One of the great misconceptions of our time is the belief that we can move away from fossil fuels if we make suitable choices on fuels. In one view, we can make the transition to a low-energy economy powered by wind, water, and solar. In other versions, we might include some other energy sources, such as biofuels or nuclear, but the story is not very different.
The problem is the same regardless of what lower bound a person chooses: our economy is way too dependent on consuming an amount of energy that grows with each added human participant in the economy. This added energy is necessary because each person needs food, transportation, housing, and clothing, all of which are dependent upon energy consumption. The economy operates under the laws of physics, and history shows disturbing outcomes if energy consumption per capita declines.
There are a number of issues:
- The impact of alternative energy sources is smaller than commonly believed.
- When countries have reduced their energy consumption per capita by significant amounts, the results have been very unsatisfactory.
- Energy consumption plays a bigger role in our lives than most of us imagine.
- It seems likely that fossil fuels will leave us before we can leave them.
- The timing of when fossil fuels will leave us seems to depend on when central banks lose their ability to stimulate the economy through lower interest rates.
- If fossil fuels leave us, the result could be the collapse of financial systems and governments.
[1] Wind, water and solar provide only a small share of energy consumption today; any transition to the use of renewables alone would have huge repercussions.
According to BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy data, wind, water and solar only accounted for 9.4% 0f total energy consumption in 2017.
Figure 1. Wind, Water and Solar as a percentage of total energy consumption, based on BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Even if we make the assumption that these types of energy consumption will continue to achieve the same percentage increases as they have achieved in the last 10 years, it will still take 20 more years for wind, water, and solar to reach 20% of total energy consumption.
Thus, even in 20 years, the world would need to reduce energy consumption by 80% in order to operate the economy on wind, water and solar alone. To get down to today’s level of energy production provided by wind, water and solar, we would need to reduce energy consumption by 90%.
[2] Venezuela’s example (Figure 1, above) illustrates that even if a country has an above average contribution of renewables, plus significant oil reserves, it can still have major problems.
One point people miss is that having a large share of renewables doesn’t necessarily mean that the lights will stay on. A major issue is the need for long distance transmission lines to transport the renewable electricity from where it is generated to where it is to be used. These lines must constantly be maintained. Maintenance of electrical transmission lines has been an issue in both Venezuela’s electrical outages and in California’s recent fires attributed to the utility PG&E.
There is also the issue of variability of wind, water and solar energy. (Note the year-to-year variability indicated in the Venezuela line in Figure 1.) A country cannot really depend on its full amount of wind, water, and solar unless it has a truly huge amount of electrical storage: enough to last from season-to-season and year-to-year. Alternatively, an extraordinarily large quantity of long-distance transmission lines, plus the ability to maintain these lines for the long term, would seem to be required.
[3] When individual countries have experienced cutbacks in their energy consumption per capita, the effects have generally been extremely disruptive, even with cutbacks far more modest than the target level of 80% to 90% that we would need to get off fossil fuels.
Notice that in these analyses, we are looking at “energy consumption per capita.” This calculation takes the total consumption of all kinds of energy (including oil, coal, natural gas, biofuels, nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewables) and divides it by the population.
Energy consumption per capita depends to a significant extent on what citizens within a given economy can afford. It also depends on the extent of industrialization of an economy. If a major portion of industrial jobs are sent to China and India and only service jobs are retained, energy consumption per capita can be expected to fall. This happens partly because local companies no longer need to use as many energy products. Additionally, workers find mostly service jobs available; these jobs pay enough less that workers must cut back on buying goods such as homes and cars, reducing their energy consumption.
Example 1. Spain and Greece Between 2007-2014
Figure 2. Greece and Spain energy consumption per capita. Energy data is from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy; population estimates are UN 2017 population estimates.
The period between 2007 and 2014 was a period when oil prices tended to be very high. Both Greece and Spain are very dependent on oil because of their sizable tourist industries. Higher oil prices made the tourism services these countries sold more expensive for their consumers. In both countries, energy consumption per capita started falling in 2008 and continued to fall until 2014, when oil prices began falling. Spain’s energy consumption per capita fell by 18% between 2007 and 2014; Greece’s fell by 24% over the same period.
Both Greece and Spain experienced high unemployment rates, and both have needed debt bailouts to keep their financial systems operating. Austerity measures were forced on Greece. The effects on the economies of these countries were severe. Regarding Spain, Wikipedia has a section called, “2008 to 2014 Spanish financial crisis,” suggesting that the loss of energy consumption per capita was highly correlated with the country’s financial crisis.
Example 2: France and the UK, 2004 – 2017
Both France and the UK have experienced falling energy consumption per capita since 2004, as oil production dropped (UK) and as industrialization was shifted to countries with a cheaper total cost of labor and fuel. Immigrant labor was added, as well, to better compete with the cost structures of the countries that France and the UK were competing against. With the new mix of workers and jobs, the quantity of goods and services that these workers could afford (per capita) has been falling.
Figure 3. France and UK energy consumption per capita. Energy data is from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy; population estimates are UN 2017 population estimates.
Comparing 2017 to 2004, energy consumption per capita is down 16% for France and 25% in the UK. Many UK citizens have been very unhappy, wanting to leave the European Union.
France recently has been experiencing “Yellow Vest” protests, at least partly related to an increase in carbon taxes. Higher carbon taxes would make energy-based goods and services less affordable. This would likely reduce France’s energy consumption per capita even further. French citizens with their protests are clearly not happy about how they are being affected by these changes.
Example 3: Syria (2006-2016) and Yemen (2009-2016)
Both Syria and Yemen are examples of formerly oil-exporting countries that are far past their peak production. Declining energy consumption per capita has been forced on both countries because, with their oil exports falling, the countries can no longer afford to use as much energy as they did in the past for previous uses, such as irrigation. If less irrigation is used, food production and jobs are lost. (Syria and Yemen)
Figure 4. Syria and Yemen energy consumption per capita. Energy consumption data from US Energy Information Administration; population estimates are UN 2017 estimates.
Between Yemen’s peak year in energy consumption per capita (2009) and the last year shown (2016), its energy consumption per capita dropped by 66%. Yemen has been named by the United Nations as the country with the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” Yemen cannot provide adequate food and water for its citizens. Yemen is involved in a civil war that others have entered into as well. I would describe the war as being at least partly a resource war.
The situation with Syria is similar. Syria’s energy consumption per capita declined 55% between its peak year (2006) and the last year available (2016). Syria is also involved in a civil war that has been entered into by others. Here again, the issue seems to be inadequate resources per capita; war participants are to some extent fighting over the limited resources that are available.
Example 4: Venezuela (2008-2017)
Figure 5. Energy consumption per capita for Venezuela, based on BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy data and UN 2017 population estimates.
Between 2008 and 2017, energy consumption per capita in Venezuela declined by 23%. This is a little less than the decreases experienced by the UK and Greece during their periods of decline.
Even with this level of decline, Venezuela has been having difficulty providing adequate services to its citizens. There have been reports of empty supermarket shelves. Venezuela has not been able to maintain its electrical system properly, leading to many outages.
[4] Most people are surprised to learn that energy is required for every part of the economy. When adequate energy is not available, an economy is likely to first shrink back in recession; eventually, it may collapse entirely.
Physics tells us that energy consumption in a thermodynamically open system enables all kinds of “complexity.” Energy consumption enables specialization and hierarchical organizations. For example, growing energy consumption enables the organizations and supply lines needed to manufacture computers and other high-tech goods. Of course, energy consumption also enables what we think of as typical energy uses: the transportation of goods, the smelting of metals, the heating and air-conditioning of buildings, and the construction of roads. Energy is even required to allow pixels to appear on a computer screen.
Pre-humans learned to control fire over one million years ago. The burning of biomass was a tool that could be used for many purposes, including keeping warm in colder climates, frightening away predators, and creating better tools. Perhaps its most important use was to permit food to be cooked, because cooking increases food’s nutritional availability. Cooked food seems to have been important in allowing the brains of humans to grow bigger at the same time that teeth, jaws and guts could shrink compared to those of ancestors. Humans today need to be able to continue to cook part of their food to have a reasonable chance of survival.
Any kind of governmental organization requires energy. Having a single leader takes the least energy, especially if the leader can continue to perform his non-leadership duties. Any kind of added governmental service (such as roads or schools) requires energy. Having elected leaders who vote on decisions takes more energy than having a king with a few high-level aides. Having multiple layers of government takes energy. Each new intergovernmental organization requires energy to fly its officials around and implement its programs.
International trade clearly requires energy consumption. In fact, pretty much every activity of businesses requires energy consumption.
Needless to say, the study of science or of medicine requires energy consumption, because without significant energy consumption to leverage human energy, nearly every person must be a subsistence level farmer, with little time to study or to take time off from farming to write (or even read) books. Of course, manufacturing medicines and test tubes requires energy, as does creating sterile environments.
We think of the many parts of the economy as requiring money, but it is really the physical goods and services that money can buy, and the energy that makes these goods and services possible, that are important. These goods and services depend to a very large extent on the supply of energy being consumed at a given point in time–for example, the amount of electricity being delivered to customers and the amount of gasoline and diesel being sold. Supply chains are very dependent on each part of the system being available when needed. If one part is missing, long delays and eventually collapse can occur.
[5] If the supply of energy to an economy is reduced for any reason, the result tends to be very disruptive, as shown in the examples given in Section [3], above.
When an economy doesn’t have enough energy, its self-organizing feature starts eliminating pieces of the economic system that it cannot support. The financial system tends to be very vulnerable because without adequate economic growth, it becomes very difficult for borrowers to repay debt with interest. This was part of the problem that Greece and Spain had in the period when their energy consumption per capita declined. A person wonders what would have happened to these countries without bailouts from the European Union and others.
Another part that is very vulnerable is governmental organizations, especially the higher layers of government that were added last. In 1991, the Soviet Union’s central government was lost, leaving the governments of the 15 republics that were part of the Soviet Union. As energy consumption per capita declines, the European Union would seem to be very vulnerable. Other international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, would seem to be vulnerable, as well.
The electrical system is very complex. It seems to be easily disrupted if there is a material decrease in energy consumption per capita because maintenance of the system becomes difficult.
If energy consumption per capita falls dramatically, many changes that don’t seem directly energy-related can be expected. For example, the roles of men and women are likely to change. Without modern medical care, women will likely need to become the mothers of several children in order that an average of two can survive long enough to raise their own children. Men will be valued for the heavy manual labor that they can perform. Today’s view of the equality of the sexes is likely to disappear because sex differences will become much more important in a low-energy world.
Needless to say, other aspects of a low-energy economy might be very different as well. For example, one very low-energy type of economic system is a “gift economy.” In such an economy, the status of each individual is determined by the amount that that person can give away. Anything a person obtains must automatically be shared with the local group or the individual will be expelled from the group. In an economy with very low complexity, this kind of economy seems to work. A gift economy doesn’t require money or debt!
[6] Most people assume that moving away from fossil fuels is something we can choose to do with whatever timing we would like. I would argue that we are not in charge of the process. Instead, fossil fuels will leave us when we lose the ability to reduce interest rates sufficiently to keep oil and other fossil fuel prices high enough for energy producers.
Something that may seem strange to those who do not follow the issue is the fact that oil (and other energy prices) seem to be very much influenced by interest rates and the level of debt. In general, the lower the interest rate, the more affordable high-priced goods such as factories, homes, and automobiles become, and the higher commodity prices of all kinds can be. “Demand” increases with falling interest rates, causing energy prices of all types to rise.
Figure 6.
The cost of extracting oil is less important in determining oil prices than a person might expect. Instead, prices seem to be determined by what end products consumers (in the aggregate) can afford. In general, the more debt that individual citizens, businesses and governments can obtain, the higher that oil and other energy prices can rise. Of course, if interest rates start rising (instead of falling), there is a significant chance of a debt bubble popping, as defaults rise and asset prices decline.
Interest rates have been generally falling since 1981 (Figure 7). This is the direction needed to support ever-higher energy prices.
Figure 7. Chart of 3-month and 10-year interest rates, prepared by the FRED, using data through March 27, 2019.
The danger now is that interest rates are approaching the lowest level that they can possibly reach. We need lower interest rates to support the higher prices that oil producers require, as their costs rise because of depletion. In fact, if we compare Figures 7 and 8, the Federal Reserve has been supporting higher oil and other energy prices with falling interest rates practically the whole time since oil prices rose above the inflation adjusted level of $20 per barrel!
Figure 8. Historical inflation adjusted prices oil, based on data from 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, with the low price period for oil highlighted.
Once the Federal Reserve and other central banks lose their ability to cut interest rates further to support the need for ever-rising oil prices, the danger is that oil and other commodity prices will fall too low for producers. The situation is likely to look like the second half of 2008 in Figure 6. The difference, as we reach limits on how low interest rates can fall, is that it will no longer be possible to stimulate the economy to get energy and other commodity prices back up to an acceptable level for producers.
[7] Once we hit the “no more stimulus impasse,” fossil fuels will begin leaving us because prices will fall too low for companies extracting these fuels. They will be forced to leave because they cannot make an adequate profit.
One example of an oil producer whose production was affected by an extended period of low prices is the Soviet Union (or USSR).
Figure 9. Oil production of the former Soviet Union together with oil prices in 2017 US$. All amounts from 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
The US substantially raised interest rates in 1980-1981 (Figure 7). This led to a sharp reduction in oil prices, as the higher interest rates cut back investment of many kinds, around the world. Given the low price of oil, the Soviet Union reduced new investment in new fields. This slowdown in investment first reduced the rate of growth in oil production, and eventually led to a decline in production in 1988 (Figure 9). When oil prices rose again, production did also.
Figure 10. Energy consumption per capita for the former Soviet Union, based on BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy data and UN 2017 population estimates.
The Soviet Union’s energy consumption per capita reached its highest level in 1988 and began declining in 1989. The central government of the Soviet Union did not collapse until late 1991, as the economy was increasingly affected by falling oil export revenue.
Some of the changes that occurred as the economy simplified itself were the loss of the central government, the loss of a large share of industry, and a great deal of job loss. Energy consumption per capita dropped by 36% between 1988 and 1998. It has never regained its former level.
Venezuela is another example of an oil exporter that, in theory, could export more oil, if oil prices were higher. It is interesting to note that Venezuela’s highest energy consumption per capita occurred in 2008, when oil prices were high.
We are now getting a chance to observe what the collapse in Venezuela looks like on a day- by-day basis. Figure 5, above, shows Venezuela’s energy consumption per capita pattern through 2017. Low oil prices since 2014 have particularly adversely affected the country.
[8] Conclusion: We can’t know exactly what is ahead, but it is clear that moving away from fossil fuels will be far more destructive of our current economy than nearly everyone expects.
It is very easy to make optimistic forecasts about the future if a person doesn’t carefully examine what the data and the science seem to be telling us. Most researchers come from narrow academic backgrounds that do not seek out insights from other fields, so they tend not to understand the background story.
A second issue is the desire for a “happy ever after” ending to our current energy predicament. If a researcher is creating an economic model without understanding the underlying principles, why not offer an outcome that citizens will like? Such a solution can help politicians get re-elected and can help researchers get grants for more research.
We should be examining the situation more closely than most people have considered. The fact that interest rates cannot drop much further is particularly concerning.
No-Go For Solar Plant
https://www.planetizen.com/news/2019/04/103890-worlds-largest-concentrating-solar-thermal-plant-plan-no-go
I wonder if “failure to secure funds” for the plant might be an issue.
Another article about this event says
https://renewablesnow.com/news/update-solarreserve-ditches-2-gw-csp-project-in-nevada-651148/
I also notice an article called, “PG&E’s troubles hit debt ratings of 550-MW Topaz solar park.”
It says,
I would imagine that SolarReserve plans to sell its power at least partially to California, and thus to PG&E. Funding in California at this point sounds “iffy.” I can see why lenders might back away.
RPT-UPDATE 1-South Africa to bail out Eskom without taking on debts
“South Africa will give power utility Eskom a total of 69 billion rand ($4.88 billion) but will not take on 100 billion rand of debt as requested by the struggling firm”
With the growing number of large electric utility bankruptcies, PG&E, Puert Rico’s electric utility, and soon to be bankrupt Eskom, I think we may see the end of our reliable grid due to power company failures. You can print all the money you want and create all the debt you want, but without electrical power, our industrial economy is toast.
I wonder how many solar or wind sellers would agree a long term sales contract with any of these bankrupt utilities.
I notice that South Africa has solar power. https://www.businessinsider.co.za/a-massive-new-concentrated-solar-power-station-is-going-live-and-it-will-supply-electricity-day-and-night-across-south-africa-2018-11
A massive new solar power station has come to life in the South African desert
Jay Caboz , Business Insider SA
Nov 29, 2018, 06:20 AM
Also, the utility may have incurred massive debt to finance the solar plant, and it only provides nighttime power to less than 150000 homes.
Shows how easy it is for bad ideas to take off and do unspeakable mischief.
It’s coming
https://i.redd.it/8k6fbzin31t21.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Sr7nePm.jpg
https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/71616560.jpg
The deeper soil
What is one of the key differences between the tropical and freezing areas? The soil in the freezing areas is deeper. It is the influence of the freezing water that cracks the rocks. That is why human civilizations can function only where the soil is constantly recreated by floods or by the disintegrating rocks due to the freezing water.
That is why the human civilizations could not last long in the tropical and warm areas and the reason for the sustained existencie of the human species in the mild areas, where the soil creating winters exist.
The agriculuture is in fact mining for minerals. And it is the crushed rocks which provides the fresh supply of them.
Most of the nutrients in a Tropical Rain forest is in the canopy of the tree cover and is recycled. Not sure of your reasoning, nor how one defines human civilization?
The diversity of the Tropical ecosystem provides resilience to upheaval and transformation.
From the link:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/its-now-clear-that-ancient-humans-helped-enrich-the-amazon/518439/
The ancient farmers and gardeners of the Amazon would likely have been speakers of languages from the Arawakan and Tupí families. They would probably have lived in “galactic” communities—groups of settlements separated by distance but linked by trade and communication—along the banks of the rivers that cross and irrigate the forest.
“Recent archaeological studies, especially in the last two decades, show that indigenous populations in the past were more numerous, more complex, and had a greater impact on the largest and most biodiverse tropical forest in the world,” said José Iriarte, an archeologist at the University of Exeter who was not connected to the study, in an email.
“This is the largest and more comprehensive study” to reveal that influence so far, he added. “It is is very sound, since it not only includes archaeologists (which have been stressing the larger role played by humans in shaping Amazonian forests), but also botanists and soil scientists, among other ‘hard scientists.
That cultivation eventually altered entire regions of the Amazon, the study argues. Levis and her colleagues found that some of these species domesticated by indigenous people—including the brazil nut, the rubber tree, the maripa palm, and the cocoa tree—still dominate vast swaths of the forest, especially in the southwest section of the Amazon basin.
From our current practices of agriculture, doubt human civilization will survive regardless.
Interesting article!
When deforested, the soil in the tropical areas is quickly washed away. But in the cold areas, the freezing water cracks the rocks and is able to retain such material in one place.
It is no wonder that the Dead Sea has become such a concentrated source of magnesium and other minerals that where washed away from the deforested Palestina.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_products
As SuperTramp tried to explain above, the nutrients are mostly cycled up there in the canopy – shallower dirt layer in the Tropics as opposed to colder climate zones where the balance is less in favor of green canopy but towards (+woody) deeper soil web.
Deforestation and the Dead Sea example are just show cases of past and present bad land management / agri practices..
You can have thriving agriculture in both climate extremes, that people don’t follow -adhere to it is another question.
Where are those past big civilizations that inhabited tropical rainforests? I guess they died out.
Some are still their, MG, just because you don’t here about them, does not mean they don’t exist. Unfortunately, many were exterminated by various methods, which I do not really have to detail, do I? (i.e. die off from diseases brought over from Europe, genocide. Ect)
I do need to point out these people did indeed have a civilization, as defined
the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area.
Indeed, they had advance knowledge, but a different type of knowledge!
Remember reading a book regarding the how in tune they are with the Rainforest.
They laughed at a scientist totally lost in the forest, unable to understand way. The scientist, from New York City, chuckled that they would be totally lost in NY!
Not sure if the Rainforest Action Network is still around, if it is check it out!
I would not idealize the life of the human species in the rainforest. The wars between the tribes, killing each other in the times of scarcity, the death from malnutrition: they were not different from other groups of the human species facing the limits:
“Recent archaeological studies, especially in the last two decades, show that indigenous populations in the past were more numerous, more complex, and had a greater impact on the largest and most biodiverse tropical forest in the world,”
That was my undrestanding – clearing rainforest yields very poor soil, so the idiots that do it are disrupting a perfectly-running ecosystem that requires that it be left the f*** alone.
What about terra preta?
I also have tera preta in my garden. We have created it using wooden ashes from our boiler. Otherwise there is just yellow clay suitable for pottery but not much for growing crops. We always welcome freezing winters as these make the soil more powdery, the big clay lumps are nicely desintegrated.
MG, I saw fascinating nature program on the Rainforest ecosystem. It’s different than a temperate one. The soil fertility is stored in the upper canopy of the tree cover. The hot climate requires a constant flux of nutrients in the carbon cycle. Insects break down the organic matter very quickly.
That is why when there is clear cutting of the Tropical Rainforest the soil fertility is very rich and bountiful crops are produced. Unfortunately, the cycle is broken and like and soil it gets depleted quickly, very fast.
Henry Ford found that out when he attempted his Amazonian project to grow a rubber plantation in Brazil.
None of Ford’s managers had the requisite knowledge of tropical agriculture. In the wild, the rubber trees grow apart from each other as a protection mechanism against plagues and diseases, often growing close to bigger trees of other species for added support. In Fordlândia, however, the trees were planted close together in plantations, easy prey for tree blight, sauva ants, lace bugs, red spiders, and leaf caterpillars.[6]
The workers on the plantations were given unfamiliar food, such as hamburgers and canned food, and forced to live in American-style housing. Most disliked the way they were treated – being required to wear ID badges and work through the middle of the day under the tropical sun – and would often refuse to work
By 1945, synthetic rubber had been developed, reducing world demand for natural rubber. Ford’s investment opportunity dried up overnight without producing any rubber for Ford’s tires, and the second town was also abandoned. In 1945, Henry Ford’s grandson Henry Ford II sold the area comprising both towns back to the Brazilian government for a loss of over US$20 million (equivalent to $278 million in 2018).
In spite of the huge investment and numerous invitations, Henry Ford never visited either of his ill-fated towns.
From Wikipedia..
Can’t compare the two regions, like apples and oranges.
Is this something you are quoting from? It certainly sounds right. Even where I live (in the state of Georgia, USA), we don’t have deep soils. We also don’t have very much agriculture, but we do have some. Atlanta is the home of “stone mountain.” The soil where I live seems to be about 6″ deep.
Florida and California are where a lot of our produce is grown. The do not have much freezing. Florida is a big sand bar, as far as I know. I expect that whatever minerals are in the soil have been added. If trace minerals are missing, that is the buyers problem. I don’t know much about California soil.
Of course, the Midwest is where a lot of grains and soy beans are grown. They have deep soil that no doubt was enhanced by freezing.
The idea about the force of the freezing water came to me when my friend told me about the devastating washing away of the topsoil he saw in Venezuela. It is no wonder that Venezuela has got so many nature protected areas. They know that they have no other choice. Brazil is big, abandoning the washed away or the depleted soil seems still not such a big problem for them. It also depends on whether the country is hilly or plain.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/great-debate-over-when-anthropocene-started/587194/
“Ruddiman isn’t so sure. He believes that humanity’s effect on the planet is spread throughout time and is driven primarily by agriculture. Before the year 1750, he argues, humans had already cleared so much forest as to produce 300 billion tons of carbon emissions. Since 1950, deforestation has only led to 75 billion tons of emissions.”
I think that humans first started shaping the world’s ecosystems according to their design back in hunter-gatherer days. They burned down forests to get to wildlife they wanted, and to encourage the growth of plants in open areas, where foods humans could eat would be more abundant. This seems to be when humans (and pre-humans) impacts on other species began.
We don’t really have any way of getting away from the problem that I can see.
I often wonder about the trace minerals, short of recycling all the waste from both animals and humans it seems to be a losing proposition. On my land it is NPK and game over. Is it possible that the only real recycling is done on geologic time scales? Certainly plate tectonics would take care of any waste one can imagine. Between grinding and heat it is back to the basic elements.
Dennis L.
Before modern plumbing and agriculture trace mineral loss must have been slow.
Yep, the overall equation must balance out eventually.
If I recall it correctly the oldest irrigation (ceramic or sun baked) segment plumbing goes several thousands years BC. People have learned very little since then, in the sense of keeping the outlay for the surplus infrastructure to a bare minimum. So, no silly palaces of power and worship, storage depots for feeding large armies, etc.
Essentially every civilization in the past eventually erred on this equation, some fared on this wide spectrum way better than others, often in clever fashion managed to adapt for varied climate and to some extent understood importance of low complexity, but eventually every single one overbuilt and self destructed in the end.
In Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, David Montgomery points out that irrigation, except when done from overflow from rivers (carrying silt) is a very short-term solution. Pumping water and running it through the soil eventually poisons it with minerals, such as salt, that accumulate in the soil. I would expect that there are also some minerals that are lost from the excess water washing through the soil.
Irrigation is a temporary patch, allowing food supply and population to grow. When its benefits are lost, this is one of the things that puts downward pressure on “Extractable resources (Including food) per capita.”
Our plumbing system may be modern, but, it isn’t sustainable. Wouildn’t low populations living in a temperate climate with a clean hot spring and lake be more desirable? Would that not be more “modern”? All we are doing in the “modern” world is burning finite fossil fuels to battle nature. We won’t win the battle.
We’ve already lost the battle with Nature, it just doesn’t show unambiguously yet: observe how a bough cut from some plants continues to look fresh and green even for weeks, but is, in reality, quite dead with no potential for growth.
It is that illusion of continuity and life that we are enjoying now – and very pleasant it is.
This solves the concentration issues with non renewables, the problem is the time scale.
“Of course, there is no shortage of eminent – and eminently respectable – people claiming that a transition to 100% renewable energy is technically feasible, that it may be completed rapidly and a (relatively) low cost, or even that it might unlock a myriad of new growth opportunities and unleash a new era of prosperity and welfare for all earthlings. For ever and ever, Amen. Among these are a number of scientists and researchers, who have undertaken to “prove” the feasibility of a 100% renewable world through very elaborate energy systems models. Their abstract models of course prove what they are intended to prove – as most abstract models typically do. Hence, they say, the advent of renewable heaven is possible, and all that’s preventing it is a lack of “political will”…. Their work is a major source of inspiration for a number of prominent climate activists, and also, no doubt, for many of the young climate strikers around the world.
Yet if the plans and scenarios that are currently being put forward for a full-scale and fully-managed global transition to renewables are to constitute interesting material for historians in the future, it is unlikely to be as the original blueprints of a successfully completed move to a new energetic underpinning for human civilization. Rather, they will probably be seen as very telling examples of how something that was “proven” to be eminently “feasible” by very bright minds actually failed to occur. These plans, in fact, and the sophisticated models on which they are based, largely ignore key determinants of human history’s dynamics, and hence constitute little else than intellectual exercises. Very interesting and creative intellectual exercises for sure, but which bear little connection to the world’s energy reality and trajectory.”
https://paularbair.wordpress.com/2019/03/21/a-modest-suggestion-for-the-worlds-climate-strikers/
Thanks, Paul, for a link to a very fine post you wrote.
I liked this section especially well:
that sounds quite reasonable…
I still think the pursuit of “100% renewables” will be pursued in various places/countries…
but it will fail spectacularly, and may or may not reach even 50%…
the newer conclusion that I have reached is that this will be an endeavor of only the wealthy…
just as wealthier home owners go for solar systems that may take about 10 years to pay for itself, and thus middle class and poor have little means to go in this direction…
so also, the bigger pushes for “100% renewables” countrywide could only be hoped for in the wealthier countries…
the wealthy can “afford” to invest some of their excess wealth in renewables, even if the result is wasted FF and lower overall EROI…
I think intermittent renewables are a very temporary endeavor, made possible by a growing debt bubble and hidden subsidies that providers of backup electricity are providing to the system. Adding more intermittent renewables makes the system more difficult to control as well. I doubt that renewables will ever get to anything close to 50% of electricity on any broad basis. Furthermore, 50% of electricity is far below a goal of 50% of total energy consumption–something even more unattainable.
Yes! Please, replace all nuclear with wind, water and solar. Then we can collapse.
Oh I don’t know. I think we will end up going 100% renewable; those of ‘us’ that remain, (not many) will just have to make do with what they can patch together each day (not much). It just won’t be the renewable utopia of the green dream, but the hard won scratchings from the natu-real world.
For a start, a 100% “renewable” electricity generation system won’t actually be renewable. PV and wind turbine facilities have finite working lives and nobody has worked out how to build them without massive non-renewable inputs. So survivors will have to make do with simpler wind and sun powered gizmos such as washing lines and drying frames.
Placing wet clothes on tops of bushes to dry also works. I saw that approached used years ago, when I went on a bus tour in Mexico. I believe the clothes were being washed in streams.
This is how it worked for the vast majority of people in my childhood third world. Those who were better off–and it took me a long time to learn what a small minority they were–couldn’t get away fast enough from such “primitive” methods. And now, at the apex of the industrial plenty, the ratio might well have been reversed.
Very well written and I completely agree with your views. Fossil fuels are basically millions of years of stored sunlight which we use up in a short time frame, geologically speaking. It is very obvious then that you can’t run that same industrial society on the sunlight captured over days or weeks, even years.
Your suggestions seems to be in line with the “green movement”, back in the days when it was all about the small footprint, and not yet corrupted by the business world.
That’s it….Going to New Zealand and save myself
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/18/decades-of-denial-major-report-finds-new-zealands-environment-is-in-serious-trouble
New Zealand
‘Decades of denial’: major report finds New Zealand’s environment is in serious trouble
Nation known for its natural beauty is under pressure with extinctions, polluted rivers and blighted lakes
Kevin Hague from the conservation group Forest and Bird said the report was chilling reading and captured the devastating affects of “decades of procrastination and denial”.
“New Zealand is losing species and ecosystems faster than nearly any other country,” he said. “Four thousand of our native species are in trouble … from rampant dairy conversions to destructive seabed trawling – [we] are irreversibly harming our natural world.
A massive rise in the country’s dairy herd over the last 20 years has had a devastating impact on the country’s freshwater quality, a key area being targeted by the government for improvement. During her election campaign, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, pledged to make the country’s rivers and lakes swimmable again for the next generation.
That could prove challenging, with the report finding that groundwater failed standards at 59% of wells owing to the presence of E coli, and at 13% of the wells owing to nitrates. Some 57% of monitored lakes registered poor water quality, and 76% of native freshwater fish are at risk of or threatened with extinction. A third of freshwater insects are also in danger of extinction
Drink MORE MILK!
In another words, there is no place to run to avoid the coming
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GduFDV_oY2s
Get the picture?😚
great lessons in momentum. you can witness that some must learn the hard way.
Real rail-bound transportation vs flimsy gimmicks on the road.
https://youtu.be/XCRjBNaknRw
Tesla “Spontaneously Catches Fire”, Is Incinerated After Burning For Hours
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-18/tesla-spontaneously-catches-fire-incinerated-after-burning-hours?fbclid=IwAR1t8BAI62gNixa1JF-vdLhWyNne6foYbpR1SRGWByNzKIvteI7ink-VWCE
This is just like what those Samsung phones did a few years ago..Same issue..They are making the batteries too powerful and pushing the limits of them too far..Just wait till one catches on fire in someones garage and burns down a house and kills a family of four..
Another Tesla issue I noticed:
Tesla – Panasonic Relationship On The Rocks, Poses Risks
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4255067-tesla-panasonic-relationship-rocks-poses-risks
It looks like Panasonic could call the relationship quits. It is looking into ties with Toyota, among other things.
How Will Future Generations Remember Our Time?
A mounting perfect economic storm born of a convergence of peak oil, climate change, and an imbalanced U.S. economy dependent on debts it can never repay is poised to bring a dramatic restructuring of every aspect of modern life.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/5000-years-of-empire/time-the-great-turning-future-generations-20190417
What future generations?
I agree. We should really need concern ourselves more with the current generation of people. Many of whom are suffering incredible hardships due to diminishing returns. Pity most don’t understand how we got to this point and are somehow concerned about future generations. Hunter-gatherer is the only way for humans to survive long term. We are not evolved enough to appreciate exponential growth.
Greg, please let us keep agriculture. I would be happy in a society as sustainable as Edo Japan (without the caste system, though). And agriculture can certainly be made sustainable: the ants have been practicing sustainable agriculture and animal husbandry for 140 million years. The secret is simple: their agriculture is contained within the anthill, so cannot generate externalities.
The Largely Ignored Problem Of Global Peak Oil Will Seriously Hit In A Few Years
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/18/the-largely-ignored-problem-of-global-peak-oil-will-seriously-hit-in-a-few-years/
“The era of oil is coming to an end, with global oil production set to halve in the next five to six years. To avoid a global economic slump, the transition to 100% renewables worldwide needs to be accelerated. It is feasible and cheaper than the current system, research shows.”
I stopped reading there. Totally delusional.
Yes, delusional and contradictory. It isn’t a transition to “renewables” it is more like burning the last remaining reserves of fossil fuels to build infrastructure that (without fossil fuels) will be mostly useless.
“To avoid a global economic slump, the transition to 100% renewables worldwide needs to be accelerated.” – I couldn’t read much past that. Just look at Germany and say that with a straight face. Accelerated? Really? Accelerating “renewables” would accelerate collapse. We would extend and pretend by burning more coal than we would building “renewables”.
Germany has 26000 Wind turbines deployed and did neither cut it’s energy usage nor the emissions of CO2. Renewables in continental Europe are a total waste of money and the proponents of this path also argue for power to gas technology by renewables in Germany. No one can pay for all these installations and not for the energy price thereof
People don’t seem to understand that renewable’s produce electricity and oil is used for transportation..
Actually, renewables produce only intermittent electricity, and this is only a substitute for fuels to produce electricity, rather than the “dispatchable” electricity that we need. Intermittent electricity is worth very little.
Yup..
https://imgur.com/a/5lliaVh
In that chart the energy that is captured by “renewables” is tepid and intermittent and wholly dependent on the high energy density, dispatchable fuel of the three big producers of energy: coal, oil and natural gas. It is easy to confuse renewables with fuel. They are not fuel like coal oil and natural gas. They capture energy from other sources of burning fuel (namely the sun). After all it is the sun that makes the wind blow due to the differential heating between the equator and the poles.
“Renewables” do not produce electricity. They capture energy mainly from the wind and the sun. And they do that In a very low energy density, inefficient and intermittent way. It is fossil fuels that “produce” the infrastructure they need to work. “Renewables” produce nothing. They actually consume finite resources and energy to be built and maintained. It is fossil fuels that produce nearly everything we have.
“Perhaps the most important reality about oil scarcity is that geology doesn’t care about opinions, particularly the opinions of people who will all probably die in the same year.
It’s not about money. It’s about death.”
The secret to a stable society? A steady supply of beer doesn’t hurt
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/fm-tst041219.php
Not that fond of it, but science is often right—-
Proving Queen Victoria to have been wiser than she looked:
‘Give my people beef and good beer, and they will be loyal’.
Lenin complained that the British were too well-fed to be revolutionary.
A character in a book by former YouTube survivalist “Maineprepper” said, “all a man really needs is a full belly and a woman”. Add in the beer, and that’s a recipe for a happy life. I’ve been poor, and I’ve been well off. Houses and cars and vacations are nice, but I could get along well anywhere with food, drink, and female companionship.
Gorbachev tried prohibition because Soviet workers were showing up drunk at work all the time.
It probably ended his career.
Almost a billion dollars for Notre Dame? I find that to be an appalling allocation of money. The French government should bait and switch the donators; let them commit to the transaction, then tax it 80%.
I fail to understand how modern ‘self-aware’ societies, full of financially struggling high IQ individuals, by-the-way, can allow and encourage billionaires to exist when the fiscal situation is dire in all countries now.
Think about the jobs that rebuilding Notre Dame creates. Not only are workers hired, but these workers spend their money buying homes and cars and groceries. It tends to stimulate the whole French economy, especially if those outside the country contribute.
If contributions are based on debt, the result is even better. This tends to pull the economy forward. (For a short time, until the time to repay debt with interest comes.)
GDP without prosperity
I can’t see the difference to just handing out free cash, except for the resource waste.
It upsets the puritans. They like to see people have to grovel for their peanuts. Printing up trillions for the .1% is great because it trickles onto us who keep the wagon wheels turning, but god forbid any type of safety net for the peons.
We have a gaggle of puritans here.
However, reality is wake up check:
http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/images/Kanazawa%20Fig%203.JPG
I know that college professors are overwhelmingly liberal. Those teaching in colleges benefits from more government funding for schools; more funding for research. They have enough confidence about the future that they do not need to stick to conservative old ways that worked in the past.
A lot of people who are farmers or who have been through a lot of hard knocks seem to be conservative.
I expect that adolescents from families who are doing well financially will tend to test higher on intelligence tests, and those who come from lower income families will tend to test lower on intelligence tests (whether or not there is any real difference in their capabilities).
I am not convinced that this chart tells us anything very much other than that people who are very much helped by the system tend to be liberal, those who aren’t helped so much helped by the system tend to stick to the old ways, and thus are more conservative.
I think that really smart people realize that neither Liberal political thinking nor Conservative political thinking has the answers. The question is where your personal gullibility happens to lie.
Absolutely. What scam, on a par with indulgencies, that those with hoards of cheap money teach us about generosity.
Let them line up to take front seats at the thanksgiving, but it’ll need a helipad on the new roof to escape the gilets jaunes.
Think of indulgences as a way to get money from the 1% (or even 10%) so that the church-state (they were one at that time) could carry out its program to assisting the poor by giving them jobs, such as building and maintaining the churches. Extra children (who could not inherit land because doing so would divide up the farm) could find employment as nuns or priests.
I bet leaders today could not come up with such a creative solution! Indulgences were a great idea, especially if there is a wage and wealth disparity problem.
Is something sometimes better than nothing?
An act of msirroret, surely. Which Arab country should be bombed?
I have no quarrel with someone who makes a billion euros by delivering a billion euros worth of value to his fellow men. But a billionaire who stole the money through big government or big banking I would hang in public.
The peons who built Notre Dame de Paris, and the many skilled artisans who trekked across half Europe to join in the endeavour, had a different view. And I agree with them. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon Earth …
“Energy shortages in Portugal sharpened on Wednesday as a strike by fuel-tanker drivers entered its third day in the worst industrial unrest of the Socialist government’s four-year rule. Panicked motorists formed long lines at petrol stations, some crossing into Spain to refuel, while at airports reserves reached critically low levels in the run-up to the tourism-dependent economy’s busy Easter season.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-portugal-strike-fuel/portugals-energy-crisis-worsens-as-fuel-tanker-strike-drags-idUSKCN1RT0QQ
“The manufacturing sectors of the eurozone’s two largest economies [France and Germany] missed expectations as they continued to contract in April.”
https://www.ft.com/content/9777be02-61a7-11e9-a27a-fdd51850994c
“Germany is bracing for its worst GDP growth in a decade as its economy grapples with the global industrial downturn and the eurozone’s slowdown. Its government halved its growth forecast for 2019 to just 0.5pc after Europe’s biggest economy narrowly avoided recession last year.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/17/chinas-economy-beats-expectations-stimulus-package-reboots-industrial/
“Tomato ketchup, handbags and video game consoles are among the US imports facing EU tariffs, as the European bloc hit back in the latest twist in the transatlantic dispute over aircraft subsidies. The European commission threatened to impose tariffs on US imports worth $20bn (£15.3bn) on Wednesday, publishing an 11-page catalogue of items at risk, which also included aircraft and tractors, following a World Trade Organization ruling against Washington last month.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/17/ketchup-handbags-and-consoles-among-us-imports-facing-tariffs
I’m beginning to feel nervous and uneasy, like I felt back in 2007, when a friend and colleague from California told me how bad the housing market was there….he stated terrible and had a worried look on his face.
Harry, thank you for the updates, I have a worried look on my face…brace yourself…
This is the BIG ONE…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=stdi-1tIUhM
There ain’t going to be Fairy Godmother coming to bail us out this time around. Every man for himself!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j-7pVks8avo
It’s a MAD, MAD WORLD…
You are welcome, Supertramp. Re the housing market:
“A decade after the financial crisis, the government still maintains many of the same incentives that drove too much investment into residential real estate. Washington still stands behind mortgage monsters Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mortgage rates remain historically low and recently moved lower. And anyone hoping it will be a long time before America’s next housing mania has to be concerned about a revival in a particular type of risky lending.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/whens-the-next-housing-crisis-11555538421
And here in the UK
“The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is to investigate parts of the second charge and subprime credit markets which it believes are designed to benefit from consumers going into arrears. It raised concerns that the business models of some retail lending products, including some subprime credit and second charge mortgage products, “are designed to benefit from consumers not repaying their debts”.”
https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2019/04/17/fca-investigates-second-charge-and-subprime-lenders-for-targeting-unaffordable-borrowers/
What next? I suppose there are companies that make their money off those least able to afford their services.
Yes Gail, there are many. I was talking to an ex-banker the other day. He asked me who did I think where the most sought-after credit card customers? I tried a few guesses about FICO numbers etc. He explained that it was ‘nurses’ because they are moral and rarely default, they are in a form of regular income and just high enough living standards/knowledge to manage debt but not high enough to know how they are being ripped off. How cynical can you get?
Harry, here in South Florida one tell tale sign are numerous advertisements of special workshops that show how an individual can make money in real estate not using their own money and become financially wealthy! They run on TV late at night and remind me of before the meltdown of 2008.
This is just one example
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/so-fl-building-wealth-through-real-estate-and-business-ownership-webinar-800-pm-est-online-tickets-45383269581
Now, I don’t begrudge anyone investing and real estate is indeed one option.
But the hype now is Gonzo on some of these events!
One only has to look at cable TV with shows about flipping or renovating can see the mania.
This is not going to end well.
In my older neighborhood, see the older homes are being bought up and upgraded for a nice profit. Many signs on the roadside, “We BUY UGLY Houses.. CASH!”
Also, get unsolicited calls for investors wanting to buy my house! Asking me how much longer I intend to live here.
Now South Florida is a big demand market, no doubt. I’m just worried one major hurricane event will wipe out all these investments. We will be already seeing sharp increases in insurance rates, if that happens…forget about it!
Enjoy the ride now…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PMFbQ7aVaEs
Because reality will bite!
Fuel shortages don’t come from actual physical shortages; they come from too much wage disparity. The wage disparity is the cause of the strikes.
“Imagine going to the bank for a mortgage and getting paid to take out your vast home loan. You would still pay in monthly installments, but the total repayments would add up to less than the total. The longer you take to pay it back, the more money you save. Too good to be true, right?
“Or how about putting your spare cash in a savings account at the end of each month, only to find your balance was smaller than when you last looked. Who would put cash into an account like that?
“This is what life could look like in a world with deeply negative interest rates.
““Going deeply into negative territory with interest rates would change the world as we know it,” says Ricardo Garcia, author of the UBS report The future of Europe: the eurozone and the next recession.
“…The key problem is the terrible starting point: the European Central Bank and governments have little ammunition in a battle against a recession.
“The ECB is far from alone, though. Almost all central banks already slashed interest rates close to zero after the financial crisis in a desperate effort to stave off another great depression… Even when growth did return, it was modest and fragile.
“Interest rates have stayed at or close to rock bottom.
“Savers might pull their cash out of the bank and stuff it under their mattresses instead to stop negative rates pinching their hard-earned deposits. This would undermine the goal of policy and threaten banks, so an even more radical policies has been discussed: abolish cash.
“If all money is electronic, savers cannot hide it at home.
“The IMF studied the feasibility of this last year. It looked at “decoupling” cash from electronic money, instituting an exchange rate between the two, set by the central bank to match the negative interest rate. Cash would lose its value in line with electronic money regardless of efforts to keep it safe.
“Meanwhile, borrowers would face different incentives. Debt would be better than free, pushing businesses and individuals to borrow as much as possible.
“Low borrowing costs have already built fears of a debt bubble. Negative rates would threaten to become a bonanza. Regulators would probably step in to ration loans…
“…in desperate times, rates might go deeply negative, along with bumper rounds of money printing as central banks purchase assets other than the government bonds favoured so far – perhaps even shares.
“If one major central bank takes the plunge, others might be forced to follow as negative rates push a country’s currency down, to the detriment of other nations’ exports.
““If we have an important player within the OECD going for interest rates significantly below minus 1pc, it creates a strong incentive for others to do the same,” says Garcia. “It could trigger a chain reaction.””
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/18/get-paid-take-mortgage-lose-money-savings-welcome-topsy-turvy/
“Almost 10 years after the Great Recession ended, the growing threat of a new economic slowdown raises a troubling question: When the next recession strikes, what can the world’s central banks do? With interest rates low and their balance sheets still loaded with assets bought to fight the 2008 crisis, do they have the tools to respond? This column is one of six looking at that question.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-17/the-fed-will-have-to-risk-more-in-the-next-recession
When the gods fail, there is no madness that men will not embrace…..
With have a great deal of entertainment ahead of us.
Thanks Harry.
Hm, predicting this for years ‘and now it’s official’ – they will attempt to kick the can by whatever means possible incl.:
-> stricter cash ban – withdrawal limits or equivalent scheme
-> direct buying of core shares ala Japan+
(so not only becoming top3 but eventually major shareholders)
-> above eventually evolving into mixed economy increasingly biased for command style variant
= this shift will likely happen before ~2025-30 and then the later stage development of it might soldier on for few more decades in selected regions keeping the IC hubs humming obviously not as predominantly ‘frivolous crap’ consumer oriented societies anymore..
I don’t think negative interest rates can work, if they actually get back in the way the article describes. They seem to imply that investors cannot really earn a positive return on their investments. If this is the case, very few will invest. The system will collapse.
Thus cash ban and negative interest on savings account.
Probably cash ban wont be necessary until several percentage points negative. -1% on $1M = $10k/y, what does it take to guard/insure $1M?
Harry, I respectfully disagree. If governments systematically use their money as a weapon, people will eventually respond by going back to a store of value that governments cannot control. And four thousand years of history will be on their side.
If our economy collapses, there is no store of value. Perhaps the food in your cellar, but that is all.
Thank you, Gail, but I respectfully disagree.
Yes, I can exchange my chicken for his root vegetables, but what then? For what could he exchange the chicken? Only if I paid him in an accepted “medium of exchange”, that others would also accept.
I saw that myself, growing up in Africa some 60 years ago. The traders of course used the currencies of the various colonial powers: Britain, France, Belgium, Italy. But among themselves they settled their debts in coin: coin that bore the image of an empress who had died in 1780. But each coin contained 3/4 ounce of pure silver.
Yes, the Maria Theresia Thaler. And that is perhaps the definition of “real money”:
whatever will be accepted without the backing of any government.
stores of value can ultimately only be stores of energy–and that can only be whatever can be extracted from the land we live on—or the land someone else lives on. If you have no store of energy, then you have nothing that can support value
money is a token of energy transfer, it has no intrinsic worth, If you have no money, you cannot trade for someone else’s energy-store
all the complexities of business hinge on that simple concept, and there’s no escape from it, now or in a collapsed future
no matter how high flown your job is, it is wholly dependent on someone, somewhere extracting surplus energy from land to support whatever it is you do
if you happen to be a billionaire, then your billions are in effect expropriation of energy stores that belong to other people. Which is precisely the situation we have globally now, when 1% of the population own a third of all global assets, forcing poverty to increase exponentially because the wealth of the billionaire is diverting energy/assets for his exclusive use. ie either as goods, or in the making of still more money
A lot of what is considered “stores of energy” is really “promises of future goods and services made with energy.” If the economy is not functioning well enough, these future goods and services made with energy are likely to never to become available. To a significant extent, these promises of future goods and services have been separated from any real “store of value.” A government can promise pensions to everyone over age 67 (or 60 or whatever age the government chooses), but this will only be possible if the economy is wealthy enough to a significant share of its output with a non-working group. Up until very recent times, there was no concept of retirement. Only a very rich economy can afford to give retirement benefits.
The stored food is a store of value in that you can eat it yourself. I didn’t expect that you would be able to exchange it for anything else. In an economy that is no longer functioning, the lack of things to exchange for whatever you have stored up (gold coins, silver coins or whatever) is precisely the problem.
New post from Ugo Bardi: https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-empire-of-lies-keeps-falling-how-we.html
BTW has anyone read Dmitry Olrovs book? Seems interesting. http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/p/the-five-stages-of-collapse.html
Here is a response I got from a professor colleague, now retired, on the Scarcity book by Chris Clugston:
“I was looking over the Scarcity book you had noted below. It reminded me of three former studies.
1. The 1865 study by Jevons – Britain’s coal minister, showing there were no more easily accessible shallow coal seams (which was correct) and hence the industrial revolution would grind quickly to an end.
Problem- steam power made abundant deep, difficult coal seams economic and when the last British coal mine closed about 10 years ago there were over 300 years supply of proven economic prime coal reserves left in place ( to the great anguish British miners still protesting to this day)
2. The early 1970s study called ‘Famine 1975’ correctly showed that current food production could not keep up and massive famine was coming.
Problem – the green revolution, which it labelled a hoax, doubled crop production in the third world
3. CIA study of about 2005 reiterating the ‘Famine 1975’ work ( which was very credible other than its one error) and noting it would create wars in the third world,
Problem – discounted aquaculture which went on to produce 100 million tons a year of protein and computer enhanced food distribution which reduced waste from over half of the food supply to less than one quarter.
While we will eventually run out of stuff, I strongly suspect we are good for our lifetime. The great economic Ship of State sinks very slowly.
There is more oil still left in the Alberta tar sands than ever existed in Saudi Arabia. It turns out that with the figures just released, there is as much heavy oil in Lake Maracaibo as in Saudi.
The US , now the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, is likely to stay so for a decade (with shale oil).
In terms of minerals, there has been almost no exploration in Central Northern Canda, Arctic Canada, Siberia , the Russian Arctic ( now opening up with access to the north coast through its three big (2000 miles long) rivers ( Ob, Lena and Yenisey), Central Brazil and the Interior of Africa. The world mining congress just voted the best mineral exploration area in the world as Nevada ! They aren’t even thinking about the other logistically challenged places (not to mention the seafloor). It is the same error as Jevons, finding no easy shallow close in coal seams means no resources (only what it actually means is you have to build some roads through the arctic and across the jungle). Eventually, of course, there is a limit- just not in the next decade or two.
cheers”
I think that the limit is how high the prices can rise. There are indeed unexplored areas. Also, USGS has made a lot of estimates, even of these remote areas. But it is necessary to build roads and railroads to these remote area, and transport the minerals from these areas. Also, there needs to be housing built for all of the workers in these remote locations. The cost tends to be high. This is why these resources have not been used in the past.
I don’t really like Clugston’s analysis, because he focuses too much on peaking based on known resources. If the price goes up, we will figure out more. Our big problem is that prices don’t rise high enough, a point Clugston’s analysis misses.
They COULD build houses much cheaper.
As I have stated. This joint will be kept lit until the end of this century.
Hopefully the machines will have reached sentience by then and with that Homo sapiens enters twilight and it’s journey to inevitable irrelevance will be completed. From there on it’s all machine.
Now our moral duty as humans is to make this transition as swiftly as possible while conserving the remaining earthly resources for the machine to create the first interstellar ‘civilization’ of human origin.
“There is more oil still left in the Alberta tar sands than ever existed in Saudi Arabia.”
This is simplistic. It takes enormous amounts of water and energy to extract the bitumen from the tar sands.
Just because it is there, does not mean it will ever be extracted.
I expect that theres is a huge amount of oil, coal and natural gas that we never will extract. Knowing how much we can technically extract at current prices tells us very little. Prices are likely to fall, for one thing.
the existence of humankind is supported and driven by our ability to make buy and sell things to each other
to make that equation work, we must strive to find more of everything with which to do that
but in that striving, we reproduce more of ourselves because part of it is improving our survival rate
so no matter how much we produce there will always be more of us demanding a share of what we produce, so there can never be enough of anything to satisfy everyone
Because of that, the haves will always be defending themselves against the have nots, and building weapons to do so, which of course burns still more resources to keep our current level of BAU. The have nots see our cars, planes, cities, plentiful food and water.
They don’t want a life if unremitting dirt.
If we stop building weapons, the have nots will invade and take what they want, imagining that is the solution to their personal survival problem.
Short term, it might be. But long term they will still fill the planet with too many mouths demanding food (and energy)—which of course will not be available.
Thank you Sven, the Bardi article was spot on and I’ve been a student of Late Roman Imperial History for decades. It is obvious we are in the throngs of Financial and Commercial downward spiral. The burden of the bloated Government Bureaucracy, Military force, and Entitlements will topple the societal structure, as it did then.
I agree with Gail, we are close to the breaking point. It could occur at any time.
Thanks for the link to Dmitry and his book on stages of collapse.
Have not gotten his book yet but been looking in at his site for some insight.
Looks like we are in a slow train wreck. Ironic as it is, our complex, gigantic Financial system has a lot of inertia too, like the Climate system, takes a while for actions to work it’s way through.
Maybe all will meet at the same point in time….The Rapture
The rapture is an eschatological concept of certain Christians, particularly within branches of North American evangelicalism, consisting of an end time event when all Christian believers who are alive will rise along with the resurrected dead believers into Heaven and join Christ!
I like Dmitry’s writing. I am not sure how applicable past experience will be to what we are encountering now, however.
In the case of the Soviet collapse (which Dmitry writes about), it was really only a partial collapse. It was part of a world system, and the government of each of the individual republics continued. And there really has been a long-term impact of the collapse, more than Ugo suggests in his article:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/former-ussr-energy-consumption-per-capita.png
The Soviet Union no longer has the same place it had in the world order, back before 1991.
In the case of the Roman Empire (which Ugo writes about), most people had jobs that they could use almost anywhere. If they were a farmer, they could continue farming, with or without most of the rest of the system staying in place. They could even move to a different area, and farm there. It is not the same with a programmer, if there is no electricity. The collapse is likely to be quicker.
Movement of whole peoples and tribes was in fact a major feature of all the Ancient empires -the Persians did it a lot for instance: only possible with low-energy transferable skills, such as in agriculture.
I meant track the total number of airplanes used by airlines.
Wolf Street has an article up by “MC01,” a frequent commenter on the site. Its titled,
More Airlines Collapse: Jet Airways India, Alitalia, WOW Air
And a subtitle, And the 217 planes that Jet Airways has ordered from Boeing?
It seems as though Alitalia’s problems and WOW (of Iceland)’s problems have been known for a while. But the big Indian airline failing, without a government or other rescue, looks to me like a major problem. It seems like Boeing’s stock will be under pressure. In fact, with so many airlines doing poorly, aren’t a lot of orders likely to be cancelled?
Scratching my head as to why they had 176% more planes on order than they were using.
Go big or go home. It would be interesting to track the number of airlines in use by year and see if it resembles oil production graph. I bet its similar.
I don’t see any impact on Boeing’s share price recently, so I think the author may have overstated the story in some way. Perhaps Jet Airways was only thinking about the extra planes, without putting cash down, so that Boeing didn’t really record these as expected sales, for example.
This recent article says, “India’s booming economy, the deregulation of the aviation industry, and government’s goal to enhance regional connectivity has brought about a huge increase in the number of domestic airlines in India in recent years (although not all of them have survived).”
The same article lists several Indian airlines that have run into financial problems. One of these is Air India (owned by the government). It has been experiencing financial problems for “a number of years,” and its market share has dropped to 13%. The government plans to privatize the airline.
It looks like there are way too many competitors trying to fly in India. There will be a big shakeout one of these days, especially if oil prices stay sort of high. But for right now, this particular airline doesn’t look like it is causing as big a problem as the author thought.
It would be interesting to see how this particular aircraft manuf industry evolves out of it, is it going to be a triage thing among them for the near-midterm, i.e. Airbus, Russians and few others keeping some production plateau at whatever level, while Boeing going on quasi bust down spiral into national and mil support only.. Or is it going to be synchronized wide spanning aircraft industry bust.. ?
The MAX is only one model in the Boeing catalogue of civil and commercial aircraft,
Notre Dame burned down. So what…who cares?
France is turning into a failed state whit 50 nuclear reactors. That is what really matters.
Many people care, Yoshua, it is not only the actual building, itself a magnificent work of art, but the metaphor it represents.
One can only be amused by the innate cultural parochialism of the French, saying that Notre Dame is ‘a symbol of Europe’: not at all!
Of Paris, certainly, and of France, of course although there are many finer buildings scattered throughout what was once a beautiful land.
I would suggest Santiago de Compostela as a truer European symbol, having drawn pilgrims from all over Europe for many centuries.
And for a conjunction of fine architecture and art, the whole of Renaissance Florence: Italy, after all, taught the French to be civilised people. (Although it took cultured British and Yanks to stop the Florentines developing their city out of existence in the 19th century – they pulled down quite a bit as it was).
Excellent information ,Xabier, thank you, as ususal you have put a completely different angle on it for me. I must agree with your suggestions.
Thank you, Xabier, for a profound thought. I have visited that place, but refused the scallop shell. As a pagan, I am most at home in Classical Antiquity, the civilisation that was created in Greece and spread, all unwittingly, by the legions of Rome. So I would name as my own personal symbol the Pantheon, the greatest temple of that age.
Notre Dame is a interesting diversion from today’s problems. The rebuilding effort is an excuse for more debt and for hiring quite a few workers.
I was watching it burn on TV while drinking a cup of coffee…
French Roast…
What will you drink while watching a nuclear meltdown?
burn baby, burn is what came to mind.
is it not amazing that not even 24 hours after the burning of a Cathedral in France some 700 million dollars shows up for its rebuilding? 100 million alone from a gas company Total? I find this truly incredible and staggering? Gas companies have lots of money apparently to do as they please? Meanwhile orphans and widows walk the street looking for bread, housing etc etc etc?
Have a good look round at all the significant buildings in your town, especially the public/cultural/political/banking ones. Tell me which church, sports arena, glass tower etc doesn’t represent historical and current ongoing theft. All were promised to be the bringer of benefits; has there ever been a better thief than a cost-benefit analysis?
Expand that to the military infrastructure and the investment is for the taking by naked force.
All of these big buildings brought jobs and helped keep commodity prices up. In that sense, they were helpful.
I expect that the cathedrals with ongoing employment for 200 years could act as an unemployment system, and as a source of labor, if individuals were needed for war.
All of the big buildings are helpful, in the same sense that wind turbines and solar panels are. They are an excuse for more debt, in addition to propping up employment and commodity prices.
Thats true enough, but isn’t it interesting that almost all of them achieve the almost exact opposite of their intended purpose …IMHO.
For example, the Pentagram seems to spread terror not security, the Fed reserve seems to corrupt the value of dollars not preserve, and the buildings of government seem to put greater distance between the voters and any true democracy.
Sigh. All of those big buildings helped to elevate the human spirit, and teach us that there is more to life than subsistence. They connected us to our past, and to the great men of the past. They gave us hope for a better future, and encouragement that we could perhaps help create that future, even if all we did was carve a gargoyle or help pull a stone. They were a triumph of hope over despair. They remain a priceless heritage.
Has the gas company Total been thieving its way to profitability all this time? In my naivety, I thought they were working hard to extract useful energy for the benefit of all mankind, womankind, childkind and familypetkind at less-than-extortionate prices.
I’d like to see the wind and solar power industries cough up 100 million euros in donations for anything.
Why focus on orphans and widows? 80% of homeless are men.
This is a link to a 2018 report on US homelessness.
When they did a survey on one night, they found that 60.2% of the homeless were male.
If only those who were not staying in shelters were counted, the percentage increases to 69.9%.
The analysis also shows that blacks and hispanics are over-represented. The total number of US homeless has been falling, according to the report.
If bad things happens to men they have probably deserved it. At least if they’re white.
the truth is there is a solution quantative easing infinity which will be invested in the green economy as for the human race the majority are not required so that may be the reason that great lies and ignorance of our collective predicament have been orchestrated by the powers that be.
Sounds like a logical conclusion.
Debt fuelled asset inflation is possible because of cheap surplus energy that can stay cheap due to the activities of the human race as a whole.
A green economy of far fewer people cannot survive without the aforesaid larger system, i.e. the global industrial & trade infrastructure.
The reason for our ignorance of our predicament as a species is that we haven’t evolved enough to transcend our selfish desires and goals. The dangers to our species are too nebulous and disconnected from our quotidian existence for most of us to genuinely care about solving them.
The above is precisely why cynical, reactionary nihilism is so common on this and other collapse-related websites/blogs.
* Note to readers whose educations have been even more neglected than Jupiviv’s hs (which probably covers all of us): Quotidian is a fancy way of saying “daily” or “ordinary.” Quotidian events are the everyday details of life. When you talk about the quotidian, you’re talking about the little things in life: everyday events that are normal and not that exciting, like having a cup of tea and waking the dog.
“The above is precisely why cynical, reactionary nihilism is so common on this and other collapse-related websites/blogs.”
I think a farcical, passive nihilism is much better suited to the collapse-related topics here at OFW…
So let’s correct your assessment David: Have a look at this and find some encouragement to know that ‘System D’ is alive and well and accounts for an estimated $10 trn annually in off-balance sheet GDP:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/04/17/from-the-ashes/
And why not check out my own articles on The Burning Platform:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/04/13/the-financial-jigsaw-issue-no-47/
For Australian readers – just finished a new book ‘Blackout’ by Matthew Warren about the fragility of the grid with respect to renewable energy and uncoordinated long term planning (though does not recognise the limits posed by depleting non-renewable natural resources). Good read. I’ve heard that voltages in Castlemaine central are around 250V, I’ve seen large solar systems in industrial Melbourne that are not permitted to feed back into the grid, last week it was revealed that the Silverton wind farm can only operate at 1/4 capacity when the Broken Hill solar power station is operating, and not to mention the difficulties revealed from the EV recharging trials in Adelaide. Yes the grid can be fixed; but who is going to pay for it is not discussed.
And I must say how much I’ve been enjoying reading and learning from the comments on OFW now that Gail is often contributing and the sarcasm from FE is missing.
BTW, what happened to Fast Eddie!? No goodbyes, farewells, hope to see you all again, perhaps at the End of the World Party! Has he morphed elsewhere, or still posting here under a new pseudonym?
Lookout for FE, wanted alive!
Well, at least we can give him a farewell
A Memorial to Fast Eddie
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uq0x56zagLo
See you in a place that has NO Limits….
Comments on OFW seem to be yet another self organizing system. When one commenter leaves, others come.
Blackout looks like an interesting book. I see it can be purchased from Amazon.com.au. I am not sure how that site works for people outside Australia. I presume it is necessary to set up an account with that site as well.
A Fast Eddie sighting….Showing us all a self organizing system.
Yo Yo Get Funky…Fast Eddie at his BEST ….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFm8bIrHamc
Now that’s End of the World Party…
We can only hope….
Second paragraph spot on!
“…should we be worried about another crisis? Yes, the authors say, in a final chapter that is downright scary.
“…crises will still happen, and when they do, the firefighting abilities of policymakers will have been gravely compromised. Interest rates are too low for cutting them further to do much good. Fiscal stimulus, which BGP (Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson) agree was crucial, will be much harder to sell given high levels of debt. And Congress has taken away much of the authority that made extraordinary measures possible in the crisis. In other words, it’s hard to imagine BGP’s modern successors carrying out the kind of rescue operation the authors managed a decade ago.
“And it’s not even clear whether they would try, or at any rate have any idea what they’re doing. The authors are too nice to say this, but today’s top economic officials seem to be systematically drawn from the ranks of those who got everything wrong during the crisis. The failure of Bear Stearns was the first solid indication of how much trouble we were in; Donald Trump has just chosen David Malpass, Bear’s chief economist at the time, to head the World Bank. Larry Kudlow, now the administration’s top economist, ridiculed “bubbleheads” who claimed that housing prices were out of whack, then praised Paulson for refusing to bail out Lehman — just hours before financial markets went into full meltdown.
“In other words, we seem to have learned the wrong lessons from our brush with disaster. As a result, when the next crisis comes, it’s likely to play out even worse than the last one. Isn’t that a happy thought?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/books/review/ben-bernanke-timothy-geithner-henry-paulson-firefighting.html
Bond sales running at record pace: ” After a period of policy tightening, the shift among central banks spells a return to the ultra-accommodative approach that boosted debt issuance in the years after the financial crisis and prompted companies to take advantage of low interest rates by borrowing more from investors.”
https://www.ft.com/content/d45b62ce-5fcc-11e9-a27a-fdd51850994c
“today’s top economic officials seem to be systematically drawn from the ranks of those who got everything wrong during the crisis”
This seems to be the way it works! Actuaries seem to have gotten their analyses all wrong at the time of the great financial crisis, as well. The way the system really works is difficult to figure out.
Hank Paulson in his book wrote that he was scared sh*tless that the global economy would completely come to a halt and the US would have had to implement Martial Law with tank roaming the streets of every major US city if the TBTF Banks were not bailed out.
Hence instead of having to answer to an angry mob holding torches and pitchforks they opted for “kicking the can down the road” hoping that when there was NO solutions to the debt crisis they would be long gone and someone else would have to deal with the global crisis.
The problem now is 10x worse than it was in 2008/09.
I am afraid you are right.
Yes Rodster, thank you, I read Hank’s book (On the Brink) too and quote from it in my book. His assessment of the situation is exactly as you say and they were frightened to death at the time, hence the over reaction. When faced with even the LCs freezing and trade ceasing the whole edifice was ready to collapse and tanks in the streets was a real possibility.
As you say it is much worse now, so when the next crisis comes only the IMF with the SDR will be able to save the global economy, or at least temporarily halt the financial meltdown. His appraisal of the current situation is revealing:
Since he (Hank Paulson) left the Treasury he had been approached by people eager to hear
about his experiences and two questions often appeared: “What was it like to live
through the crisis?” and “What lessons did he learn that could help us avoid a
similar calamity in future?” He hopes that the first one is answered by reading his
book and goes on to list some lessons, although complex, he narrowed them down to
just four crucial ones:
1. “The structural economic imbalances among the major economies of the
world that led to massive cross-border capital flows are an important source
of the justly criticised excesses in our financial system. These imbalances lay
at the root of the crisis which causes the US government to borrow large
amounts of money from oil-exporting countries and Asian nations which it can
never repay except by bond issuance and thus inflating away the debt burden”.
2. “Our regulatory system remains a hopelessly outmoded patchwork quilt built
for another day and age. The system has not kept pace with financial
innovations [see Chapter 8 about Financial Engineering] and needs to be fixed
so that we have capacity and the authority to respond to constantly evolving
global capital markets”.
3. “The financial system contained far too much leverage [excessive borrowings],
as evidenced by inadequate cushions of both capital and liquidity [money].
Much of the leverage was embedded in largely opaque and highly complex
financial products [derivatives]. It is generally understood that both
commercial and investment banks in USA, UK, and Europe as well as the rest
of the world did not have enough capital [they ran out of money!]. Less well
understood is the important role that liquidity [cash – again!] needs to play in
bolstering the safety and stability of the banks. The credit crisis [global
financial meltdown] exposed widespread reliance on poor liquidity practices,
notably a dependence on short-term funding; which means institutions using
these methods need to have plenty of cash on hand for bad times and many did
not”.
4. “The largest financial institutions are so big and complex that they pose a
dangerously large risk”. In 2015 the top ten financial institutions in the USA
held close to 60% of total financial assets, up from 10% in the 1990s, and
continually growing bigger. The concept of ‘To Big To Fail’ (TBTF) has
moved from academic literature to reality and must be addressed.
Hank goes on to list a number of steps to be taken by the US government to reduce
global imbalances that have been decried for years by many prominent economists,
some, even Nobel Prize winners, who should know better. Perhaps they actually do
know better but, like many politicians and media pundits, they are captured in the
merry-go-round of financial opportunity and reward? I think it important to quote
Hank Paulson in his book, “On the Brink,” [at page 441]: “Our government needs to
tackle its number one economic challenge, which is reducing its fiscal deficit. Our
ability to meet this challenge will to a large extent determine our future economic
success. We are now on a path where deficits will rise to a point at which we may
simply be unable to raise the necessary revenues even if significant tax increases are
imposed on the middle class.”
I think Hank sums it up fairly well and his thoughts are prescient today.
“U.S. factory production stalled in March as motor-vehicle output declined, adding to signs of headwinds for manufacturing and economic growth around the world. Manufacturing output was unchanged from February after falling a revised 0.3 percent, Federal Reserve data showed Tuesday.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-16/u-s-factory-output-stalled-in-march-as-auto-production-dropped
“Volkswagen AG, Nissan Motor Co. and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. are among the carmakers increasingly counting on Chinese government tax cuts to stimulate demand and help the world’s biggest auto market rebound from its worst slump in a generation. The unanswered question is when that will happen.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/carmakers-look-to-beijing-to-revive-china-s-slumping-auto-market
“Much has been made of the US-China trade war as a catalyst for slowing global economic growth, with many citing the seemingly manufacturing-led nature of the downturn as evidence. That has inspired hope that an accord between Washington and Beijing will bring back momentum.
“A look at the evidence suggests this is unlikely. Total bilateral trade volumes between the US and China have looked choppy at worst since the pace of worldwide economic activity growth (tracked by JPMorgan PMI) started to slow in 2018. Rather, the cuprit seems to be the onset of quantitative tightening (QT).
“The US central bank dialed up the pace of unwinding its bloated post-crisis balance sheet last year, marking the first time since the 2008 blowup that nonstandard policy support has been removed in earnest. It is this tightening that seems to have cooled growth.
“The Fed continues to wind down its asset stock – albeit at a slower pace of $35 billion per month starting in May versus $50 billion previously – even as it has abandoned plans for further interest rate hikes rate this year. This hints that the slowdown will continue whether the US and China decide to play nice or not.”
https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/fundamental/daily_briefing/session_briefing/euro_open/2019/04/17/Will-Global-Growth-Rebound-if-US-China-Trade-War-Ends.html
I agree that QT is a likely culprit in our problems. Raising interest rates didn’t help either.
Tax cuts seem to be a favorite way of making things temporarily look better. Ultimately more government debt.
“The Central Bank of Argentina is selling the dollars it borrowed from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to replenish the nation’s distressed budget. The ongoing currency crisis has nearly bankrupted Argentina yet again, while many households find themselves on the brink of survival…
“The auctions come after the Argentine economy shrank 6.2 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2019, its worst since 2009. Last year, the nation’s GDP contracted 2.5 per cent, while the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 per cent amid sweeping closures of businesses and manufacturing facilities across all sectors of the national economy.”
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201904161074186229-argentine-imf-economy-elections/
“More than two dozen heavily-armed men stormed into the centre of Guararema early on a recent morning, rousing the Brazilian town’s residents with the sound of broken glass, explosions – and then gunshots. Brandishing high-powered rifles, wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying several kilos of dynamite, the gang pulled up in front of the town’s main police station. It then set upon an adjoining branch of Banco do Brasil, shattering its windows and doors with crowbars.
“In a coordinated 3 a.m. attack, police said, other gang members hit a Banco Santander Brasil branch two blocks away. They detonated the dynamite in an attempt to blow up ATM machines and vaults in both banks. Such attacks have become commonplace in Brazil.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-violence-banks-insight/exploding-atms-brazil-banks-wrestle-with-dynamite-heists-idUKKCN1RS11M
“Ratings agency Moody’s warned South Africa again on Tuesday that growing government debt linked to bailouts of state firms would continue to pressure the country’s investment grade status.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/safrica-ratings-moodys/south-africas-growing-debt-a-concern-moodys-idUKL5N21Y2OO
“[Turkey] is experiencing its first recession in a decade. Last summer’s currency crisis, in which the Turkish lira lost 40 per cent of its value, has started to affect households through double-digit inflation, deteriorating living standards, and increasing unemployment.”
http://www.cityam.com/276308/investors-fear-turkeys-recession-could-contagion-risk
I think this is related to electricity prices becoming too high for consumers in South Africa. The government helps out the electrical company, then has trouble with its own credit rating.
“According to Eunomix Business and Economics Ltd, measuring a range of social, economic and governance measures, South Africa’s performance has slumped more in the past 12 years than any other nation, not at war: “South Africa’s decline over the past 12 years is similar to that of war-torn countries like Mali and Ukraine, or countries that are affected by a significant political crisis and economic crisis like Venezuela.”
http://www.702.co.za/articles/345378/sa-s-decline-over-the-past-12-years-is-similar-to-that-of-war-torn-countries
“Egypt plans to slash fuel and electricity subsidies in its 2019/2020 financial year, the finance ministry’s draft budget shows, but raising fuel prices closer to international levels could turn out to be an even more severe burden on the population, potentially leading to protests that would add to the ones in other African oil producing nations like Sudan and Algeria.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Egypts-Huge-Fuel-Subsidy-Cuts-Could-Spark-Protests.html
“The signs of improvement [as China’s GDP stabilises at 6.4%] most likely do not stem from a sudden burst of confidence in the strength of the country’s economy among Chinese business leaders.
“Instead, the positive glimmers are largely a product of the hundreds of billions of dollars that Beijing has pumped into the country’s economy in recent months and the loans that officials have pressed state-run banks to make. All of that comes at a cost, and it raises a question about how willing Beijing is to spend to keep growth going.
““This time they used an overwhelming amount of force to boost the economy,” Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Group, said. “That is why the economy stabilized in the first quarter.”
“The chance of a “double dip,” in which growth drops again before picking up later this year, is high, Mr. Hu added. “The recovery is not that solid,” he said. “They front-loaded the policy firepower at the start of the year.””
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/business/china-economy-first-quarter.html
“Japan’s exports fell for a fourth straight month in March as China-bound shipments slumped again, reinforcing growing anxiety that weak external demand may have knocked the economy into contraction in the first quarter… The data reinforces worries that weak external demand may hurt company profits and in turn curb business expenditures, workers’ wages and consumer spending in a broad hit to growth.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-economy-trade/japan-exports-hit-by-weak-china-demand-raising-risk-of-economic-contraction-idUKKCN1RT026
“The Bank of Japan is ready to deploy monetary policy tools if a financial crisis threatens to destabilize the country’s banking system, its deputy governor Masayoshi Amamiya said on Wednesday.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-boj-amamiya/bank-of-japan-ready-to-deploy-monetary-policy-tools-to-fight-crisis-deputy-governor-idUKKCN1RT01F
“Singapore’s electronics exports slumped in March by the most since 2013, an ominous sign that it will take longer for the city state to shake off a regional demand slowdown from earlier this year. Electronics shipments dropped 26.7 percent from a year ago, weighing down overall non-oil domestic exports, which fell 11.7 percent. That was far worse than the 2.2 percent contraction forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/singapore-exports-slump-on-worst-electronics-plunge-since-2013
Can it really?
“…why is aluminum falling so drastically? Possibly because it’s a leading indicator for a global economic slowdown.”
https://uk.investing.com/analysis/chart-of-the-day-alcoa-shares-signaling-global-economic-slowdown-200207474
Slovakia Steps Up Pressure on Enel Over Nuclear Project
Government wants private shareholder to cover extra costs
Police charges former managers with fraud related to Mochovce
“Slovakia is stepping up pressure on private shareholders of the country’s largest utility, including Enel SpA, amid signs its flagship nuclear project faces further delay and extra costs.”
“The decade-old project has turned into a nightmare for the Italian utility, which has sold half of its stake to EPH and pledged to hold on to the remaining shares until the new units are built. The budget has more than doubled to 5.7 billion euros, especially after safety standards were tightened following the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in Japan. The series of delays and cost overruns complicates Enel’s relationship with the government led by the Smer party, an advocate of more state influence in the economy.”
“Separately, Slovak police pressed fraud charges against two Italian citizens who were former senior managers at Slovenske Elektrarne. One of them was detained at Bratislava airport. The police said the case is related to construction of Mochovce.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-16/slovakia-steps-up-pressure-on-enel-over-mochovce-nuclear-project?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google
An awfully lot of nuclear projects seem to have had problems, after the Fukushima accident. Everyone wants higher safety standards, but this sends costs through the roof and delays timetables. I am sure the changes also use a lot more fossil fuels.
Yes, but this particular case seems to be really centering on criminal activity mostly..
Italian ‘mafia’ juicing out funds in the name of increased budget for post Fuku safety upgrades.. plus the change of ownership structure..
Well, it boils down to initial Slovak tragic and elementary mistake entering into deal with Enel, not very smart move to begin with..
France replaced about 2/3rds of their old crude-oil burning electricity grid with nuclear in just 10 years. Abundant high EROEI electricity is the key to then solving the liquid fuels problem.
1. We should emphasise New Urbanism. My soul longs for attractive town squares surrounded by coffee shops and bookstores and food and the school and church and a tram stop and a sense of community. With appropriate compensation to those suburbanites that are moved, town squares and tram lines can be installed in the heart of suburbia, and the air above the new train station or tram can be sold to developers. It takes time, but will have incremental benefits over the coming decades.
2. Nuclear power can and will replace all fossil fuels. Toda’s uranium reserves can power us for a few generations on today’s reactors until they perfect tomorrow’s breeder reactors like the IFR or MSR. These are high-EROEI actinide burners that only leave fission products behind. These fission products are the true nuclear ‘waste’ and can be melted down into ceramic bricks and buried for 500 years, then are safe. Breeders get 60 to 90 times the energy out of each unit of uranium, making uranium from seawater last billions of years. Nuclear is now renewable because of continental drift and mountain creation + erosion topping up the oceans forever, until the sun expands and wipes out life on earth!
3. Trucking can be replaced by new economic models and paradigms from electric trucking. The batteries are only getting cheaper and covering more distance from here on in, but they are already a new way of doing trucking. The numbers already add up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ8Cf0vWmxE
4. If that doesn’t grab you, maybe they can be a niche market for in city goods delivery. Intercity trucking can be replaced by synthetic fuels generated from nuclear’s incredibly high EROEI. (Breeders have an even HIGHER EROEI than today’s nuclear, possibly in the high hundreds, because breeders don’t require all the mining and refining of uranium!)
France did indeed replace a large share of their crude-oil burning electricity with nuclear, over a period of years. I can’t tell from BP data exactly which ones. But now these nuclear plants are aging, and production has been declining since nuclear’s peak year in France in 2011.
Our view of what is a safe nuclear power plant has significantly changed since these plants were built. The new plants being built now are using far more cement and other materials in them. Also, we are starting to get a better picture of how awful the cost is of decommissioning the power plants at the end of their lives. A third issue is that the EROEI calculation isn’t really right for devices with huge upfront costs; to keep the system going, we really need much quicker payback than the EROEI calculation gives. Either this, or interest cost must be deemed to have an energy cost as well.
The combination of all of these things leads to me think that the fairly EROEI calculations of early nuclear power plants were based on assumptions that are no longer true. If France were even to try to rebuild all of its existing nuclear power plants, there would be a huge energy cost and financial cost involved. Decommissioning all of the old sites would add to the costs. There seems to be a lot of unknowns with nuclear (such as long-term storage of spent fuel) which are an issue as well. Thus, the EROEI indications from old studies are no longer appropriate.
A large number of companies building nuclear power plants have had serious financial problems. Westinghouse went bankrupt in 2017. Areva in France became insolvent, and was restructured. The nuclear cycle business was put into a separate company, which doesn’t seem to be 100% backed by the French government.
One issue that many people overlook is the fact that nuclear power plants need electricity from an outside source, if they are forced to shut down (like Fukushima). This may not be available in the future, if it becomes more difficult to keep the grid operating as it does today. Spent fuel pools can be a particular issue, because they need electricity to keep them cooling the rods, as I understand the situation.
The situation in the industry changed in lockstep after: TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima; nowadays are spent fuel pools put on several backup systems in most places, although some countries-regions might be again as shown in the latter case Japan(US design) not meaningfully prepared. Besides short term – long term fuel depository and or recycling has been solved long ago.. detailed posts have been provided earlier as well.
You are correct about the costs of decommissioning of older NPPs though, where the share of potentially affected infrastructure inside the plant is higher than in modern installations. On the other hand these old sites ~.5MW per reactor are significantly smaller footprint installations. So in the end comparatively the amount of stuff (mostly various pipping and reactor vessel) to be moved out and buried is a wash. And not that much reasonably hazardous anyway in the overall equation to consider..
oops obviously meant as .5GW for old Gen1-2 sites..
I had a lot of communication with a man who was under contract to examine, report and advise about all the US nuclear plants. He hadn’t thought about scheduling diesel storage on neighboring land on all nuclear plants. So energy to run generators wouldn’t suddenly run out. He thought it could be done quite realistically.
“Could be done” and “actually getting someone to get the funding for a program to do this” are two very different things. I expect that the idea would never go anywhere. It has a cost involved.
I think that the stock would need to be “turned over” from time to time, as well. Diesel is an organic mixture that is biodegradable. We don’t think of it in this way.
One source says,
Yes. Someone mentioned the limited life of the diesel. He worked for the administration. They had some money, but private sources could help while also being very limited in how innovatively they tend to think.
Diesel will store much longer than gasoline, but the removal of the sulfur from the fuel is problematic for longer storage. Biocides must be used for long term storage.
Thanks. One more bit of useful info.
to pick up one of my favourite themes
energy/fossil fuel isn’t our main problem even though it forms 99% of the discussion all over the internet about ”future problems’
the means by which we will be able to use it is the problem
we don’t earn our living by using energy, we earn our living by using energy to convert one kind of material into another
Quite so, Norman.
Now that most people sit in offices and don’t get their hands dirty, this is a fundamental fact which goes uncomprehended.
The oil of Saudi Arabia was just used in little hand-lamps until Western engineers were able to extract and deploy it in the transformative manner you mention.
Sorry completely off topic
I wrote a letter to Amy Helm. She sent two male state troopers with guns and tasers to terrorize my wife, who was home alone cooking dinner, as punishment. Followed by one trooper in the dark of night to deliver a threat to me at home alone. The threat “No law has been broken, you may attend shows, you must never write again.”
If you have the chance, suggest to Amy that she use her words before hitting out. Let her know we do not approve of bullies.
If you would like a copy of the letter send me email edpell at optonline dot net.
??!
Context please
Glad I am not the only one bemused, beidawei. 😀
Google tells me that Amy Helm is the daughter of Levon Helm, late drummer of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Band’. Apparently she is herself a musician of some repute.
I have questions… What was in the letter Ed wrote that so incensed Amy Helm? How is it that Ms Helm is able to manipulate the apparatus of the state to mete out such terrifying revenge? And why did poor Ed’s wife pay the price for *his* insolence?
Perhaps Ed himself can fill in some of the blanks for us.
Frankly I would have been more surprised had UNARMED state troopers turned up a the door. Armed officials with the power of life and death over little people who don’t mow their lawns on time and a habit of turning up unannounced in the wee hours and shooting the pet pooch BECAUSE THEY FELT THREATENED are a fact of life in the USSA.
My absolute favorite song by the Band is Acadian Driftwood.
https://youtu.be/te7KW4K-00E
I wrote this
Dear Amy Helm, I read with horror an interview you did. In it you said you liked to be on the road and if you did not have kids you would be on the road full time. I remember an earlier interview in which you said if you paid enough you would take the family on the road with you and just live on the road. A wonderful idea if everyone is in. I am reminded of Joni Mitchell song Coyote
…And still feel so alone
…A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway…
I tried to run away myself
To run away and wrestle with my ego
And with this flame
You put here in this Eskimo
In this hitcher
In this prisoner
Of the fine white lines
Of the white lines on the free free way
But I guess you do not see it as prison you see it as freedom. As to the lonely part? I wonder is your love of travel genetic or environmental/learned?
Why did I say horror? When I was a young 20 something and a graduate student in physics I was married and did not want to spend six months away at Brookhaven and ten six months at CERN and then six months at Fermi Lab while my wife stayed behind to work her job. So, I left physics. It was a good call for me and my personality. Margaret and I have been happy for the past 38 years. I am a Polish peasant on my fathers side. My Uncle grows strawberries in Connecticut. One my mother’s side they landed at Plymouth Rock and in 350 years made it to Mystic, Connecticut, 50 miles. So, not much of a traveler. We did make it to Prague last summer for the Human Level Artificial Intelligence Conference. Prague is beautiful not sure if they have a venue for English language singers but I recommend a visit. This year Norway and Iceland. You and I have radically different views and happily we have both found a place/way to be happy.
On the music front thanks for bringing Freddy and Francine to The Barn. Please, more vocal heavy groups, maybe even some gospel? I have never seen you listed as going to Mountain View, California, home of Google. They might be a receptive audience for you.
Cheers,
Edwin Pell
edpell@optonline.net
March 4, 2018
I got back
She sent two male state troopers with guns and tasers to terrorize my wife, who was home alone cooking dinner, as punishment. Followed by one trooper in the dark of night to deliver a threat to me at home alone. The threat “No law has been broken, you may attend shows, you must never write again.”
If you have the chance, suggest to Amy that she use her words before hitting out. Let her know we do not approve of bullies.
The response is horrific – I read your letter Ed, thank you, and see no problem with it. What shocks me is that an ordinary citizen can call in the paramilitary on a whim without a by-your-leave. This could never happen in UK and thus America, from this side of the pond, has degenerated into a police state judging by all the articles I read:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpAi70WWBlw
And this:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/04/16/dancing-on-the-crumbling-precipice/#more-193858
Can all this really be true or is it fake news fabricated for political reasons perhaps?
It keeps getting more interesting.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-16/african-migrants-texas-border-monitored-ebola-official
Boeing looks to have serious issues, engine placement on 737 was a kluge from what I can tell, short of a complete redesign no good solutions. Isn’t Boeing the largest export earner for US?
Farming is on the ropes in the midwest, following Deere Stock might give some indication of the seriousness of the problem. My land is rolling but with serious wind issues last year harvesting the corn meant literally backing the combine to grab some stalks, they couldn’t be cut driving in a straight line. Stored grain has been lost due to flooding this year, those farmers will never farm again, machines go to auction.
Now medieval diseases are reportedly appearing LA and San Francisco, plumbing has been called one or the greatest public health improvements. Poop on the street is not plumbing.
How many hits can our civilization take at once?
Interesting times, eh?
Dennis L.
can’t make the point too strongly
when fresh water stops coming in
and body wastes stop going out
civilisation is over.
The difficulty of holding open space in the mind is mirrored by the difficulty of holding open space in public.
and not getting arrested
And plumbing will be the last job automated.
In the UK there are certainly no vast ‘ghost towns’ – newly constructed ones that is.
Spain managed quite a lot of unnecessary building pre-2008 – housing, arts centres, even superfluous airports – but much of that arose from corrupt provincial governments making money out of it and sharing contracts out with friends.
We do have an example of unwanted infrastructure here, a guided busway for £220m, which seems set to go ahead even though there are much more intelligent and cheaper transport solutions, and the last one – which was way over budget and very late – has already started disintegrating in 6 years against a projected life-span of 30.
The problem in the West is maintaining or replacing ancient infrastructure.
Notre Dame was at one time a Temple of Reason
Apparently during the time of the French Revolution when the Catholic religion become a we bit unpopular with the revolutionaries… well some people established something called the Cult of Reason. They anointed Notre Dame one of the Temples of Reason and even used it as the location of a Festival of Reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Reason
“The central bank “solution” to runaway credit expansion that flowed into malinvestment was to lower interest rates to zero and enable tens of trillions in new debt. As a result, global debt has skyrocketed from $84 trillion to $250 trillion. Debt in China has blasted from $7 trillion 2008 to $40 trillion in 2018.
“A funny thing happens when you depend on borrowing from the future (i.e., debt) to fund growth today: the new debt no longer boosts growth, as the returns on additional debt diminish. This leads to what I term credit/debt exhaustion…
“…any attempt to institute extreme policies will expose authorities’ desperation right when confidence is vulnerable to collapse. The Fed and other central banks are trapped in more ways than one.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4254639-fix-recession-without-financial-crisis-central-bank-policy-fix
“Risks of large-scale corporate defaults are mounting in China, despite economic growth that “remains robust by international standards”, according to a new report. The OECD found that sagging domestic demand and weak export orders have led Chinese authorities to swiftly resort to stimulus measures, through expansionary monetary policy, tax cuts and infrastructure spending…
“While China’s stimulus, estimated at as high as 4.25 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, could lift growth in the short term, it could build up further economic imbalances down the road…”
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3006373/chinas-unsustainable-debt-levels-may-trigger-large-scale
This is a Charles Hugh Smith article. Many people don’t stop to consider that GDP growth is growth in the goods and services an economy can produce (and sell), including the effect that adding more debt has. Clearly, an economy can build more buildings and more roads with more debt, as well as lots of other things. It takes far more $ to add one $ of GDP each year. This is what makes the system so unsustainable.
Also, governments can play games with this. They borrow to produce a lot of unneeded infrastructure. This adds jobs and pseudo growth. The countries report GDP growth, but it is not really growth.
Gail, just to add in something – the idea of building unwanted infrastructure happens only for a few countries. I think Japan and China and the most serious offenders. I don’t think other than those two countries, other developed nations like USA, UK are probably not doing it. I think they add debt for welfare handouts or wars. This is even worse than building unused infrastructure. I am more than happy to be wrong. Some can correct me if I am wrong.
GDP growth “died” in the 1970s and it is replaced with debt-fueled growth. No magic tricks involved. Just creating debts and continue to use it. The debt is used to expand the exploration and extraction of expensive oil that would otherwise be still deep in the earth. No debts, no expensive oil. It is just that all these are coming to and end due to the law of diminished returns. All good things come to and end. Always. Never fail. Sounds like entropy?
I think the unneeded things we add in the US look like educational systems and health care.
Regarding education, we end up with a lot of young people with debt, but they have not learned very much that is helpful for their jobs. Professors are expected to get research grants to support writing academic articles. These articles are often worth very little. Students tend to get taught by adjunct faculty, earning hardly more than minimum wage.
The health care aims for super-specialization, with the super-specialized doctors getting high pay. Citizens run all over, trying to put together the right combination of doctors for their illnesses. Drug companies are interested in making money, so are interested in new drugs and tiny enhancements to existing drugs. The lives of elderly and those with debilitating diseases are extended using high-priced procedures. Many imaging devices are used, adding to costs and long term radiation exposure of patients. The healthcare system is to some extent “needed” because of the quantity and highly processed nature of the foods Americans eat, as well as their lack of exercise.
And I agree with your last statements: “It is just that all these are coming to and end due to the law of diminished returns. All good things come to and end. Always. Never fail. Sounds like entropy?”
“The recent collapse in global trade is the worst since the financial crisis and as steep as during the recession of the early 2000s, according to new figures from the Dutch government.
“World trade volumes slumped 1.8pc in the three months to January compared to the preceding three months as factories grapple with a deepening global industrial downturn, the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis revealed.
“An industrial slump has been triggered by a perfect storm of factors, including China’s slowdown, the car industry downturn, Brexit paralysis and Donald Trump’s attempt to upend the international trade system with tariffs on European and Chinese goods.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/15/global-trade-suffers-biggest-collapse-since-great-recession/
I tried to find more information on this, but the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis only has information through January up on its site, at least for non-subscribers.
Notre Dame is now the 10th cathedral that has been vandalised or started to burn in France.
Authorities were very quick to announce the fire has nothing to do with anything, just an accident during ongoing reconstruction work..
However, those same authorities have subsequently announced that half of the detectives in paris are being assigned to investigate what they were so quick to call an accidental fire.
Fire is a very normal occurrence. Forests are meant to burn at some stage in their development. If there are homes heated with fire wood, they tend to burn down at a very high rate. (I remember hearing 30 years being the life expectancy of a home built and heated with wood.) Insurance companies know that restaurants very often burn down.
We kid ourselves when we model the future as being just a continuation of the past. Just because something doesn’t happen every year, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect it. In Georgia, USA, termites are a problem. Wooden structures will not last many years without a lot of termite control. Also wind storms and floods, depending on where a structure is located.
This is one of the problem with modeling wind and solar, too. The models miss all of the things that go wrong in the future. Bankruptcy of suppliers is an issue, as is lack of suitable replacement parts, for example.
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The French singing together on the streets near Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris
https://vredd.it/files/u28u757vuhs21-u28u757vuhs21.mp4
Notre Dame is burning down.
I once attended a Sunday mass there and then slept next to her. In the morning at the yard I saw a man staring at a woman. She got so angry that she turned around and pulled down her trousers and showed him her ass. He responded by saying: I came to France to see your ass. Excellent!
Notre Dame is burning.
Not a good omen, for the superstitious.
I couldn’t watch the news coverage, it was too painful.
Collapse will not be fun.
Yes, like adding another piece into the depressing puzzle picture for them, France is in free fall..
In fact, they said much of the original structure was just first half 19th century remodel anyway, as the original historic piece had been badly damaged in the revolution years before that.. (and neglect before that..) ..
Lots of work for some skilled craftsmen, just as it should be. Notre Dame has to be rebuilt and cannot be neglected by the state.
Whereas, in a true collapse, vital buildings in your peripheral town will go up in smoke, fall down, and never be replaced….
I’ve been looking for more of Chris Clugston’s stuff. Dude’s not very active on the internet (how unhealthy!) and the most recent thing of his I could find was this paper from 2014:
https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/WhatEverHappenedGoodOldDays.pdf
Excerpt:
“While NNRs are essentially ubiquitous within Earth’s crust, “economically viable” NNR deposits – i.e., those that are both profitable to produce and affordable to procure – are extremely rare in almost all cases.
Crustal occurrences: Vast quantities of nearly all NNRs exist in Earth’s undifferentiated crust, the outer rocky shell that ranges in thickness from approximately 3 miles to 30 miles.9 Unfortunately NNR concentrations in Earth’s undifferentiated crust are too small in all cases to be economically viable.
Resources: Significantly greater NNR concentrations exist in mineral deposits classified by the US Geological Survey (USGS) as “resources”.10 Resources account for only very small subsets of total NNR occurrences however; and most NNR resources are not economically viable.
Reserves: Economically viable subsets of resources exist in proven deposits that the USGS classifies as “reserves”. Reserves are the NNR occurrences that enable us to perpetuate our industrial lifestyle paradigm; they are also the least abundant NNR occurrences on Earth.
To put global NNR occurrence into perspective, if the total quantity of an NNR in Earth’s crust were represented by the size of Disneyland (150 football fields), the economically viable NNR “reserve” would be approximately the size of a postage stamp; and the potentially economically viable “resource” would be about the size of a cell phone.”
The wealth of the mines had been released: the party was wonderful, the crystal glasses exquisite, the silver shining and elegant, the vintages rare and memorable, the imagination and subtlety of the dishes unprecedented.
But it was not real life: and quite unrepeatable. ‘For now the time of gifts has gone’…….
Hearing about how so many of these economically viable NNRs are going to run out is, psychologically, a bit like being told we’re suffering from a terminal disease. Some of us will ask the doc what we can do to make our remaining time as painless and pleasant as possible, some will dispute the diagnosis, and some will stick fingers in ears and shout “I can’t hear you!’
If the price of finished goods would go higher, relative to wages, I would expect that we could have both more energy products and more other NNRs. As far as I can see, the maximum production of most of the NNRs depend very much on how high prices can go (for oil and other energy products, plus for the NNRs themselves). We know, for example, that there is gold dissolved in sea water. There seem to be many NNRs that can be found in underwater deposits. If the price were high enough (relative to wages), it would be possible to extract any of these resources. The problem is that prices aren’t very high.
Yes, someone recently mentioned rich undersea(shelf?) coal beds, theoretical bonanza, but in practice probably not to be extracted ever..
Not sure about humans or other mammals to bring about another techno civilization, my bet is on the squirrels, if they exchange a bit of their supreme athletics-acrobatics into brains and bit bigger body they could succeeded eventually..
‘We Can Fight It!’ etc.
And yet, people still fervently believe that electricity from solar cells and wind turbines are renewable, sustainable, and will allow us to keep driving our cars forever.
well, sun and wind are essentially “free fuel”…
though the devices that use these free fuels to produce electricity are costly… and as of now, the energy used to produce these devices comes from FF…
like the various (limited) places in the world where hydro is worthwhile for producing electricity, there are places where solar and wind MIGHT be cost effective for producing electricity…
the more likely scenario for solar and wind is that they will be fossil fuel extenders, used along with the remaining FF to extend BAU for another decade or two…
or not… economic/debt collapse could put a swift halt to any buildup of renewables…
but, as long as (cheap) natural gas continues to increase in supply, there is a window of opportunity for the so-called green crowd (socialist Ds in the USA) to push for 100% renewables, which is a laughable goal… and ironic, since FF is required…
even 50% will be difficult, but it could happen if there is enough net (surplus) energy in the remaining FF resources…
this will be much clearer by 2030…
New Zealand, where I live, is one such place where we have an abundance of hydroelectric power (already well exploited) as well as locations which are are well suited to wind turbines (the hills around Wellington are buffeted by nearly constant winds, for example) and solar generating capacity (such places as Marlborough and eastern areas of the North Island come to mind). Add that to Geothermal and we would seem to be well placed for meeting our energy needs by so-called renewable means. However, the mineral resources which are essential for building the wind turbines, solar panels, hydro power plants, and Geothermal power stations are finite, depletable, and non-renewable.
Extracting sufficient quantities at such low costs to keep them affordable for use in constructing the aforementioned electrical generating capacity to meet even our own rather limited needs will take enormous quantities of fossil fuels – let alone the needs of the world as a whole. Throw in not only other applications that many of the same minerals are used for but also the need for fuelling economic growth, and it becomes an impossible task.
This is something that many people seem to forget: the finite nature of the required mineral and energy resources combined with the sheer scale involved. It is also apparent that the environmentally conscious people and parties pushing for such “renewable energy sources” have factored in neither the environmental damage that comes from extracting such huge volumes of minerals at low cost, nor the fact that – thanks to Thermodynamics – the same “renewable energy sources” will be contributing to the very Global Warming that they seek to combat by such means.
++++++++
Anything can happen (although low probability), if they bring about further capital cost (and raw material) decrease for batteries (already happening new incoming machines are fraction of today’s large manuf lines and less rare metals), lets say even some sort of simple “casting process” of batteries – the quasi altered BAU could get further legs on mixture of renewable, natgas and various NPP schemes be it already existing fuel recycling or breeders.. Would such a world necessarily resemble much of today’s structures in every aspect? no..
Some such combination will be tried, certainly:
‘With crutches, a mobility scooter, a hoist and a mechanized bed, and a support team of minimum pay carers, the patient was leading a normal life again and getting about almost like before……’ 🙂
Exactly: ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’ have been almost emptied of real meaning by constant mis-use.
‘Clean’ is the final joke……..
As a consequence of this propaganda, the ‘Extinction Rebellion’ people currently stopping traffic in central London sincerely believe that our economies can stop using fossil fuels in a mere 5 years, and function with ‘clean, green renewables’.
I’m not mocking them: they are merely repeating what they have been told by the media, that Transition is practicable, now, and that the only obstacles are the vested interests of the coal/gas/oil industries, financiers, and political corruption.
They would have perhaps gained a sand particle of trust about what they are trying to do should they somewhere on their protest signs sport a motto as well: ” ..For every missile and fighter plane offset by each local quality domestic horticulture sale and repair shop.. !”
Gail / OFW’ers,
Has anyone here watched Ray Dalio’s “How the Economic Machine Works” video from 2013?
https://www.bridgewater.com/research-library/how-the-economic-machine-works/
I just stumbled across it today for the first time, and while overly simplistic, it was entertaining enough (for me, anyway) to watch through it’s entire 30-minute run time. Though I didn’t watch it with a critical eye, two things did jump out at me:
First, I wasn’t sold on Dalio’s price-based explanations of inflation / deflation. I’m more of an old school economic theorist who sees inflation / deflation as monetary events – i.e. changes in the money supply – as opposed to price changes, which are symptoms of inflation / deflation.
Second, the idea of a “beautiful deleveraging” sounds overly optimistic to me. It would have been nice if Dalio gave an example of a historical “beautiful deleveraging”, assuming such a thing has ever occurred before.
I’d love to hear what the rest of you thought of the video.
Cheers,
-GBV
I started to watch that video
Economy starts with:—-transactions (2 mins in)
I gave up at that point—the economy starts with energy extraction/conversion, to underpin money with which to enable the transaction
without that energy availability/input there can be no meaningful transaction—he is therefore just an economic dreamer
He seems to infer that as long as transactions take place, the economy is self perpetuating—maybe it gets more logical further on.
perhaps they take in each other’s laundry, like the Swiss. i’ll have to watch the video.
Sorry, I should have made clear that Dalio’s video is only focused on finance.
Energy / resource extraction goes a bit beyond the scope of what I believe the video was intended to capture… but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While energy / resources drive our society and thus our financial system, it may be easier for the layman to first grasp how the financial system works before getting into the complexities of the energy sector, EROEI, ECOE, chain-lengths of hydrocarbons, peak oil theory, abiotic vs biotic origin theories, etc.
Cheers,
-GBV
Your view of inflation being a monetary event GBV conforms with mine and is explained in my book, which is being serialised weekly at:https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/04/13/the-financial-jigsaw-issue-no-47/ We are talking about inflation at this very time.
To give credit where credit is due, it was Nicole Foss over at The Automatic Earth (TAE) which clued me into the concept of inflation / deflation as a monetary event.
By the time I went away to university to study Commerce and Economics, the textbooks had already shifted away from that definition and (sadly) towards the “price inflation / deflation” concept that seems to be pushed / taught today.
Glad I stumbled across TAE in 2010!
Cheers,
-GBV
The first book written about the subject from the Swedish environmental movement, Lågenergisamhälle – men hur? (Low energy society – but how), 1975, calculated with only solar and wind energy – and a huge reorganization of society. First of all, lots of things should be held in common instead of everyone buying one for himself. Second, the suburban nonsense of living in one place and doing all other things in other places should be scrapped; before the oil age we lived in towns and villages and did everything within walking distance. Third, the idea of producing things in China and consume it in other continents is of course ridiculous; as Keynes stated most things should be produced at home. And of course, buildings can easily be made self-sufficient with energy for heating, lighting etc.
Your article seems to argue that any drop in energy consumption is tied to an economic and social disaster. I don’t believe in that. Sweden’s energy consumption per capita has, to be sure, increased since the 70s, but most of it is due to increasing losses in nuclear plants and increased commuting. Without these red figures it would have diminished – and we would be better off, not worse. Add to that the suggestions above.
The changes would of course take time. Society has developed in the wrong direction for 80 years and will be more difficult than an oil tanker to turn. But don’t say it is impossible. If so, it is only impossible for political reasons, like the tearing down of the Berlin wall.
But since -75 every swedish house built has been built in the wrong place .
What do you mean with self sufficient buildings? Wood heated or solar panels from China and lithium from Congo?
Political reasons are reasons enough in a democracy.
Non – insulated 1950s standard US house up north (not mansion) could be heated by only one cord of wood, if you know what you are doing. And on tiny fraction of that energy (basically just scraps) if it was done properly in the first place, i.e. house partly concealed inside the terrain, having additional greenhouse as part of the structure and one or two acres of woody food garden around, voila you are suddenly consuming 1/10 – 1/20th or less of today’s total per capita kWh.
Unfortunately we have the houses we have and for practical purposes 0 m2 forest garden per home.
But Scandinavia, not being grossly overpopulated, could possibly rebuild to wood heated housing. Probably less expensive than converting to a solar/wind energy system, and renewable!
Who pays for the cost of rebuilding to wood heated housing? What do banks do, if prices of current homes go to zero?
I don’t think this plan would work.
You build it out of wood and labor .
trees require time and energy to grow to maturity
labour requires the energy input of a mature man to convert trees into houses
Scandinavia is grossly overpopulated. Without the excess population we could be self-sufficient in energy, just like Norway is today.
But oh no, the Swedes, nomenclature and government-leftists chose quantity over quality any day. Consumerism and scams instead of investment and tech development.
Let em have it all, they voted for it and now the reap what they have sown.
Please Mr President, bring down this pretentious sh1t-sh0w. Let their ‘investments’ and ‘gold’ be turned into debt and lead.
Grossly… a die off of 50% would go a long way.
Now is that time in the year when everyone takes out their own pneumatic tools and changes tires on their own car used to go to work 50+K away.
You are partly correct and partly wrong..
There was perhaps a window of opportunity to ‘turn this tanker around’ say in 1970s, when both the energy as well human capital in the meaning of hands on – craftsmanship experience still could be tapped into at least partially via consulting by older generations at that time.
We don’t have these advantages readily available today*, plus the civilization’s techno sphere moved during recent decades full steam ahead into JIT service and maintenance only regime, therefore even any trivial disruption in energy and parts flow globally would disintegrate entire clusters of economies within the IC hubs.
The only possible thing is to move on decentralization on your very own (& nearest circle) and hope not to be immediately enslaved – feudalized over by remnant mil – crime scene elements in few years time after the crash..
—
* not mentioning since then further pop increase, water table decrease and contamination, suburban sprawl, disease spread, ..
Gail will probably have something incisive to say about this. I’d like to think you are correct that the transition to a low energy society would be doable, But from my admittedly foggy viewpoint, I see any attempt to turn that oil tanker of society around breaking the thing it on the rocks and the entire crew thrown to the waves.
Oh it’s like a storm at sea
And everything is lost
And the fretful sailors
Calling out their woes
As to the waves they’re tossed…
https://youtu.be/8cZu6SCGy9c
If society were to retreat and reform to a world of small villages and small towns, surrounded by fields and market gardens, with nearly everything being sourced and done locally, then why bother with solar panels, etc?
They, EV’s , wind turbines, are inherently part of the globalised industrial economy.
People will never vote for the 18th century, as sensible as it might seem: nor for the huge population drop required, endemic disease, periodic famines, etc.
Children are being taught in school that only a lack of political will is the problem, and that is surely not the case.
Also they must vote for the 18th century with their money.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls-XD5O_WjQ&t=156s
I expect that the 1975 study was incorrect, or perhaps that you are quoting it incorrectly. You talk about solar and wind? Why not include wood and hydroelectric, Sweden seems to have both, more than more countries. And Sweden is decidedly deficient in solar, especially in winter.
I also expect that the 1975 study did not consider all of the parts of the economy that would need to be taken care of. For example, providing food and water for the entire population, paving roads and repairing them, maintaining electric transmission lines, heating buildings of all kinds, keeping the financial system operating, building schools and publishing books, paying for government services of all kinds. The big issue is that we cannot go backwards. If citizens can’t use credit cards, Sweden needs an alternative they can switch to immediately. Workers must be paid, even if the electric grid is down. I cannot see how this would possibly operate.
Your entire argument is based on flawed assumptions. Yes. Each new human requires the expenditure of more energy. Less humans is the solution. Geri g rid of carbon based energies is a utopia. The solution is not perfection. It is drastic reduction. And the elimination of inefficient behavior and harvesting, conversion, creation & use of energy. Would our economy collapse? Yes. If we transitioned over night. But that won’t happen. It can’t happen. And if we don’t transition…? What are those costs? Far greater. How much value is 1 life? $10 million dollars? Multiplied by 2 billion? 3? What about quality of life & pursuit of happiness? Joy? What value do you place on these things? Your math needs a new context.
You are right. The only solution that will work is a reduction in the number of people. But that is not something that most people can even consider.
Furthermore, we need this reduction now, not two or three or five generations from now.
We can not limit our discourse to what the masses will believe. We must put only accurate information out there. Otherwise, we are clearly illustrating that the inequities and failings of the past will dictate our solutions for the future. Plus, we open ourselves up to fake news and inevitably begin ourselves to practice false logic skewing our own belief systems. We become a victim of our own lack of tenacity to speak the truth. No matter how painful. That said population curves can come down and are coming down fast. We also have the potential to do MUCH more with what we have than we do now. Ironically it may be that we can only change at the precipice. So many factors and pressures are coming to bear. But this is not the best path to change. “Break or make”. We must find and discuss transitional solutions. They do exist.
IF the problem is to reduce population, and if that is complicated by the complexities of there being too many people for that reduction to work easily, I have a simple solution: Simplify the issues we focus on.
We somehow have to figure out how to think strategically, not losing sight of the forest for the trees.
WOMEN: Currently the largest segment of the human population, are underestimated for their role in thinking through population issue.
Women get very distracted by tugs to identify with other issues apart from strictly women’s issues.
ABORTION: The single women’s issue that gives women control over their bodies and their lives is abortion. Abortion rights are continually under threat and are continually being whittled away within our current system. But if, as I strongly believe, it is the strategic, determinative issue as to whether population grows, stays constant, or reduces, safe legal abortion access–whether it is used or not–is 90% of what social movement should be about.
If we get abortion right, we will probably get every other issue right as well. It’s a matter of systems thinking.
But once a woman actually wants to have a baby, it kills her soul not to have one -something that a man can never fully comprehend.
So we need, perhaps, to go back to a world of high infant and maternal mortality and a fraction of the current population managing to survive. Like most other animals.
Women will have the babies they rightly crave, and the world will not be destroyed by over-population.
The availability of abortion doesn’t force a woman (or girl) to have one. I don’t know whether the “craving” of some women (by no means all) to have babies is more biologically drive than socially driven.
I’m a long-time reader of your truly fantastic blog, Gail, and now a first-time commenter. I especially like your openness to different ideas and your rational approach to evaluating them.
Is population reduction, no matter how large or small really a solution in your framing of the problem? It seems to me that a population reduction, especially in a short period of time, would lead to debts owed by the deceased being unpaid permanently (crashing banks?) and decreased demand for goods and services in the aggregate. If the population loss occurs among the biggest consumers, I suspect it would also affect the ability to produce fossil fuels as well (due to the loss of skill/expertise, harm to the financial system, etc.). If the population loss occurs among the smallest consumers, the demand for fossil fuels would almost remain the same.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but the size of the population doesn’t seem to be related to the underlying affordability problem. Whether there are 1 billion or 100 billion people, it won’t get any cheaper to extract and deliver fossil fuels.
Could it be that population growth, like advancing technology, is a one-way street? That is, we essentially kick the rungs out of the ladder as our population grows in size (a variation on your metaphor), and going back to a smaller population size only speeds us toward collapse.
I think you are right with respect to both observations:
1. “Whether there are 1 billion or 100 billion people, it won’t get any cheaper to extract and deliver fossil fuels.” The cheap fuel to extract, process, and transport is, to a significant extent gone, because we removed it first. There is more out there, but we need higher prices to get it.
2. “Going back to a smaller population size only speeds us toward collapse.” Adding population adds the need for more homes, more vehicles, more roads, more pipelines, more food, and pretty much more of everything. It helps hold up commodity prices. It also helps hold up real estate prices. A smaller population leads to the opposite of “economies of scale.” If leads to overhead becoming a bigger and bigger share of an operation’s costs, and sales start to fall. It becomes necessary to close stores and offices. Some homes have no buyers. There becomes downward pressure on real estate prices, unless governments work on preventing this problem. The elderly are likely to become a disproportionate share of the population. Young people cannot really support this many elderly. If existing costs of medical care and institutionalization stay in place, the cost of care for the elderly becomes absurdly high relative to the wages of young people.
Putting these two problems together, it becomes impossible to repay debt with interest.
I am sure Gail can answer better than I. I would just like to welcome you to OFW and look forward to interesting exchanges. best wishes, Peter
“High street decline and paralysis over Brexit has triggered the most UK profit warnings since the financial crisis. London-listed firms issued 89 alerts in the first three months of 2019, a fifth higher than last year, according to Ernst & Young. The ailing retail sector, particularly clothing, and the travel industry were among the hardest hit…”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/04/14/alert-uk-profitwarnings-soar-tohighest-since-crash/
“A growing number of large British-based businesses are prioritising cashflow, fearing a downturn, as their view of the long-term economic impact of Brexit has darkened to its most negative so far, accountancy firm Deloitte said on Monday.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-economy/uk-businesses-stash-cash-as-brexit-gloom-deepens-deloitte-idUKKCN1RQ0U0
“Germany and France aren’t exactly looking like a power couple when it comes to firing up Europe’s slowing economy.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-13/europe-s-risk-of-paralysis-in-slowdown-puts-germany-on-the-spot
“European economic power Germany is coming under increasing pressure to boost spending to accelerate economic growth, as its massive surpluses create growing friction with other countries. The dispute has simmered since the 2008 global financial crisis but French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire warned Friday that widening differences over economic policy among eurozone countries could undermine.”
https://www.thelocal.de/20190413/germany-under-increasing-pressure-to-boost-spending
This is very valid Harry, thank you. The big issue is Target 2 balances, Germany is owed almost 1 Trillion euros under the scheme and the ECB has major problems sorting this out in the coming downturn.
“Banks in Italy are still loaded up with non-performing and poor-quality loans”
https://www.businessinsider.com/italy-risky-bank-loans-and-poor-growth-prospects-could-destroy-eurozone-2019-4?r=US&IR=T
“U.S. online lenders such as LendingClub Corp, Kabbage Inc and Avant LLC are scrutinising loan quality, securing long-term financing and cutting costs, as executives prepare for what they fear could be the sector’s first economic downturn.
“A recession could bring escalating credit losses, liquidity crunch and higher funding costs, testing business models in a relatively nascent industry.
“Peer-to-peer and other digital lenders sprouted up largely after the Great Recession of 2008. Unlike banks, which tend to have lower-cost and more stable deposits, online lenders rely on market funding that can be harder to come by in times of stress.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-economy-online-lenders-focus/worried-a-recession-is-coming-u-s-online-lenders-reduce-risk-idUKKCN1RR0BP
“Wall Street analysts are predicting shrinking profits for companies in the S&P 500 for the second quarter, setting up the prospect of an earnings recession.”
https://www.ft.com/content/d54156b8-5d05-11e9-9dde-7aedca0a081a
Last year had the benefit of the tax cut; this year doesn’t. This creates a problem looking at year to year earnings gains.
Observe people and they are glued to their smart phones, at work, sitting outside on a bench and especially driving a car. How do Ii know that? When I’m the car behind them at a stop light their head is down and when the light turns green I have to toot my horn 😠 from them to realize it’s time to go!
Now, what are they looking at? Judging by this statistic, they must be shopping for a good part.!
.uS. Retail Stores’ Planned Closings Already Exceed 2018 Total
“In all the other cycles, including 2008, a lot of people would come in and buy racking, circular racks and so on,” Mr. Mulcunry said. “They’d buy it all and warehouse it and wait until somebody wanted to reopen a store and sell it back to them. Those people have gone away.”
He added, “People don’t think retail is going to grow again from a bricks-and-mortar perspective.”
As the internet continues to change shopping habits, stores across the United States continue to close. Less than halfway through April, American retailers have announced plans this year to shut 5,994 stores, exceeding the 5,854 announced in all of 2018, according to data from Coresight Research.
The announced closings still have a ways to go before they reach the 2017 record of more than 8,000. And openings and renovations are still taking place. Coresight has tracked announcements of 2,641 store openings by retailers in the United States this year, compared with 3,239 for all of 2018. Many of this year’s openings are dollar stores and other discount chains — areas that are less threatened by e-commerce right now. Online retailers like Warby Parker are also opening stores, though on a small scale
“It’s not really a recession-driven or, even to an extent, management-driven change — it’s a change in the way people are buying,” Mr. Mulcunry said. “Retail is not dying. It’s just changing, so we’re a part of that change.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/business/retail-store-closings.html
One thing is certain, humans perception of time is changing too!
Jeremy Rifkin wrote a book long ago on the subject titled TIME WARS and in it looked at the transformation energy, innovation and technology transformed the way humans experience time psychology. Today with cyberspace we cannot experience the nanosecond and everything is instant.
Out relationship not only with the business world is transitory, (remember back when and actually talking to the owner of the store you shopped in?), But our friends as well, Facebook and the like!
A battle is now brewing over our present conception of time. Its outcome will help determine the future of our society in the coming century. On one side are the power-time advocates, who would have us enter a hyperefficient computerized world where time is taken beyond human conception and recorded in nanoseconds (billionths of a second)-an artificial time world where past, present, and future blur together to create a simulated paradise divorced from the organic and seasonal time orientation of the planet. On the other side stand the time rebels, who question society’s capitulation to the nanosecond time frame. They argue instead for an ecological time orientation that would resynchronize our social and economic activities to the biological and physical rhythms of the natural world.
Just as the “small is beautiful” idea challenged the myth that “bigger is better,” the new ecological time vision, “slow is humane,” challenges the prevailing view that increased speed and efficiency automatically mean progress.
https://www.foet.org/books/time-wars-the-primary-conflict-in-human-history/
I know I visited a store in an outdoor strip mall on Saturday. I went because I knew that they had a 40% off sale on all merchandise – (women’s clothing). In fact, as I walked from my car to the store, I saw many empty store spaces. I saw one store that said “Store closing; 30% off everything.” I saw other stores with 30% or 40% off signs as well, but not saying that these stores were closing. The reduced prices related to spring and summer clothing that had just come in.
How in the world are these stores going to survive? They cannot continue functioning with prices this far below what they usually charge. I am guessing that they badly need cash flow, and decided cutting prices was the only way they were going to get shoppers to stop by.
I can order now directly from China and it’s mailed to me directly, saving 1/2 off the retail in a store. Did this for an aquarium I’m setting up. PetSmart can’t compete.
I go to Dollar Stores now for grocery items, much less expensive than regular Food marts like Publix. Some even have produce and bread! Seems that is the path we are headed now, Ross, Marshall and TJ Max instead of Macy’s and JC Penny.
I was in retail way by in the Auto Parts business. Now with the internet, I don’t see how an independent can compete, even a chain store, like Advance Auto.
One just merged with O’Reilly auto parts called Bennet.😁 Either get big or get out.
I see many smaller store fronts empty now and others closing.
Believe it or not one Lady in my city opened a small store just for CATS! She’s been there for just over a year now. I’m not sure of her turnover, but it’s a nice little place.
Her prices aren’t at a discount and Chewy.com probably blows her out of the water.
Suppose some Cat people need to feed kitty ORGANIC Cat food!
The next Recession should be interesting, see who is left standing with their doors open.
https://oilprice.com/
In 2008 oil price skyrocketed to a peak of $147. a barrel and fuel at the pumps in CA was ~$5.00 a gallon. Now WTI is ~63. a barrel and fuel is ~$4.00 a gallon. Something is out of whack – what?
2008 USD does not equal 2019 USD, similarly Cali of 2008 is different to her ver 2019..
But apart from that you are correct sensing both the ceiling and floors seem to be slowly crushing the inhabitants of this industrial fossil energy madhouse civilization of ours..
The ceiling and floor are moving up, as they are strapped to a conveyor belt – like Mr Bond – moving all too rapidly to a circular saw aimed at…….
I notice that the Wall Street Journal has an article up called Homegrown energy can’t tame US pump prices: Sharp increase in California gasoline prices revives debate over ethanol requirements
California seems to be the only state that required ethanol to be blended into gasoline. At least some California refiners are lacking the ethanol that they need to blend into the gasoline. Without it, they can’t make gasoline, and the prices run up. What ethanol that has become available is high priced.
When I look at ethanol data, I see that US production of ethanol was close flat, comparing the year 2018 to 2017. But exports of ethanol are up. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec10_7.pdf
So total ethanol available (net of exports) is down, at the same time some gas stations around the US are adding E-15 pumps. We are getting later in the year, relative to the time of the corn harvest. I expect the situation may get worse before it gets better.
This PDF shows corn acres planted and harvested in the US. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/graphics/cornac.pdf
2018 was not a good corn harvest year.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/graphics/cornprod.pdf
@Gail, are you aware of Chris Clugston’s book “Scarcity”? Here is a summary/review:
https://www.ecologise.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SCARCITY-by-C-Clugston.pdf
I was scanning through it last night and his views more or less align with yours.
“Clugston argues that our modern industrialized civilization and improving standards of
living are made possible by an indispensable use of fossil fuels, metals, and non-metallic
minerals that are never replenished in any relevant time span. There are 89 of these nonrenewable minerals and Clugston meticulously analyses each. Those that are viable
economically are becoming scarcer and more costly. When their extraction/ production
ceases to rise, as is now happening, it is inevitable that a sharp decline in global societal
wellbeing must follow. Indeed, he shows that the Great Recession of 2008 was
precipitated by the rising costs of NNRs.”
thanks for the Clugston link
brilliant
Thank you, new name to me at least. And he’s right.
While Chris Clugston makes some interesting observations, he doesn’t really make the connection between energy costs and the cost of extracting the other minerals. As energy costs rose about 2008, the cost of extracting all of the minerals increased, simultaneously. Energy plays such an important role that if it is cut back, the production of all of the minerals shown will decline, more quickly than he says.
Thus, we are dealing with a situation when the extraction of many minerals can be expected to decline simultaneously, if the use of coal or oil declines.
that’s a good point… 3 of his 89 are coal, oil and natural gas, and the decline of those will hasten the decline in production of the others…
as you have said, it will look like more inefficiency in the production…
he does mention debt though:
“… increasingly desperate attempts to perpetuate its unsustainable American
way of life. Indicators have become increasingly pronounced in recent years:
*Continuously devaluing US dollar
*US transition to a service economy
*US foreign oil dependence
*US dollar becomes a fiat currency
*US transition to a net importer
*US transition to a debtor nation
*US transition to a net asset seller
*Declining US real median family income
*Unfunded US “social entitlement” programs
*Unrepayable US debt
*Increasingly costly US military presence
*Aging physical infrastructure
*Post-peak US NNRs
As NNR inputs to the US economy decline, US economic output (GDP) and societal
wellbeing must decline as well.”
much earlier than 2050…
Excellent David, thank you for listing some of the ‘signs’ and I too feel that we are not that far away from GFC2.
Note that the link I posted is a summary of Clugston’s book written by someone else. Still, it does mention the effect of increasing costs of extraction:
“Economically viable NNRs positively impact economic output (GDP) levels, thereby improving societal well-being levels attainable by industrialized and industrializing nations [As extractions proceed,] NNR producers must exploit increasingly marginal—and expensive—NNR deposits. NNR producers therefore require higher [constantly rising] prices to cover their operating costs and expenses.”
Here is the amazon link for his book:
https://www.amazon.de/Scarcity-Humanitys-Chapter-Christopher-Clugston/dp/1621412504
“Crustal Occurrences: Huge quantities of nearly all NNRs exist in the undifferentiated
earth’s crust. Unfortunately, crustal concentrations are too small in all cases to be
economically viable. For example, economically viable iron ore concentrations are at
least 6 times greater than average crustal concentrations; zinc 30 times greater, titanium
25-100 times greater, copper 100-200 times greater, and for chromium 4000-5000 times
greater. Mining the undifferentiated earth’s crust is not a viable solution for perpetuating
our industrial lifestyle paradigm.”
“Clugston tracks the availability and usage of 89 non-renewable mineral resources (NNRs)
are critical to the existence of industrialized civilization. For the US economy they are
95% of the annual raw material inputs, and we’re using them up.”
“*Annual US extraction/production levels associated with a sizeable majority, 61 of the
89 analysed NNRs, have almost certainly peaked permanently;”
great stuff…
many specifics about the inevitable diminishing returns of the basic resources used in economic activity…
95% of annual raw material inputs… wow…
his conclusion is basically that this is not going to end well…
Think of resource depletion as a feature, not a bug. On the up side, it will prevent the process of turning the surface of the earth into productive and profitable real estate lots from going too far.
It would be interesting to know the ‘salvageable ratio’ of iron or copper for the major global IC hubs. For example in the US, how much steel can be recycled from obsolete path dependency sunk investments such as sky scrapers and cars? Is it just few percent out of national consumption or is it much more in say double digits? US is not building enough new bridges or railroads or docks or whatever. Call it crazy or not there might come a political-social culture realignment by which pop would prefer to demolish these frivolous objects and smelt them (with the dose of last energy endowment) into more lasting infrastructure like local rail and no till farming equipment..
We should probably expect the salvageable ratio to be close to zero. The reason this happens is because we need the whole economic/financial system to be sufficiently together
(a) to continue to have international trade on anywhere the scale we do today,
(b) to continue to operate any coal mines and any oil and gas company,
(c) to be able to have the heat energy needed to smelt them,
(d) to allow the world electrical system to operate.
I think everything comes close to coming down at once. Once it is impossible to pay employees, the system has to crash. The idea that we will have enough energy left to even recycle what things is supply a myth. Instead, the world is likely to be facing big ground-level pollution issues from degrading solar panels and wind turbines, and from storage pits from coal ash.
Gail, you have to look at world’s history marry hints to us in wider spectrum of possible outcomes. For example, the Bolsheviks managed completely different system paradigm, able to produce stuff of their particular liking and priorities, obviously limited and shaped by various intervening trends, failures, and complexities..
Similarly, even systems on the energy consumption down swing spiral could find a temporary plateau for reorganization on some to us unknown pattern.
Academics, experts, etc generally has silo mentality. They focus on what they know best and nothing else. I wanted to do my Masters and PhD. I did not because I realized that it is not helpful or good to me. I need to cite a lot papers and research of other people. I did ask the supervisor what if the original paper is wrong. Well, he could not answer me.
Energy is either sacred or too difficult for people to grasp and understand. All these years, while talking to people from all walks of life, it is not possible for them to think about energy. It is just too abstract for them to think critically. Even those working in the oil and gas, when asked about decline rates, they know about it but somehow, the implication of the decline rate does not even register in their brains as “critical to the level of being extinct without it”. They will just shrug and say it is someone else’s problem.
I am seriously inclined to believe that only a small group of people who are somehow clear on the connection between energy and everything else and it is this group here on OFW.
By the way, I have already given up talking about energy more than a decade ago and just nod and follow through with the conversation on the roses and unicorns of EVs and other stuff.
“I am seriously inclined to believe that only a small group of people who are somehow clear on the connection between energy and everything else and it is this group here on OFW. ”
Don’t forget the rest of the collapse community. I was initiated via Steve Ludlum’s blog. Here’s a survey of responses to collapse issues from the collapse subreddit, which has over 100k members:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S4iR-rzXzzzmisBWE-jCa4GdWLmKZMSVVQY85MTgdPw/edit#gid=847464990
Although, most people there are nihilistic douchebags. Not a healthy place to spend your time on the internet. On OFW you at least get a saner and more diverse spectrum of views.
3 hip horrays for OFW – well said, there is indeed sanity on this blog and Gail is generous enough to allow us to go OT sometimes, but I always feel that I should apologise nevertheless.
HIp Hip…..
Hang on a mo….
Does that small group include me Jup?
Can I be in your OFW in group?
Please don’t leave me outside with the nihilistic douchebags!
Well, CTG, it’s a bit like asking people to reflect on their blood supply, or all those little neurons, or whatever they are called, firing away (or not!).
From the day their chubby little hands could reach out to a button or switch, the power has simply been there.
I used to be just the same: am I any happier for knowing? Certainly not, although there is always a pleasure in understanding how things really are, or approximating to it as best one can.
I’ve been suffering quite a lot from asthma caused by diesel pollution, and the response has always been: 1/ ‘It might be something else, how can you be sure?’ 2/ ‘Just get drugs from the doctor!’
People just won’t face insoluble issues (‘there must be a drug for that!’) and the implications for themselves even when it’s all cut and dried.
Curiously, now it has been in the press a bit more, they have accepted that I was right all these years….
Am I happier knowing it? Yes. Of course. I am enjoying life as I am suppose to do. I don’t regret everyday that I am alive. I am not interested in luxury goods and neither am I going to spend time chasing after them. It is the detachment from the rat race that is very fulfilling. I am 4 years from the age of 50. Still a long way to go if things does not fall part.
I did not go through a crisis to know about this. All this while, I think differently and sometimes, I do feel a little left out. Since young, when I watch movies, I was frustrated on “why the actor is stu.pid not to do this or that”, while I see that the other people are really enjoying the movies. That is where I am now in real live, facing the greatest threat yet, no one is interested.
I do think it is very hard for us to reach 2020. From Harry McGibb’s constant post of news (very appreciative of that that), it does seem to me that TPTB are trying kick the can and it is really getting harder and harder.
Oil is the master resource. View oil as fossilized sunlight that is available in abundance until it is not. View it as the ultimate battery that you can take along easily and has very high power density. We have already gone past the point of no return long way in the 1970s. Even if a country proclaims that it has found a cheap source of oil that is easily extracted, it will collapse the world economy overnight. It is because of debt. Say country X announce that it has found oil in its land where literally, it is flowing from the ground when you dig 3 feet down. It has billions and billions of barrels of easily recoverable oil. You know what happened, the price of oil will crash next to nothing, Saudi and all other oil producing regions will be chaotic but guess what the oil will only flow in 2 years time. The entire supply chain will crash as well when debts are not repaid. Think about it. Think a little out of the box. If that can happen, what are the chances of solar, wave, satellites, etc will do when cheap oil can crash the economy. You cannot force people to buy stuff when they are out of money. There is a limit to debts. It has replaced oil.
Watch out below
“From Harry McGibbs’ constant post of news (very appreciative of that).”
CTG, thank you. I worry that it gets a little monotonous, the endless roll call of risks, but sooner or later one of these cracks may start the entire edifice of IC crumbling, so I can’t look away.
TPTB will indeed do everything they can to keep kicking the can down the road:
“Global finance officials are pledging closer cooperation in efforts to lift the world economy out its current slowdown, but tensions persist on a number of fronts between the United States and other nations over trade and other issues.
“Officials wrapped up the spring meetings of the 189-nation International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on Saturday, expressing hope the slowdown that began last year will be followed by stronger growth in the second half of this year and into 2020.”
http://time.com/5570096/global-finance-stop-economic-slowdown/
That lack of understanding around energy contributes to an unfortunate utopian attitude that pervades much of Western culture at the moment. If you present an intellectual challenge to the idea that things will always continue to ‘improve’, or rather to become more convenient, cognitive dissonance will set in, and people won’t want to understand. At that point it really is like speaking to a zealot- but instead of religion it’s the twin myths of progress and endless abundance that you’ll be trying to moderate. But while the infrastructure of a high energy consumption society still exists more or less intact, I think it’s near impossible to get people to see. I think the energy/society connection is something that needs to be realised through epiphany to do justice to the weight of its significance.
“The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future. —”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
Excellent quote, psile, thank you. May I presume to reply?
Stein was the formulator of “Herbert Stein’s Law,” which he expressed as:
“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop”
I think Herbert Stein was on to something, finite energy perhaps?
Also, prices cannot rise forever, because wages do not rise endlessly.
The end comes because prices fall below what producers require to make a profit.
We are facing collapse, not “peak oil.”
I am with you on this Gail, thank you. It is sometimes hard for people to understand the paradox but then all magic is an illusion which defies reality.
I had Herbert as a prof in a future of man class at UCSB.
He was great!
WOW, you are indeed privileged – I wish I had met this amazing man.
Dune: one of my favorite books.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/b9/c2/f8b9c274bfcac1a5bb0d1c95e9a57ea1.jpg
I just finished Neuromancer by William Gibson, another timeless classic.
“the energy/society connection is something that needs to be realised through epiphany to do justice to the weight of its significance.”
Very well said ! Brillant !
When things break and we don’t know how to fix them, we either call someone who knows how to fix them, we bang the item about a bit, or we obtain a new item.
For most of us, this is “the fix” to-do list for most of problems with things that aren’t working, whether its an amplifier that has blown a channel or a chainsaw that won’t start up or a partner who doesn’t cooperate with us. (Even George Monbiot, who advocates recycling and making do with what one has, split from his wife a few years ago and moved in with a new partner!)
But when the things that break are on a sufficiently large scale, there is nobody who knows how to fix them, or even if they have the knowledge, nobody with the power to fix them. And everything humans build is subject to breakage eventually. Even the pyramids are slowly being worn away by erosion. The global economic system is the biggest thing we’ve ever built, and it is headed for a Humpty Dumpty moment sometime in the not too distant future.
One can’t really re-cycle a wife, though, so let’s not be too hard on poor old Monbiot.
Sometimes a new model is the only viable option. 🙂
To get something repaired these days, and I mean attempt repair by any means not just swap JIT style OEM part is increasingly impossible. I had to chuckle a lot about it recently as several techno gadgets failed on me.. The amount of resources (mental to plan very tedious workarounds, physical as per actual repairing process and consulting multitude of ‘experts’ surprisingly without expected set of tools or hands on experience, ..).
It’s a bit like one of the ‘new’ members commented recently with great enthusiasm about the great prospects of straight vegetable oil engines. The caveat obviously being this particular hobby micro scene died out decades ago, also for the simple fact the engines and parts are hard to source, not mentioning the active policy of industry and govs to phase out ‘old clunkers’ out of the circulation as fast as possible. It’s not compatible avenue with these new funny turbocharged, chip fuel injected lawnmower cars of today.. And so on..
This reminded me of one of my trips to Thailand. My Thai friend took me to a fish farm in Bangkok where some of her family helped out on weekends (it was the main source of income for her grandmother though, who, unfortunately, passed away in the last few weeks) to introduce me to them, as well as to put me to work 😀
We arrived to find her brother and some other Thai men squatted down around an outboard motor, talking in Thai (which I didn’t understand, but surmised was a discussion on how the motor had broken and what was the best course of action to fix it). The outboard motor itself looked quite well-worn, and as if it had been repaired / jury-rigged several times before by it’s Thai owners.
I guess it isn’t such a shocking thing to witness – i.e. a bunch of men sitting around something broken and discussing / arguing how to fix it; that probably happens frequently here in North America too, at least in places where people work together communally. What did jump out at me from that experience was how, unlike North Americans, those Thais probably couldn’t just replace that outboard motor on a whim (as witnessed by the extreme amount of repairs / jury-rigging the motor had endured).
That might be changing now, as Thailand has really seen their standard of living increase (almost quadrupling) over the last 20 years:
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/thailand/annual-household-income-per-capita
I think that a lot of deferred payment / financing / installment plants have also cropped up in Thailand over the last 20 years, which has allowed the poorer Thai underclass (those who make less than $10 USD a day) to afford “necessities” like cellphones, motorbikes, etc. That probably adds to the “wealth effect” that has allowed Thai household income per capita to rise…
Anyway, perhaps one day I’ll be the one squatting down around something broken with a gaggle of my impoverished chums, trying to deduce the best way to MacGyver it back into service, out of necessity…
Cheers,
-GBV
People are practically brain-washed by the religion of progress and growth. It is just so ingrained in all of culture, education, sports, business and the media. If you tell them that stuff they are involved in can end, disappear, die, diminish… they will give you a blank stare as if you had spoken in a completely foreign language.
Unless you have been down the rabbit hole of doom, you won’t have created the neural pathways in your brain to be able to think sincerely about this stuff. My personal belief/experience is that one must have gone through a crisis to descend down in the first place, in addition to have an open mind and courage to hold your own opinion.
I also try not to get involved in conversations, or just give open-ended answers. It’s no use trying to convey the message to people who lack the ability to think matters through in a rational manner.
Slow Paul, I find most people endeavor to remain in a foggy state of realization about their reality and how it could change for the worse. They like having a veil over their eyes. Most have no courage to look at the monster of troubling information. It takes a different kind of person to delve into the realm of lets say, other topics of interest.
‘You don’t really want the fog to lift: it’s hiding a tiger!’
One beneficial experience is to visit the remains of one of the cities, temples or palaces of the Ancient world – preferably on a wind-blown, goat-haunted hillside – as it brings home, physically, how something complex can just fall apart and cease to function.
One has to have a certain amount of imaginative capacity, though, which I have found many lack -particularly when the news is bad!
I have a bit from a Minoan palace on the bathroom shelf, to contemplate time and change…..
I think part of the problem as well is that those who understand energy can’t seem to understand why the financial system and debt are important to the system.
The fact that we are dealing with a self-organizing networked economy, and also the fact that both prices and energy quantities are important, is really confusing. Most people cannot put together so many different areas of understanding.
Dear Gail
Quote:
“I think part of the problem as well is that those who understand energy can’t seem to understand why the financial system and debt are important to the system.”
It would be very helpful if you in one of your posts could explain to us who “owns” and who “owes” the debt. A question that always arises is why not just delete all debt and go back to start. I is no doubt a very complex system but I think you will be able to explain it. And for my part I hope that I will be able to understand it.
Whenever you delete (or repay) debt you are erasing money from the money supply. Instantly erasing all debt would destroy a ton of money and make every financial institution instantly insolvent.
You are so right,djerek, thank you. But the problem is that our banking and money system is so complex and complicated (by design) that very few understand it. This, from RT, describes an overview in a 20mins video:
“For many years, we’ve been told that finance is good and more finance is better. But it doesn’t seem everyone in the UK is sharing the benefits. On this program, we ask a very simple question – can a country suffer from a finance curse?
Host Ross Ashcroft is joined by City veteran David Buik and the man who coined the term Quantitative Easing, International Banking and Finance Professor Richard Werner.”
https://www.rt.com/shows/renegade-inc/379579-uk-finance-curse-suffer/
Thanks djerek
You are right of course. But how is all that debt distributed? And how is it possible that Japan almost endlessly can continue to build up huge amounts of debt and things are going fairly well in spite of that? I think there are lots of questions to be answered.
That’s a very good question Niels, and I don’t claim know the answer to it. But it may be that in Japan, things are going fairly well not in spite of but because of that huge national debt. It the debt hadn’t been incurred, the economy would probably be running at a much lower level. The accumulation of debt was deemed necessary in order to keep the economy running at at least half throttle in the face of all the cross winds it faces, including the aging society, increasing international competition, and of course, higher net energy costs.
The unmentioned interesting component of it all in terms of Japan is how come in this case it has been off limits for the ‘big speculators’ to crucify Japan via some financial instruments. The answer to it consists of several areas of interest to us, chiefly Japan is too big to fail as it operates under the cloud in the first league of the global CB cartel, also Japan is deemed strategically important in terms of production volume capacity, should there be another major conventional conflict, that’s the so called Japan = island land carrier.. so FED and others watch their back.
Another aspect is that lot of the smelly paper with leverage on Japan’s economic (mal-)performance circulates only inside Japan, so it’s harder or impossible to global financial sharks to attack from behind. So, you can to a degree bite Nomura or Deutsche Bank, which are exposed on the global casino scene, but not Japan or Germany itself, because their most important inner core columns are local banks and local political / economic structures.
“Whenever you delete (or repay) debt you are erasing money from the money supply. Instantly erasing all debt would destroy a ton of money and make every financial institution instantly insolvent.”
Deflation on a grand scale…
Cheers,
-GBV
Personal anecdote on debt and insolvent banks…. 2008/9 I was finishing remodeling my home and ended up with a short sale ($5k, so not a giant short sale) in late 2009. I still have an account at the same bank the mortgage was at, and every Jan since my “accounts” page now shows that my home “sold” the year prior. So on my current accounts page my old home sold in 2018…!
Rolling that small amount of debt, for that long, they’re certainly totally insolvent.
History tells us where the wealth gap leads – Peter Turchin
https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads
At the very end, he comes to
But I don’t think that Turchin really understands the energy consumption per capita issue, or the excessive complexity issue.
He has some reasonable ideas, but they are sort of thinly scattered through the article.
2020 is the year that Trump is planning to get re elected
if it’s a close run thing, as is likely, he is going to scream fraud—as always. Even if it isn’t he’ll still scream fraud
Add to that mix the possibility of economic downturn, if not outright collapse.
The USA is entirely a debt based ponzi economy, run for a rich elite now. Trump is commander in chief of the military.
suppose, in the economic collapse, the military just decide to back Trump as their best chance of getting their wages paid (that’s what it comes down to in the end) and then pretend to be followers of jesus (like Trump and Pence)in order to hold on to a cohesive grouping. (god is always “on our side”)
You then have the certainty of a military coup, a takeover of government with Trump installed as dictator. You can forget the constitution.
All the fascist elements are in place already, just as they were in Germany in the 30s.
56% of the American people have already said that that Trump should stay in power irrespective of the 2020 election. There would be no shortage of people to carry out the necessary political excesses if that were to happen. Poverty is always someone else’s fault.
Europe is not immune either. The extreme right is on the rise here too, and the same thing is likely to happen, as prosperity goes into decline
Dark clouds certainly loom, but the radical Left are in fact far more numerous than the ‘extreme Right’ – neo-Nazis are just a few sad and repulsive nuts after all – and are just as likely to establish a form of totalitarian dictatorship, which is something their ideology ( one correct way of thinking for all, one party defining it and leading) naturally tends to anyway.
extreme right or left
you still end up with extreme unpleasantness
the name is irrelevant
You have allowed your political partiality to push you over the edge into abject paranoia. Go outside once in a while- Trump as President hasn’t brought on the apocalypse as many on the Left might have us believe.
only because all the circumstances are not yet in place for that to happen
It may be that Trump is not competent to take over as dictator, but others certainly are.
my thinking has little to do with politics, and everything to do with economic reality.
Consider current reality–(delete anything ”unreal”):-
1 The nation is run as a debt based economic system
2 There is a notion of infinite entitlement
3 Energy availability is not infinite
4 growth is not infinite
5 when growth stops, civil disorder is certain
6 Anyone competent is jumping ship.
7 Current POTUS is 4x bankrupt
8 VP is a jesusfreak
9 Blame is on ”others”
10 complete political denial of the above
With minor variations, the rest of the industrial world is in a similar situation.
Hear, hear, well said Norman, I support your notions and endorse the concept that USA is finished as a unipolar world dominator – their time has come. But I do expect the Eagle to bare its talons as the ’empire’ degrades and it is anyone’s guess how they will react having so much military might on hand and 800+ bases across the world.
The sooner the EU recognises this and starts negotiations to allow Russia to join the ‘club’ the sooner will their security be established and their energy sources determined postitively. At present, they remain as a vassal super-state although their position on Iran is encouraging.
You seem not to understand what is necessary for dictatorship to occur in energy terms. Dictatorship is radical centralisation, whereas the collapse is radical decentralisation. Both cannot occur simultaneously. It may be that leaders emerge in the US, but they cannot hold onto a country going through collapse. It would be like trying to hold water in a colander. You explicitly stated that Trump would take on the reins earlier- I think its much more likely under collapse that political leaders would hold elections to parse off responsibility for such a mess. Another clarification- Trump himself has never been declared bankrupt. Four out hundreds of businesses have filed chapter 11, which isn’t bad as far as serial entrepreneurship goes.
in this hypothesis there are many factors–we cannot know how they will pan out, in a few years
the critical factor is, that the USA, (as well as places like the EU) was stitched together with threads of oil coal and gas
There has been nothing else. That is how industrial civilisation works
It follows then that as the energy-threads come apart, so the nation itself will come apart.
This will happen at various places at different rates, and the overall factor will be that of denial, particularly among Trumpsters, and most politicians
As with all collapsing empires, those who see themselves in power will use the military to assert control.
And those who still believe in the cohesive empire will demand that control–so they will welcome the dictator and his methods, and will willingly participate in all his excesses
This will become less and less effective as energy depletes, but will make life unpleasant in the meantime for most people
We can’t know the time factor of course.
But each region, maybe six or seven will begin to govern themselves more and more, and each will set up its own mini fiefdom, as a matter of survival. Those regions are pretty clear right now,
They will not be pleasant places to live, because each ruler will be desperate in his certainty of denial that anything is wrong.
So that will lead to internal conflict as well as regional conflict as energy depletes further.
Conflict will be over energy resources, as always
Yes, you have radical decentralisation, but the continantal USA is as big as half a dozen major nations elsewhere, and each will want its own autonomy, while the POTUS still sees himself as ruling all of it. Not Trump perhaps, but his successor. He will be in denial that he is ruling only the eastern seaboard—and will insist that he can make America great again.
Don’t believe me? Study how Rome fell apart. Rome got too big to be supported by its slave economy. We got too big to be supported by our oil economy. The end result is the same. Rome was overwhelmed by forces bigger than itself.
The average world citizen demands BAU, and will destroy the world itself to hold onto it. Which explains the wars over oil since 1940. (or 1916 if you go back far enough)
How long? Maybe 10/20, not more than 50 years tops
For what it’s worth I’ve tried to explain it, but nobody like bad news:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00D0ADPFY
“How long? Maybe 10/20, not more than 50 years tops”
yes, maybe by 2029 or 2039, or at least by 2069 for sure, we are doomed!
so BAU FULL THROTTLE, BABY!
Thank you David for a valuable insight.
It is written that nobody knows when the end will come, but there will be signs, and vigilant people on OFW have indeed spotted many relevant signs and clues.
Yes, the Donald will be re-occupying the Rhineland any time now, right after hanging the entire Democratic Party leadership from piano wires—if this early 2016 parody video approximating your fears for the future valid.
https://youtu.be/-y4fN6WqQBY
It’s intriguing that right after Hitler came to power, people began scrambling to leave Germany in fear of their lives. The Führer took over in March 1933, and by December of the same year, 100,000 Jews out of the total 523,000 German Jews had emigrated to Palestine. Indeed, leaving Hitler’s Germany became such a popular pursuit in the 1930s that the government eventually prohibited it.
Contrast this with the Don. Since Trump came to power in January 2017, foreigners have been immigrating to the US in droves. A total of 1,127,167 foreign nationals were granted lawful permanent residence in 2017 alone. And the number of illegal immigrants entering the US is difficult even to estimate as they tend to do it on the sly. Indeed, entering Trump’s America illegally is such a popular pursuit that foreigners can’t seem to stop.
I remember people fearing that Dubya would not step down after 8 years and also that Obama would not step down after 8 years, and now similar concerns are being raised that Trump will not step down if defeated, etc., etc. But US Presidents are basically CEOs of the US Corporation. In over 200 years not one of them has stayed on beyond his (and they have all be male) duly elected term. Still, I suppose there’s a first time for everything.
every major economic collapse throws up a dictator, because people panic and demand stability
There were no serious comments about Bush /Obama hanging on after 8 years.
the 1929 crash threw up Hitler, America reacted by throwing energy resources at Germany and kept those resources flowing outwards until 1970 to keep the population stable. As happened in most other places
it’s important to see 1940/1970 as a continuous chain of economic events, not war then peace
Democracy must thrive on prosperity
We are now heading for the 1929 scenario but by a different route.
If the crash occurs on Trump’s watch, violent disorder is certain, because there are no energy resources/outlets to throw at the problem
There were no serious comments about Bush /Obama hanging on after 8 years.
Ah, the no true Scotsman fallacy! So you are agreeing with me that there were comments about them hanging, but that all of those comments were frivolous? But you are claiming that similar comments about Trump are serious?
https://youtu.be/UZ_A-IlOVZk
https://youtu.be/HD9VjatulR0
If the crash occurs on anybody’s watch, violent disorder is on the cards, because it is not certain that Humpty Dumpty can be put together again. But arguably, Trump has prevented the crash so far and, moreover, had a Democrat been elected to the Presidency in 2016, whether Clinton or Saunders, it is arguable that the crash would already be occurring by now and you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Seriously, we we’re a gnat’s wing away from having this wrecker in power.
https://youtu.be/ksIXqxpQNt0
((Couldn’t reply directly to your last comment for some reason)))
comments about Trump/dictatorship are irrelevant
My point is that circumstances will make it inevitable—whether it happens while the don is in office, or his successor
ultimately trump would likely be too weak for that role
but he makes a perfect pupett for those who are not weak
This gentleman has been fighting the One Percent for so long that he’s become one of them. Apparently, his net worth is now over 2 million dollars and allegedly he doesn’t have to spend much of his own money because almost all of his daily needs are paid for out of donations. Bernie seems to have perfected the art of getting free stuff that other people pay for.
https://youtu.be/RU3NKvvxcSs
offering a clip of Obama speaking in a plainly humourously ironic tone as some form of ”dictatorship” theme is frankly foolish (though unsurprising) in the extreme and renders any further discussion on this thread pointless
After watching the Obama clip I didnt waste time on the Bush one
So true Norman, thank you and the 1929 simulation is appropriate IMO. And should the next election result in the left dominating, then all hell will break out potentially.
At times, Norman, you can be downright passive aggressive sometimes. Did you know that? 😉
Foolish I may be, but wiser heads have long observed that democracy has a tendency to evolve toward dictatorship, and not necessarily due to declining energy availability.
https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-dictatorship-naturally-arises-out-of-democracy-and-the-most-aggravated-form-of-tyranny-plato-66-81-32.jpg
i tend to collect up all the snippets of truth that seem to be lying around, paste them together, and if there are not too many bits missing , offer it as some kind of truth to anyone who might be interested
nothing passive, nothing aggressive
if its a truth that folks don’t like, well–truth is what it is, i don’t make it. i don’t change it—bit like an energy form i suppose
truth just ”is”—I don’t deal in alternative facts.
if my version of reality is wrong, as it often is, then i look to see if it can be fixed. I’m not in a position to try to inflict it on anyone else. nor do i try to.
But as I forecast in 2011 “a fascist Trump’ as being inevitable for 2016 or 20, I reckon I put together that particular jigsaw without too many bits missing. I couldn’t alter what I knew was going to happen.
My comments about the inevitability of dictatorship follow on from that
(And the Greeks did not have a democracy, they were supported by a slave underclass)
Enough natural gas to power every home in Texas is being flared in the Permian basin. That’s a lot of wasted energy and unnecessary generation of C – O – 2. But fear not, the Prez is trying to change things for the better.
Trump’s Latest Executive Action Could Alleviate A Huge Problem For The World’s Most Productive Oil Field
Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor
The Permian basin, now the world’s most productive oil and gas field, is booming — so much so that there’s not enough pipeline capacity to carry out all the natural gas it produces, meaning much of it is flared.
How much? Some 553 million cubic feet per day, or enough to power every home in Texas, according to data from Rystad Energy compiled by Bloomberg.
The mismatch between pipeline capacity and production is nothing new, but flaring in the Permian basin, which straddles parts of Texas and New Mexico, jumped 85 percent in the last year.
More natural gas will be flared off rather than brought to market if the trend continues. That’s a problem President Donald Trump is looking to tackle.
Trump signed a pair of executive orders Wednesday aimed at expediting oil and gas pipelines, including asking the Environmental Protection Agency to clarify how states and environmentalists can challenge Clean Water Act permits.
Trump also ordered the U.S. Department of Transportation to update rules for transporting liquefied natural gas by rail, and make it easier to finance new energy projects.
“Too often, badly needed energy infrastructure is being held back by special-interest groups, entrenched bureaucracies and radical activists,” Trump said at an International Union of Operating Engineers training center near Houston, before signing executive orders Wednesday.
“This obstruction does not just hurt families and workers like you. I
https://www.dailycaller.com/2019/04/12/trump-executive-action-oil-field/
The biggest problem the natural gas folks has is not lack of infrastructure; it is too low prices. Adding more infrastructure so that more natural gas can get to market will tend to make the too low prices worse.
We either lose the natural gas through flaring or through low prices driving the producers out of business.
Violent disorder will occur no matter who is in. Once again, you are placing Trump on a reverse pedestal according to your political predilections. No matter who is President, no dictatorship can form without centralisation, which requires resources and energy. Did the leaders of the Weimar Republic suddenly up and start a dictatorship during hyperinflation? The dictatorships usually start afterwards, where Trump would likely preside over the crisis itself.
(And the Greeks did not have a democracy, they were supported by a slave underclass)
And we’re not? Ever hear the factory drones who put together the cheap products we in the West obtain from our subcontractor China…
Or the kids who work the mines in our subcontractor Congo to obtain the cobalt and lithium that goes into those neat rechargeable batteries in our phones and laptops?
Arguably, we allow our Second and Third World subcontractors to get away with exploitation at least as cruel and inhuman as what the ancient Greeks did.
And at least the Greeks were honest enough to admit that their slaves were slaves and didn’t try to hid behind euphemism and weasel words.
I didn’t mean to infer that we don’t have a slave underclass– we do.
In previous times, slaves could not leave their owners any more than cattle could
now our underclass can generally go elsewhere, but ultimately that doesn’t change their status very much
our slave system is oil-supported, which boosts their output to unrealistic levels
as oil availability falls away, the underclass will be driven harder and harder to sustain current output,
ie— running faster and faster to stand still—which is what is happening right now. People must borrow money to stay alive
which is of course ultimately impossible, and so will crash the entire system
So true Norman, thank you. The gig-economy is representative of a slave labour economy in Greek and Roman times. It is cheap human labour that drives the wheels. The illusion of ‘freedom’ is created by the oligarchs who run the show – Amazon et al.
Thanks Norman for clarifying.
A few quibbles notwithstanding, I think we are singing from the same hymnbook .
At OFW, we are snarling like hounds from hell, rabid for the truth. No wonder we scare the relatives and the neighbors. It’s a good thing we’re kept on a strong leash.
Very poetic, Tim, thank you and very true, thanks to the good agency of Gail.
You are very right Norman, thank you. I entirely agree with your prognosis and I do believe that USA is indeed a fascist state already as government has merged with the corporate sector (if that is how one choses to define it).
What frightened me was viewing Nigel Farage at the launch of his new Brexit Party – his speech was evocative of the 1933 Hitler mass rallies and just as stirring for many. I think we are seeing a sea-change in UK politics if not Europe and N. America also. The Tories are going to be demolished in the next election – the people have long memories don’t they?
Peter
left or right is irrelevant when the energy rug is pulled from under your feet
I can’t argue with that Norman, thank you.
Are you two the same person?
he is my evil twin
he inherited the family silver, vast estates, the private jet, tea with her maj. regularly
I inherited the family debts (and good looks, fortunately, as compensation) and modesty, which I rarely mention
:-)))) He He He
“I do believe that USA is indeed a fascist state already as government has merged with the corporate sector…”
I agree, Peter. As a horrible example of that, take a gander at this article;
https://newfoodeconomy.org/bpi-pink-slime-ground-beef-usda-reclassifed/
ABC News called it “pink slime.” Now, USDA says it can be labeled “ground beef.”
“Beef Products Inc. (BPI), the South Dakota-based meat processing company at the center of 2012’s “pink slime” controversy, just won a long-sought semantic victory. For years, the company has argued that its signature product is safe, wholesome, and not unlike everyday burger meat. Now, BPI has enlisted a powerful ally in its effort to recoup its image and reclassify its product: the federal government.”
“After a months-long evaluation, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) determined in December that BPI’s signature product—the offering famously called “pink slime” in an ABC News exposé that got the network in a lot of trouble—can be labeled “ground beef.” Legally speaking, it’s now no different from ordinary hamburger, and could even be sold directly to the public.”
The quotations are simply to indicate the information is pasted from the article. The USDA, FDA, and many other Federal Government agencies are now operating in step with corporations at the behest of what you pointed out is a fascist government. They no longer serve ‘The People’.
Another example is the government requiring parents to make sure their children are inoculated at a very young age, in spite of those shots use of mercury (not good for the brain, especially young developing brains), which has in some instances been linked to autism, as much as they run articles to claim the contrary. There is a couple that had twins and shortly after inoculation, both became autistic. Then they had two other children, avoided having the inoculations and neither one developed autism. Norway has outlawed use of mercury use in inoculations.
Excellent examples CM, thank you, and the link is typical of government taking control as in all dictatorships. All this is of course is forecast in the bible:
“The Second of Peter
2 However, there also came to be false prophets among the people, as there will also be false teachers among you.+ These will quietly bring in destructive sects, and they will even disown the owner who bought them,+ bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. 2 Furthermore, many will follow their brazen conduct,*+ and because of them the way of the truth will be spoken of abusively.+ 3 Also, they will greedily exploit you with counterfeit words………”
Whether one is a believer or not, it makes little difference, because the descriptions in the bible often relate to what is happening today. This is mainly due to human nature not changing, a fact exploited by our lords and masters, and recorded since time immemorial.
The Remainers, and the attempt to set aside the referendum result, have made the Brexiters feel -quite rightly – marginalised, ignored and, worst of all, cheated when they see themselves -again quite rightly – as natural British patriots: this can only create a strong back-lash the consequences of which we can only guess at.
I have to say, as much as I try to be detached, the mocking and patronising tone of Remainers now they scent victory puts even my back up: they should recall that they are addressing their fellow Brits, not some kind of under-class! But then, of course, so many are now not really Brits, are they?
The tone of politics in Britain reminds me more and more of the high emotion and spitefulness of Spain, with the virtue of compromise seemingly forgotten. I cannot see how these divisions, so foolishly encouraged and indulged in, will be healed.
Not the best way in which to enter a global economic crisis……
I strongly agree with your sentiments here. That mocking and patronising tone will do it every time. It is bound to alienate people and generate resentment.
And I know who started it too. It was that talentless and sanctimonious Irish multimillionaire Bob Geldof when he took to the Thames to mock the the Deplorables, I mean the Brexiteers, and told Nigel to “go back down the river.”
https://youtu.be/mmUpdbFC34Y
Hear, Hear, Tim, well said
So very true, Xabier, thank you and you are so right. This article say it all about the deception that is rife within the British political elite:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/12/theresa-may-never-going-deliver-brexit-but-that-doesnt-mean-it-cant-happen.html
that was published in 2013…
“Three years ago I published a short article in the science journal Nature. I pointed out that several leading indicators of political instability look set to peak around 2020.”
so he pointed out these indicators in 2010…
a lot has happened in the world energy sector since 2010…
I wonder if he has added energy to his thinking (I doubt it)…
I heard him talk in June 2018. Turchin clearly had not tuned into energy being important at that point. He was interested in finding graduate students to put together huge data sets for him. He planned to “mine” them to figure out relationships among variables.
The lack of awareness among mathematicians, economists and scientists of the very simple fact that ‘energy is required to do anything’, is honestly mind-boggling. Maybe they are such victims of the growth in complexity of science that they are embarrassed to extrapolate from simple principles.
“Demographic Doom? The Number Of Children Per Household Is Collapsing”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-13/demographic-doom-number-children-household-collapsing
**********
Forget debt and deflation: the biggest threat to the global economy and the future of modern civilization as we know it, may be demographics, according to a recent Euromonitor study.
Whereas over the past decade policymakers have been mostly focused on how to reverse the global infatuation with debt and how to reverse what appears to be a structural decline in inflation (assuming the economist-accepted definition of CPI which conveniently “hedonicaly adjusts” such surging costs as shelter, healthcare, education and in many cases food), an even more troubling trend has been observed in recent years: due to a culmination of factors including falling fertility rates, rising divorce rates and expensive real estate, family sizes across the world are shrinking.
**********
Less young, able-bodied, useful people and more useless, unhealthy old farts… what could go wrong?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d4/c6/ea/d4c6ea0e2d387adadf284ac846b05090.jpg
Cheers,
-GBV
Alfred E in Twenty Twenteeeee.
Now if Alfred just dyed his hair reddish blonde, and had it styled…..
“Less young, able-bodied, useful people…”
one possible solution is that the younger adults could work 80 hours per week…
where is it written that the universe owes humans some good prosperity on a mere 40 hours of work in a 168 hour week?
benefits:
one: even with half as many workers, the total work would be equal…
two: the average worker would die younger from the overload, thus reducing the overpopulation problem…
I’m 60-ish, and I think that’s a good plan…
“one possible solution is that the younger adults could work 80 hours per week…”
I think some younger people would work 80 hours per week, if they were given the chance to work in a job that a) paid well; b) showed promise for growth / development; c) actually contributed to something meaningful (personally and societally), and; d) didn’t make them feel like service-slaves to an overly asset-enriched / entitled Boomer generation.
Heck, I don’t think you even need all of those boxes to be checked to encourage a greater degree of dedication by the young to their jobs / society. I’m sure when Boomers were younger, they probably only had two (on average) of those things going for them at any given time, and that was probably enough.
“two: the average worker would die younger from the overload, thus reducing the overpopulation problem…”
Correct in more ways that you probably think. If young people did work themselves to death, they wouldn’t have time to procreate – leaving all the old farts nobody left to exploit. Collapse of the system and the population (of all ages) would ensue fairly quickly at that point.
https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarp/politics/government-and-elections/2014-06/1140-generation-war-boomer-millenial-sneering.imgcache.revb0558614d8f8f18e9a397d3711c7531d.jpg
Cheers,
-GBV
Well GBV, thank you for that overview. I worked some 100 hrs a week for 15 years building my own computer company 1981 – 1995 which my eldest son, Adam, manages now: https://www.i2i-infinity.co.uk/
The pressure blew my brains out in 1990 and I ended up with the men in white coats carrying me away to the Funny Farm for a spell of R & R. After that I found a new path in life and became comfortable in my own skin.
The Part 2 of my book “The Financial Jigsaw”, describes this episode. My Part 1 is being serialised on ‘The Burning Platform’ weekly: https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/04/13/the-financial-jigsaw-issue-no-47/ We are half way through the book. If this is of any interest to you, no worries otherwise.
“The pressure blew my brains out in 1990…”
I’m curious to know what kept you from just walking away / seeking more balance before it got to that point? If, that is, you’re willing to share that on a public forum (if not, I completely understand)?
I guess it’s of interest to me given that, after my life imploded, I found myself looking back and realizing all the crazy things I had done / thought, and struggled to understand how I could let my life spiral so far out of control without realizing it.
Though in my case it wasn’t from working 100 hour weeks and burning out due to stress, but rather from working a cushy government job and realizing that a) I had few, if any, intimate and *real* connections / relationships with others and thus felt terribly alone; b) I was overpaid and my life had no purpose / meaning; c) government bureaucracies were (and likely still are) full of dim-witted collectivists who have little to no understanding of what it means to be a public servant, nor all that concerned with doing anything that actually makes a difference, and; d) how ridiculously, woefully unprepared I was for Collapse.
But I bet there’s an argument to be made that whether it is due to 100’s of hours of stressful work, or 100’s of hours of self-reflection and over-analysis of one’s own existence, most of the stress that sends people over the edge / to the funny farm is needlessly self imposed 😐
Cheers,
-GBV
Many thanks GBV for giving me the opportunity to explain my condition, which I am please to expose on a public forum in the hope that it may help others. In quick summary:
In the last half of 1990 my computer company had developed unique software, built by my partner, but he wanted total control as he owned the IP – my work was sales & marketing because i knew the market (I am ex Xerox – 1970s). I had to recruit some ‘black art’ system software developers to reverse engineer my partner’s software to save the company. After 6 months of 24/7 intensive work, fuelled with alcohol, we managed to achieve a new improved product and launched it with great success. My eldest son, Adam, still runs the company: https://www.i2i-infinity.co.uk/
I was diagnosed ‘hypomanic’ and put on lithium for 5 years (which is devastating). I retired in 1995, having joined AA in 1993 believing that I was an alocholic. I lost everything, house, wife, job but not my 4 children. My life changed course which I describe in Part 2 of my book.
In fact it wasn’t until 2009, at age 65, when I returned to UK that I was diagnosed Bipolar Disorder and given medication that keeps me balanced now. It turns out that I wasn’t an alcoholic after all, but the 10 years I spent with AA was the finest training one could ever have. It is said that it is the most expensive club in the world – the cost to join is priceless.
I often ask: “Is it me that’s mad or is it the world at large?” I think OFW and other sites have given me the answer, especially people like yourself who are strong enough to share honestly.
Both of your stories are heartbreaking for me and without hearing the details I am sure that you’ve both suffered tremendously. You’ve been through the refiner’s fire and emerged as bars of 24-carat gold with all your impurities removed. You’ve been through the long dark night of the soul and emerged into the sunlit morning of maturity, wisdom, sagacity and being to old for that shit. Like caterpillars faced with the narrow limits of caterpillar existence, you’ve been through the cocoon experience and emerged as butterflies. Experience and trauma have tempered you into well-tempered musical instruments of the kind Glenn Gould favored. (Sadly, Glenn never made it through the refining process himself.) And now you are free to dine with the rest of the cognoscenti at the Restaurant of the End of the Universe, aka OFW.
Thank you so much for those lovely words and thoughts Tim, much appreciated. And the thought of a restaurant at the end of the universe OTW is a stunning image.
Alas, many of the young are neither able-bodied nor particularly useful, and this is particularly true of the unskilled African and Asian migrants being shoe-horned into Europe at present by politicians desperate to off-set the demographic crunch – minimum unemployment rate around 45%.
I note your theme Xabier, thank you. But have you thought that some migrants have exceptional talents? In Cape Town, when we were there in 2000 – 2009, many Zimbabweans and Somalis came and they were very good workers and entrepreneurs, opening shops and businesses.
The local Xhosa people (Xhosa [/ˈkɔːsə, ˈkoʊsə/) is an Nguni Bantu language with click consonants (“Xhosa” begins with a click) and is one of the official languages of South Africa. It is also an official language of Zimbabwe]….. they were not amused and the angst continues to this day in South Africa. The Zulus had less difficulty as they are very active anyway.
I know that I am generalising here, but it is just to give a flavour of how immigration can be a benefit in many circumstances.
You can make many arguments for the supposed benefits of immigration during times of economic expansion, when there are jobs and opportunities to fill, but the entire thread of this blog is that demand for those positions will quickly dry up. And then you are left with a mess of a country up to its eyeballs in ethnocultural conflict. To avoid balkanisation in the future, its necessary to recognise today the conflict that will ultimately ensue due to current complacent immigration policy. It will all come to a head, and with more immigration everyone will be worse off.
Thank you, Very Far Frank, for a very succinct response. And I must say that I can’t disagree with your analysis in the final outcome; that is an ultimate collapse as we all agree on OFW. In my book, ‘The Financial Jigsaw’, I postulate that a sudden crisis, (GFC2 if you prefer), will be followed by a New Emergent Economy.
Now what this will look like is difficult to project, but I am reasonably sure that it will require ancient skills, many of which have been forgotten, and local economies centred on surviving in a relatively hostile world. These localised systems must be supported by skills in current use and by immigrants from say, Eastern Europe, who are far more adapted to this kind of situation.
It is with this in mind that I support controlled immigration, determined by reference to the skill levels prevailing at the time. I do acknowledge that this is conjecture and I may well be wrong, but I live in hope. What I witnessed in South Africa was extreme skills being used by the indigenous population far beyond what I or a western trained person could achieve.
I can see your point. In my case, coming from a world so totally divorced from finance and banking, the resistance (based on such seeming certainty of why my recommendations can’t work makes me spend years trying to figure out why. I see no end of ways to employ increased numbers of people (which I imagine could be called growth) while doing far less environmental damage that I’m always being told is the cost of staying alive in a complex economic system where you can’t change a single thing. Here’s one small example of how I see growth and jobs:
We can save on building costs by encasing all discarded hard plastic within the mortar in buildings. And nearly all paper and cardboard is compostable.
So you can afford to build more shelter and create more jobs, doing it without degrading water ways with plastic, thus producing more food from fish. And there are countless pits from mining that could be filled with paper and cardboard waste, thus creating more soil to grow more food and provide more jobs doing all of those things.
Maybe it’s my third world heritage that makes for a total lack of understanding of why what seems easy and straightforward meets up with such stern resistance by people who seem extraordinarily sure of themselves.
Thank you so much Artleads for some very insightful analysis. I think the problem lies in the private ownership of all the land use (not the legal ownership which has been held by the crown ever since 1066).
For example, a disused mine, which would be ideal for storing waste as you suggest, must be in the hands of somebody and perhaps research into this would be fruitful to discover why this is not done, or maybe it is?
“It is with this in mind that I support controlled immigration, determined by reference to the skill levels prevailing at the time. I do acknowledge that this is conjecture and I may well be wrong, but I live in hope.’
Kinda made me think of this video, which I always enjoyed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
As a Canadian, I’m pretty used to a multicultural existence, which I quite enjoy (though I also recognize that the places I’ve lived, like Toronto and its surrounding area, are highly balkanized by ethnic group). But as I started to learn more about collapse and it’s implications, my concerns about the long-term success of multiculturalism have grown; I worry that Very Far Frank’s comments on ethnocultural conflict will be proven to be spot on once economies start to falter…
Cheers,
-GBV
I think you are right GBV to question multiculturalism as the benefits are yet to be proven. My own experience of for example, Polish people living nearby, does indicate that we do need their exceptional skills. But a conflict of cultures cannot be ignored, so I reserve judgement on this one.
If one stops to think about it for a moment, there really isn’t all that much difference between people of different cultures – we all likely do the same things that most humans do (eat, breath, sleep, poop, have families, sing, tell stories, experience emotion, etc.), with our cultural differences simply adding some context & variety in how we go about doing those things (which I find very interesting and refreshing!).
But the sad / tragic thing is that when fear and scarcity start to grip our collective minds, cultural differences begin to be amplified and perceived negatively. We end up blaming multiculturalism for our societal / economic woes, whether they contribute to those woes in any meaningful way or not, and avoid recognizing the real issues we need to address 🙁
Cheers,
-GBV
Wise words my dear GBV and well put thank you. I cannot add to your sentiment here, I am with you 100%.
If one stops to think about it for a moment, there really isn’t all that much difference between people of different cultures
There are massive differences across human cultures due to divergent development for tens of thousands of years, which are reflected biologically and culturally. If you aren’t aware of them due to your ignorance, then you’re just a myopic bigot who can’t open his eyes to appreciate human diversity.
Oh dear djerek, I seem to have hit a nerve to obtain such a vitriolic response. It is generally understood in psychology that opinions of others that disturb us often reflects upon their own insecurities, fears and internal comfort level.
My meaning was rather more basic than culture or obvious biological differences like skin colour etc. I was referring to basic similarities such as feelings and life mangement concerns like food insecurity, water shortages and polution, disease and health issues, the need to have love in our lives and our relationships with others, to name but a few. In this respect I see a commonality.
Maybe you would like to relect on this? Or not, it is your issue.
It’s too late to avoid ethnic and sectarian conflict now, where too near the end. All these multicultural states are going to face a ghastly demise, as they break down. Hopefully, due to our already gigantic overshoot, the worst of it will be over with very quickly, as population crashes.
Bingo!
We have a winner—–
“All these multicultural states are going to face a ghastly demise, as they break down”
My hope is that the increased number of inter-racial / inter-cultural relationships will help to mitigate or contain the situation. It’s probably a lot more difficult to become a raging, racist / bigoted hate-monger if your sister is married to someone of a different culture, or if your cousin has an inter-racial child. But again, that’s just hope…
My real fear is the “balkanized” areas found in multicultural states, where mono-cultures / single-race communities tend to reside. In Toronto, my old stomping grounds, I remember being very aware of the regions that were predominately Asian (Markham / North York / Northern Scarborough), Indian / Pakistani (Brampton), Caribbean (East York / West Scarborough), Italian / Portuguese (East York / Vaughan), Russian (North York), etc. As a visible white man (despite having a multicultural background), I might be concerned about walking around some of those areas during / post-collapse….
Cheers,
-GBV
Let’s see…
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/characteristics-and-outcomes-of-migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market/
In the UK the employment rate for African & Pakistan -born males is 2% higher than UK-born. For “Other Asia” it is 6% lower. Women from those countries are less employed than native-born counterparts but the difference is far from overwhelming and, ceteris paribus, is likely to shorten considerably with time.
The picture is somewhat different elsewhere, and unsurprisingly depends primarily on how well a nation’s economy is doing. Germany’s integration for post-2014 refugees is accelerating although unemployment is still ~40% vs ~5% overall.
The elephant in the room here being the very real possibility of collapse finally beginning in earnest circa this year and the next. GFC 2 converging with peak affordable oil, shale bust, political upheaval etc. That won’t bode well for *all* employment figures.
The conflicts of interest that *all* groups of people will have both with the refugees and the other 95% of the population of any given country in question will be arrant and violent. One could find cause for hope despite this bleak reality. Conversely one might do so by averring its superfluity in the absence of some miserable useless eaters.
Just wondering about all the comments about govt subsidies to alternative energy. Would we count the trillions of dollars spent on our wars and occupation in the Middle East as a subsidy to the oil industry?
It would be more accurate to count the cost as an expense of maintaining an empire.
I think you are right. The wars are a cost of maintaining the empire.
“… subsidy to the oil industry?”
it’s of the utmost importance that abundant energy flows through IC continuously… so one of the major roles of govt is to ensure that this happens…
as perhaps is/will be happening because of low FF prices, if FF production starts to lag this year/next year/soon, then the US govt must step in with policies that continue adequate energy flow for BAU…
subsidies, tax breaks, zirp loans, bailouts, nationalization…
whatever it takes, it must be done…