that’s starting right now, where the neckless godbotherers in the USA think that Trump is part of their god’s plan to prepare for the second coming, which cannot come about until all the ”unbelievers” have been eliminated from the world so that god will be pleased.
This follows Pence’s belief strategy perfectly
belief in deities will be the last thing to be snuffed out—along with the last human being
animals don’t need gods as a support mechanism
Morrissey denounces halal meat
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/17/morrissey-denounces-halal-meat-as-evil-attacks-theresa-may-diane-abbott-sadiq-khan-isis-for-britain
“Former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said she is concerned about increasingly lax standards in the market for leveraged loans, the Financial Times reported. Yellen echoes warnings from the Fed, the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of Australia about the corner of the debt market that, according to the Institute of International Finance, has ballooned to $1.6 trillion. “I am worried about the systemic risks associated with these loans,” she said.”
http://uk.businessinsider.com/janet-yellen-leveraged-loan-warning-2018-10?r=US&IR=T
Yes, there is systemic risk with respect to these loans.
Not having enough debt growth is a different, at least as important, risk. Of course, it is not clear that much of the benefit of leveraged loans gets back benefit non-elite wage earners.
“Italy’s banks are charging households and businesses more to borrow after a fall in the value of the country’s bonds, the first sign of a credit tightening that could disrupt the populist government’s economic revival plans. Investors have been dumping Italian assets since the formation in June of a coalition government whose draft 2019 budget plan this month prompted Moody’s to cut Italy’s credit rating and the European Commission to demand a revision.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-budget-banks-lending-analysis/italian-families-firms-feel-heat-of-rising-bank-loan-costs-idUKKCN1MZ2A2
“Investors haven’t dumped European banking stocks at such a brisk pace since the financial crisis ten years ago, making it the region’s most oversold sector following a brutal three-week market sell-off. But lenders are not alone, with more than half of European sectors now in oversold territory.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-25/market-rout-sends-europe-banks-to-most-oversold-level-since-2008