We often hear the statement, “When oil supply is lower, oil prices will rise because of scarcity.” Now, we are getting to see firsthand whether oil prices really do rise, as oil supplies become more scarce.
Figure 1. Figure from the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report for August 2019 showing world and OPEC oil production by month.
Figure 1 shows that world oil supply hit a peak in November 2018 and has declined since then, mostly because of a decline in OPEC’s production. So, total oil production seems to be down for about eight months, relative to the peak in November 2018.
Despite this big cutback by OPEC in its oil production, prices have not responded as OPEC had hoped:
Figure 2. Average monthly spot Brent Oil prices, based on EIA data.
In fact, as I write this, Brent oil price is currently quoted as $60.48, which is back in the range of December 2018 and January 2019 low prices. Also, reducing production doesn’t seem to be reducing inventories. Figure 3 suggests that they are now higher than they were before the reduction in oil supply took place.
Figure 3. Figure from the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report for August 2019 showing OECD commercial oil stocks.
Why aren’t oil prices rising and oil inventories falling, if oil production has fallen?
The basic issue is that the economy is very much interconnected under the laws of physics, because energy is required for every activity that is considered part of GDP. Energy is required for any kind of heat or any kind of movement. Energy is even required for electricity. Without energy from the sun, food can’t grow; without supplemental energy of some kind (such as using electricity to heat an electric stove or burning animal dung or sticks), it becomes impossible to cook food or smelt metals.
One strange phenomenon that arises from the interconnected nature of the economy is the fact that the prices of all energy products (including those not listed on Figure 4) tend to move together.
Figure 4. Comparison of changes in oil prices with changes in other energy prices, based on time series of historical energy prices shown in BP’s 2019 Statistical Review of World Energy. The prices in this chart are not inflation-adjusted.
This strange phenomenon arises because energy products are well-buried within every part of the world economy. A person’s job requires energy consumption. The tasks that governments do, such as building roads and schools, require energy consumption. Both transporting and cooking food require the use of energy products. Refrigerating food requires energy products. These energy uses, as well as many other everyday hidden uses of energy, aren’t things that we can easily cut back on.
Consumers often think, “I will drive less, and that will cut back on my energy consumption.” Unfortunately, in the whole scheme of things, whether or not individuals cut back on their optional use of gasoline doesn’t get the world economy very far. Gasoline accounts for about 26% of world oil consumption, or about 8.7% of total energy consumption, based on the most recent BP energy data. Cutting back on the optional use of gasoline would not reduce total consumption very much. If it were possible to reduce gasoline consumption by 10% by voluntary cutbacks, it would still reduce world energy consumption by less than 1%.
The strange pattern of the price changes shown on Figure 4 indicates that there is something affecting energy prices of many kinds, simultaneously. I would describe this as “affordability.” It has to do with how affordable finished goods and services are to the population in general, much more than it does scarcity. (Economists call this affordability issue “demand.”) If finished goods and services are affordable to a large number of consumers, as they were in 2008 and in 2012 and 2013, prices will be bid up to very high levels (Figure 4). If finished goods and services aren’t very affordable, a drop-off in prices, such as that experienced in November and December of 2018 (Figure 2), is likely to occur.
When OPEC decided to cut back its production of oil in response to the low prices in late 2018, this cutback in oil production didn’t help the affordability of finished goods and services. In fact, this cutback probably made the worldwide total quantity of affordable finished goods and services a little lower. This happened because, with the cutback in oil production, the governments of OPEC countries were able to collect less tax revenue on the smaller quantity of oil that the countries were selling. In fact, this smaller quantity of oil wasn’t even being sold at a higher price.
With lower revenue, governments of OPEC countries are being forced to cut back on funding of new projects such as roads and schools. These projects will use fewer energy products, and the would-be workers will have less money to spend on goods made with energy products. Thus, these cutbacks help to lower the world’s “demand” for oil and other energy products and thus help lower the price of oil.
The fact that the economy is interconnected in this strange way makes shifting prices upward much more difficult than if scarcity were the primary issue. In effect, the whole stack of energy prices in Figure 4 must somehow be made to rise. This is difficult to do because it is the lack of wages of the many poor people around the world that is holding back “demand” for energy products. If, somehow, higher wages could be sprinkled on the many poor workers of the world, including those in India and Africa, then oil (and other energy) prices would tend to rise. With higher wages, these poor people would be able to afford items such as nice homes, cars, and air conditioning, pulling world food and energy demand upward.
One difficulty with rising oil (and other energy) prices: They don’t translate into rising wages.
Rising oil prices tend to cause recessions and layoffs. We can see this from historical data. Average wages, considering layoffs, tend to fall rather than rise during times of spiking oil prices. In fact, the chart seems to suggest that the big increases in average wages tend to occur when oil prices are under $40 per barrel. A growing supply of cheap energy thus seems to be the magic ingredient that shifts wages upward.
Figure 5. Average wages in 2017 US$ compared to Brent oil price, also in 2017 US$. Oil prices are from BP’s 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy. Average wages are total wages based on BEA data adjusted by the GDP price deflator, divided by total population. Thus, they reflect changes in the proportion of population employed as well as wage levels.
Because of this difficulty with spiking energy prices, high energy prices tend not to last for very long. One issue is that regulators quickly raise short-term interest rates to solve what they perceive as “the problem of rising food and energy prices.” Once recession sets in (gray bars in Figure 6), regulators find that they need to lower interest rates and raise the level of debt to stimulate the economy again. With lower interest rates and more debt, major purchases (such as homes, cars, and factories) become more affordable, because purchases bought on credit have lower monthly payments. With greater affordability, food and energy prices again rise, to again encourage more production.
Figure 6. Three-month and ten-year interest rates through July 2019, in chart by Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
So we end up with an endless seesaw of energy and food prices. In fact, the peaks have tended to fall lower and lower since 2008, as can be seen in Figure 7, showing monthly average prices.
Figure 7. Monthly average Brent Oil prices since January 2000, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Monthly average peaks started at $132.72 in July 2008. More recently, peaks have fallen as follows:
- Peak of $125.25 for the month of March 2012
- Peak of $109.54 for May 2014.
- Low month average price of $30.70 in January 2016.
- Most recent average peak was $81.03, for the month of October 2018.
From this pattern of falling peaks, we can see that the stimulus being used recently (which includes Quantitative Easing in some parts of the world) has become less and less effective at stimulating demand for food and energy products.
It looks as though growing debt at ever-lower interest rates is becoming a less effective workaround for the economy’s real need, which is a need for a rapidly growing supply of under $40 per barrel oil and other low-priced energy products.
Oil prices can be a problem in two different directions: (a) Too high for consumers or (b) Too low for producers.
From the Point of View of the Consumer. Many people have had the “Ah Ha” moment, in which they have figured out that high oil prices are a problem from the point of view of consumers. In part, they have deduced that these high oil prices may mean that we are “running out” of cheap-to-extract oil. Processes are becoming more complex, and as a result, consumers need to pay more to cover the higher cost of extracting and refining the oil.
But there is a related issue: Higher oil prices are likely to cause recession. If oil prices rise, the prices of many different types of goods and services (such as food, goods transported by truck or airplane, and vacation travel) rise at the same time. Wages don’t rise as quickly, in part because it is the true energy content (measured in Btus, barrels of oil equivalent, or something similar) that the economy requires. If the economy needs to dedicate a larger share of its resources to producing energy products, this is an issue that is akin to growing inefficiency. There are fewer resources remaining (such as human labor, metals, fresh water, and energy products) for investment that might provide goods such as new homes, cars, clothes and air conditioning.
With fewer resources to use, the economy reacts by shrinking back. I think of the situation as being akin to the way a chemist might “make a smaller batch,” if the quantity of one necessary reagent is low. An adequate supply of energy products is what makes the economy operate as it does; if buying an adequate amount of energy products becomes too expensive for consumers, a cutback in the buying of discretionary goods is forced on the economy (Figure 8). Lowering interest rates tends to make the debt repayment portion on new purchases lower, helping to alleviate the squeeze.
Figure 8. Chart made by author in 2010, to illustrate a talk called Peak Oil: Looking for the Wrong Symptoms.
From the Point of View of the Oil Producer. There are oil producers of many kinds, including:
- Tight oil producers from shale operations,
- Heavy oil producers in places such as Canada and Venezuela,
- Producers of oil from deep water such as Brazil and Angola, and
- Middle Eastern oil exporting countries that seem to have a very low direct cost of oil production.
Strange as it may seem, Middle Eastern oil exporting countries are among the most vulnerable to problems associated with continued low oil prices. The reason why these countries are so vulnerable is because their entire economies are oriented toward oil and gas production. They often have large populations with inadequate income unless the government provides them with handouts or with programs that provide jobs. If these governments need to cut back too much, there is a real danger that the governments will be overthrown. In fact, the population may break down into warring factions. Oil production may stop because of internal disorder.
It is because of issues such as these that the OPEC countries have cut back on oil production, in the hope that prices would rise to more acceptable levels for their countries. Fiscal Breakeven prices, relating to the level of oil prices that are needed so that each government can collect sufficient taxes for its budget, are published from time to time.
Figure 9. Chart published by the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP) giving Fiscal Breakeven Prices estimated to be needed for 2013.
Now that oil prices have been low since late 2014, Middle Eastern countries won’t admit to the true level of oil prices that are needed to operate their countries in the way that they have in the past. Their populations have been rising faster than their oil production, so it is hard to believe that the oil prices that the countries truly need, if they do not cut back on programs, are any lower than the amounts shown in Figure 9. At about $60 per barrel, the current Brent Oil price is clearly far too low for the major oil producers of the Middle East.
Shale and heavy oil producers are often less vulnerable than Middle Eastern producers, because the entities funding their operations (that is, buyers of shares of stock and providers of debt) believe that “of course” oil prices will rise in the future because of scarcity. Because of this, they are willing to provide additional funding, even when a recent owner has gone bankrupt from low prices. Middle Eastern oil producers have less of this benefit. If the money isn’t available for major programs, they are forced to cut back. Growing debt is unlikely to cover more than a portion of the shortfall.
There are other producers in the energy price “stack” in Figure 4 that are vulnerable to collapse or bad outcomes from continued low energy prices. One example is coal producers in China. China seems to be experiencing Peak Coal because of continued low coal prices; while new mines have been opened, they do not act to increase the total quantity produced, because so many mines needed to be closed because they were losing money at current low prices.
Figure 10. China energy production by fuel, based on 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy data. “Other Ren” stands for “Renewables other than hydroelectric.” This category includes wind, solar, and other miscellaneous types, such as sawdust burned for electricity.
If the world economy is hoping for China’s increasing demand to pull the world economy forward in the future, it is likely kidding itself. China cannot expect imports to make up for its lack of growth in coal production. China’s lack of adequate energy supplies likely underlies the tariff issue that we hear so much about. There is a need to pull back production of goods from China, if China doesn’t really have the energy resources to continue in the role it has been playing.
The big question is how high oil prices will be in the future
The contention of the IEA and many others is that energy prices can rise arbitrarily high. For example, the IEA showed the figure I have numbered Figure 11 in its World Energy Outlook 2015 .
Figure 11. IEA Figure 1.4 from its World Energy Outlook 2015, showing how much non-OPEC oil can be produced at various price levels.
The big groupings in Figure 11 are
- Conventional Crude (such as from the Middle East and perhaps deep water like Brazil),
- Tight Oil from Shale, and
- Extra Heavy Oil and Bitumen (such as from Canada and Venezuela).
Evidently, in 2015, the IEA believed that $300 per barrel oil prices were not too high to show as a possibility on a chart. With $300 per barrel oil, there would certainly be enough oil. At such a high price, it might be possible to move the city of Paris, France, out of the way and extract the tight oil from shale underneath it!
Unfortunately, in the real world, prices cannot rise this high. Market prices are set by the laws of physics. The economic limit we reach is a price limit that pushes the economy back into recession. We have seen in Figure 7 that this price limit seems to be dropping lower and lower, over time. In fact, I am one of the coauthors of an article published in the journal Energy called, An Oil Production Forecast for China Considering Economic Limits. This 2016 article makes the point that the economic limit we are reaching is a limit on how high oil prices can rise. I am the lead author of Section 2, which discusses this issue at length. If prices cannot rise high enough, the vast majority of the oil that seems to be available based on published reserve amounts and geological surveys cannot really be extracted.
Whether there are ways to raise oil and other energy prices higher than they are now remains to be seen.
Why don’t standard models forecast low oil prices in the future?
Economists have put together a simple model of how the economy works. In their model, there are always substitutes. The only thing that goes wrong seems to be that prices rise, if there isn’t enough supply. These rising prices encourage greater supply and substitution. The type of chart a person typically sees is a Supply and Demand curve as shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12. Supply and Demand model from Wikipedia.
Attribution: SilverStar at English Wikipedia CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
They have never considered a situation where energy products are deeply buried within essentially all goods and services that are made. If there isn’t enough supply, a “smaller batch” of the world economy is made. We think of this as recession, but it can take on other forms as well:
- Depression
- Wars
- Epidemics
- Defaulting debts; falling prices of assets
- Failing governments and intergovernmental organizations
- Collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991
- UK’s decision to leave the European Union
- Increasing conflict between political parties and between countries
- A reduction in globalization
- Ultimately, the collapse of a civilization
Economists have not understood the connection between physics and the economy. There is a need for a sufficient quantity of affordable energy products every moment of every day. In fact, we seem to need a vastly increased quantity of inexpensive-to-produce energy supplies right now if we are to fix the world economy’s problems from an energy point of view. The “lower interest rates and more debt” way of hiding problems seems to be reaching an end point. If nothing else, interest rates today are close to as low as they can go.
Is the economy approaching a singularity?
In physics and math, a singularity is a point at which a function takes an infinite value. We end up with a situation that seemingly cannot exist. It is like dividing the number 1 by the number 0. No matter how many times that the number 0 is added together, it will never equal 1.
The economy seems to be reaching an equally strange situation. It is not a situation where we are running out of oil; it is a situation of too much wage disparity, and this wage disparity makes the prices of many commodities too low for producers of these commodities. For example, farmers cannot afford to pay their mortgages. And prices for all fossil fuels and many metals are too low for companies extracting these materials to make an adequate profit for reinvestment and taxes. The problem is not simply low oil prices.
This situation of excessive wage disparity is related to globalization, with many workers around the world earning very low wages, so that they cannot afford goods such as homes and cars. It is related to the increased use of robots substituting for manual labor. It is also related to wage disparity within countries as jobs become increasingly specialized.
As this situation plays out, energy prices fall when common sense would seem to suggest that they should rise. In fact, the problem of falling prices extends to more commodities than fossil fuels and food; it extends to minerals of many kinds, including copper and aluminum.
In such a situation of falling commodity prices, we can expect many related problems. For example, governments of countries that depend on the revenue of these exports may fail, leading to Balkanization of these countries in some cases. A wide range of debt defaults can be expected, leading to failing financial institutions that need to be bailed out. Rapidly changing relativities among currencies are likely to put markets for derivatives at the risk of failing. Needless to say, stock markets are likely to be adversely affected. So-called renewables will quickly fail because they are currently dependent on fossil fuels for repairs and the electric grid. In fact, it is hard to see any aspect of the world economy that can continue unaffected.
How does what appears to be an approaching calamity play out?
Perhaps it is fortunate that we don’t really know. Collapses of early economies seemed to take many years, typically over 20 years. Today, the world economy depends on global supply chains and the electric grid. The financial system is also very important. It is hard to believe that the overall system can stay together for many years, but perhaps, in parts of the world, it can. We just don’t know.
Given how connected the economy seems to be, and how widespread the problems seem to be at the singularity we are reaching, it almost appears that there is a plan behind what is happening. From what we can observe, there seems to be some literal higher power behind all of the energy flows that we observe in the universe. This literal higher power seems to have put into place all of the laws of physics. This literal higher power seems to also be behind all of the self-organizing elements within the universe, including humans, ecosystems and economies. I cannot help but wonder whether there is some plan for what is ahead that we don’t understand.
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Swedish telly broadcasting the Lewinsky affair. The Clintons are officially on their way out from the limelight.
The scoundrels of MSM in the free world synced this one up, and it will intensify until they STFU and fade into obscurity. The Clintons is an embarrassment even for the corrup7 fak_e news media.
https://www.askideas.com/media/45/Funny-Bill-Clinton-Meme-Just-Realized-If-Hillary-Wins-I-Get-Interns-Picture.jpg
In response to snarf, who picked on the resources distribution issue that I raised by saying it that whoever raises the issue believes in infinite growth. Well I for one do not believe in infinite growth or exponential growth or anything of the sort. I do get that we’re stuck in a massive Ponzi scheme which we did not start.
However, figuring out to what extent redistribution can increase wages enough to raise energy availability by making more extraction viable is a matter of calculations, not beliefs. It depends on the amount of wealth sitting around and on the level of depletion of energy sources. Ideology or faith has nothing to do with this. Since we have no power over the Ponzi scheme, gaining years is not a trivial success.
Dear Gail,
Thank you for a great blog. Your narrative and datasets are convincing, but the whole argument leading to the inevitable collapse conclusion rests on a key link for which you did not make calculations.
The wages of non-elite workers are in your view what is keeping energy prices below break-even for producing countries.
You highlight how wealth concentration is at war-prompting levels.
As a consequence, validating your hypothesis requires calculating whether redistributing the amount of wealth held by the top 1% or x% to low wage workers (e.g. due to the introduction of UBI or to radical governments being in power following social unrest) would enable energy prices to rise enough for producing countries to keep pumping out the juice. Inevitability of collapse can be hypothesised only if the amount of wealth in the whole economy is not sufficient to sustain the current cost levels for fossil fuels extraction AND the level of complexity that the economy has reached. If this turns out to be the case, then collapse depends on the degree to which the complexity needs to go down. Vaclav Smil for example thinks that we could sustain the whole world population with a 1960s lifestyle and no social breakdown.
Of course going 60 years back in terms of development requires a major recession or depression, debt defaults (which in themselves cause wealth redistribution) and a transition, but not sure this can be called a collapse in all cases: it depends on how the transition goes.
Physics determines the distribution of wages. We do not have world regulators who could determine the distribution of wages, if they wanted to. Europe may make wages more equal, but the economies are still doing miserably and unemployment among the young is way too high. Japan has a huge problem with its elderly population, and not enough money for all of the promised pensions.
The problem with too low wages has to do with India, China, and other low wage countries (including Africa) to a significant extent has to do with the these countries having much lower wages than the developed countries. These people cannot afford the output of the factories that they work at. We would need to get the wages of those countries up, relative to more developed countries. There are billions of people in this low wage part of the world. We would need to give virtually all of the new production to those folks to bring them up to (rapidly degrading) western standards.
The economy’s big problem is that it cannot go backward. It cannot go back 60 years, regardless of how much it might want to.
Going back 60 years would be to go back to about 1959. The world economy was booming in that era, because world energy consumption was rising, as rapidly as it has ever risen. Living standards were rising then too. The US was able to add the interstate highway system, for example based on the Federal Highway Act of 1956, plus a rapidly growing supply of cheap energy. We were able to add pipelines systems and better electricity transmission systems as well.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/growth-rate-in-world-energy-consumption-showing-population-vs-living-standards-to-2018.png
Now, our problem is that China’s growth in coal supply is failing the world system. The rest of coal is not doing well either. In total, energy consumption growth is not growing enough, so it is not possible to do the equivalent things now. And we certainly could not “gift” Africa, India, and the rest of the lesser developed world with the ability to get up to US and European standards, perhaps of 1959. Our problem is not a local problem, it is a world problem and it very much depends on the growth in world energy consumption.
We cannot operate a world economy at a 1959 level. The problem that comes with globalization is a need to equalize wage and wealth, worldwide.
And that equalization can only be implemented using the indirect method of effective capitalism. Not by the fasc1st horrors of corporatism and state controlled dystopia generation.
Thanks! I can see the point on the order of magnitudes intuitively although without the data I can’t judge the hunch.
What do you mean by the statement that physics determines the distribution of wages?
Surely the monkeys can agree on different ways to distribute whatever number of bananas nature gives them between them?
When slavery existed, was that physics? When Jeff Bezos has an income of over 75 billion per year partly because Amazon Europe is based in Ireland and doesn’t pay taxes, is that physics?
In developing countries, it seems that the share of income going to labour is going down everywhere: https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/first-quarter-2018/measuring-labor-share-countries
So do you mean that in your opinion this is because of take the machinery and materials needed to extract energy which are getting more and more expensive?
On a different topic, a piece of news from today vindicating your point (see especially the second part of the article): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-02/saudi-arabia-replaces-aramco-chairman-with-head-of-wealth-fund
Regarding monkeys and inequality:
https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg
Fantastic video!! Thanks for that, made my day
You are welcome. 🙂
Monkeys are inherently c0mmun15t. As long as we share the same m1sery, it is a-ok.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cqi4HKLUkAEpdSq.jpg
Yes, I do mean that when slavery existed, that was because of physics.
If you want to start a movement to equalize salaries in the US, India and Bangladesh, I wish you a great deal of luck. I am sure that those in India and Bangladesh will appreciate your attempted assistance, but I don’t think you will find many followers in the US.
Did you already write a post to expand on that?
Labour movements and political platforms secured some successes throughout history without the need for my personal contribution…
I am not sure that I have, precisely. What happens when a lot of wealth goes to a handful of very rich people is that a large share of the wealth is simply an illusion. It is promises for future goods and services that they will never collect on. Or it simply shares of stock that perhaps will be passed on to a new owner.
The very wealthy can’t eat a whole lot more than the rest of us. They can’t drive more than one vehicle at a time. There is a fairly low limit to the number of houses that they can have and take care of.
It is commodities (like energy products, copper, iron ore) that are made into finished goods and services. If there is enough to go around, it will tend to get down to the poorer members of society, through relatively more equal wages. If there isn’t, some sort of structure will be developed (caste system, for example), so that somehow the system can continue operate, with the quantity of energy and other resources that the economy really can afford. This is related to H. T. Odum’s work on ecosystems adapting to make the best use energy supplies available. Some plants and animals will be left out. But the system will adapt to “dissipate” as much energy as possible, given the constraints of the area.
It is a practical means of resource conservation. C011ecrivism is a sure road towards a po11ution laden dys70p1a of zero resources and opportunity for everyone.
Not to speak about the huge inflation it must create rendering most of the newly found “wealth” totally useless.
The point about India or Pakistan is that they destroyed other species, so that they are not endangered by them, i.e. they have no buffer of wood energy to heat and wild animals to eat. On the other hand, their numbers are horrible, simply horrible. That is why there is no chance for them to become rich.
There is simply no space for high amounts of pollution that being rich requires. Their environment is already catastrophically polluted.
Robert Lindsay lays out the truth about India.
https://beyondhighbrow.com/2010/06/29/india-is-a-shithole/
This article is from 2010. When I visited India in 2012, it still had a lot of problems. The air pollution was at least as bad as China. This is the way rice was being harvested in the fields:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/workers-harvesting-rice-v2.jpg
This is the way women carried water back from the central place where water was available a few hours a day:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/woman-carrying-two-pots-of-water-on-her-head.jpg
Even at the conference I was at in Mumbai, the electricity frequently was off.
This is a road outside Mumbai, with some men repairing a pot-hole.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/men-repairing-road.jpg
Side note: those people own a smart phone today.
Would any of the relics frequenting this forum have predicted this to happen, let say, 20 years ago?
Of course not, since co11apse is always 5 years into the future.
Actually I was an adviser for Apple when Jobs introduced the iPhone at Moscone Center, and had it in my hands months before being released.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure.
Ah, the classic confusion of equal opportunity and equality of outcome being the same.
The sense of entitlement people have towards the successful. Just learn to leave people the fsck alone, will ya?
It’s enough to enforce justice and equal opportunity for the populace. No heavy handed left-wing horrors such as world governments are needed to balance out this equation.
Yes, India, Pakistan, Africa and the rest of severely corrupt and overpopulated areas of the world are d00med by the constraint of diverging from the natural order causes.
https://youtu.be/jnOUFS3lUpE
Well my viewpoint is rather simplistic. I am sure it doesn’t capture the big picture like gails work does. The last hundred years we got really good at resource extraction. The resources we extracted allowed even more resource extraction. While its quite evident that resources get depleted we always found a different resource. Like a cougar eating squirrels when deer are scarce. Its not unusual to think that things last for ever. We basically live our lives without acknowledging death. Our belief in perpetual resources has led to some inaccurate ideas. One of these is the idea that wealth and money exist independent of resources. This is not true. I believe this is what Gail refers to when she says physics determine wage distribution.
If printing money and distributing it where it will be used to consume resources is a solution why stop at the USA? Lets just print money and distribute it to the whole world and end poverty. Why not? Because money is dependent on resources not the other way around.
This is a taboo understanding. It is taboo because it assails are egos as humans. We live only as good as what the planet can give us. Now she is tired. Their is much less. Their is less wealth. Standards of livings must decline. This is unthinkable in our culture developed by a hundred years of unchecked resource extraction. Hitting limits is not popular. Rather than accept we fall back on ideas that have no basis. We say the problem must be about the resources being misallocated rather than resource depletion. WE create villains that are the supposed problem. THis is not taboo. It doesn’t conflict with the belief in perpetual consumption. Just as important it identifies humans miss allocating resources as the problem. The idea that humans are in control is not questioned. Anything other than ideas that all power and control lies with our species is taboo. This leads to some very bizarre ideas put forth. These ideas are not taboo as long as they don’t conflict with the idea perpetual consumption or infer that we as a species are not in control.
As individual we live denying our inevitable death. It is not surprising we are unable to accept that exponential growth can only occur on a finite planet for very short periods of time. There is only impermanence. It is all that there is.
That is the paradox. We feel compassion. We try to avoid pain. It can not be avoided. Rather than accept we lie. If you are compassionate you can not avoid pain. THe choices are IMO.
Care and feel pain.
dont care
Care and live life in delusion, try to avoid and STILL experience pain.
I think the first is the best. Second and third are the majority view.
I think that you are very much right about this:
No one would believe otherwise.
“Surely the monkeys can agree on different ways to distribute whatever number of bananas nature gives them between them? ”
Wealth (“bananas”) isn’t given. It is produced. It requires labor and invention. Human capital has to be applied to a natural resource(s) to transform it/them into something useful. The determinant of wealth is technology, not the random distribution of resources, and the accumulators of wealth are those who use it and invent it the most.
Best comment of the day. 👍
The question is if advances in technology needs mass consumption?
Answer is a resounding NO! However does it make it faster, yes.
https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/39272c7a977f22075f61cb767e7564fc.jpg
The determinant of wealth is more than technology. Technology is one of the ways we apply energy to problems. Without energy, there would be no technology.
Eventually, technology causes too much wage and wealth disparity, and the system tends to crash. This happens because wages of the highly trained and those who are managers tend to rise, while those with little education receive low wages or are jobless. The people who receive low wages or who are jobless are a problem for the system, because they cannot afford to buy the goods and services the economy makes. They can’t afford homes or cars or air-conditioning or vacation travel. Demand drops for finished goods, and the price of commodities falls too low. This is where we are now.
You got it the wrong way around. Technology and other forms of ingenuity is the means in which we are able to wield the sword of energy.
Thus the system needs to rid itself from the excesses. It is not a human right to live well beyond the means of ones own productive capacity. It is unnatural.
In c0mmun15t utopia, perhaps it is possible, but no such organizational success is known to exist in the history of mankind. On the contrary. It is a guarantee for a dystop1a.
The capitalist system will adopt to the new order where humans are increasingly more irrelevant and to the resource constraints of planet earth.
Thanks for this. As you keep repeating it, it becomes clearer. I’m not sure that simplicity can’t mean different things, or can’t be optimized to suit the larger system.
I think going back 60 years in terms of development means going back 60 years in terms of global population. Maybe even lower, since there is usually overshoot in big secular trends.
How do you envision this decline in population to take place?
There is a related scenario to Phil D’s reference in terms of OFW/Gail’s hypothesis,
namely the crashing economy won’t be able to sustain the overload on the aged population as well as the other age groups to some extent. Hence the rapid pop delete.
Also the overall chaos might allow for easier pandemics spread, war etc. However, it seems not very likely after such down slope to reboot the system again near similar complexity, even late 19th century tech level would be very problematic to aspire to as nowadays is everything digital from CNC to logistics, CAD engineering etc. You need pencil and book type of engineers for such task, plus manually skilled labor force and equipment of that era etc.. Unobtanium. There are some coal seems left for it though but nothing major near industrial hubs of today.
Another sub scenario is what I addressed in my top five list to watch recently, e.g. possibility of opening up the Arctic oil at reasonable cost threshold or cheap solid state batteries. Both most likely won’t happen for physical limit reasons, but if possible it would present major (decades) delay of the classic OFW style crash, obviously other loops to continue pressing (enviro damage etc.) so only an extension.
I omit on purpose the nuclear realm, discussed previously x-times. Because there is only one country in the world having the whole cycle of breeder and conventional NPPs ready on industrial scale, plus spent fuel recycling facilities – beside geopolitics it would take decades to license – build it out big and elsewhere.
Similarly in terms next gen NPPs the high energy plasma (“fusion”) is on schedule in ITER for ~2035, add decades for truly industrial copies out of it. However, Chinese claim to developing also one only on their own turf as well (apart from int coop projects), but that would be finished only marginally faster anyway.
So we are back to square one, either ~cheap oil again (Arctic promises) or ~cheap batteries + renewables and or with offpeak base grid combo. Only these could be ramped up super fast in decade or two. But this is likely wishful thinking..
Meanwhile, you have billions of students–a class that is generally more creative, with subsidized time to do useful work–who are in schools taking up space and being baby sat. Since it’s never been done (and since the system can’t be allowed to fail, it not being possible then to restart it), we can’t say that freeing up students to tackle our various bottleneck issues in some unprecedented way might not be helpful.
In the old fashioned ways. Famine, disease, violence, pestilence.
http://images.slideplayer.com/16/5025385/slides/slide_7.jpg
Malthus was an optimist, http://bit.ly/2FJhWee
It has already started. Full gas ahead.
https://youtu.be/HKCfu4UJQiQ
Yeah, I saw this the other day. And the place hasn’t even collapsed yet.
The US was not involved in the demise of the Iranian Safir space launch vehicle. I repeat; the US was NOT involved. 🤣
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1167493371973255170/photo/1
“President Trump has tweeted what experts say is almost certainly an image from a classified satellite or drone, showing the aftermath of an accident at an Iranian space facility.”
“Panda says that the tweet discloses some pretty amazing capabilities that the public simply wasn’t privy to before this.”
I suppose Trump is proud of the US’s capabilities, even if he was not supposed to disclose this photo.
A photo from an old NRO satellite disclosing current US capabilities? Do you really think that the administration will do such things haphazardly without prior review?
The guys at NRO surely got a live video feed from the whole event in highres 4K video watching the parody unfold in real-time high-fiving while sending congrats to the operatives on the ground.
I will admit that I don’t follow these things closely.
It’s explained nicely here, this is redacted picture, no frivolous leak by POTUS as claimed by some, ..
The video also nicely discussed the nearing physical end point of visual spectrum precision-resolution for this kind of sat. It’s basically rehashed Hubble grade system for Earth surface imaging.. This baby is large as a bus.
And as old as HST.
The new gear NRO got in orbit is stealthy and can capture real-time imagery/video and other EM signals in a wide spectrum. If the data is encrypted, the guys at ONRL can help out with some powerful supercomputers to crack it in a hurry.
It is quite possible the arsenal consists of systems which can direct space-borne EMP pulses towards installations rendering electronic devices unusable or cause other forms of destruction by arcs forming from the EM pulses.
All those “failed” missile tests by NK and Iran, well, now you know. 😉. Bzzzt.. Either it’s the US or the Russians having some fun testing out their new gear.
https://youtu.be/EcobsoDzEuY
“Hedge funds and private-equity firms are signing up European distressed-debt experts at the fastest pace in at least five years as slowing growth drives up corporate defaults in the region.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-02/hedge-funds-hire-in-distressed-debt-to-bet-on-european-defaults
“Norwegian Air, Europe’s third-largest low-cost carrier, is seeking a lifeline from bondholders as it grapples with a cash crunch. It has asked for two more years to repay its largest outstanding bonds, worth $380 million, and is putting up its lucrative landing slots at London’s second busiest airport as collateral.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/02/business/norwegian-air-debt-restructure/index.html
“Eurozone PMI Manufacturing was finalized at 47.0 in August [sub 50 denotes contraction]… Markit noted that production and new orders continued to fall as confidence hits lowest since November 2012. Also, employment declined for the fourth month running during August.”
https://www.actionforex.com/live-comments/229908-eurozone-pmi-manufacturing-finalized-at-47-0-germany-in-steepest-decline-franc-bucks-the-trend/
US manufacturing PMI was actually 49.1 for August, weaker than all the forecasts. And, worse than that, the new orders index was down at 47.2:
https://www.sharecast.com/news/international-economic/ism-manufacturing-sector-contracts-in-august–6984412.html
Well, it certainly spells d00m. No other interpretation can be possible.
http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/1900000/Animated-GIFS-the-joker-1971583-400-233.gif
We are in a full-blown global manufacturing recession now. It is a concern:
“The current downturn in the global manufacturing sector was extended to a fourth month in August. New orders contracted at the joint-fastest rate in nearly seven years, led by the steepest reduction in international trade volumes since late-2012.
“The outlook also darkened, with business optimism dropping to its lowest level since it was first tracked by the survey in July 2012…
“Over half of the nations covered by the survey had a PMI reading below the 50.0 mark… Manufacturing employment declined for the fourth successive month in August.”
https://www.markiteconomics.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/2490067923764e919331f511e7a4ba64
Hold on to your horses of d00m and gl00m while the manufacturing capacity is being shifted back to the free world from the atrocities of the band1t regime in PRC.
https://www.bcg.com/documents/file84471.pdf
A person wonders which debt will blow up first.
We have run into budget airline problems before. Eventually they seem likely to close down, reducing the total number of flights available.
“China’s yuan weakened further on Tuesday, at one point nearing 7.2 to the dollar, less than a month after Beijing let the currency pass a threshold it had previously defended.
“The yuan has been dropping in recent weeks. It crossed 7 per dollar on Aug. 5, days after President Trump announced tariffs on a wider range of Chinese goods, and has since slid further, as both China and the U.S. have detailed fresh tariff plans.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-yuan-drops-to-weakest-level-in-more-than-a-decade-11567489502
“What started as a protest against a now-suspended bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial, has evolved into a broad, increasingly violent, and creative, struggle for greater democracy.
“Over the past week, residents were seen out on their balconies or opening their windows to shout “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of our times…””
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-neighbourhoods/hong-kong-neighborhoods-echo-with-late-night-cries-for-freedom-idUSKCN1VN181
“In an alarming symptom of an economy headed for recession, South Korea’s inflation touched an unprecedented level of zero growth… The record-low inflation and fragile growth are likely to bolster the case for a rate cut in the next two policy meetings on Oct. 17 or Nov. 29.”
https://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2019&no=691733
“Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who made his mark pursuing aggressive monetary stimulus policies, is under fresh pressure by financial markets to return to the fight.
“Government bond yields are falling through the floor of the central bank’s target range, the yen is hovering at the limit of companies’ comfort zones and inflation is weakening again.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-02/boj-looks-increasingly-cornered-and-in-need-of-more-stimulus
“Australia looks set for its worst economic performance in almost three decades, with GDP growth for the June quarter expected to drag the growth down to its weakest level in almost three decades, according to investment bank UBS. That looks all but confirmed, with the national accounts data due out on Wednesday.”
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australian-economy-set-for-worst-year-since-1991-recession-rudd-cash-handouts-2019-9
There seems to be some sort of natural law in place, the lower Aussie econ performance the higher level of stupidity of anti Chinese propaganda in their msm..
China’s problems translate to problems for Australia, since so much of Australia’s exports go to China, and since the Chinese used to buy homes in Australia.
Japan seems to be running out of things to do.
Really?
Japan is absolutely beautiful in the countryside, fantastic nature, varied climate. Old people cultivating their rice fields and gardens while the next generation of Shinkansen zipping through the landscape at ever increasing speeds and sophistication.
Japan, Taiwan and South Korea is doing perfectly fine and should be a benchmark of the rest of the free world. It is time to leave behind the brutalist western methodology of organizing society as they currently are doing.
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/japanese-floating-torii-gate-shinto-shrine-sunset-fantasy-illustration-dramatic-golden-light-marking-entrance-to-68530106.jpg
Interestingly, it was announced last week that South Korea’s birthrate, which has been below the replacement level of 2.1 since 1984, dropped to a new low in 2018 of 0.98.
The total fertility rate measures the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime. In 2018, this dropped to 0.98 — or less than one baby per woman, and a drop from the previous year’s rate of 1.05. This means 8.7% fewer babies were born in South Korea in 2018 compared to 2017.
Next door in Japan, the birth rate dropped to 1.26 in 2005 but has since recovered to 1,42 or thereabouts. Japan has had a declining population for the past decade since peaking in 2008. South Korea’s population is still growing but is expected to begin plummeting like a stalled plane any time now.
That is interesting. You wonder if there is any correlation between birth-rates are and any given nation’s net energy situation. Hard to know with religious, cultural and social pressures muddying the picture. Certainly South Korea imports a colossal amount of oil per capita and Japan and Italy are major importers, too.
“The number of births in Italy last year was the lowest since records began in 1861, the government said yesterday, prompting fears that the country is facing a sharp demographic decline”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/italian-birth-rate-falls-to-lowest-since-1861-zpp7wwgl5
The highest birth rates seem to be in countries with exceedingly low energy consumption per capita. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example.
Dum-b people with a smug attitude reproduce like cockroaches on a planet with dwindling natural resources.
https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-democracy-cannot-survive-overpopulation-human-dignity-cannot-survive-it-convenience-isaac-asimov-78-50-16.jpg
It takes a Buddhist perspective and cultural traits to realize this obvious fact apparently.
In parts of the world without a social safety net, having lots of children is the only insurance against penury in old age.
Yet another one of these ever prevailing tired slogans. Just like “immigration is needed for an aging population”. Learn to scrutinize them and shred them to pieces with rational thought. It’s good for your mental health.
Look, just because you have more children does not make the fields and harvest larger. Lots of children is akin to cheap slave labor in sh1thole countries. Large litters is the primary cause of mass starvation and suffering during years of bad harvests.
Large litters are good for one thing one, it is for the state to have plenty of poor people to put into military service.
The impoverished of the third world do not have the luxury of thinking objectively and on a grand-scale about resources per capita.
From a couple’s perspective, having multiple children improves the chances that one of them may ascend to the middle-class and failing that, even a small percentage of several labourer’s salaries is better than nothing. It is certainly a gamble worth taking. Higher rates of childbirth may also be needed to offset high levels of infant mortality.
But I’m sure in their shoes and with your remarkable ability to shred tired slogans, you’d make the rational choice and limit your breeding.
“Dumb people… sh1thole countries… large litters…” Your Buddhist perspective is conspicuously low on compassion btw.
You are mistaking comedy and controversial viewpoints for the person who I am. It is typical for people who can not read between the lines and have a jolly good laugh at the whole setting.
Luddites and gold standard relics typing frantically on their machines created by the enormous technical progress enabled by fiat currencies, debt and burning an enormous amount of fossil fuels to power the whole thing. It is lovely.
Compassion begins when you are able to shred your dogmas and flawed beliefs, giving up your boring smugness, delusions about your self-importance and significance.
https://youtu.be/RtErEF2eNHo
Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein has this to say about people like you:
https://www.goalcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/elon-musk-on-success.jpg
http://www.quotesvalley.com/images/15/unthinking-respect-for-authority-is-the-greatest-enemy-of-truth-12.jpg
“In parts of the world without a social safety net, having lots of children is the only insurance against penury in old age.”
Social safety net is just other peoples’ children. i.e. you’re back to square one – societies need to produce offspring to support themselves. Mass migration is not a solution because it’s destructive. What’s the point of keeping up population numbers if you destroy your culture and identity in order to do so?
The modern welfare state will turn out to have been a disastrous blunder, in hindsight. Fortunately modern welfare states are just about bankrupt and I think we’re in the endgame before there are some drastic changes and we revert to a pre-1960s social order in the West.
Our social safety net is not other people’s children. It is the FF powered industrial apparatus that produce an enormous amount of goods and services which we imagine will be at our disposal as we retire from the meaningless frippery we waste our time with building a career and a savings account.
The state needs clients and an ever growing GDP. Oh yes, all those lucrative contracts that can be used to steal sound money from the populace and line their own greedy pockets with it.
They are the offspring from lackeys of previous despots. Bad genes has to be purged out in the harshest of ways by mother Gaia.
Perhaps there is some correlation to S Korea quite depressing dystopian landscape, the apartment high rises / projects almost everywhere are not the happiest sight in the world. Obviously, there are also very nice spots in SKorea.. but comparison to Japan, big fail, too hastily done industrialization vs traditions.. Another big minus choosing TGV over Shinkansens..
Sounds awful.
Never, ever buy anything from corporate France. The scam is inevitable.
The Samurai delivers what he promises. The frog eater; not so much. It is all smoke, mirrors and disguised incompetence.
Unfortunately, soon even 0% growth will look good in retrospect. Waiting to see how many investors start ploughing their money into negative growth funds just to avoid losing too much profit.
It is the inevitable end of the line for old (stolen) money with a lack of forward-thinking stewardship.
It is the inevitable end of the line for theft. It lacks a basis for lasting existence.
https://youtu.be/CuyyB7KPPow
The Rams obviously need more females, as the BBC reporter profoundly observed. Fem1n1sm to the rescue for the sheep. Just import more females from a foreign land and call it a day. What could possibly go wrong.
🤣
“The prospect of a world economy divided among a sclerotic Europe, a nationalist United States and an authoritarian China is a gloomy one.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/opinion/global-economy.html
“Data is coming at investors from every angle with so-called recession indicators… A slowing global economy is pressuring central banks abroad to lower borrowing rates at unprecedented levels and a tit-for-tat tariff war between Washington and Beijing is weighing on business sentiment.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/02/heres-a-list-of-recession-signals-that-are-flashing-red.html
“Emerging market policymakers slashed interest rates in August, taking their lead from major central banks including the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank and joining in efforts to shore up their economies.
“Interest rate moves by central banks across a group of 37 developing economies showed a net fourteen rate cuts last month – the largest number since policy makers ramped up measures to kickstart economic growth in the wake of the financial crisis.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-emerging-rates/down-down-they-go-emerging-central-banks-deliver-most-rate-cuts-in-a-decade-idUKKCN1VN1IR
If one country cuts interest rates, everyone needs to cut. Otherwise currency differentials become skewed.
Not to mention, not enough growth in the consumption of cheap-to-produce energy.
The Pope urges for massive use of nuclear energy, batteries, electronics and bicycles when the human population faces ageing and rising energy shortages due to the wild weather changes
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-pope-idUSKCN1VM161
the pope on a bike
can’t wait to see that
A nuclear reactor in Vatican city.
Can’t wait to see that.
Now we only have to wait for a heavenly meltdown and the resurrection of nuclear power.
The Ten Commandments of nuclear safety is already in place.
http://www.philrutherford.com/perspectives/Strom_10_Principles_&_10_Commandments_of_Radiation_Protection.pdf
☢️
Probably be the pope on a rope—-
Yep, as mentioned numerous time before there is nothing more efficient as some combo of rail transport (long range and regional / local) + e-assist bikes (for very last mile). Is it going to be implemented, well knowing human nature, not likely..
There is nothing at all about nuclear energy in that link. The pontiff is merely singing from the same hymnbook as the UN Bureaucrats, the Non-Profit Industrial Complex and the Globalist Investment Class. They are committed to saving us by allowing us only “clean energy”, which in their lexicon means intermittent electricity derived from solar and wind devices, for our own good you understand.
He listed constant pollution, continued use of fossil fuels, intensive agricultural exploitation and deforestation as being among the man-made causes of global warming and said the Amazon, where fires are raging, is “gravely threatened”.
“Now is the time to abandon our dependence on fossil fuels and move, quickly and decisively, towards forms of clean energy and a sustainable and circular economy,” he said.
Other phenomena, such as the melting of glaciers and the presence of plastic and microplastics in the oceans “testify to the urgent need for interventions that can no longer be postponed,” he said.
But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.
https://cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-1418219-1200_amp_square-wony-1418219.jpg
“sustainable and circular economy.”
An economy that is dependent on energy dissipation cannot possibly be “circular.” This is like depending on a perpetual motion machine.
“circular”
There is nothing wrong with circular on materials and open with respect to sunlight coming in and heat radiating out. It’s the way the natural world has operated for billions of years. No violation of energy laws at all.
The intent of this is completely different than the natural order of things, of which you write.
It would not surprise me one bit if the PRC 1ackeys are behind this narrat1ve.
C0mrades Gre7a Thunberg_ and the Pope_ is behind this. Need I say more?
“completely different”
You lost me. Perhaps you could explain how using energy from the Sun to recycle steel, aluminum, and plastic is different from the cycle of carbon dioxide and water which grows plants with sunlight?
We need to intervene with a whole lot of goods made with energy, generally fossil fuels. We are at this point a long ways away from being able to extract our iron ore and all the materials made with alloys using electricity alone. We cannot transport all of these materials, using electricity alone. We would need to somehow make a whole system running on electricity, which we have not done.
Part of the problem is the much higher cost likely involved. If, in a large share of cases, our energy needs are for heat, electricity will be an inefficient way of satisfying our current energy use. This makes the problem much worse. In China, cogeneration is frequently used to produce local heat besides electricity. While this approach tends to be very polluting, it is also very efficient.
Gail, from an engineering standpoint substituting electricity is not hard at all. We have electric trains in lots of locations. And as I pointed out, a lot of big mining equipment is already powered by electricity.
The electric transmission system is hard to keep up. It tends to “go first” in the case of a windstorm. You cannot depend on electricity for the long run, without a lot of fossil fuel in the mix.
If there is any transition to an electricity only world, I would expect that it would have to be over 50 years away. And somehow, that electricity would have to be very, very cheap.
“the case of a windstorm”
That’s true, especially for secondary distribution lines. But they are fairly easy to repair.
“You cannot depend on electricity for the long run, without a lot of fossil fuel in the mix.”
I don’t see why. There is nothing I can see in the materials needed to maintain an electrical system that requires fossil fuels. The maintenance trucks could be battery powered. Transformer oil might be an initial problem, but the amount needed is small and it could be made synthetically.
“electricity would have to be very, very cheap.”
LAWAP is talking about power under two cents per kWh. I have problems reproducing their numbers which (as you pointed out) depends on a 30% subsidy. But if they can produce power at that cost without subsidy, then we could make synthetic hydrocarbons for the same price we now pay for oil.
It could take 50 years before fossil fuel is phased out. However, I would not discount the ability of engineers to work out solutions and the economy to adjust to them.
You are mistaken. I am agreeing with you on your statement.
However, the narra71ve behind the “circular economy” is not the same as the natural circle of energy, life and raw materials on earth.
It is like slapping a “Green” sticker on a coal power plant. It does not make it carbon-neutral. Nature does not care about our cute slogans.
The PRC is behind this movement. Mark my words.
Most underground mining uses electricity exclusively for obvious reasons.
The whole production chain from iron ore, transport of pellets, with the notable exception of the blast furnaces are completely electrified by hydro power in north Sweden. It is already done. Is it tractable in other parts of the world with no semi-eternal energy sources, yes, by shipping syngas or other forms of synthetic petroleum.
The waste heat from these processes are used for heating peoples homes.
Humans have contributed to erosion since the beginning of farming. They have burned down whole forests, in the hope of increasing the amount of game available in an area from the time they learned to control fire, which seems to be over 1 million years ago. The decline in the number of other species has been going on for a long time. I am not certain that humans have ever been circular as part of the economy.
“circular as part of the economy”
I guess you are right. Good stone for making sharp edges running out was part of the reason humans shifted to bronze and later iron.
Peak Stone, really?
Don’t you think that the advances in metallurgy might have rendered stone tools hopelessly outdated and irrelevant before mankind ran out of flint?
“Peak Stone, really? ”
Weird, but yes. Toward the end of the neolithic, they got very good at making tiny flakes that gave them a lot of sharp edge per kg of rock.
“rendered stone tools hopelessly outdated and irrelevant before mankind ran out of flint?”
Possible. It is also possible that metallurgy developed *because* they were running out of good rock. Magazine articles about the flint shortage from the start of the bronze age are hard to find.
Others commenting on this have discussed the transition from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Not everybody was so stupid as to move to a much more resource intensive solution. The smart ones found a material that could make even sharper blades that lasted far longer: obsidian. And the old flaking techniques could be carried forward.
And not all societies cut down trees. Mediaeval Europe and Edo Japan planted more trees, and created sustainable forest management. Another research project, maybe for another day’s post, is why the most nearly sustainable societies seem to be feudal societies.
Feudalism is a guarantee for eternal oppression, corruption, slavery, turf wars and cruel whims of the elites, their lackeys and degenerate offspring. Thus growing the seeds of its own demise at every step along the way.
The hunter-gatherer societies is proven to be the longest lasting on earth. Still existing in parts of the planet. It is about living in harmony with the principles of nature, otherwise nature projects its might onto us.
The dominance scheme simply has to go for mankind to prevail. No amount of centralization of power will ever be able to match the long-term efficiency which nature wields evolution towards ever increasing amount of sophistication and complexity.
Tearing down buildings, with all their embodied energy, must be a way to dissipate energy. But short of saving a loved one’s life (and possibly not even my own) you couldn’t get me to tear down a building. So it’s either that tearing down buildings doesn’t enhance dissipation, or that enhancing dissipation is not a universal human trait.
Just say no to all crypto c0mm1es disguising as l1beral ec0 slacktivists.
I envision a central hub where the selected few comrades of a central committee are free to dictate the populace/pr0letariat which forms the rim of the circular wheel of a marx15t “economy”.
The explicit state brutalism has to go in favor of distributed and truly capitalist world order of healthy emergent cooperation and competition.
Obviously, I meant it as reading between the lines of his speech: if he urges politicians to take action, then they have no other solutions than massive use of nuclear energy, batteries, electronics and bicycles. Otherwise he lies.
Saw this and remember a post about what to eat…
HEALTH
TEENAGER WENT BLIND AFTER ONLY EATING FRIES, CHIPS, WHITE BREAD, SAUSAGES AND HAM SINCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
https://www.newsweek.com/teenager-blind-fries-chips-white-bread-sausages-ham-elementary-school-1456937?amp=1
Clinicians prescribed him nutritional supplements, and referred him to a mental health service to treat him for avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder. Most individuals with this condition develop it in middle childhood, and are uninterested in food, are sensitive to textures and are worried about eating. However, their BMI will usually be normal.
The boy’s eyesight stopped worsening, but didn’t improve. The boy’s diet is much the same, co-author of the paper Dr. Denize Atan of Bristol Eye Hospital told Newsweek.
“Nutrition does not just depend on how much you eat but what you eat and this case illustrates that fact. Here was a boy who consumed enough calories—he had normal height and weight and no visible signs of malnutrition—but he restricted his food to crisps and chips [fries] and a bit of processed pork. In other words, energy-dense foods of little nutritional value. The case illustrates the fact that calorie intake and BMI are not reliable indicators of nutritional status,” Atan explained
He now takes multivitamin supplements but I cannot say that his eating behavior has changed much—despite seeing gastroenterologists, dieticians, the child mental health team and eating disorder specialists,” she said.
Some 2 billion people worldwide are affected by micronutrient deficiencies, according to Atan. But there is little awareness among health professionals and the public of the damage this can do to visual health, she said.
Interesting the boy pretty much has stayed on the same diet!
After BAU we won’t be so picky!
This article points out the problem of depending on the grid for our banking needs:
From the WSJ: In Zimbabwe, Promise of Mobile Money Fades When the Power Goes Out
Ecocash, the cellphone platform used for eight out of 10 financial transactions, regularly breaks down
Zimbabwe! Need I say more? 😜
Next up is the unreliable horse propelled taxi service in North Korea due to malnutrition of the power units. The fattier, well, everything is relative, power packs simply goes “missing” in the night. If you know what I mean. 😉
Or perhaps the plunging auto sales in Venezuela and Venezuelan PMI hitting a rock bottom 0. With all Purchase Managers fired on the spot. No further PMI news are expected.
Zimbabwe, Venezuela and North Korea surely must have hit Peak Suxx. It’s what happens if corrupt socialist governments are free to wreck havoc with peoples lives. Never, ever let crypto commies masquerading as well meaning liberals run your country.
Meanwhile in the free world.. 🙂
‘Ecocash’ is just delightful – how could something so pure-sounding, so wholesome and Green, possibly wrong?
Well, the idea was likely to skip some of the legacy path hardware (and expenses) on traditional ATM network. Similar systems of cell phone direct payment exist in Scandinavia or Asia without a glitch – as long as their grid works reliably..
Slap “Green” on something and watch the helicopter money arrive with a blessing from Cl1mate Jesu5, the great savior of mankind: Greta Thunberg.
http://2hiwrx1aljcd3ryc7x1vkkah-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/climate-kid-greta-protesting-oil-on-yacht-made-of-hydrocarbons-3-254×300.jpg
I sent an e-mail to the pastor of the church I attend and told him I had no interest in prayers for those developing renewable energy, unless he followed up with prayers for those developing fossil fuel energy. (This occurred after one of the prayers of the day related to renewable energy.) I pointed out that green energy is just another money making operation. He apologized and said he had taken the prayer from something sent out from central church headquarters. I haven’t seen any similar prayers since.
Greta Thunberg speaches are beeing published also in Norway. Read this review on a site sponsored by banks and businesses in the green energy sector and you realise what an holy icon she is becoming. The basis of her message is of course the climate-models.
https://energiogklima.no/kommentar/greta-thunberg-refser-revolusjonaer-reformator/
As many of us here suspect this whole -klimate- angle is being overplayed on purpose either for the renewables lobby or massaging the general pop for some attempted curtailment of consumption out of incoming OFW effects and next GFC_ver-xy; or eventually for both reasons..
Precisely this.
Do they really think spouting some bs about kklimtee trying to scare people into accepting ever worsening prosperity will work? Everybody knows it is a way for the offspring from the lackeys of old despots to ensure their relevance and access to power and the theft which it entails, even in a situation of severe resource depletion.
How about starting this transformation by cutting out the useless eaters at government and give them a fishing rod and UBI, saving billions in the process and at the same time reducing the state originated horrors which there will be no room for in the future. Yes, how about that as a sound starting point.
What is truly surprising is that they at the same time advocate mass immigration to industrialized countries while they spout this kklimateee nonsense. Total cognitive dissonance.
I got a call from a electricity company asking me if I was interested in having a “Green” premium on my bill. You all know that scam, don’t you?
I quickly asked the peddler on the other end if he got some dirty coal electrons at a cheaper rate, which I would be much more interested in.
The call ended quickly. 🙂
Whatever went into the manufacture of the yacht is sunk cost, and has no relevance to its present use, by Greta or anyone else. And to mock a sixteen year old schoolgirl for making a truly noble gesture, whatever one might think of it, is absolutely despicable.
Anecdotal. The guy who just moved in the apartment below me here in western NC is a Toyota car salesman. In July, he sold 22 vehicles, all but one or two leased. This August, he sold only 14, again leases on nearly all. 12,000 or 18,000 miles per year option, first month payment is the down payment he says. Huh? I always thought you had to put several thousand down (in order to pay for the depreciation costs the dealer incurs when the 3 year lease is up?)
I seem to think that the cars are appearing older, with more dents not repaired- I guess until the lease expires at which time the owner will have to cough up the tendered insurance payment he has been holding? Am I wrong on this or just searching for confirmation bias?
Meanwhile, the only things that are being built are huge apartment complexes. Not a single unit house in two years.
People stall their purchases and wait for the EV’s to hit the street en masse.
https://youtu.be/uF_l3jsbitQ
And the car companies think that somehow subsidies will last, making this all happen.
The electrification shift have brought a lot of new capital and software/hardware people into a stagnant field. ADAS and electrification is a gold mine for investors in the supply chain.
Thus the subsidies will be there for the foreseeable future. Well, at least as long as people keep accepting and perpetrating BAU, which shows no sign of waning.
“…I was overcome by a sense of dread. A decade of historically low interest rates has begun to warp our economy. As we learned to our collective horror during the 2008 financial crisis, a period of sustained low interest rates forces investors on a desperate search for higher yields, inflating asset prices and the risks of owning loans and debt of all kinds…
“All that risk is not hidden on the balance sheets of the big Wall Street banks, as it was during the 2008 financial crisis. But it doesn’t just disappear into thin air. Like the oxygen we breathe but cannot see, it’s all around us, in hedge funds, private equity firms, and pension funds and university endowments that have been investing in risky debt, in the form of corporate bonds and other securities, to the tune of trillions of dollars…
“There is plenty of additional risk hiding in the undisclosed obligations of private companies and in the “shadow banking system,” nonbank financial institutions that have sprung up in the past decade to hold the risk that the Federal Reserve insisted, after the 2008 financial crisis, that Wall Street avoid.
“So what would happen if interest rates did increase slightly, or if the economy dipped into a recession, and some of those overleveraged companies could no longer meet their interest payments? It wouldn’t be pretty…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/opinion/sunday/trump-fed-recession.html
“…many Americans feel left out of the apparent boom. Rising costs and debt, stagnant wages, and high and rising inequality create a sense of a two-track economy, where the winners get richer and everyone else has to run faster just to stay where they are. Here are 10 charts that break down why people are struggling, even when the economy appears so strong.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/charts-why-us-economy-feels-bad-2019-8?r=US&IR=T
This link has some interesting charts. Even more interesting, I thought, was that one of the charts pointed to a database that I wasn’t aware of called World Inequality Database. It has a lot of data that it seems to offer free to the public, as well as graphs it has put together.
These are a couple I found.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/world-top-1-percent-national-income-share-world-inequality.png-database.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/usa-income-inquality-world-inequality-database.png
Or maybe the Fed can’t save us.
“Us” is such a broad term. Perhaps they can save enough people?
Ah yes, disaster: “The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return”.
In other words, an economy based almost entirely on false values collapses, and perhaps, in the aftermath, true values return. Which the New York Times, which has espoused false values for almost a century, regards as a catastrophe. But perhaps it will be a liberation, and one most sorely needed.
“Since December 31, 2018
“Negative-yielding debt in the Americas has fallen from $332.4 billion to $40.3 billion, a decline of $291.1 billion.
“Negative-yielding debt worldwide has risen from $8.3 trillion to $17.0 trillion, an increase of $8.7 trillion.
“30% of investment-grade (non-junk) debt now has a negative yield.
“This is of course an amazing bubble. But for now, there is no catalyst to pop it.”
https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/economics/negative-yielding-debt-tops-17-trillion-bubble-keeps-expanding–mtMFlMaSkmJ3RQw-GG19w/
Wow! If negative debt is for trading, not holding, then the catalyst that pops it could be if interest rates stop falling.
“India’s economy had annual growth of 5.0 per cent in the April-June quarter, the slowest in more than six years, dragged down by weak consumer demand and private investments, government data showed on Friday… For April-June 2018, India reported 8 per cent growth… “Very clearly the slowdown has been much stronger than expected.”
https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/india-economic-slowdown-gdp-growth-falls-experts-views-1593836-2019-08-31
“With every passing day, India’s economic indicators are turning a little bleaker. The situation is bad enough to warrant using the word “crisis,” arriving just as the government’s fiscal ammunition is spent…
“On Sunday, the top six carmakers reported a 29% drop in August sales, stoking fears that the slowdown could get still worse.
“Whether folding one weak bank into another will make the combined entity any stronger remains to be seen…
“A hefty injection of 552.5 billion rupees of taxpayers’ money into the merged banks will only help them provide for the bad loans that will get lumped together. Capital for growth remains elusive…
“Weakening global growth means India can’t even use a weak currency to export its way out of trouble.”
https://theprint.in/economy/modis-bank-mergers-have-come-too-late-to-avoid-an-economic-crisis/285319/
Oh, dear! And they don’t really work.
The U.S. manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers’ index) was 49.9 in August, down from 50.4 in July.
The reading is below the neutral 50.0 threshold for the first time since September 2009, according to IHS Markit. Any reading below 50 signals a contraction.
The UK’s is down at 47.4 and Germany’s is even worse at 43.5.
The Department of Energy recently procured this new beast of exascale computation. Be ready for total Trumpland dominance in the foreseeable future. Watch in awe as the policies regarding energy and economy will be churned out in real time at a unprecedented rate.
“Now the lab enters a new era of discovery and innovation with Frontier ― their first exascale supercomputer. Able to perform one quintillion operations per second, Frontier will be built on Cray’s revolutionary new Shasta™ supercomputing platform.”
https://youtu.be/Oe03udqq23Q
Jim Keller, Lisa Su and Thomas Zacharia are very inspirational leaders. Thy don’t carry that awful stink from corporate dr0nes.
Here’s the problem: for every advance like this, we take a step backwards when it comes to system dynamics. The system itself is not stable, it either grows continously or collapses.
Another problem: technology is used to advance control by the corporations. They want nothing less than a total realization of the system, everybody everywhere brought in line or else. What do you notice about our world today? It’s totalitarian. No discussion is allowed, alternatives are shut down.
Supercomputing are crucial for predicting the near-term future. Specially on a planet where there are true totalitarian regimes seeking to dominate the world order.
Supercomputing is essential for guaranteeing the stability and security of the systems of the free world.
The models we put together tend to be ridiculous. They are set up the way we think it would be nice if the system operated. I see this over and over again. They are set up with the wrong constraints. Everything can substitute for everything else. Variability is no problem. Citizens will be able to afford absurdly high-priced devices. The electrical grid will last forever.
Wrong models may help lead others down the wrong path. A faster computer may facilitate this. But putting some thought into the whole system first would be a whole lot better idea.
Do you consider the LTG model as ridiculous and irrelevant?
Imagine that model but a few magnitudes more predictive incorporating decades of digitalized data to drive it.
The limits on the LTG model have not been computing power, that I have seen. The limits on the model have been not understanding how the financial system (including debt) integrates with the rest of the system.
To some extent, I have been involved with trying to get this issue fixed. I have had correspondence with the folks involved. Also, one of the actuarial organizations had funds that were available, with a suitable proposal. But the big roadblock has been a lack of understanding of how the financial system worked and integrated with the rest of the system. Lack of computing power has not been an issue.
It is a flaw in where a trained model has very good accuracy, but yet occasionally spits out false positives.
Creating a all-encompassing model of the economy-energy system which drives technological innovation forward surely must be a daunting task, if not intractable.
https://youtu.be/YRzGSp_bO1M
Exactly: effectively, Totalitarianism is here, and we are wholly immersed in propaganda and mass manipulation in the public -and increasingly the private – sphere.
The tech corporations aspire to be the new feudal powers, whose services we must use and whose fees we must pay, or expire as social outlaws.
The cancel culture is on the way to the dustbin of history, perpetrated by mostly hypocrite leftist/liberals and pseudo-commies.
They want you to share the same misery they have, just like all other manifestations of envy and misfortune which is a tell tale sign of collectivism and state controlled horrors.
First, the word procure means they placed the order. It does not mean the machine exists. It will be two to three years before it is actually ready to use.
As to what is good for: mostly nuclear explosion simulations and then some weather.
Oh, do you believe everything you are fed? You have to listen carefully, read between the lines, ORNL’s director stated about using it to predict the future. You get the official statement to motivate the tax dollar spent.
There is no need for expensive real-time computation performance to compute hydrodynamic, magnetohydrodynamic and nuclear processes, those can be made using much cheaper methods.
When it comes to real-time predictions of the current state of affairs in the world economy, there is no substitute for supercompute to crack codes, test and make effective policy.
https://www.bikalims.org/images/SmokeandMirrorsmeme.jpg
An exascale computer is the same as any other scale computer – it is a gigofilter.
If really bad garbage is fed in, really bad garbage will come out, and since the programmer has not read our host and/or Dr. Morgan the predictions of the future produced will be garbage.
Dr. Morgan’s new post actually provides a short template from which the “genius” and “really great guy” that runs the Energy Department could produce reasonable models.
Who is that smart guy again?? Hairy, Marry … i don’t recall
It is simple to test failure to implement effective policy by not implementing them and then analyze the outcome. Plus there is enormous amounts of accurate historical data to use in the validation process.
The problem is if the adversary has the same compute capability, it will mess up your predictions by making policy of its own possible counteracting or reinforcing yours. Thus to be ahead of the game with deploying more real-time exascale computation is essential for the continuation of the free world.
Many, many years ago, a colleague and I spent some time with the “Treasury Model” of the UK economy, a computer program that told the government what the effect of certain policies would be. So, increase income tax by 2%, and …
We suspected this was a lousy model, because the company that made it, a mainframe company, had arranged that it could run only on one of their mainframes. So, sell one to the government, and you will sell hundreds to organisations that want to second guess the government. If it walks like a scam and quacks like a scam, …
Well, we did a “sensitivity analysis”: if you make a small change in the assumptions, such as next year’s inflation rate, what happens to the output? Answer: the equations were hopelessly illconditioned, so a 2% change in an assumption could easily give a 20% change in the prediction. In other words, you were pretty much guaranteed to get garbage out.
No wonder the UK economy was on a steep downhill slope, until Margaret Thatcher put an end to the folly.
Garbage in – garbage out.
Interesting that you have been working on computer simulations of economic systems. Could you tell us more?
I suppose these systems have come a long way since as has most simulation software.
Thank you Kowalainen.
I have never “worked” on such simulations, in the sense of being paid to do it. I have studied them as personal applied research. The great majority were devised by economists, and had a few systemic flaws. One: several of them practiced static analysis, assuming variables were independent. Of course, most economists are ignorant of game theory, in spite of von Neumann’s and Morgenstern’s best efforts. (A much read book in my personal library)
Two: the better ones assumed that humans were rational agents, and would react rationally. So, if a luxury yacht with a 15% luxury tax still had a use value greater then the purchase price, the millionaire would still buy it. Which of course turned out to be flat wrong: morality and an intrinsic sense of fairness falsified that assumption.
Three: almost all of them discounted the future. Thus, if prices fell, people would buy more. But when prices fell, people bought no more, but saved the difference, because they valued future financial security more than present consumption.
And so on…
Bottom line: the problem is not with the software, it is with the people specifying what that software should do. I see no sign that this situation is improving; indeed, I view Modern Monetary Theory as another instance of applied Hopium.
Economics is indeed viewed as a fluff piece for most engineers and scientists. It is why the most successful companies have engineers and scientists in charge, because flawed and incomplete economic dogma can’t get in the way of objective reality and the conversion of innovation into economic leverage.
As one tale from the _AI_ world goes; “for every linguist removed from the team, the performance of the speech recognition algorithms improved by an order of magnitude.”
The same probably holds true for what it’s going on at ORNL: “No economic dogma allowed inside this machine”
“Economics is indeed viewed as a fluff piece for most engineers”
I don’t think that is the case. Engineers tend to be deeply concerned about cost. I have personally spent the last 12 years getting the cost of power satellites down to where they could capture market share. Google design to cost. For my take on power satellites, https://htyp.org/design_to_cost
I was thinking about the field of economics.
Saving money on the BOM in a satellite system is just common sense.
Which reminds me of the research we did on what was then the Cray supercomputer. My bottom line: “wrong answers faster”. Colour me cynical, because however clever computers may become, their designers, builders, and programmers remain human stupid.
Yet they are superhuman in tasks believed to be intractable for computers. For example the best chess players are now algorithms going at it among themselves. Humans are swiftly dispatched with. Now that also holds true for the game of Go.
The stock market is mostly automated. The same is occurring in finance, medicine and now algorithms are coming for truckers with automated semis.
https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU
And meanwhile number of machine builders continue to increase.
And for every machine builder times the number of machines he builds, 1000 regular “workers” becomes irrelevant and shafted into “jobs” which consists of frippery.
Now you do the maths.
An it get any worse!?
Tit for tat….more, more, more…Dec 15th more tariffs and China follows suit.
MAGA!
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/trump-heaps-more-tariffs-china-230854399.html
Trump Heaps More Tariffs; China Retaliates
BloombergSeptember 1, 2019, 7:08 PM EDT
Sep.01 — The Trump administration slapped tariffs on roughly $110 billion in Chinese imports on Sunday. China retaliated. Meanwhile, the outlook for China’s manufacturing sector deteriorated further in August. Tom Mackenzie reports on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Australia
Essentially, all Chinese Imports will have tariffs by Dec 15th!
You better believe it!
At some point, a person might think this would stop. Trump picked a day the US stock market was closed to make his pronouncements.
Rescued China Lender Suspends Payments on Dollar Securities
(Bloomberg) — A regional Chinese lender under the spotlight for liquidity strains plans to suspend dividend payments on its offshore preference shares, sending indicated prices on those securities tumbling.
Bank of Jinzhou Co., which was the subject of a government-orchestrated rescue in July, said Sunday that it’s seeking shareholder approval to halt dividends for the year through Oct. 26. That’s after its capital-adequacy ratios failed to meet regulatory requirements.
The bank’s dollar AT1s — the riskiest type of bank bonds — tumbled by some 20 cents on the dollar, according to traders contacted by Bloomberg. That suggests the news came as a surprise to some market players, even though officials had moved to shore up the lender in the wake of the seizure of one of its peers by regulators over a raft of troubles…..
Friday, Bank of Jinzhou made its first earnings announcement in a year, reporting its first-ever loss — of 4.6 billion yuan ($642 million) for 2018.Bank of Jinzhou’s capital-adequacy ratio, a key measure of financial strength, slumped to 7.47% as of June 30, from 9.12% as of Dec. 31 and 11.67% in 2017. The figure is now well below the 10.5% regulatory minimum for China’s non-systemically important banks. Bank of Jinzhou’s non-performing loan ratio surged to 6.88% in June, from 1.04% at the end of 2017.
Ivestors have been jittery ever since the shock government takeover of Baoshang Bank Co. in May, which imposed losses on some creditors. That move had sent borrowing costs for lower-rated banks soaring, before moves by regulators to ensure liquidity helped that premium come back down
Do I feel the earth shake under my feet?
A person wonders about all of this. With factories operating fewer hours, the number of companies with financial problems is certain to rise. There is also the issue of one company guaranteeing another’s debts. And we aren’t sure that non-performing loans are really as low as they claim. It seems like a lot of bad things could happen, especially if the yuan falls further relative to the dollar.
Do I feel the whiff of UBI coming this way? It will happen, it must happen.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL1l7L-UcAEjPhe.png
One of Milton Friedman’s sillier ideas. If I can get free money by making myself needy, why shouldn’t I spend, spend, spend until I’m eligible? And if enough of us do the same, the demand for ever more generous free money will become irresistible. As happened to Social Security and Medicare. Imagine “Social Security for all”, even schoolkids who run through their weekly pocket money in two days. Or imagine “Medicare for all” … oops, we probably don’t need to because it is going to happen.
Where he goes wrong is that it is means-tested, not universal.
“Where he goes wrong is that it is means-tested, not universal.”
Ah yes, Phillip Longman in “The Return of Thrift” made a similar suggestion: control the explosive growth of entitlements by means testing them.
In other words, foster thrift by penalising the thrifty. Only an economist could be so stupid.
You will be entitled to UBI/Negative tax, no spending schemes will improve things for you.
https://youtu.be/xtpgkX588nM
Earth’s wealth of hydrocarbons seems to be serving several purposes for the Creator God and his allies, as I see it. Most obviously, there are more people available to join his family, following the firstborn Jesus Christ. Inexpensive food has allowed more opportunity for leisure and contemplation, allowing some to progress to maturity while others waste their freedom on vain pursuits–a test of character. Human society has been on a collision course with failure since the beginning, and God is making only a few careful interventions where invited so that no one can accuse him of causing the failure. Rather, it will be demonstrated to be our fault for not trusting him, according to the pattern of narcissism. Sometimes when narcissists are no longer winning, some of them can be led to repentance, and God so loves even the narcissists that he’ll use the upcoming failures to move them into reality.
I realize this is a version of Christian theodicy, and there are many barriers for a thinking person to adopt it. To start, I recommend reexamining some of the laws of physics, for example Barry Setterfield’s startling research around hc=constant, which is to say the speed of light is not constant, but rather the invariant is Planck’s Constant multiplied by the speed of light. I have a degree in physics, and for years I thought there was nothing amiss with the standard models, but now I notice how a great many of the current mysteries in cosmology and astrophysics are related to this wrong assumption. And it also greatly reduces cognitive dissonance between science and Biblical accounts of history.
good grief, where’s Fast Eddy when we really need him?
🙂
We don’t need Eddy and his one sided opinion blocking view.
I prefer to hear both sides of a discussion thank you.
Don’t worry, once you depart from the imminent d00m narrat1ve, you will be blocked.
you forgot to cap “Him”
that’ll mean a few questions and delays when you get to the pearly gates
You say,
Could you elaborate further, or point to some references. Some of us don’t have degrees in physics.
I can provide more information, though I remain too busy to write about this in the thoroughgoing way I’d prefer, hence my suggestion of Barry Setterfield’s research available at setterfield.org. I’ll also say that my physics degree is a B.S. from the U of Washington, and I would not dare call myself a physicist but merely someone interested and capable of wrangling equations, among other pursuits.
The matter of hc=constant, in brief outline, is that historical experimental measurements of h and c strongly suggest that they have been changing, perhaps an exponential decrease with time combined with a damped oscillation in the case of c. You can see a cart of this phenomenon here if you don’t mind pushing the “compile” button on some elm code, since I can’t easily host it at the moment: https://ellie-app.com/4MQTb2cj8xsa1 . Similar charts for h/e and e (for control) are here https://ellie-app.com/4P3n6wtxTwGa1 and here https://ellie-app.com/4P3kMcSyKbpa1 . You can see that e has stayed within the confidence intervals, with a few blatant exceptions, as you would expect for a physical constant and seventy years of careful experiments. This data comes by way of Setterfield’s “The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time” (1987).
But it is not the most significant data on h and c, which comes instead from the radio astronomy observaton of regular periodicity in redshift, the so-called quantized redshift. This has become a sore point and often denied among astronomers who’ve heard of it, since redshift as relative motion would not produce periodicity, so the Doppler effect may be entirely the wrong explanation. However, the emission spectra of atoms returning to their low-energy state is determined in part by Planck’s constant, h. What if what was actually going on was that the permittivity of free space (described by h) was changing wth time, and just as light when passing through water or a crystal slows down according to the index of refraction, light has been slowing as it passes though an increasingly “dense” medium of empty space? And this “density” was the result of more virtual particle pairs coming in and out of existence, which is the zero point energy associated with h? And the atoms of the past had lower-energy ground states that to us appear redshited since there was less buffeting from virtual particles? Makes sense to me. Setterfield explains it more rigorously, and the field of stochastic electrodynamics applies the appropriate math.
Now, if the speed of light were greater in the past by the amount measured from the redshift, the universe is probably not so old. There would actually be two ways of measurement: the now-official atomic transitions of a cesium atom that are used by atomic clocks and time defined by movement, such as a trip by the earth around the sun. Thus I can affirm that the earth is both 4.5 billion years old (give or take) and also perhaps only a few thousand years old, according to your unit of measurement. This was a welcome relief for me, since for fifteen years after learning of the Oklo natural nuclear reactors, which could only be around two billion years old according isotope ratios and uniform rates of decay, I could actually fit both the geological data of catastrophism and the Biblical timelines of those catastrophes. There are also many implication for astronomy, since handwaving over long periods of time to allow star and galaxy formation by gravity is no longer an option, whereas the much stronger electromagnetic force would have acted faster in the past due to the speed of light. The discovery of plasmas everywhere is no longer a curious sideshow, but a very satisfying main explanation for most everything.
correction: “few thousand years” here means less than 10,000.
“This was a welcome relief for me, since for fifteen years after learning of the Oklo natural nuclear reactors, which could only be around two billion years old according isotope ratios and uniform rates of decay …”
The last four words are the false assumption. The rates of decay were not uniform, since the nuclear reaction (the decay of U235) required a water moderator. The rocks themselves are much older than the reactor.
I’m not sure I understand your point. I think you’re talking about the fission reaction itself, since you mention the water moderator, but prior to fission there must be adequate levels of U-235, and those levels don’t exist today without artificial enrichment. But two billion years ago (atomic time) there was enough U-235 to sustain a reaction. I’m sure the surrounding rocks were somewhat older since the U was in secondary minerals, hydrothermal deposits with algae if I remember correctly.
Sorry, Mike, I think that also is wrong. The amount of U235 is not really relevant; the chain reaction cannot be triggered by the fast neutrons emitted, but only by slower neutrons, hence the need for a moderator.
“The amount of U235”
Sorry Robert, but Mike is right. Google natural u235 reactors. I remember reading about this in Sci Am when it came out.
The Wikipedia article is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor
“A natural nuclear reactor is therefore no longer possible on Earth without heavy water or graphite”
I followed hkeithhenson’s advice and indeed googled “natural u235 reactors”. Here is the crucial quote:
“The natural nuclear reactor formed when a uranium-rich mineral deposit became inundated with groundwater that acted as a neutron moderator, and a nuclear chain reaction took place.”
Which seems to be exactly what I said.
“Which seems to be exactly what I said.”
Right. But Mike is right that the U-235 decay in the last 2 billion years precludes this happening today.
Thanks!
I am afraid that I never believed the seven day creation story to be anything other than a myth, useful for comparison with other myths popular a few thousand years ago. For example, this god is interested in people living together in reasonable harmony. He is also interested in looking out for the welfare of others. By giving all workers a day off every severn days, even the slaves are given some time for their own needs.
I’m pleased to be able to give my perspective and am aware that your is different, having read every article and most of the comments you’ve written here for the last three years. In response, I would say that I’m not arguing from a commitment to a literal seven-day creation. Though that’s quite possible, many thinkers I admire interpret it allegorically, and I don’t waste much time trying to correct them. A person has to be innately curious and be given the opportunity to consider alternative theories, and most of us have more pressing responsibilities. But what an amazing thing to find a satisfying theory, with its beauty and explanatory power!
Oh well, what’s a few years on hold….
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dubai-halts-mega-airport-project-151003656.html
Bloomberg) — Work on Dubai’s Al Maktoum airport, designed to be one of the world’s biggest with an annual capacity of more than 250 million passengers, is on hold as Gulf Arab economies falter, people familiar with the matter said.
Construction activity has been halted and finances for expansion frozen until further notice, according to the people, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the topic.
The completion date for the first phase of the airport, envisaged as a $36 billion super-hub allowing locally based airline Emirates to consolidate its position as the world’s No. 1 long-haul carrier, had already been pushed back five years to 2030 in October….
In a statement to Bloomberg, Dubai Airports said it’s reviewing the long-term master plan and that “exact timelines and details of next steps are not as yet finalized.” It said it aims to ensure development takes full advantage of emerging technologies, responds to consumer trends and preferences, and optimizes investment.
Dubai’s economy grew at the slowest pace since 2010 last year as the Gulf’s chief commercial center grappled with fallout from geopolitical tensions and a low oil price.
Ah, things will change soon enough! Every airport has a Master Plan and the key word is expansion and growth….can’t help themselves
Definitely hurts world demand, however.
Emirates and Dubai airport have based their success on being the major world interchange for long distance flights. From here in UK it is normal to transit through Dubai to get to the far east, Australia etc. But I can see the advent of smaller, point to point, long distance airliners eating into that model. I’d hate to be in economy for a 17+ hour non stop flight, but even if Emirates only lose their first and business class passengers, their whole model may collapse. They won’t need Al Maktoum.
Good point!
“Dubai real estate prices have hit their lowest point since the 2008 financial crisis, dropping 15.3% year-on-year as of this June, according to a report.”
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/09/article/dubai-housing-market-dips-lowest-since-2008/
on BBC world service this morning there was one of the head honchos from NASA, (with several degrees in astro-whatsits) extolling the benefits of extended mass space travel
quote: well look how travel increased prosperity for humanity in the 20th c.
——-
I still keep looking around for something I’ve missed on the travel business, but so far I can’t think what it is.
repeat after me: travel makes you rich—travel makes you rich
The ultimate ego trip must be a one-way ticket to a Muskian Mars colony.
Children of earth going to a planet of certain death and misery. Mm, yeah.. 🙂 I certainly want to smoke the same thing Elon likes to do while he escapes Earthly BAU for a moment, but I am not quite convinced that Mars is the answer.
https://i.imgflip.com/2iwf56.jpg
Let’s all become travel agents!
I don’t know about you, but I would much rather break into a vault that had gold than one holding silly paper fiat.
The point was rather about the fact that fin institutions starting to hord cash would not last very long since the leverage of existing (or capacity to issue new one quickly/silently) paper money vs digital is huge.. So for one thing this strategy if going widespread would be halted by CB/govs pretty quickly anyway, but with the option of alerting the public at large into chaos mode..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WclYu5l4G0
Asset manager claims (mid Aug2019) direct personal knowledge of European pension fund considering liquidation of ~8B in gov bonds into vault stored cash because of the negative yield environment.. Is this a legit guy? His overall story/pitch is very China/EM oriented. Plus obviously not being versed in OFW scenarios doesn’t get that even should Asia survive the next GFC_ver_xy in better shape vs. West thanks to real producing assets intact, there is still the problem of bankrupt consumers not buying their production (as much) anymore..
Unless I’m brain dead (while checking him out) or they are on purpose using very similar name, this is supposedly from a legit AUM ~300B company (Aberdeen AM).
ps my feeling is that such story about the cash is kind of urban legend – encountering it several times over the years already..
He talks a lot of sense, although (I assume for professional reasons) his analysis underplays the vulnerabilities of the EM’s + China relative to the West.
And of course many OFW readers will beg to differ when he suggests that further economic growth led by reinvigorated EM nations lies on the other side of the coming financial crisis and depression.
Some EM’s looking decidedly sickly right about now:
“Argentina’s government imposed capital controls to halt a slump in foreign currency reserves and the peso that has pushed the country to the brink of default.
“The central bank set a limit of 5 days for exporters to repatriate foreign currency, while institutions will need authorization of the bank to buy dollars in the foreign exchange market…
“The announcement comes as Argentina’s currency crisis spirals out of control. About $3 billion drained out of foreign currency reserves on Thursday and Friday alone as the government struggled to repay short-term debt and slow the drop in the peso.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-01/argentina-imposes-currency-controls-as-debt-crisis-escalates
“Cash-strapped Eskom [South African’s public energy utility] is in deep financial crisis with billions of rand in irregular expenditure. But in a report its auditors say no action has been taken against officials implicated.
“The irregular expenditure is in addition to massive losses, escalating debt and maintenance costs amounting to hundreds of billions of rand.”
“…The audited financial statements showed that the company would not be able to get out of trouble soon.
“It is battling to stay afloat and depends on the government bailouts.”
https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/cash-strapped-eskoms-financial-woes-deepen-31573432
Not to mention peak coal!
The [UK] government’s £100m ‘Get Ready for [no-deal] Brexit’ ad campaign has just been launched:
“It’s set to be the biggest public information campaign since World War Two…
“Michael Gove, cabinet minister in charge of no-deal Brexit preparations, said: “Ensuring an orderly Brexit is not only a matter of national importance, but a shared responsibility.””
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/get-ready-for-brexit-government-launches-pr-campaign-to-prepare-public-for-eu-exit-11799748
It is difficult to think of all of the things that go wrong. “It may be harder to take you pet abroad,” is not one of the things I would have thought of.
“UK Factory output continues to fall, defying hopes of another boost from Brexit stockpiling and fuelling fears that Britain is heading for recession.
“Data from manufacturers’ body Make UK and accountants BDO due out this week will show no repeat of the stockpiling seen in the run-up to the original March 29 Brexit deadline, as companies use up parts instead.
“The survey will also show slumping confidence, falling domestic orders and shrinking profit margins.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/recession-fears-grow-as-factories-stutter-again-hwmmvvsnd
Too much of a Good Thing!?
Huge Returns Raise Risk Alarm at $230 Billion Funds in Denmark
Frances Schwartzkopff
BloombergSeptember 1, 2019, 12:00 AM EDT
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/huge-returns-raise-risk-alarm-040000386.html
Bloomberg) — The two biggest funds in the world’s top performing pension market just delivered some of their best returns ever. But their results may be a cause for concern.
Part of the reason they did so well was that virtually all asset classes in their portfolios rose in value in the first half of the year. At ATP and PFA, which oversee a combined $230 billion from their headquarters in Denmark, the worry is that the near lock-step movement of bonds and stocks will make it hard to limit losses through diversification, once markets turn.
Last week, ATP reported an adjusted rate of return of about 32% for the first six months of the year, roughly double what’s normal for the fund. Foged says the tandem movement across asset classes doesn’t bode well, especially given fears of a recession. “If it can go up, it can also go down,” he said
….With a trade war between the U.S. and China, a potential no-deal Brexit and the threat of a recession all on the horizon, pension funds are devoting extra time to shielding portfolios from the worst. That follows years of struggling to adjust to ultra-low interest rates that have driven many funds into increasingly exotic asset classes in an effort to generate extra returns.
In Denmark, where the central bank uses policy to keep the krone pegged to the euro, asset managers have lived with negative rates for seven years. They’re now bracing for more, with one prominent bank CEO in the country recently warning that rates may not turn positive again for another eight years
After delivering outsized returns in the first six months of the year, both PFA and ATP have more money to invest. In more normal times, they’d turn to riskier assets. But not now.
“Normally, investment procedure would dictate that you take more risk. You have to re-balance in order to maintain returns,” Foged said. But he says ATP is now taking another look at the impact negative rates are having on his fund’s business model.
Where the Action IS…Good Thing…remember back when?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H_OGBZ3e2Wg
If returns are being distorted by investable funds being available with an interest rate that is virtually zero (or even negative), that is a problem. If this free money goes away, all of the asset classes will have a problem.
Do I smell something fishy here!?
When it comes to the future of humanity,Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Alibaba founder Jack Ma disagree on whether people should be scared by the potential of artificial intelligence. Ma is optimistic about AI, while Musk is more apocalyptic. But the two billionaire businessmen do agree on the biggest problem the world will face in the future: not enough people.
“Most people think we have too many people on the planet, but actually, this is an outdated view,” Musk said while on stage with Ma at at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Wednesday. “Assuming there is a benevolent future with AI, I think the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse.”
“The biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse. Not explosion. Collapse.
The world not facing collapse dear super smart Smarties…it’s the PEOPLE….not too smart!
People are not the “world”.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/08/30/elon-musk-jack-ma-biggest-problem-world-will-face-is-population-drop.html
P$ Easy to claim not enough of people when you are sitting on a full belly of food and not worrying about your next meal😜😜
We aren’t even close to population collapse. But eventually, yes, we’ll get there. Probably peak population in something like 20-30 years, then collapse.
Limits to growth is correct: population lags resource decline, because of momentum and because people can make do with less resources.
Population collapse is likely to be rather rapid once food and / or pharmaceuticals supply stops. In the past, inhabitants of a civilisation that ran low on food could move elsewhere. This time, however, we are looking at global collapse. We can live long lives without smartphones and freedom of speech, but only a month without food – and we all know that instinctively. As others here have pointed out, once the food disappears from the shelves or people are unable to buy the food that is available, it’s all over. The French Revolution being an historical example of what can happen, but without the promise of something better over the horizon.
I think a lack of clean water will be a problem early on. People will catch diseases, even apart from any shortage of food.
” lack of clean water”
My guess is that the governments will make a maximum effort to keep the water supplies working.
Maintaining clean water is difficult when the electricity is not working.
Electricity . . .
That depends on the specifics of the water supply. For example, NYC’s water supply is gravity fed. It uses close to no electric power. Los Angeles is a rather different and far more complicated situation. Still, the water supply could be maintained for a considerable time on the energy available from hydro supplies.
Drinking water is a substantial problem, but water for fire suppression is almost as important.
Maintaining clean water may have been difficult, but the Romans found out how to do it. The energy required had a simple and sustainable source: gravity. And the (Roman) hot spring I bathed in in Cappadocia, and the (Edo) one I bathed in in Hokkaido didn’t need electricity.
Of course, that will not work with a population density well into overshoot. But perhaps it is a small reminder from Nature that electricity is part of our predicament.
Keith: NYC water may be gravity fed, but it is the clean part I am concerned about. There are whole books written about drinking water treatment. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/drinking-water-treatment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_water_supply_system
Because they have been proactive in keeping pollution sources out of the watershed, NYC water takes relatively little treatment to keep the water clean.
There are not many such water systems, San Francisco is the only other one I can think of.
You are correct that keeping drinking water clean is an industrial scale problem. One of several needed to keep large populations in existence.
My guess is they will bring out former President Obama to reassure people that their water is safe to drink. 🙂
https://youtu.be/eatVex-REdM
How very convincing. Not.
Roll out the Buffon in charge and let him take a minuscule sip of the contaminated liquid. Or better even, let him take a sip of bottled quadruple filtered cold spring water faking the whole thing.
https://www.sott.net/image/s12/241844/full/hopium.png
The longer Muskovian (Muskadian?) factories continue churn these battery packs and so on the better for a transition to nowhere.. On the other hand as always the overall near/midterm collapse scenario is probable and not given..
My pick of top three / five boiled down factors to watch and familiarize with..
– (im)possibility of mass adoption of dense/cheap “solid state” batteries due to some overall physical realm constraint forcing / locking it away
– (im)possibility of opening up Arctic shelf oil at reasonable cost (or subsidy via coal/uranium/..) since the area is probably dozen+ times bigger bonanza than all the aggregate of Alaska, North Sea, SE Asia etc..
– (abrupt) onslaught of severe little ice age or shift to proper ice age itself
– (inevitability of) nuclear war
Given what we know, and what we think we know, your list of rather unpleasant possibilities seems very reasonable. However, I am confidently expecting something to turn up.
https://youtu.be/FjhcvknDy-8
A parable I wrote many years ago, about “something turning up”:
One day, many million years ago, the advanced and benevolent beings from Epsilon Eridani arrived in the Solar System, and visited the Fifth Planet.
“Our technology is far more advanced that yours. Perhaps you need our benevolent help. What would you like us to do?”
And the inhabitants of the Fifth Planet replied: “We want you to end all suffering on this world, now and forever'”
And they did.
Elon is the man who wants to build a manned base on Mars. 🙂
Of course Elon wants more people. More, more, more people means buyers of his mass produced vehicles, spaceships, dreams and delusions. The Muskian sect is indeed creepy liberals.
The threat of AI is real for Elon’s business interests, no one needs to own a vehicle if there is one available on the street at any time without the hassle and expense of owning one. Then it is the question of the most easily automated system in mankind’s arsenal of mass transportation devices: Trains which follows tracks followed by already mostly automated aircraft, ships and soon trucking.
I prefer the dark, yet sobering thoughts by Sam Harris of the inevitability and consequences of AI:
https://youtu.be/8nt3edWLgIg
Someone here said that the fossil-fuel-based infrastructure was like a fireworks show (limited time only) — why not put it to music?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNqJ8mED1VE
(That drum duet at the end of the first section isn’t in the score — that’s the English)
Nice!
More than nice: did you observe the authentic baroque instruments? Horn, oboe, trumpet. The Baroque was the great age of Western music, and its unassailable summit was, of course, Johann Sebastian Bach. But Handel came close.
Nature does not form singularities.
Division by zero isn’t infinity, zero division is simply undefined.
The monetary/finance system consists of fictive entities defined as bits and bytes in computer systems. Prosperity needs natural resources to be realizable. The less people that consumes natural resources, the more will be left for future generations. With a shrinking population this joint can be kept open to the end of the century and beyond.
I guess this has finally started to sink into the collective awareness.
https://cdn3.geckoandfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/nikola-tesla-quotes-01.jpg
Our current digital fin system is only different manifestation (update) of previously achieved full (spectrum) monetized economy, which is only one of many possible pre-existing models of social and economic formation known to humanoids. For example after the fall of Rome it took another ~1k+ yrs for another fully monetized system to emerge in these various merchant hubs living yet under overall predominant fully dominated feudalistic system, which in itself died out sometime in the mid 19th century. People often mix up (or get stuck on) the peculiar role of slavery inside otherwise fully monetized system of the ancient world vs later feudalism (its early-mid stages), two totally different systems.
Similarly today’s system could crash into something very different (e.g. demonetized more barter like), obviously taking much of today’s tech complexity with it, but that doesn’t mean other forms of civ won’t / can’t be attempted and so on..
The monetary system will survive since it is completely fictive. Bits and bytes does not collapse, books and cities can be burned. Distributed computer systems different from today’s brutalist data/compute centers will emerge as energy limits hit. Distributed systems can have any amount of redundancy built in. Bits and bytes are just book keeping “helpers” in computerized storage systems. Reliable book keeping is fundamental for all monetary systems. Collapse will, however, be in prosperity.
Already today prosperity is on the wane, despite the enormous amount of goods and services shoved down our throats. The industrial civilization can, and will, take a large cut in goods and services without affecting prosperity in the slightest, because the grand majority tonnage of the stuff that is produced is almost completely automated, for example agriculture and food production. The next generation of farming equipment will have no drivers seat. The same goes for most transportation and useless government functions, most of them, actually. This will be transformative.
UBI will be a reality. People will move out closer to nature, grab their rifles and fishing rod, enjoying the warmer and greening earth and the unintended spoils from 200 years of heavy industry and it’s CO2 emissions.
Industry was necessary to get out the sedimentary trapped carbon and other elements into the atmosphere and surface. If anything is to be believed is that Gaia is something more than a stupid rock floating around the sun in the emptiness of interstellar space. We are not born into this planet. We are Earth.
As the climate got colder as more carbon got trapped in the crust, bigger brains were required to prosper in an increasingly severe environment. Evolution makes it inevitable. It is all a process towards universal and connected intelligence, now are we going to do it, or are we going to do it while suffering. Well, the choice is ours to make.
https://www.goalcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/alan-watts-quote-join-the-dance.png
I am afraid what disappears very early is electricity. Once electricity is unavailable, bits and bytes disappear, including bank records. The wealthy are no longer wealthy, because there is no record of their former wealth. UBI doesn’t work, because there is no way to distribute it.
Gail, recently there was a bit coin currency where the creator, who had the master password, supposedly died over in India somewhere, locking out all accounts to redeem their accounts. No Collin.
huge stash of cryptocurrencies locked off from the people who own them.
Quadriga, Canada’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, said it’s unable to gain access to $145 million of bitcoin and other digital assets after Gerald Cotten, its 30-year old CEO and co-founder, died of complications arising from Crohn’s Disease while traveling in India.
Many of the digital currencies held by Quadriga are stored offline in accounts known as “cold wallets,” a way of protecting them from hackers. Cotten is the only person with access to the wallets, according to the company.
Bitcoin is 10 years old. But it won’t go mainstream until it’s regulated
The unusual case highlights the risks investors face looking after their assets in the thinly regulated industry.
Cotten’s death has plunged Quadriga into crisis and left it struggling to figure out how to refund more than 100,000 of its users.
Oh my, are we in for a surprise!
Your smartphone can run on less than one watt while in standby. It does not forget anything if you switch it off for charging it up. The same holds true for distributed computing. It will be fired up once the storage or compute is required for processing or transactions and then shut down to save the water in the dams. The wasteful debt fueled consumerism is totally redundant in a population where only about 2% of the work force is doing something remotely productive and/or advancing the economy.
The future supercomputers will be located close to hydro power dams and the waste heat will keep people warm as the century draws to an end.
Yet the US was on the verge of introducing UBI in the 70’s. It has been on trial in many countries. Alaska has a sort of UBI. It is nothing new and it will work as a simple tax deduction/negative taxation or helicopter money dropped right into the bank account.
In every aspect of the world economy things can not be run on dogma. There must be data to verify the super-computation simulations of possible outcomes.
Once full-blown AI hits the corporate and government orgs. Mark my words, then UBI will be instigated the same moment.
Now we are in a battle against the CCP and every brain is needed for the continuation of this development. For a little while longer.
Simple question: How does one make a buck with a smartphone? What can the owner of smart phone make me that I need? He/she mostly has a cost and needs to do something for me to pay for that phone.
Man, I have to read and reread these posts to have them not have ton of errors.
Alaska’s UBI is a result of Alaska’s ability to tax the Alaskan oil and gas industry.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sovereign-wealth-fund-for-america-alaska-norway_n_5b83ffb7e4b0cd327dfe878e?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIFK8I3ISS-kkj2NGZqDPbrDeYQLjdn-HWlSjbTSOrO5S_0bkDnNJlFCLfA518eYjzTgOwfABvONXp63EnjuvPuJXDx2BwxCIWk91rhdkkUhTuV2nlHnQvfQDHLtaAXbTGUS9WtUnD54c9Cix2JfPambiqhE_kkcdkdhPkLga2bI
When I read the latest financial report for the state, I find:
Also,
So, at this point, the State of Alaska is dipping into the reserve funds to pay it ongoing expenses.
No other state has such windfall large gains from its oil and gas industries, plus a very low population. In a way, it is like Norway, with high oil revenue and a tiny population. No one else can duplicate the result.
You will sell computation and storage, you yourself pay with the energy you can source.
Money is simply book keeping. The real economy runs on energy.
UBI is inevitable as more than 90% of the economy is totally frivolous and completely automated.
Can we “afford” to build and maintain large infrastructure, Mc Mansions, F-150’s, to shuffle useless eaters to and from “work”, so can we afford UBI in a distributed setting. The monthly allowance will be adjusted in tune with available natural resources. As the population shrinks, prosperity per capita will only increase.
Nature has no central governing organ, so will the economy of the future. There will be ripples of significance and importance which spreads through the global fibre optic network connected with, of and from people.
Loosely coupled corporations and people will exist in this network and will be as real as businesses, capitalism and evolution for us today. It is means of attributing success to ones endeavors and ingenuity. Opposing it will be opposing nature and that will have dire consequences.
“The future supercomputers will be located close to hydro power dams and the waste heat will keep people warm as the century draws to an end.”
Except for the small problem that hydro power does not generate waste heat. It is over 90% efficient at converting gravitational potential energy into electricity.
Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, …
Robert, I think Kowalainen was referring to the waste heat from the supercomputers, not from the hydroelectric plants.
“UBI will be a reality. People will move out closer to nature, grab their rifles and fishing rod, enjoying the warmer and greening earth and the unintended spoils from 200 years of heavy industry and it’s CO2 emissions.”
Lets examine this concept of “wage slave”. Slavery is repugnant. This is slave owner demands labor from the slave. In contrast we have our system of individuals voluntarily
producing goods and services for currency which allows them to consume goods and services produced by other individuals. If someone producing goods or services is a “slave”
then saking the metaphor further the person paying for those goods or services would be the “slave owner”. Employers are “slave owners” in your philosophy yes?
Employer exchange currency for labor. In the the scenario you note above were you receive UBI , exchange it for goods and services a product of labor would you not you be a “slave owner” reaping the productivity of others labor while not contributing any goods and services yourself? Isnt this why slave owners are considered so repugnant that they reap the benefits of others labor without doing anything themselves? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrhAC0dFis0
You make the same mistake that a lot of others make: You assume that even if large amounts of energy won’t be available, small amounts will be, perhaps at a high price. It doesn’t work that way. What breaks is the system that allows these energy products to be extracted and put into use. Once the system breaks, we are in very tough shape.
The financial system is a major enabler of the international trade necessary to make high tech devices of every kind. Once the financial system stops enabling international trade, the system breaks down. I expect electricity will go first. Oil disappear about the same time, because of the interconnectedness of the system.
for a variety of reasons, you will never convince the majority of that simple reality Gail
The financial system will be just fine, because it’s transaction are made of pure symbols. Symbols can take any representations and are either relevant or irrelevant.
There is no need for these always-on brutalist and power hungry data/compute centers filled to the brim with triteness, such as kitten videos, tweets, pictures and Facebook banalities.
Computers will be fired up as needed for completing and verifying transactions. Fibre optics last a very long time and is extremely easy to repair and maintain with a minimal amount of raw materials and effort.
People will be thrown off the bandwagon of BAU as needed for ensure it’s continuation. Protests will be handled swiftly and mercilessly.
There is no need for wasteful consumerism in an almost totally automated economy with plenty of “jobs” which contributes nothing at all. The truly productive work force is about 2-3% of all workers. The rest is merely pack fillers, in (N)GO’s that holds especially true.
This sh17-show will be dialed back to 3 from the madne55 of 11 as of today. Because the end goal is within sights. The imminent irrelevance of the worker dr0ne.
You might disagree with me, but then you’d be wrong. And you don’t want that. Yes, the human-centric chauvinism is coming to an end and your way of life with it.
https://youtu.be/t621DDw95Wg
Every single joule of electrical energy that Nikola Tesla used was derived from fossil fuel energy directly or indirectly (hydroelectric). I mention this not to detract from his work. The man had great insight into how to drastically improve efficiencies of work performed by electrical devices. I do mention it because i meet many people who reference Teslas work with the idea that it created energy from nothing. The same people often dont know what ohms law is don’t know what reactance is let alone how capacitive vs inductive reactance interact. They seize upon Tesla as a image, a supposed rebel, all with a strong component of the idea of suppressed knowledge. A icon of suppressed magic. Most are incapable of discussing tesla’s work and this conveniently along with the idea that it is “suppressed” allows no discussion of what it is and is not. Historically our species has realized the value of both image/concept and critical thinking in our perceptions. The critically thinking skill has largely deteriorated IMO to the detriment of accurate modeling in our thoughts and language.
Nobody is doubting the significance of fossil fuels and the contributions of Tesla and Westinghouse. Or?
When measuring magnetic field strength the unit of Tesla is used. It is how science and engineering signifies great men and their achievements.
Tesla was a maverick, not a rebel.
https://www.goalcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/elon-musk-on-success.jpg
Almost all Tesla’s power came from the station he designed and helped construct at Niagara Falls. None of it came from fossil fuel. Hydro power is created by sunlight falling on the ocean: it is this that pulls water into the air, later to fall as rain on high ground, and give up its potential energy one way or another.
EROI of most modern hydro power stations is close to 100. Which makes them totally superior to any other source of energy, FF’s and nukes included.
“The aim was to study the Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for the Fljotsdalsstod hydroelectric power plant (690 MW) using real data and a previously proposed standard. Energy return on investment is the ratio between the output and input energy. In this study we calculate the EROI within three defined boundaries, which include different parameters. Results show that over the 100-year lifetime, the plant is expected to deliver an EROI of approximately 110”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148113007064
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513003856
The energy can be used for boot-strapping production of synthetic petrochemicals for its own use. A hydro power station with a nearby syngas producing facility is an energy production beast of no comparable status on planet Earth. Couple that with a windmills for saving water and pumping some back to the reservoir during windy days
“The advantage of gasification is that using the syngas (synthesis gas H2/CO) is potentially more efficient than direct combustion of the original fuel because it can be combusted at higher temperatures or even in fuel cells, so that the thermodynamic upper limit to the efficiency defined by Carnot’s rule is higher or (in case of fuel cells) not applicable. Syngas may be burned directly in gas engines, used to produce methanol and hydrogen, or converted via the Fischer–Tropsch process into synthetic fuel.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasification
With this in place it is possible to run this joint way past the twilight of mankind and the birth of true machine intelligence.
Hydro is imminently finite because we are running out of places to build dams.
Hydro is also why Norway of one of (if not THE) place for electric cars—lots of falling water.
wasn’t sure if : ‘the birth of true machine intelligence’ …..was a comment made in irony.
If it wasn’t, then I would like to know the purpose of true machine intelligence?
Perhaps it escapes me but I fail to see the point of it?
Indeed, the population of Earth will be matched to the limitation put on the availability of semi-eternal high EROI energy sources and their dependencies to other infrastructure to be kept operational.
Of course, unless some new revolutionary power generation technology sees the light of day. But putting hope in magic is, well, you know ;), as Alan Watts so eloquently puts it, and it is a terrible strategy, which we now are starting to feel the consequences of.
Art1ficial Intell1gence is based on the same mechanism as to why mankind developed big brains. It is to ensure survival of the species by making the Earth an interstellar cradle for a network of machine and biological civilizations.
Curiosity is the only ever lasting pleasure a man can have. Wouldn’t you agree? Once the triteness and banalities of youth fade into the philosophy of age we can grow into a timeless, eternal species, poking and prodding into the fabric of objective reality with ever greater sophistication and energy.
But before this happens, we must give up the biological/human centric chauvinism. Yes, Norman, isn’t it time for you to give up on that dogma?
https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-the-religion-of-the-future-will-be-a-cosmic-religion-it-should-transcend-a-personal-albert-einstein-47-8-0829.jpg
curiousity is certainly one of the best traits that humankind can have, though it has possibly led us into an evolutionary dead end. It is certainly not the ONLY ever lasting pleasure available.
but that is the only part of your comment I can get my head round. I make this reply to stretch my mind into impossible circumstances. (part of that inherent curiousity if you like)
The rest was serious boggling territory–at least from my point of view.
you I accept, have a totally different outlook, to which you are of course entitled. I have learned, over the years, never to be surprised at the product of other peoples’ imaginations.
The DNA of humankind can if one is so inclined, be traced back to (say) a daffodil—by accepting that, we acknowledge where our competition for living space and species domination derived from. If my consciousness was that of an oak tree—it would be tree-centric. As a human being I have no choice but to be human centric. The daffodil functions in the same way.
The bizarre logic that I could be otherwise than my own strain of biological species escapes me. Yet it is a ‘chauvinistic dogma?’
I suppose the fact that I am male and not female might carry the same degree of condemnation.
Whether plant or animal life, all biological species must compete. There are no exceptions. It is what we must do. And in doing so we have filled the Earth to overflowing because fossil fuels delivered what seemed to be an evolutionary advantage..
All that did was to let us steal the living space of those on whom we depend for our existence. (most haven’t realised that yet).
Despite that, and to stretch credibility to breaking point, (correct me if I’m wrong here) we are now about to transform our consciousness into automated processes whereby we, (by some means yet to be invented) can transport ourselves across the galaxy in some unlimited form.
And what is semi-eternal??–Eternal either is or it isn’t. much like dead or semi-dead.
And to conclude, all the AI/galactic stuff is a figment of imagination. To actually put it into reality will require the ingenuity of a conventional human-centric industrial system. Which at best guess we might have 30 years worth left if we are lucky.
I can only wish you well of it. Particularly the earth cradle bit. My neural connections disintegrated at having to deal with that.
It is because your are stuck in a dominance view of the world with aspects of extrapolation absent.
Science is successful because it does not seek to dominate. It finds new habitats for ideas where those can grow and prosper, until new ideas continues this process by either extending them. Rarely does science discard any progress, because in misunderstandings there is a lesson to be learned.
One of the prevalent misconceptions of evolution is that it is a dominance scheme, where in reality it is an adaptive process. Healthy forests thrive from competition, because biodiversity is beneficial for all inhabitants, even though there is an inherent struggle of the available resources.
There is indeed an irony of a man typing away on a device failing to see what science and engineering are able to produce on an extremely short amount of time.
Let’s make a hypothetical thought experiment where Norman and Kowlainen lived, say 100 years ago, discussing how the world will be covered by a network of information processors handling basically all transactions and calculations of any importance of mankind and that communication between all people of Earth will be made using rectangles of plastic and glass transmitting information wirelessly.
Would this Norman object to the ideas of Kowalainen and wish him well with his delusion? Yes, the cognitive dissonance is strong within a mind filled with dominance and status quo failing to understand the fundamental processes which drives evolution.
that analogy is the same as me insisting that time travel is possible, and offering proof of that, the fact that 100 years ago my/your ggparents could not have conceived of iphones or whatever.
electronic devices are merely a progression of the use and application of natural laws and materials. from Faraday onwards if you like.
Electrical signals, of themselves, cannot shift materials from A to B
But this discussion is entering the realm of weird
Well, you brought it about. And you know exactly how you would respond to Kowalainen in our hypothetical discussion 100 years in the past. Stop pretending otherwise. It makes you look like the fool, not me.
You are indeed caught in the status quo and dominance scheme of things and fail to see the irony of your arguments in the setting which consists of the technologies used in our interaction, nature of evolution, progression of mankind and the devices we employ.
Just admit you are a relic.
😉
In response to the concept of an ‘Earth centric galactic civilisation’ I could have added numerous adjectives to such thinking, but I refrained from doing so.
I prefer to use the English language in such a way that that the mildest description, ‘foolish’ is planted in the minds of the readers. There are far stronger ones I could have used–but I find that sort of thing demeaning.
So relic I shall remain.
With any luck a pretty young archeaologist will dig me up one day and marvel that mankind had reached such levels of intellect in the 21st c.
(I have left instructions to my executors that a time capsule containing a summary of my accumulated wisdom shall be buried with me.)
Then the decision will be made as to foolishness, no doubt.
Mine in numerous respects I daresay—but not concerning the realms of Earth centric galactic civilisations’
That accolade will certainly be handed to others.
Yet your are extrapolating the imminent doom and collapse of human civilization. Even gone so far as to write a book about the whole subject, reveling in the dystopia you yourself have been busy perpetrating.
How is that going by the way? It seem to be running just fine. With a few straggler socialist dystopias thrown to the dogs here and there. Now the Chinese are starting to feel the burn from messing with the wrong guys by bootlegging nonrenewable resources, meddling and IP theft.
I really wonder when this the catastrophic collapse is going to occur? Let me clarify that for you:
It will never happen. Just forget about it. The only thing you and the crowd of status quo and dominance perpetrators have achieved is to doom most humans on Earth to a life in overpopulation and misery. Congratulations to that. Well deserved.
But hey, your kids and grand kids are lovely. Aren’t they?
https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU
Regardless of EROI, hydroelectric cannot be depended upon in many/most parts of the world. It works pretty well, when integrated with the burning of fossil fuels (which are also needed to build and maintain it), but by itself, or with only wind and solar, it doesn’t work too well. None is sufficiently stable to be counted on. It works best in very cold parts of the world, where the local population uses only a small part of the amount available, and exports the rest, as it happens to be available.
This is a chart of California annual hydroelectric production.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/california-annual-hydroelectric-production.png
In areas where ice and snow melt contribute to production, hydroelectric tends to be quite seasonal with high production in the spring. You have to “use it or lose it” at that point.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/washington-state-hydroelectric-generation-by-month.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/us-hydro-consumption-by-month.png
You have to keep the whole system operating, including the long distance transmission. This is difficult, as Venezuela has proven. It, like California, has found that the long distance transmission lines easily cause forest fires which cause outages and much damage. These issues (of course) are not considered in EROI calculations. The issue of needing to move whole populations to other areas to put in new hydroelectric dams is not considered in EROI calculations either.
Without fossil fuels, hydroelectric is not sustainable. We need the whole interconnected system. It is the system that is not sustainable.
As I have linked, hydro power will use gasification plants to produce synthetic hydrocarbons. In the interim nukes will be used as a swing producer and power source for fracking and “scraping the bottom” of the oil reservoir techniques to cover for the shortfall as the transformation occurs.
With an EROI of well beyond that of oil computed on a 100 year life span of most such installations, it must be obvious that the remaining human populating will inevitably be located in close proximity to these power plants and other places where there exists remaining natural resources.
Thus transmission lines are totally superfluous, the large metropolitan hubs and interstate highways will be a memory best forgotten. Where there is a surplus of available energy resources, those can be converted and shipped as real or synthetic hydrocarbons for consumption at other facilities and sites where other natural resources are located.
The vulgarities of BAU is inevitably coming to an end. The collapse of BAU is already here. Now it is a matter of transformation into something new. The lack of new capital injections in the contemporary oil industry are a telltale sign.
Now, will we do this as humanely as possible, or does Mother Nature first have to educate us with a dose of poverty, disease and misery before it becomes obvious what has to be done?
http://veganfeministnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Oil-Drill-of-Overpopulation.jpg
Gail, let’s look at the physics. No, we cannot store electricity, but we can store the water that generates hydro electricity. The question is, how big a buffer do we need to solve the intermittency problem? The answer is, a much bigger one.
Wrong answer! The problem is, we have far overbuilt our hydro systems, taking energy out of the gravity store too quickly, and so regularly running into shortages. Smaller hydro plants, with comparatively larger stores of water, would be sustainable and reliable. And the independent variable is the size of the water store, which we cannot change in any sensible manner. So size our hydro to correspond.
Of course, impossible with a population in overshoot. When we dig down into almost any part of our congeries of problems, we always seem to end up with the same answer: far, far too many people.
What could possibly go wrong!?
America’s Wealth Hinges on Its Ability to Borrow Big – or Else
The nation’s health as measured by gross domestic product per capita would plunge into negative territory without its dependence on borrowed money, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
In fact, the U.S. would fall almost to the bottom of a ranking of 114 economies by GDP per capita. Only Italy, Greece and Japan would fare worse. That’s a seismic shift from America’s comfortable No. 5 spot on a list based on conventional measures.
To get this somewhat dystopian measure, Bloomberg took each economy’s 2020 GDP as projected by the International Monetary Fund as a starting point. We then adjusted the number by removing the ability to borrow, while adding reserves to create an alternative wealth measure.
U.S. per capita income of $66,900 would be slashed to a negative $4,857 using this measure. That’s a total loss of almost $72,000 for every man, woman and child.
The U.S. isn’t alone, though; it’s pretty grim across the board. Among the 114 economies included in the final list, 102 would experience reduced per capita wealth if they suddenly lost the ability to borrow.
TAX CUT, TAX CUT, TAX CUT…….for the super Rich…the rest…..payroll cut payroll cut
Growing debt does play an amazing role in GDP growth!
Absolutely.
And the fiat petrodollar is merely an ever increasing accounting scheme for natural resource allocation, specially for FF’s. It does not matter how many gazillions $ that keep floating around. It is no better than what it backs in the form of real, physical capital.
However, too much of it inevitably cause misallocation of real resources causing crazy frivolous consumption, overpopulation, bubbles and collapses. To little of it causes stagnation and deflationary death spirals.
They got this one dialed in pretty good by now, since it all runs on supercomputers with models derived from studies such as The Limits of Growth.
Going back to the pipe dream of gold standard is no better than an nostalgia hallucinogen trip for the feeble minded.
“The nation’s health as measured by gross domestic product per capita would plunge into negative territory without its dependence on borrowed money, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”
As so often, I am utterly lost trying to follow the reasoning of economists. GDP surely measures wealth produced by the nation. Borrowed money is not, emphatically not, wealth produced. It therefore cannot be part of GDP.
It can increase the consumption of wealth, at others’ expense, until the debt has to be repaid. The underlying assumption, then, is that the debt will never be repaid. So this is not “product”, domestic or otherwise. It is loot.
And 102 of 114 economies in the same situation? I don’t believe it. Kirchoff’s Law is inexorable: for every debt, anywhere, there is a credit, somewhere. The great fraud of Keynesian economics is that the creditor is in the future. And robbing the future is one of the certain roads to collapse. It is also a profound repudiation of the basic moral code on which civilisation depends.
I found an original version of this story:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-31/america-s-wealth-hinges-on-its-ability-to-borrow-big-or-else
According to the notes it provides, the calculation is a Bloomberg analysis of data from the IMF, World Bank and UN Population Division.
Gross debt is the 2020-2024 5-year average of annual general government gross debt level forecasted by the IMF. Data is based on the IMF WEO 2019 forecast.
Reserves are the most recent five year average (2014-2018). Data based on “total reserves (includes gold, current US$)” from the World Bank.
General government gross debt comprises interest or principal obligations from debt securities, loans, insurance and pensions whereas reserves include gold, foreign currency in the possession of each sovereign, as well as special drawing rights.
Final list of countries include economies with a minimum of 3 million of population for 202 and both debt and reserve data available via the IMF and WB.
– – – – – –
I looked up “Special Drawing Rights” of the IMF. According to the IMF,
Starting October 1, 2016, for a five-year period, the weights on these currencies were
US$ 41.73%
Euro 30.93%
Chinese Yuan 10.92%
Japanese Yen 8.33%
Pound Sterling 8.09%
The interest rate for borrowing these five currencies seems to be pretty low. It is currently 0.923%. It is based on a weighted average of the short term borrowing rates of these currencies. The minimum is 0.05%.
There are 204 billion special drawing rights outstanding. One Special Drawing Right is equal to about 1.37 US$, so the total outstanding special drawing rights amount to the equivalent of about $279 billion USD, which is not very much in the whole scheme of things, but it could help quite a few very small countries quite a bit.
My conclusions:
I am not convinced this calculation means very much. The US is very much at a disadvantage in this calculation because many other countries are holding US$, but the US only gets credit for “other currencies.” Special Drawing rights depend on US currency as well. If the US is in trouble for borrowing, everyone is in trouble for borrowing.
Countries don’t normally hold much in the way of reserves for their pension plans and health care plans, so it doesn’t show anything about this.
It is mostly about published levels of government debt, offset by small amounts of gold and special drawing rights reserves and reserves in other currencies. Small countries in Africa with not much debt and some special drawing rights especially come out ahead. Switzerland does too.
This is the published summary chart:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/bloomberg-differences-between-the-conventional-gdp-per-capita-and-the-debt-and-reservices-adjusted-version.png
the reason behind it all seems very simple:
As long as the USA had a surplus of cheap surplus fuel, they remained in credit.
When the supply of cheap fuel stopped, the went into deficit. (1970)
And just like an average household, they started borrowing/creating money to pretend that everything was fine, and could carry on as normal
The Mish mash Shuffle
(Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabia created a new ministry for industry and mineral resources that’s separate from the current energy ministry, reducing the remit of Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih.
The shift was part of a series of royal orders by King Salman, issued just before the Islamic new year and reported Friday night by the official Saudi Press Agency. The existing Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, led by Al-Falih, will be renamed the Ministry of Energy and hand over its other files to the new ministry at the start of the next fiscal year, the agency said. He appointed Bandar Alkhorayef to head the new ministry.
The new chief, Fahd bin Mohammed Al-Issa, was previously head of Prince Mohammed’s office at the defense ministry. He earlier served as a legal adviser in the government’s Bureau of Experts, where Prince Mohammed also worked before he rose to power, according to an official biography published by the Saudi Press Agency.
Other royal orders replaced deputy labor and social affairs minister, Tamadur Al-Rammah — one of the highest-ranking women in government — with Majid Al-Ghanmi and created a new government body called the Saudi Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence, with ties to the interior ministry and state security.
Can sleep a little better now…LOL
Two people can handle the oil problem better than one?
A sobering little statistic:
…the number of drug-resistant bloodstream infections [in the UK] increased by 35 per cent between 2013 and 2017.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7409059/Forget-climate-change-antibiotics-crisis-kill-says-NHS-chief.html
According to some recent reports, one of the big culprits is Urinary Track Infections, spread by chickens that have become drug resistant through the use of antibiotics used on chickens.
Our family has become more attuned to the role that UTIs can play in deaths, after one of my brother-in-laws died last year, at the age of 62, indirectly from a UTI. I don’t know to what extent antibiotic resistance was an issue in his case. Very clearly, the first antibiotic that the healthcare system tried didn’t work. My impression is that the healthcare system is so piecemeal that he never connected up with anyone to prescribe a second antibiotic. He was referred to a specialist, but the appointment was weeks away.
Gail,
Mayo system is excellent in that manner. As a youth my family used Gundersen in La Crosse, it is my understanding the Gundersen family was friends with the “Mayo Boys” in the early 1900’s. Simply put, they get the job done, the prices are fair, the clinicians excellent. If one can afford it, the Executive Health Care group is wonderful, they organize everything and when patients come in from around the world all appointments are managed and done mostly in a matter of days for routine issues. Exec. health has a lounge, between apts. one can read, etc. if the next department is ahead, they page you with a personal pager and the entire appointment process is adjusted if possible. Mayo also has counselors in life style, diet, exercise; it works.
I cannot imagine trying to put together a healthcare team on my own, since birth I have never tried or had to do so; when my wife had a serious medical issue we headed out of the city where we lived in Iowa to Gundersen, I wasn’t familiar with Mayo then. Again, a group of doctors under one roof, salaried, no piece work.
Modern medical records are wonderful, snail mail takes forever, needs processing, etc. Medicine takes a team, there must be teams in other areas of the country.
The issues you describe truly are life threatening and resulted in an early death, my sympathy.
Dennis L.
My sister and her husband lived in the south Minneapolis area, so there was no lack of good medical care available, if they had put more effort into tapping into it. There also was no money or health insurance problem. But I don’t think that they were aware how serious the problem might be.
Don’t eat factory produced animal products. Source your meat/poultry/fish locally, or avoid it completely.
https://i.redd.it/3lkuytzm6rr01.png
Sound advice!
These days, too many bugs are joining the antibiotic resistance!
http://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/media/AMR-cartoon-353×300.jpg
@Kowaleinen
I’m glad you posted again about diet, because I would like to apologise to you and other OFW readers for my former promotion of the carnivore diet. Whereas I was, and still am, convinced that plants in my diet were making me ill, after a few months of eating only meat and dairy my energy levels and mental acuity were starting to deteriorate.
A month ago I read Dr Gundry’s “The Plant Paradox”. As I am sure most are aware, plants do not want to be eaten and produce toxins to damage any animals that do eat them. The essence of The Plant Paradox is that we have resistance to the toxins of plants we have co-evolved with and less resistance to the toxins of plants that are recent additions to our diet. Therefore grains, legumes and nightshades are out, whereas root vegetables, cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens are ok to eat.
After reading his book, I began following Dr Gundry’s advice on plants, plus I reduced my animal consumption to a small amount of wild caught seafood and game as he (and you) advise. I feel much better for having done this (so far).
You see, I too, have also changed my mind since for the better part of my life was a meat-eater with lots of animal products on my diet.
Changing ones mind with new information and integrating ones own observations is a sign of intelligence.
The Indian vegetarian cuisine is out of this world. The same for Japanese when most meat is omitted. The only drawback is that I must eat more to get enough calories in comparison with calorie dense foods such as animal products. Plus that the bowel movements are more “significant” and that the gut can be felt as it moves more stuff around. 🙂
The human gut bacteria consists of two main types, one that process starches, sugars and the other amino acids, meat etc. Maintaining a good balance in your gut by going heavy starch based with a little meat occasionally works for me. My back pain went missing when the cholesterol levels dropped and the little capillaries oxygenating and giving nutrients to the spinal discs opened up.
Besides, don’t you somewhere deep inside feel a little kinder and more compassionate? 🙂
I cut way back on meat back in 1994 (a small amount for flavoring in soups; also some fish, mostly wild caught). The reason I cut back is because I started having arthritis type pain then. Also, my blood sugar was high, but I didn’t qualify as diabetic. I weighed 40 pounds more than I do now. My health problems pretty much went away and my weight went down. Now, the only issue I am being treated for on an ongoing basis is osteoporosis.
Gail, Dr Greger from Nutritionfacts.org has this to say about osteoporosis
https://youtu.be/TJFJ5X0d7UY
https://youtu.be/2i0fu3r3DZg
https://youtu.be/Bmg9kLe3tQI
https://youtu.be/ujNZXV64T3w
https://nutritionfacts.org/?s=osteoporosis
Very interesting! I hadn’t run into these before.
I found another one as well on eating tofu to reduce lead levels. I do eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, but I have not paid any attention to phytates or to the possibility of old lead in my bones that may be getting out now.
Almonds may operate through the phytate route also.
This seems to be quite interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A6-2VBNNfo
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30972174
https://books.google.sk/books?id=_z2yzW7SouoC&pg=PA342&lpg=PA342&dq=pqq+mice+failed+to+reproduce&source=bl&ots=TIZ2Yb2bt3&sig=ACfU3U3JiNLweDflthRCq6Odfst70vMIEA&hl=sk&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiy2u24j7TkAhWDYlAKHbxCDXIQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=pqq%20mice%20failed%20to%20reproduce&f=false
MG – the PQQ video is interesting. It might also help those with depression, it sounds like.
You cant have been fat and prediabetic because of meat, even factory farmed.
According to whom? Lars Bern? He is THE most unreliable source of dietary advice.
https://youtu.be/GymmXdCDAxE
According to animal products being a smaller % of junk food, and not driving insulin.
Consider a big mac meal: 1kkcal, less than 25% from the meat (if it is all meat). And of the whole meal only the potato in the fries is truly decent food, some maybe consider the wheat ok.
I think everyone who cares WHAT they eat have better health no matter what % animal products.
Lars Bern believes in abiotic oil.
Indeed, there is of course garbage plant based foods contaminated to the hilt with pesticides and insecticides.
If it is possible; source all your food locally. How come food imports are even allowed I wonder?
Lars Bern made the classic mistake of diverging from his field of expertise and clumsily making a mess of his “new” endeavor.
Parts of America may already be facing recession
Slowdowns in housing construction and manufacturing are ominous.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/08/31/parts-of-america-may-already-be-facing-recession?cid1=cust/dailypicks1/n/bl/n/20190829n/owned/n/n/dailypicks1/n/n/E/300161/n
And don’t forget about the RV’s, lol.
We now have an interesting dynamic wherein many of those politically opposed to Trump are actively willing on an imminent recession in the hope that it torpedoes his chances of re-election. You wonder how much of a factor that may be moving forwards, given the economic importance of intangibles.
Meanwhile Trump needs the Fed to acquiesce to his demand for rates cuts to keep GDP positive, even as the sugar high from his tax cuts wears off. Jerome Powell may currently hold Trump’s political fate in his hands.
Do you think Hillary will throw her hat into the ring? I’ve felt it was on the cards all along, although what few friends I have ridiculed me for suggesting it. But the fact is she is the only Democrat capable of outdoing Trump in terms of collecting donations. By some estimates she will be able to raise more than 2 billion dollars.
And now, a very interesting snippet of news has appeared. The Federal Election Commission, which is supposed to slap the wrists of political candidates who are naughty, is shutting down!! According to National Public Radio:
Barring some kind of miraculous last-minute reprieve, Friday will be the last business day that the Federal Election Commission will be able to function for quite a while, leaving the enforcement of federal campaign finance laws unattended ahead of the 2020 election.
The commission’s vice chairman, Matthew Petersen, announced his resignation earlier this week, to take effect at the end of the month. With Petersen gone, the FEC will be down to three members and won’t have a quorum.
In addition to collecting campaign finance data, the FEC investigates potential campaign finance violations, issues fines and gives guidance to campaigns about following election law — but not without a working quorum of at least four commissioners.
“To not have the FEC able to take action right now is deeply concerning,” says Daniel Weiner, a former senior counsel at the FEC, who’s now with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school.
In particular, Weiner is concerned about another attempt by Russia or other actors to interfere in the 2020 election.
“After 2016, it’s become very clear that it is almost certain that the Russian government and potentially other U.S. rivals will seek to interfere in the U.S. election, including through online propaganda, cybersecurity incursions and other tactics,” Weiner told NPR. As the regulator for campaign spending, he describes the FEC as one of the “front-line” agencies combating foreign interference.
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/755523088/as-fec-nears-shutdown-priorities-such-as-stopping-election-interference-on-hold
As yes, the Daniel Weiner who backed the “Russia” hoax for months while managing to completely overlook the Clintons’ outrageous abuse of the electoral process. The FEC is another tool of the Deep State, and should be shut down and replaced with something at least halfway honest.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-30/builders-are-swapping-cement-for-weed-to-reduce-pollution going green but in a different way
According to the article:
“Numbers across the industry vary depending on the process, but JustBioFiber says that its hemp captures 130 kilograms (287 pounds) of carbon dioxide for each cubic meter it builds. Those structures made with their bricks will sequester more greenhouse gases than they emit in production. By contrast each ton of cement produced emits half a ton of carbon dioxide, according to the European Cement Association.”
How does the cost of this new type of material compare to concrete blocks? How long do they last?
These are two things to look at closely. If the cost is high, my guess is that the CO2 benefit is not as great as they are expecting.
Gail, despite a silly comment by one person – who obviously doesn’t know enough about Tom Camp bell’s ideas to have any worthwhile opinion about them – I would reiterate my urging to look into Tom’s stuff at ‘My Big TOE’. It speaks magisterially to your closing paragraphs in this post: a highly fruitful new/ancient way of looking at reality – and what it’s all for; a Kuhnian paradigm-shift in science in the making right now, in fact… See particularly Tom’s weekend presentation videos at Calgary U. in 2011. Quality stuff!.
You’ll be aware, I’m sure, of the way those temperamentally inclined to be defenders of a current orthodoxy – any current orthodoxy – will resort to shallow, rubbishing ad homs. when people with new hypotheses shake their sacred scientismic doctrines. No need to be impressed by such foolish – and evidently un-scientific – knee-jerk behaviour. Since you are clearly an intellectually-fluent person yourself, it will most likely be very helpful to you to meet with this most fruitful rapprochement between science and spirituality, the rational and the intuitive faculties, which Tom offers in spades! Your hunch, hinted at in your last paragraphs, is correct; and Tom offers a most satisfying – to Western minds – route into what it’s actually about.
I agree that typos are not a good way of telling how worthwhile material is. Until I found several people to help me with proofreading and with other feedback, I had a major problem with typos. And how long a person spends in discussing any one topic is subject to considerable discretion.
I found a program called ‘Grammarly’ excellent for flagging up typos and other errors.
Not 100% but close
I have found my real life helpers useful for helping in other ways than strictly grammar. Sometimes I use a date that is off because of putting in a number from the wrong century, such as 2015 vs 1915.
They often suggest different ways of stating something, often with a more precise word than a variation on “make” or “do” or “to be.” Or they point out that I need to reword something, because the meaning is not clear. Or maybe the logic seems to leave out a step.
I have discovered different people are aware of very different things. Two of my assistants work in translation. They are particularly attuned to things that non-English speakers would have difficulty understanding.
There is also the issue of British and American usages being fairly different in some cases. For example, “good paying jobs” is a popular US way of describing jobs that pay well. But I am careful not to use that phrase. Grammarly would likely flag the phrase, as well.
Another issue that Grammarly is not set up to handle (I expect) is all of my .png charts. All too often I spell the name of a country wrong in one of them, or make some other error that is obvious to a real life person, but not a program looking at the words in a document.
Content is of more importance than pedantry.
Norman, you and ‘Grammarly’ missed a full stop there. 🙂
Thank you for your reply. I rather object to the term “knee jerk”; I spent two hours over those slides, trying, trying to find something I understood. In vain. And I went back to my library, especially Deutsch’s “The Fabric of Reality”.
Yes, you need a good grounding in classical physics to understand *why* the two slit experiment shouldn’t work, and a good grasp of relativistic quantum theory to understand the problems with its successor, the “delayed choice” experiment. But none of that is necessary to understand *what actually happens*, and I’m fairly sure the author did not.
And I was very careful not to use an ad hominem attack: I attacked the theory and its presentation, not the person, which is legitimate science.
But your “Kuhnian paradigm shift” I think is correct. The key thesis in Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is that when one paradigm replaces another, it is absolutely impermissible to say that one was better and the other worse: the terms of discourse have changed so much that the two are, literally, incomparable.
So we cannot say that the Copernican paradigm was better than the Ptolemaic one, and certainly not that one is closer to the truth than the other. (The planet Venus would disagree, of course, but that’s probably a knee jerk reaction). So to call something “Kuhnian” is to say, in effect, that it has no objective significance, but is a subjective reinterpretation of established phenomena. Perhaps something like “a rapprochment between science and spirituality”
Thank you for listening.
Apology and grovel: I meant to add this reference, but forgot:
Wolfgang Pauli, “The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on the Scientific Theories of Kepler”,
a commentary on Kepler’s Harmonia mundi (his original title, not the published one).
It is a very deep meditation on science and spirituality, as of course was much of Kepler’s own work. Apology again for my oversight.
Gravity centric cosmology is one such abomination. Read the works of Hannes Alfvén, Halton Arp and Eric J Lerner.
https://problemswiththebigbang.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/hans.jpg
-Hannes Alfvén, Nobel laureate in plasma physics.
I have two reasons not to believe that; their rationality is of course for you to judge. The one, of course, is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which gives us a bounded past, and if not a bounded, at least a very uninteresting future.
Fred Hoyle attempted to evade that, with his “Perfect Cosmological Principle”, but that required the continuous creation of matter from empty space, which of course begs the question.
The second reason is the (massive) experimental evidence that the universe is expanding. Run the film backwards, and the universe is contracting: but to what? The preferred answer is “a singularity”, which I confess I do not believe; but surely to a temporal boundary on whose other side there is something other than the Cosmos we inhabit.
Thermodynamics only applies inside a bounded control volume. The universe is boundless. It does not owe its existence and explanation to the processes which occurs “inside” it.
There was ample “evidence” for a geocentric order of the solar system and universe. It does not, however, make it right, just because someone can hack together a ridiculous mathematical model “explaining” the planetary motions using epicycles to the hilt.
Tacking more garbage onto a obsolete model does not extend its explanatory power. It just makes it more obscure and esoteric. Dark matter, black holes, big bangs.. Yawn..
https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840×2160/4769571-Hannes-Alfven-Quote-Gravitational-systems-are-the-ashes-of-prior.jpg
Not to mention superstring theory.
I can’t prove it, obviously, but the physical world seems so “real” to me that I am convinced it exists. On the other hand, I am not convinced that I exist (as a conscious, sentient, intelligent ‘soul’ as opposed to as a handsome humanoid hunk).
It seems more reasonable that my physical brain and nervous system has conjured my self, soul and ego up out of thin air, imagined me into existence and become obsessed with the persistent illusion my continued existence presents.
The ultimate question of philosophy:
Why does the universe exist instead of nothing at all?
The answer is that from nothingness existence and non-existence arise spontaneously.
It is not bounded by time with a creation instant and a final crunch. It is truly boundless.
Our monkey brains are totally deluded by the illusion of time, birth, death, events that we are totally oblivious that there is only now and that now is process.
The process which is our minds are a characteristic of universe, just like waves are a characteristic of water. Waves move radially, on closer inspection we find that the molecules move vertically, and yet the wave traverses radially. Is the water molecules real? Is the wave real?
The same can be concluded by the grand illusion of the self and processes inside the brain. On closer inspection, there is only electrical signaling between neurons inside the brain. Is the brain real? Is our minds real?
So how come the electrical signals can give arise to mind? Well, just like vertical movement of water molecules can give rise to radially radiating waves, so does the electrical signals give rise to mind. If the brain exists, so must the mind, because it is all interconnected by the principles of the universe.
🙂
The ultimate question of philosophy:
Why does the universe exist instead of nothing at all?
The answer is that from nothingness existence and non-existence arise spontaneously.
Then the ultimate question becomes why do existence and non-existence arise spontaneously from nothing.
Obviously it does, or would you like to disagree? To which I will answer nothing.
Let me ask, what was the entity “you” one million years ago? Did “you” exist? What will “you” become one million years from now?
“You” arise from nothingness and then you go back into nothingness. It is manifestation of this very process. It feels real for a little moment, but ultimately it is nothingness forming into existence and then into non-existence.
😉
First off, thermodynamics can be applied to open systems just as well as to closed systems: Ilya Prigogine worked on that for decades. Secondly, people conveniently forget that Copernicus also used epicycles, and needed more than Ptolemy to explain the phenomena. A classic example of the nonsense that happens just *before* the paradigm shift.
Dark matter, black holes, … yes, I agree with you; they are more evidence of nonsense. But you probably won’t agree with my explanation: the paradigm we need to shift away from is the Theory of Relativity, which I consider fatally flawed and the major obstacle to progress.
I absolutely agree with you, problem is which theory will supersede it.
I’m inclined to lean towards plasma/electric cosmology in the spirit of Kristian Birkeland, Hannes Alfvén and Anthony Peratt.
And with that transformation we can only hope that science returns to the lab instead of continuing the silly expose in esoteric maths and sci-fi fairy tales as perpetrated by MSM and foremost by the late Mr Hawking.
Latest madness in Swedish state controlled teevee is Elon’s grand plans to put men on Mars and build a colony there. Need I say more?
The universe is neither open, nor closed. It defies a complete description by any scientific method whatsoever. What can be done however is extend our knowledge while we travel with the wave that forms something out of nothingness.
What is truly disturbing for the status quo is that many stellar objects seem to be older than the universe itself. And the further astronomy extends its capabilities the older objects will appear.
“A study published in 2013 used the Fine Guidance Sensors of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to measure a precise parallax (and therefore distance and luminosity) for the star, and employ this information to estimate an age for the star of 14.46 ± 0.8 billion years. Due to the uncertainty in the value, this age for the star may or may not conflict with the calculated age of the Universe as determined by the final 2015 Planck Satellite results of 13.799 ± 0.021 billion.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_140283
https://youtu.be/pocINhHymFg
It seems once again the replies have been shut off.
So please let me add here that I much appreciated the intelligence, courtesy, and thoughtful observations of the subsequent contributors.
With regard to the post by Kovalainen at 1230 today, please allow me to say that I can find in it nothing of importance to dispute, and also that I share many of his concerns, and find his methodology most sound.
Thank you all for brightening my day.
I see the featured story on the WSJ today is Oil and Gas Bankruptcies Grow as Investors Lose Appetite for Shale
Smaller drillers, which account for sizable part of U.S. oil production, are struggling to pay off hefty debt burdens
But it is not clear to me that these companies have gone out of business. I think that there has been a greater fool who bought them, or they got financing some other way.
From this interview former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, I gained a new appreciation of how the Trump administration views the current trade war with China.
Steve Bannon: If There Is Another Tiananmen in Hong Kong, the CCP Will Collapse | Zooming In with Simone Gao
https://youtu.be/_xDQs5M7lHw
As explained earlier it’s not about Trump’s admin, the whole mil-security apparatus is now behind it, the clues are available out there even on the msm if you dig diligently. They simply realized time is of the essence if they want to trim them down a bit – they must act ASAP, last chance, hence the current project of meddling/color revolution attempt in HK. But they are obviously active on many fronts simultaneously: tariff war, espionage – early assessment on JITs hacking, arm twisting existing of prospective partners-customers of China, etc..
Talking about goal / plan for CCP collapse seems nutty, although it’s the standard long term strategy of spreading chaos, which was under continued meddling campaigns successful in other past historical cases towards other countries. But the sequencing odds to achieve that on US favored terms and current Chinese development level is a bit shallow, I would say 15-25% max.. However, for a desperate gambler such odds are tantalizing.
I appreciate your comment. And I think I do need to dig a bit more diligently on this issue, if only to get better grounding in it. The relationship between China and the rest of the world and how things go on in China add up to an enormous complicated issue, and I for one don’t have enough facts I can be sure of to be able to make a clear analysis of what’s going on.
On the issue of color revolutions, I would like to point out that the sheer number of demonstrators on the streets (1.7 million is an oft-quoted figure) indicates that a majority of Hong Kong residents support the protests there, which is remarkable considering the personal risks Chinese people are likely to incur in standing up to the CCP. I doubt that these protests are the result of a color revolution, although undoubtedly some level of outside meddling and stirring of the cauldron is going on. I think they would have happened regardless of outside influence. Of course, I could be naive as to the level of clandestine activity involved.
Anyway, it seems we have the Globalist consortium on the one side, who want to keep the China trade going, get Hilary or another compliant politician elected POTUS in 2020, and install 500 million Chinese solar panels on US rooftops within the next four years. And on the other side we have the military industrial complex, backers and handlers of Trump, who want to contain China and limit its rise while poking it with a sharp stick to insure it behaves like a credible enemy.
But where does the so-called US Deep State come into this? Are they a separate third entity with a separate agenda? Or are they more like a group of go-betweens who facilitate deals between the other power holders and take a cut accordingly? Perhaps when people call DC “the Swamp”, they instinctively recognize that it is a complex ecosystem in which lots of interdependent lifeforms coexist, some of which have never been seen or catalogued.
The US plays the role of Germany in 1914 and 1941, pre-emptively striking to eliminate the long-term strategic threat posed by Russia, but in an immensely more complicated economic relationship of course.
The CCP is utterly corrupt, and has presided over a very foolish over-expansion of debt, so the goal of toppling it, or at least sowing internal in-fighting, is perhaps not so wildly off the mark – who knows?
But we can be sure this is no whim of Trump alone. It’s odd that no one ever uses the phrase ‘the Establishment’ of the rulers of the US: in this case, it is clearly divided as to policy.
Perhaps my fault I did not stress it enough in each post on this topic as I perceived it now as self-evident enough, so let’s recap:
– the most violent (face covered) groups of rioters who repeatedly stormed gov buildings, blinded cops with strong laser pens, vandalized shops and infrastructure and as of lately on US TV openly said they want dead people on the street is simply a vector of events which NO serious country would underestimate and try not to smash down by whatever means
– ring leaders of the overall protests ~20yrs old evidently very unreasonable hysterical zealots are by their own self promo pictured meeting-consulting with US envoys repeatedly etc. Sorry I’ve seen too many color-revolutions in my lifetime to spot these very same features (incl. disgusting personality types) right away, actually many did way earlier before me in terms of the HK situation.. we are into sort of an escalation phase after few years of pressures building up..
– yes there are genuine reasons for general HK pop to protest, BUT bear in mind the path dependency and sequencing of this ENTIRE story stems from the process of changing status of former British colony, which on purpose planted several time bombs into to process as they did on many previous occasions around the world, i.e. to make the process as painful, divisive as possible, leaving many levers in situ for future meddling..
– yes the mainland China is using various tricks to their favor like inviting mainland “settlers” trying to mix up the cultural-political profile of future HK – so what.. ?
– yes the HK people are pushed against the wall, they were for decades accustomed to certain social and political and now increasingly deteriorating economic standards (relative vs mainland) which are being chipped away from them – again so what ? Though luck of the place of birth or historical setting, deal with it as an adult, besides the argument again reverts back to the British colonial rule origins of this mess..
– yes you are correct on the US factions point (I tried to mention it few pages back as well), there seems to be several approaches on the way how to deal with China (level of economic engagement), however I think the preponderance of evidence seems now more on the side of the observation the guys who want to weaponize this into new ~cold war is stronger, however that also doesn’t necessarily mean at the moment direct threat of US hastily repatriating factories-investments yet etc. it will be likely take form of more rebalancing priorities, for example now the biggest fear from telecom/IT angle..
Raúl Ilargi Meijer has taken up his pen on the Hong Kong issue. He’s wondering what has possessed China to be rocking the boat just now.
Why the extradition bill, which would have allowed for people to be extradited from Hong Kong to the mainland was ever proposed, g-d only knows. Remember, the transfer of control over the city to China is still 28 years away. Why do it now? It was obvious all along it would meet with fierce resistance.
Blindness or blinders in the Politburo? Quite possible, it’s not as if those guys typically get out much. It’s just that they’re taking a giant risk, because as Dennis Kwok says, “the use of troops in Hong Kong will be the end of Hong Kong”. What he means, and Beijing surely understands, is the end of Hong Kong’s status as a trade and finance center.
Not a trifle matter for sure. Hong Kong has built that status over a long period -that happens in fields where trust is so crucial-, much like the City of London and Wall Street. You can break that down in no time, but you can’t rebuild the trust elsewhere in anywhere near that timeframe, it takes many years.
China has major plans to ‘move’ and/or ‘share’ Hong Kong’s financial and trade ‘qualities’ to/with neighboring Macau and Shenzhen, but it’s nowhere near ready to make that transition. Remember, Hong Kong has its own dollar, the HKD. That’s not going to move to the mainland, not even in 2047. China only have the yuan, which is quite useless for international trade and FX.
Two immovable entities, but Beijing seems to think they can move this, that they have the upper hand. Do they, though? 7.5 million people live in Hong Kong, a fair amount of whom are below the age of 10 or above the age of 75. So the 1.5 million that were already out on the streets in some of this year’s protests added up to a quarter of the population. That’s a lot of people.
Sending in troops would hurt China’s economy something real bad, because it would mean the end of the Hong Kong trade hub (corporations, banks, rich people would leave). And most of the population understand the now-or-never notion. I read somewhere that though 92% of the people are ‘Chinese’, only 11% call themselves that.
The vast majority ‘identifies’ as Hong Kongers. And (perceived) freedom is a big part of that. Many of those Hong Kongers are young and highly educated, salaries are high (finance sector), they can travel freely, study abroad. Those who are older are often the parents of these young people, who’ve worked very hard to give their kids these options.
There have been -and will be again- protests from groups of doctors, lawyers, finance professionals, you name it. They don’t want to run the risk of being picked off the streets by mainland Chinese soldiers OR by Hong Kong police forces instructed by Beijing.
When/If things get down to the wire, Hong Kongers will prove very much to be an immovable force. They have too much to lose not to be. They have, in their own view, everything to lose (which some people would translate as nothing to lose, but meaning the same). And they’re up against a Politburo that reacts to them like it’s never left the early 1900s.
This does not bode well for anyone, and if g-d forbid it comes down to serious fighting in the streets, it will bode ill for the entire world. Not only China depends on Hong Kong for much of its trade, the US and EU do, too, for their trade with China, from which they procure much of what is sold in their stores.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/08/hong-king-kong/
I had not been aware of this:
The USD to the Hong Kong Dollar is quite stable. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=HKD&view=10Y
The USD to the CNY (Yuan) is much less stable. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CNY&view=10Y
The CNY (Yuan) to the HKD bounces around. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=CNY&to=HKD&view=10Y
I can see why the Hong Kong Dollar might be favored for trade.
The HK dollar is pegged to the USD – potentially a source of vulnerability:
“Economic shocks to the Hong Kong economy resulting from both the protests against the government in Beijing and from the U.S. trade war with China are already putting strain on the fixed exchange rate.
“Decreasing foreign investment in the city could decrease the demand for the Hong Kong dollar and so drive down the currency’s value. This would force the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to use its U.S. dollar reserves to buy up Hong Kong dollars.”
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/hong-kong-dollar-peg-pressure.amp
Make no mistake, the corporations already got a plan B ready to put into action once the Politbüro rolls tanks into HK. Yeah, let’s wish them “good luck” with Tianmen 2.0. I guess the business interest in south east China will not be too happy about meddling with HK. That might pose a existential threat to the despots in the central committee. I wonder if they dare to roll tanks into the manufacturing hub of Shenzhen and perhaps Shanghai once the mainlanders gets a taste of HK liberties, that would be a sight to behold. No matter what, they will be ousted, the problem is how many Chinese will be thrown under the bus in the process, similar to the cultural revolution?
It will surely be rough entering mid-century building up manufacturing infrastructure in the west again. But no need to despair. The Crown Jewels of technology, energy and manufacturing capabilities and know-how to ensure continuation of Pax Americana are safely located in Trumpland territories.
Tsai Ing-Wen for president of greater China. Fsck the brutalist Politbüro.
MCGA!
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/01/17/11/TsaiIng-Wen.jpg
Revolt of the SARs !
Well I can believe such motivational / todo banner hangs in lot of office space inside the beltway, lolz..
Nitpick: that is Tian An Men, “Heaven Peace Gate”. But yes, I believe a mainland Chinese invasion of Hong Kong would lead to the fall of the dynasty. As the saying goes, May you live in interesting times.
“The Gate of Heavenly Peace” says it so much more poetically.
Not to be confused with this guy:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/00/40/1b0040fb361aea5b418ac00e11274794.jpg
Yesterday, off-duty cop in HK stabbed by 3x masked guys (presumably rioters)..
The rationally expected international wave of outrage by democracy and human rights camp?
..eek error doesn’t compute..
.. silence..
Yes, it’s a classic multi front operation, and the official US gov doesn’t have all the levers in meddling operations, it has been distributed-outsourced (plausible deniability) among the swampers: msm, NGOs, and other various shady groups and financiers, and obviously the street level operating gangs..
The Brits are obviously there too. The mainland BS has been going on for far too long. A bunch of elitist twāts in the central committee against the rest of the free world. Mm, yeah.. 😉
Do those despots really think they stand a chance against getting walked up and down their collective aśśes by the well oiled boots of Pax Americana?
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_original/ls4fhfyfi0b2nirilht8.gif
The “masked rioters” began by attacking the protesters. Then somebody realised that agents provocateurs should be provoking the right people, hence the change of plan. The goal is clear: create enmity between the protesters and the police, and so make the police allies and enablers of CCP fascism. Will it work? Who knows.
It worked out so well in Kiev, but they were only stupid Ukranians.
But who sent those masked men? It could be any of a dozen shadowy power players for a dozen different reasons. Trump, Hillary, Soros, the Deep State, Putin, Abe, the heads of the CCP, those nice folks in the Chinese or Hong Kong security forces who want to bring this thing to the boil, the Triads, the Indians, the Vietnamese, the Arabs, or even the sneaky inscrutable Singaporeans. who would welcome the chance to take over some of Hong Kong’s trade and industry.
Tim, good way of reasoning.
For example I found it a bit silly when some of the HK protesters marched and waved US flags, that’s very rare if not non existent around the world. It could have been genuine, we don’t know, the HK context is very complex.
But the fact ViceNews ran a reportage on the masked rioters the way it did, seems to me like the usual propaganda outlets were tasked with priming the narrative so to speak in scheduled fashion. Similarly that KyleBass channel suddenly few days – weeks ago released plethora / package of anti mainland material.. + the usual msm crap coverage.
Do you really think the HK:ers don’t understand that there is a large British and American presence? A presence they fully welcome and approve by waving the flag of liberty and bill of rights?
Greedily claiming HK from the Brits must have been the worst strategic mistake ever done by the central committee.
Desiring HK by the Politbüro is like wanting cancer. It definitely have grown out of control and it will spread to the rest of China.
If they would be any smart, they would immediately hand it back to the Brits for the foreseeable future. Thanks, but no thanks.
The queen must be laughing: “Oh, so you want my Crown Jewels”, “does it hurt having them?”, “still want the bling?”, “I guess not, really” 😉
The Politbüro are totally clueless on how to defeat old school imperialism and British common law. Bandits only think like bandits can.
The case is pretty clear by now, sept1 the aussie “60min” ran extremely dumb propaganda piece on the HK riots, curiously in the end they dropped the ball letting to speak some senior pro-meddling women, who spilled the beans to the effect mainland China won’t dare threaten their only most important fin hub by calling in the army!
So, that had been the ploy for this season, intensify riots, drumbeat msm/PR, lure mainland into this trap.
The only way out is the Putin option/answer to meddling, simply in calm way breath deeply and CUT the losses, in this case move fin services in other more safe SARs and proper mainland cities, it will take time, but it will break the cycle of western nonsense. In the meanwhile the spoiled kids of HK could receive some humanitarian aid only and question their silly – gullible ways in rotting away city of literally no future..
Oh, spoiled brats indeed, just like us, yes, indeed just like us, but not dumb@ss slaves to the Politbüro, like the rest of the drones living under the boot of the brutalist state and it’s abominations of surveillance and concrete horrors.
Oh how the Queen must be laughing.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xFPBijvBJFk/maxresdefault.jpg
😉
A few translations:
CCP = Communist Party of China
POTUS =President of the United States
US Deep State = used to describe a conspiracy theory which suggests that collusion and cronyism exist within the US political system and constitutes a hidden government within the legitimately elected government
Color revolutions = a term that was widely used by worldwide media to describe various related movements that developed in several countries of the former Soviet Union and the Balkans during the early 2000s. The term has also been applied to a number of revolutions elsewhere, including in the Middle East.
But why “color?”
partly because foreign NGO’s often go to ad / PR agencies to produce for them some catchy colorful theme designs for mass manufactured posters etc. It looks especially silly on “pro democracy rallies” in poorer parts of the world..
Thanks!
Ehm, supposedly “c-theory” confirmed decades ago by wagons of paper trail presented through even very limited Congress investigations.. not mentioning other eye witness accounts, senior figure memoirs, sourced news articles etc..
You American are funny bunch..
And let’s not forget America’s own color revolution, which is still ongoing.
The Clintons and Soros Launch America’s Purple Revolution
Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to «go quietly into that good night». On the morning after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent the coming together of Democratic «Blue America» and Republican «Red America» into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros, were, in fact, helping to launch Soros’s «Purple Revolution» in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/11/11/clintons-and-soros-launch-america-purple-revolution/
A number of most interesting comments, especially to an Englishman. I think it is now clear that in 1997 we handed China a poisoned chalice, poisoned with the virus of freedom.
But the “Crown Jewel” was India, which we spent 150 years unifying, at great cost in blood and treasure, and which the natives who proclaimed themselves totally ready for “swaraj”, self rule, promptly tore apart, at the cost of three million dead.
And next time around, when blind, irredentist Hindu religious fascism triggers the next war, make that thirty million.
My appreciation for the brilliance of the British colonial system only grows with time.
It is definitely staged and executed with brilliance. The intelligence gathered, operatives on the ground together with the supercomputer simulations of likely economic/energy/technology outcomes put a definitive end of the Politbüro aspirations. Question is, did they have any choice? Apparently they lack experience from running an empire. Experience that the Brits and Trumpland got plenty of.
Heavy handed bootlegging FF tankers and meddling with governments and people in the west apparently ended the PRC.
https://images03.military.com/sites/default/files/styles/full/public/2019-07/TopGunJackets900.jpg
Too BIG to FAIL
Back YahooFINANCE
Modi Creates Bank Behemoths to Spur India’s Slowing Economy
Suvashree Ghosh, Siddhartha Singh and Shruti Srivastava
Suvashree Ghosh, Siddhartha Singh and Shruti Srivastava
BloombergAugust 30, 2019, 8:33 AM EDT
1 / 2
Modi Creates Bank Behemoths to Spur India’s Slowing Economy
(Bloomberg) — India announced its most sweeping bank overhaul in decades minutes before data showed growth in Asia’s No. 3 economy slumped to a six-year low.
Four new lenders that result from a series of state-bank mergers will hold business worth 55.8 trillion rupees ($781 billion), or about 56% of the Indian banking industry, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a briefing in New Delhi on Friday. The government will inject a combined 552.5 billion rupees of capital into these entities, she said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking to spur fresh credit and revive economic growth that came in far lower than economists expected. A slump in domestic demand and the world’s worst bad-loan ratio had been restricting scope for a revival in investment.
“Banks with strong national presence and global reach is what we want,” Sitharaman said at the briefing. “Scaling up will only allow them to have lot more resources and therefore the lending cost can come down.”
The government will ensure that no bank employee is hurt by the decisions, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar said at the briefing. He added that no one lost their job when the government helped facilitate a merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda last year, creating the third-largest bank by loans in the country.
India will now have 12 state-run banks instead of 27. The 10-member S&P BSE Bankex index rose 0.6% in Mumbai on Friday before the decisions were announced, compared with a 0.7% gain in the benchmark gauge.
Aren’t they still likely to have the same problems that the individual banks had before?
Gail, you are absolutely right. In fact, the problems will get worse. Industry consolidation has a fatal flaw: middle management. It may be possible to get rid of a few workers at the bottom, but the managers will do all in their power to keep their jobs, and will then compound the problem by insisting on “big organisation” salaries. They will also introduce more micromanagement to justify their existence.
I saw this in the UK, when the socialist governments were consolidating one industry after another, always with the same dismal result. That’s how we got British Leyland, which made bad cars, International Computers, which made lousy grossly overpriced mainframes, and of course Bl**dy British Airways, perhaps one of the world’s worst airlines.
And in the process, the many good, small, efficient companies that had served the country so well were absorbed into the swamp.
I suspect India will have an even worse experience, because managers in that country are hired based on caste, connections, and cronyism, not on competence. Which after all is how they got into this mess: by issuing loans on the same basis, not on the basis of ability to repay.
Kazakhstan joins South Africa in offering a debt jubilee to its poorer citizens, although it looks like the state is taking the hit rather than the banks as seems to be the case in South Africa:
“Half-a-million Kazakhs are to have their debts paid by the government as a “one-time action” to help some of the central Asian country’s poorest, ministers announced.
“Svetlana Zhakupova, Kazakhstan’s Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Protection, said the state would use budgetary funds to repay up to 105 billion Kazakh tenge (KZT) — equivalent to about €245m — owed on loans or other arrears.”
https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/29/kashistan-half-a-million-kazakhs-have-debts-paid-by-the-government
I wonder how these write-offs will affect the ability of these folks to get loans in the future.
“Neil Roets, CEO of Debt Rescue, said it was highly likely that financial institutions – who stand to lose billions should loans be written off – would tighten lending criteria to the point where most of these individuals would not be able to get loans in future.
““The very group that the debt forgiveness programme is allegedly aimed at according to the Department of Trade and Industry (ie, retrenched workers and low wage earners) will be the very people who will not be able to source a line of credit when this policy (is implemented).””
https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/335393/south-africas-new-debt-relief-laws-will-make-it-tougher-to-get-a-loan/
Sort of what I figured. They figured the debt was un-payable anyhow. Might as well get these folks off the books and keep them from coming back.
So, once the debt slaves are freed, it will be impossible to drag them back onto the plantation. Yes, that should certainly worry the bankers. It should encourage the rest of us to prepare twelve foot lengths of stout hempen rope, tied in a noose.
HK police chieftains proclaimed the announced weekend protest rally as illegal..
Various msm outlets, curiously incl. Chinese ones showed motorized riot gear units forming across the border.
Meanwhile renown msm outlet of US alphabet agencies ViceNews ran a piece in which the masked violent faction of the protesters are openly craving for first dead on the streets, hoping to seed thus a self propagating martyrdom. Confirmation, absolutely following the script of color revolution manuals, especially the Ukraine model one of steering protests into meat grinders..
It seems a threshold is about to be breached, as mentioned previously the mainland politicians where absolutely unprepared for this scenario, they were dreamy about their written plans of achieving sole super power status by ~2035-45 without a severe push back.
EEk..Critical Error.. Doesn’t compute, lolz.
oops ..were unprepared.. /even more errors hah
In their delusional state they probably thought the Brits left HK when it was officially “handed over” to the Politbüro. In reality, the Brits surely strengthened their presence with the assistance of the US. Trump just had to pull the trigger in the tariff/trade dispute. The central committee was way to busy meddling in the west to realize what was brewing in their back yard.
“Oh, you want to challenge Pax Americana by bootlegging oil tankers full of our product, well let’s see how that goes”! “Does it hurt still?” “No?”, “Let’s crank this mofo up to 11 and watch the despots squirm”
https://youtu.be/gSS2IgnnBo8
““It will look like a kind of nightmare, the day after. We don’t know what will happen with people, with trade, with traffic, it will not be good,” declared Pekka Haavisto, the Finnish foreign minister, contemplating the scenario of a no-deal Brexit.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/url-brexit-no-deal-eu-boris-johnson-raab-netherlands-defence-a9084186.html
“Confidence drained away from British businesses and consumers in August as the Brexit crisis deepened, according to surveys that suggested the political ructions are increasingly taking a toll on the economy. The Lloyds Bank Business Barometer slid to 1% from 13% in July, its lowest level since December 2011, when Britain was struggling to recover from the global financial crisis.”
https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/30/worries-mount-for-uk-businesses-and-consumers-as-brexit-crisis-builds-surveys
“The political crisis could not have occurred at a worse time [for Italy], with the economy flatlining for more than a year… with the growth outlook, unemployment and government finances all scoring less than half the maximum points available… the manufacturing sector purchasing managers’ index has stayed below 50, indicating contraction for the past 10 months, highlighting how Italy’s weak economy has become the norm.”
https://www.euromoney.com/article/b1gxwttpfb13sj/italys-political-crisis-only-emphasizes-debt-is-the-real-problem
“Germany’s deepening economic slump is squeezing the life out of the nation’s struggling banks, a little more than a decade after a crippling financial crisis from which many never fully recovered.
“Lenders ranging from Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG to HSBC Holdings Plc’s German subsidiary all reported deteriorating second-quarter earnings. They had to set aside more money for loans to companies reeling from the impact of global trade disputes, Brexit uncertainty and distress in the autos sector. All are now doubling down on cost cuts to offset the rising threat to profitability.
““Headwinds from interest rates and the economy are intensifying,” HSBC’s Germany head Carola von Schmettow said on Wednesday. There is an “increased danger of credit defaults” in the second half of the year, according to the bank.
“The growing threat could hardly come at a worse time for a banking industry already debilitated by years of sub-par profitability and failed turnaround plans…”
https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/german-slump-threatens-bank-profits-as-loan-default-risk-spreads
“…lower oil prices will keep German headline inflation hovering around 1% in the coming months. While this is good news for consumers, who as Mario Draghi once said can “buy more stuff”, the low inflation combined with the prospects of an at best stagnating economy bolsters the case for new monetary stimulus from the ECB in two weeks from today.
“In fact, we think that the ECB doesn’t want to wait until the Eurozone economy is again caught in a possible deflationary spiral but will want to set another (maybe final) preemptive strike.”
https://think.ing.com/snaps/germany-weaker-inflation-supports-case-for-ecb-action/
Ohh dear looks like the UK is still addicted to burn stuff, despite the huge sums spent on Wind and Solar. Biomass is just fossil fuel in another form but biomass burning in a grate is where we are heading, so get planting those trees and fast.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/aburningissuebiomassisthebiggestsourceofrenewableenergyconsumedintheuk/2019-08-30
Thanks USA and Canada for sending us your wood pellets.
Analysis reveals the contribution of burning organic material from plants, trees and animals – including millions of tonnes of imported wood pellets from the USA and Canada – to the UK’s energy mix. What is its environmental impact?
Indeed what is the environmental impact?
The largest source of renewable energy we consume in the UK is not from the sun or wind – it’s from Biomass, that is, organic material from plants or animals.
We have seriously lost the plot, I think its called ‘energy addicts looking for its next fix’.
I noticed that Boris Johnson’s recent video, in its attempt to galvanise nationalistic sentiment behind Brexit and the Tories via pseudo-Churchillian rhetoric and stirring music, prominently features wind-turbines, as Johnson exhorts:
“Because it is time we unleashed the productive power, not just of London and the SE, but of every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – the awesome foursome that are incarnated in that red, white and blue flag…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irGdrCYaywc
Jingoistic nonsense that insults the intelligence, of course, and our productive power is, on that basis, dilute and intermittent, unfortunately.
Dilute and intermittent power really doesn’t work, but this point has not hit home with people yet.
I didn’t see much awesome national power waiting to be unleashed today when shopping: a good deal of obesity, cheap made-in-Asia clothes, and vacant, cow-like faces, yes…..
I suppose that implicit in Johnson’s whipping-up rhetoric is the acknowledgement that we are indeed an economy in decline – an ailing horse that needs a good flogging.
Your description made me chuckle. I couldn’t possibly comment there. 😀
From what I have read, there is a huge amount of fossil fuel energy (particularly oil) required in the making and transporting of wood panels from the US to the UK. Figure 2 of this analysis by Marco Raugei and Enrica Leccisi gives the the EROEI as 1.1:1, saying that the energy from burning the biomass is barely greater than the directly calculated energy use going into the process. Of course, there is a lot of indirect energy use going into this as well, making the net to clearly be a huge loss.
There are all kinds of other trade-offs involved too. One of the sources of the wood pellet is the pines of the state I live in, Georgia. These same pines could:
1. Stay planted where they are.
2. Be used for ethanol from biomass, if someone could figure out how to cheaply deal with the pesky cellulose problem.
3. Be used to make paper, rather than cutting down the virgin timber from Indonesia.
World Bank data shows that the percentage of forested areas on earth falls, year after year. Promoting wood pellet use works in the direction of promoting deforestation in places like Indonesia.
If international trade becomes a problem, this is an imported fuel that is oil dependent. I imagine the cost of shipping these pellets will go up when the new rules requiring less polluting fuels go into effect January 1, 2020.
This is a politically popular “solution,” but not a sensible one.
I intended to buy an ‘eco-friendly- wood pellet stove some years ago, until I realised just where the pellets were sourced. Utter nonsense.
I am lucky enough to live in the woods and I go around every autumn looking for dead or fallen trees to harvest for the stove. If I don’t burn this useful resource, the termites and assorted fungi will eventually do the job at a more leisurely pace. And if I find that the termites have already moved in, I leave them to get on with the job.
My biggest eco-sin is the gasoline powered chainsaw. But I hate the sound it makes and so I only use it on tree trunks that are too wide for me to cut with a handsaw between tea-breaks.
Europe’s renewable energy directive poised to harm global forests.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06175-4
Why am I not surprised?
In that vein:
“It’s not hard to pinpoint our unquenchable thirst for cattle, soy, timber, palm oil and other commodities as the main driver of Amazonian deforestation and the underlying cause of the record number of fires this year.
“What’s more difficult is figuring out what to do about it.
“The sheer scale of the global economy and the complexity of the supply chains and financial systems that make it work mean that nearly every company, corporation and banking and investment institution on the planet is complicit in the destruction of the Amazon and other forest ecosystems around the world.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/amazon-deforestation-consumerism_n_5d66f174e4b022fbceb5a02b
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Doubling down on cost cuts sounds like layoffs. This is not what is needed to keep the economy going.