Many people are concerned that we have an oil problem. Or they are concerned about recession and the need to lower interest rates.
As I see the situation, we have a problem of a networked economy that is not functioning well. A big part of this problem is energy-related. Strange as it may seem, energy prices (including oil prices) are too low for producers. If debt levels were growing more rapidly, this low-price problem would go away.
The “standard way” of encouraging more debt-based purchases is by lowering interest rates. But we are running out of room to do this now. We also seem to be running out of economic investments to make with debt. If expected returns on investment were greater, interest rates would be higher.
Without economic investments, demand for commodities of all kinds, including energy products, tends to stay too low. This is the problem we have today. Our debt problem and our energy problem are really different aspects of a networked economy that is no longer generating enough total return. History suggests that these periods tend to end badly.
In the following sections, I will explain some of the issues involved.
[1] Our problem is not just that oil prices are too low. Prices are too low for practically every type of energy producer, and in many parts of the globe.
Oil: OPEC oil producers have cut back production because they view oil prices as too low. OPEC reports a cutback in production of 2.7 million barrels per day between November 2018 and July 2019 (from 32.3 million bpd to 29.6 million bpd).
In the US, there has been an increase in bankruptcies of oil producers during 2019, relative to 2018. There has also been a reduction in the number of oil drilling rigs of 17% since the week of November 16, 2018, according to reports by Baker Hughes. These are signs of producer distress.
Natural gas: While recent US natural gas prices have bounced up off their recent lows, as recently as August 8, 2019, we were reading:
U.S. gas futures this week collapsed to a three-year low, while spot prices were on track to post their weakest summer in over 20 years. In other markets, such lackluster pricing would cause investment to retrench and supply to contract.
But gas production is at a record high and expected to keep growing. Demand is rising as power generators shut coal plants and burn more gas for electricity, and as rapidly expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals turn more of the fuel into super-cooled liquid for export.
Analysts believe the natural gas market is not trading on demand fundamentals because supply growth continues to far outpace rising consumption. Energy firms are pulling record amounts of oil from shale formations and with that oil comes associated gas that needs either to be shipped or burned off.
When we look worldwide, we see that the Wall Street Journal is reporting, “U.S. Glut in Natural Gas Supplies Goes Global.” A chart from that article shows falling natural gas prices in Europe and Asia, almost to the level of US natural gas prices.
Coal: The US Energy Information Administration writes, “More than half of US coal mines operating in 2008 have since closed.” USA Today writes, “Is President Trump losing his fight to save coal? Third major company since May files for bankruptcy.”
China has also been closing coal mines in response to low prices. Its coal production ramped up quickly after it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, but since the 2012 to 2013 period, production has been close to level. An academic paper talks about a “de-capacity program” undertaken in China in 2016 in response to plunging coal prices and overall financial loss of coal enterprises.
Figure 1. 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.
Uranium: A recent article says, “Plummeting global uranium prices hit Namibia hard.” Another article talks about the huge amount of capacity that has been taken off-line because of continued low uranium prices. The article estimates that 25% to 35% of global uranium production had already been taken off-line by the time the article was published (May 20, 2019).
Ethanol: According to the Wall Street Journal, the ethanol industry has been losing money since at least 2015, and is now closing ethanol plants in three states. The trade war has exacerbated its problems, but clearly its problems began before the trade war.
[2] The general trend in oil prices has been down since 2008. In fact, a similar trend applies for many other fuels.
Figure 2 shows that oil prices since 2008 have been trending downward.
Figure 2. Inflation adjusted weekly average Brent Oil price, based on EIA oil spot prices and US CPI-urban inflation.
Figure 3 shows that other energy prices have been following a similar price trend to that of oil. This situation happens because energy products are primarily used in finished goods and services of many kinds, such as cars, homes, vacation travel, and air conditioning. If demand for finished goods and services is high, prices for all commodities can be expected to be high; if demand for finished goods and services is low, prices for all commodities can be expected to be low. Thus, it shouldn’t be too shocking that the problem of prices that are too low for energy producers is very widespread.
Figure 3. 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. They are annual averages, so smooth out quite a few smaller bumps.
[3] The situation of prices being too low for many types of energy producers simultaneously is precisely the problem I found back in December 2008 when I wrote the article Impact of the Credit Crisis on the Energy Industry – Where Are We Now?
The article mentioned was written in December 2008. If we look back at Figure 2, this was a time when oil prices were very low. I had first noticed a cutback in credit of various kinds (including credit card debt and mortgage debt) in the middle of 2008, about the time oil prices crashed. Later in the year, additional financial problems emerged, including the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Banks became less willing to offer credit to buyers who were deemed insufficiently creditworthy.
In my December 2008 article, I wrote about suppliers in various supply chains not being able to get credit. Without credit, supply chains could not operate. Businesses depending on supply chains were forced to cut back on their purchases. In fact, some suppliers went bankrupt. Workers were laid off in this process; these layoffs added to the lack of buyers for finished goods and services. Energy prices of many types crashed simultaneously because of the lack of demand for commodities used to make finished products of many kinds.
The fix for the problem back in late 2008 was for the US to begin Quantitative Easing. Quantitative Easing lowered longer-term interest rates and allowed more credit to get back to supply chains. By 2011, oil prices had risen to a level that was more tolerable for producers. These higher prices slowly slipped away, especially disappearing when the US discontinued its Quantitative Easing program in 2014.
If a person looks at the late 2008 situation, it is clear that a lack of debt availability indirectly led to low commodity prices. Prices dropped almost vertically when the debt bubble popped. This time, the situation is a little different. We arrived at low prices through the long diagonal black dotted line on Figure 2; this time other factors besides an obvious lack of debt have been involved.
One issue that seems to be involved this time is a shift in relativities between the dollar and other currencies, making energy products more expensive for those outside the US.
A second contributing issue this time is growing wage disparities, as goods are increasingly manufactured in low-wage countries. Low-wage workers (both in developing countries and in advanced economies trying to compete with developing countries) are less able to buy finished goods and services. This contributes to the lack of demand for finished goods and services using commodities of all kinds, including energy products.
[4] In the right circumstances, a rapidly growing supply of cheap energy products can help the world economy grow.
If we look back, there was a period of rapid growth in the world’s energy consumption between World War II and 1980. This was a period of rapid growth in the world economy.
Figure 4. Average growth in energy consumption for 10 year periods, based Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with BP Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent.
In fact, both population and energy consumption per capita were growing. This growing energy consumption per capita allowed living standards to grow as well (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Energy growth amounts shown in Figure 4, divided between amount that supported population growth (based on 2019 world population estimates and earlier estimates by Angus Maddison) and all other, which I have called “living standards.”
Most people would agree that a major increase in living standards took place between World War II and 1980. New buildings were constructed to replace those destroyed or damaged during World War II. Many people were able to buy cars for the first time. Interstate highway systems were built. Electric transmission lines were built, and oil and gas pipelines were laid. In rural areas, homes were often electrified for the first time. With the aid of energy saving appliances and birth control pills, many women joined the workforce. The US, Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union all saw their economies grow.
[5] It is striking that the period of rapid energy consumption growth between World War II and 1980 corresponds closely to the long-term rise in US interest rates between the 1940s and 1980 (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Three-month and ten-year interest rates through July 2019, in chart by Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
If interest rates rise, it becomes more expensive to borrow money. Monthly payments for homes, cars, and new factories all rise. Evidently, the US economy was growing robustly enough in the 1940 to 1980 timeframe that US short term interest rates could be raised without much economic harm. The big concern seemed to be an overheating economy as a result of too rapid growth.
The huge increase in interest rates in 1980-1981 put an end to any concern about an overheating economy (compare Figures 6 and 7). Oil prices came back down once the world economy was in recession from these high interest rates.
Figure 7. Historical inflation-adjusted Brent-equivalent oil prices based on data from 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
[6] Starting about 1980, the US economy began substituting rapidly growing debt for rapidly growing energy supplies. For a while, this substitution seemed to pull the economy forward. Now growth in debt is failing as well.
Figure 8 shows how the ratio of total US debt (including governmental, household, business and financial) has changed since 1946. It becomes clear that once the big “push” that the economy received from rising consumption of energy products began to fail about 1980, the US moved to the addition of debt as a substitute.
Figure 8. Ten-year average increase in US debt relative to GDP. Debt is “All Sectors, Liability Level” from FRED; GDP is in dollars of the day.
I think of debt as being one of many kinds of promises. Figure 9 illustrates that while the total amount of goods and services has been growing, debt levels and other kinds of promises have been growing even more rapidly.
Figure 9. Promises of future goods and services tend to rise much more rapidly than actual goods and services. Chart by Gail Tverberg.
Many things can go wrong with this system. If the growth in added debt slows too much, we can expect to start seeing financial problems similar to those we saw in 2008. Also, if the level of debt (such as student debt) gets too high, its payback interferes with the purchase of other needed goods, such as a home. If energy providers decide prices are too low and stop producing, then promised Future Goods and Services can’t really appear. Huge defaults on promises of all kinds can be expected. This happens because the laws of physics require the dissipation of energy for physical processes underlying GDP growth.
[7] Since 2001, world economic growth has been pulled forward by China with its growing coal supply and its growing debt. In the future, this stimulus seems likely to disappear.
Figure 10. Figure similar to Figure 5, with bump that is primarily the result of China’s accelerated growth circled.
China has been financing its rapid economic growth since 2001 with growing debt.
Figure 11. China Debt to GDP Ratio, in figure by the IIF.
We know that low prices for coal have led to flattening production since the 2012 – 2013 period (Figure 1). In fact, part of the reason for the flattening of non-financial corporate debt in recent years in Figure 11 may reflect swaps of uncollectible coal mine debt for equity, removing part of coal mine debt from the chart.
The failure of coal production to grow rapidly puts China at an economic disadvantage because coal is a very low-cost energy source. Any substitution, even imported coal, is likely to raise its cost of making goods and services. This makes competition in a world economy more difficult. And China’s debt level is already very high, putting it at risk of the problems discussed in Section [6].
[8] The world economy needs much more rapidly growing debt if energy prices are to rise to a level that is acceptable to energy producers.
Debt acts like a promise of future goods and services. Growing debt, plus increases in other types of promises of future goods and services, helps to keep energy prices high enough for energy producers. There are at least three reasons that growing debt helps an economy:
First, increasing debt can be used to build factories, and these factories hire large numbers of people. The factories utilize various raw materials and energy products themselves, raising demand for goods and services. Furthermore, the workers hired by the factories, with their incomes from their jobs, also raise the demand for goods and services. These goods and services are made with commodities. Growing debt thus raises demand for commodities, and thus their prices.
Second, increasing debt levels by governments are often used to hire workers or to raise benefits for the unemployed or the elderly. This has a very similar effect to building new factories. These workers and these beneficiaries can afford more goods and services, and these goods and services are made using commodities. Governments also use some of their funds to build schools, pave roads and operate police cars. All of these things require energy consumption.
Third, consumers can afford to buy more of the output of the economy, if their debt levels are increased. If debt can be structured so that anyone who walks into a car dealership can afford a new car (such as longer durations, lower interest rates, and no down payment), this added debt allows increasing demand for new cars. It also allows increasing demand for the energy products used to make and operate these new vehicles. Furthermore, if new homes can be made more affordable for young people, this works in the direction of adding more mortgage debt.
The Institute of International Finance (IIF) reports that the ratio of world debt to GDP (red line on Figure 12) has been falling since 2016. This falling ratio of debt to GDP no doubt contributes to the low-priced energy problem with which energy producers are now struggling.
Figure 12. IIF figure showing total world debt and the ratio of total world debt to GDP.
Non-debt promises of many types can also have an impact on energy prices, but it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss their impact. Some examples of non-debt promises are shown on Figure 9.
[9] The world economy seems to be running out of truly productive uses for debt. There are investments available, but the rate of return is very low. The lack of investments with adequate return is a significant part of what is preventing the economy from being able to support higher interest rates.
In a self-organizing networked economy, market interest rates (especially long-term interest rates) are determined by the laws of physics. Regulators do have some margin for action, however. They can raise or lower certain short-term interest rates. They can also use their central banks to purchase existing securities, thereby influencing both short- and long-term interest rates. In addition, they can indirectly affect the system by raising and lowering tax rates and by adopting stimulus programs.
Market interest rates, in some sense, tell us how productive investments truly are at a point in time. Years ago, investments that the economy was able to make were far more productive than the investments we are making today. For example, the first paved road in an area had a huge beneficial effect. New roads were able to open whole areas up to commerce. Once an area had been developed, later investments were much less beneficial. Fixing up a road that has many holes in it takes energy and materials of many types, but it doesn’t really add productivity to the system. It just keeps productivity from falling.
After a point, adding new roads or other infrastructure doesn’t add much of anything. This is especially the case if population is level or falling. If population is falling, it would likely make sense to reduce the number of roads, but this is difficult to do, once there are a few occupied homes along a road.
As another example, a car that gets a person from home to work is a great addition if the vehicle allows the person to take a job that he could not otherwise take. But added “bells and whistles” on cars, such as air conditioning, a musical system, sturdier bumpers, and devices to reduce emissions, are of more questionable value, viewed from the point of view of allowing the economy to function cheaply and efficiently.
Another type of investment is education. At one point, a high school education was sufficient for the vast majority of the population. Now additional years of schooling, paid for by the student himself, are increasingly expected. An investment in higher education can be “productive,” in the sense of helping to differentiate himself/herself from those with no post-secondary education. But the overall level of wages has not been rising enough to compensate for all of the extra education. It is the growing complexity of the system that is forcing the need for extra education upon us. In a sense, the extra education is a tax we are required to pay for having a more complex system.
The need for pollution control might be considered another kind of tax on the system.
Our hugely expensive health care system is another tax on the system. After paying the cost of health care, workers have less funding available for buying or renting a home, raising a family, food and transportation.
[10] Since 1981, regulators have been able to prop up the economy by reducing interest rates whenever economic growth was faltering. Now we have pretty much run out of this built-in source stimulus.
Many observers have noted that central bankers are running out of tools to fix our economic problems. The lack of room to take down interest rates can be seen in Figure 6.
Figure 13 shows that long-term patterns of reductions in interest rates (darker bands) have happened previously. These reductions in interest rates came to an end because they couldn’t go any lower, given inflation expectations and likely levels of defaults. We seem to be facing a similar situation today.
Figure 13. Chart from the Financial Times showing historic interest rates and periods during which interest rates fell.
According to Figure 13, there have been three periods of falling interest rates in the last 200 years:
- 1817-1854
- 1873-1909
- 1985-2019
In the gap between the first two periods of falling interest rates (1854 to 1873), the US Civil War took place. This was a period of very poor return on investments. Somehow it ended in war.
Immediately after the second two periods of falling interest rates (after 1909), the world entered a very unstable period. First there was World War I, then the Great Depression, followed by World War II.
Now we are facing the possibility of yet another end-point for the take-down in interest rates.
[11] The total return of the economy seems to be too low now. This seems to be why we have problems of many types, ranging from (a) low interest rates to (b) low profitability for energy producers to (c) too much wage disparity.
All of the problems listed above are manifestations of an economy that is not producing sufficient total return. The laws of physics distribute the problem to many areas of the economy, simultaneously.
A person wonders what could be ahead. We seem to be reaching the end of the line regarding the takedown of interest rates, as shown in Figure 13. If a takedown in interest rates is possible, it acts as a relief valve for some of the other problems the economy is facing, including too much wage disparity and energy prices that are too low for producers.
In Section [10], we saw that when the relief valve of lower interest rates had disappeared, wars and depressions have taken place. We can’t know the precise outcome this time, but our current situation doesn’t look good. Will we encounter wars, or a serious depression, or financial problems worse than 2008? We can’t know for certain. Or will we somehow find a way around serious problems?
“Woeful. BAD. Shocking. That’s how investors and strategists described Europe’s latest economic data, leaving them fearing the worst and betting this year’s record bond rally has further to run.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-25/europe-s-funds-are-hunkering-down-in-bonds-for-coming-recession
“The EU most certainly does not lack challenges these days, ranging from social to economic. On top of all this, we have the very real prospect of the EU permanently damaging its energy security, by pushing Russia to further pivot East towards Asia…
“An EU court ruling on OPAL pipeline, as well as Danish obstruction of Nord Stream 2 project, has the potential to permanently push Russia towards shifting its supplies East.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4293326-eu-risks-energy-crisis-soon-winter-compounding-economic-problems
RU said this actual Danish ankle kicking is merely ~one month detour on the NordStream2 pipe line laying track.. they will just shift the route a bit around the island/shore if possible, I don’t have the sea depth map for the area at hand now.. if that’s the feasible case or possible point of extortion/sabotage..
The pipelines under construction in Siberia which are bound to China and wider Asia distribution are separate issue mostly.
The new southern pipeline route going through Turkey already, now into Bulgaria and up north into Hungary-Austria border and there merging existing WEuropean network is the second route bypassing the old Ukraine through exclusive line.
So, we recap it’s the new/ish NordStream I&II + Southern/Turk/Balkan Stream..
And the additional Chinese-Asia routes only..
To summarize: three vectors at play in fact, and that’s before developing the Arctic.
I expect that part of the natural gas problems are related to current low natural gas prices and already full storage facilities for winter. Russia doesn’t really want to sell at today’s low prices, and Europe has relatively low need for the gas. Europe isn’t manufacturing much any more, it doesn’t need as much.
It’s about the future prospects:
Natgas imports needed as additional backup for renewables in WEurope.
North Sea and north African natgas not exactly fresh deposits.. perhaps it could be expanded for a while but long term imports probably price competitive at this point.
Hence German stubbornness on NordStream long term pipeline projects.
If they are shocked they haven’t been paying sufficient attention – all predictable from a long way off!
And the young of Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy (and to some extent even France) are still in the same stuffed up position they have been in for the last 10 years – very poor prospects indeed, even when they find work.
It is hard to see much hunkering down in European bonds, for very long, if they are yielding negative amounts. More likely, trying to invest outside the EU.
“The level of government debt around the world has ballooned since the financial crisis, reaching levels never seen before during peacetime. …
“By their aggressive actions over the last decade, central banks have effectively trapped themselves into continually intervening in government bond markets.”
https://www.ft.com/content/661f5c8a-dec9-11e9-9743-db5a370481bc
“There are now several geo-economic games of chicken playing out. In each case, failure to compromise would lead to a collision, most likely followed by a global recession and financial crisis.
“The first and most important contest is between the US and China over trade and technology. The second is the brewing dispute between the US and Iran. In Europe, there is the escalating brinkmanship between Boris Johnson and the EU over Brexit. Finally, there is Argentina, which could end up on a collision course with the International Monetary Fund after the likely victory of the Peronist Alberto Fernández in next month’s presidential election.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/24/global-economy-trump-china-iran-brexit-argentina
It is necessary to continue manipulating to allow negative interest rates to continue. It is not at all clear that the world economy can really tolerate this debt, however.
Trump being impeached? add another big shake to the spinning plates in the air ? Add in India-Pakistan, Iran-Saudi, Repo-maarket, negative interest rates, bank issues in Europe, Brexit, export rapidly slowly, many more…
How many can we add? It does sound very desperate…. going into 2021-2022…. I doubt so. I am happy if we can enter 2020
Trump is a great president…
wow… did I write that?
Trump is the worst president ever…
actually, I want to be clear that I am not meaning that he is a great president (or isn’t)…
I just thought it would be interesting to put out an opinion…
since every personal view of Trump is merely opinion…
agree?
disagree?
possibly the best Republican president since Abraham Lincoln. (not my quote, just reiterating.)
You mean, the idiot from Illinois who deliberately plunged the US into the most destructive war in her history? Who also deliberately tried to start a slave revolt that would have killed millions of civilians? That great president?
yup, inspiring. a real history maker. (well, at least he hasn’t got us in any more wars, yet.) may we all live in interesting times…
IMO, he’s the best President ever. Why? Because he’s exposed the hypocrisy in politics. He’s shown people who want to pay attention what a joke “Big Government” is. He trolls the morons running the show and calls them out for it. He has no problem calling other politicians idiots or liars. How many times have you wanted to call a particular politician a liar when you knew they were lying through their teeth? Like G.W. Bush who shouted from a megaphone at the 9-11 WTC that “they hate us for our freedoms”. Because of 9-11 we are security frisked every which way but loose be it the FBI, CIA, NSA, FISA, TSA etc, etc. Bush is a good example of a lying politician.
Washington and politics is a game and Trump has, to a good level, exposed it. Just to be clear, I did not vote for Trump because I have never voted and never will. But I like Trump’s style, it’s refreshing.
The most tame foreign meddler in decades, so far.
So, that’s almost saint status within the US context.
The bodily-facial expression language how the swampers are under cutting and back stabbing, trap setting him on every issue, each day and step; as well as his inferiority complex to other more freely acting heads of gov is very evident.. And obviously at least some token “shocking info” on the real decrepit situation (out of control) must have trickled down to him during the transition of power and later in the office..
It’s sad to watch in a way, and anything (to worse) can happen now or in his second term. To trivialize it, seems like small town whorehouse operator is suddenly tasked with chairing millennial old satanic cult convention of the Galaxy. In a way he could be another Gorbi character, out of place-time-character for the impossible task at hand..
Trump is the peace president.
Best president in my lifetime. Only because graded on curve. the bar is only two inches above the ground.
+++++++++++++++++
Greta the solution involves seven billion humans dying. Tell the truth.
she could lead the trend by holding her breath for a long, long time.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Big-Oil-Starts-Climate-Initiative-To-Win-Young-People-Back.html
“More than a dozen international oil companies this week announced the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative aimed at addressing the concerns expressed loudly by young climate activists led by Greta Thunberg.
Reuters reports the initiative was announced at the United Nations Climate Summit along with a series of meetings with students and other young people to hammer out the details of a long-term plan for, as Reuters put it, engaging with young people.
“It’s about dialogue and to have dialogue you have to have transparency,” Reuters quoted Equinor’s chief executive Eldar Saetre as saying. The executive also admitted addressing teenage anger on environmental issues had been “tough.”
So adults talk about this stuff for decades and are for the most part ignored, but young Greta leading the young people’s charge gets attention and action? It’s almost as if people think of children as coming here from another planet from another solar system in a different galaxy. No, they’re people born on this planet, just young.
it’s just renewed old strategy “taking away” children and setting them against their parents. It was done physically, on political or faith based grounds before..
It’s very despicable tactic.
“People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.”
~ Greta Thunberg speaking at the United Nations, September 23, 2019
Duncan, that was a good line.
The accompanying hysterical video of this abused mentally ill teenager on a leash is even better than the text only quotes..
Simply ~legit concerns (40yrs old at the minimum btw) are NOW (?!?) with sudden urgency wrapped into bigger envelope how to scam people into adjusted social-economic-political order, i.e. another totalitarian regime, which will decide upon individual consumption habits. While the new order clergy of this setup will still enjoy the benefits of the system (jet flight, extra access to resources and services beyond avg per capita consumption of the proles, ..)
That’s what is the subject matter about, Chinese (and others) are doing the same by slightly different means, e.g. pushing their “right” to match the western level of affluence via domestic development and triage of global laggards be it former richer countries of the West and periphery now slipping away (SAmerica / ClubMed etc)..
She is right, but she can not say the second, half seven billion will die.
It’s rather sinister, for anyone who knows the history of 20th century ‘youth militias’. and the indoctrination and mobilisation of the young as a political force……
The inter-generation blame-game being played is also very dangerous, and a false analysis of how we got to where we are. This crisis has been 250 years in the making, after all, since the Coal Genie was released on a large scale.
Equally, it might just be about diverting and neutralising them, pure hypocrisy.
Personally, I do not like to see very young children shepherded in to protests, taught slogans, and holding placards: in the Basque country that kind of thing ended up with them being recruited as terrorists when they got to 18-20 yrs old, totally brain-washed.
I agree, Xabier – it is creepy this revolutionary zeal in the gullible young.
Actually one starts to despair for the entire species when the political right cynically pretends there are no environmental limits whilst the delusional left advocates for a fantasy Greentopia.
Perhaps it is best just to pour a large gin & tonic and forget all about it.
We certainly have very poor choices when it comes to elections, between competing fantasies.
Utopian fantasy has been built in to Left-wing thinking ever since the French Revolution, and the love of ‘purifying’ revolutionary violence – virtuous by definition. I recall an interview with a man who was lured in to ETA when only 19, shaking his head and saying ‘To think, I killed people ‘for the Revolution’, and really I didn’t understand a thing!’
Most preoccupying is the complete lack of historical (economic) perspective displayed by the young, augmented by inter-generational hatred against Boomers.
A strong drink and a bracing walk with the dog is a good idea!
It is strange – I know some socialist agitators who are perfectly sweet, diffident even, in real life but who would, if their social media output is any window into their true psyche,
happily see me frogmarched to the guillotine for disparaging solar panels or taking Corbyn’s name in vain.
One gets the sense that the collective unconscious is very roiled at this point.
Chin-chin!
They’ll just YES her to death…..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YLsbE3U4738
We all know deep down that Fossil fuels are essential to BAU!
And that’s why we drink!
Paraphrasing comedian Doug Stanhope.
http://bit.ly/2l0nHwP
http://bit.ly/2lyOtfP
But BABIES are so CUTE! Can’t be a Hater or Scrooge….just jealous you didn’t find a mate to have a family.LOSER!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HdZ_UfnzvRQ
And that sums it up pretty much….there is plenty of room. For more people!
Gail, did you think you were going to tackle the true ramifications of a Green New Deal? It would be a tremendously timely and apposite post.
Here in the UK the Labour party is engaged in an orgy of self-congratulation based on its adoption today of a Green New Deal as official policy, with ill-informed speakers throwing around terms like ‘green industrial revolution’ and ‘zero emissions’, as if the laws of physics no longer apply.
I can’t help but wonder how the populace is going to feel when the politicians’ promises of increased prosperity and employment somehow mysteriously fail to materialise in a milieu of rapidly declining fossil-fuel usage.
The deal is thin on practical details at this point but they’ve announced some spending plans – £83 billion on windfarms, £3.5 billion on a tidal power project, £60 billion in free loans for electric cars and $3.6 billion on charging stations (the money apparently coming from a £250bn national transformation fund that Labour will finance through extra borrowing).
Also, interestingly:
“The shadow business secretary will promise another £2.3bn towards the construction of three battery plants, known as “gigafactories”, to manufacture batteries for electric cars. Those factories, which would be 51 per cent state-owned, would be based in Stoke, Swindon and South Wales and each would employ more than 3,000 people.
“On top of this, the party would invest £500m in four metal reprocessing plants to reprocess cobalt and rare earth minerals used in batteries.”
https://www.ft.com/content/3d4f9580-de16-11e9-9743-db5a370481bc
Not just in UK, also hier in Norway and in most european countries, the socialdemocratic Labour parties are jumping on the GND Bandwagon
It is the increasingly shrill moralising I can’t bear, based as it is on this false and childishly binary worldview, which externalises blame by positing that oil company execs are evil but the people who avail themselves of the goods, services and infrastructure into which fossil fuels go (ie pretty much all of them) are somehow not.
This David Korowicz interview from 2014 is a wonderful antidote to all the ill-founded self-righteousness:
“Energy companies? Well, if we don’t want the companies (or global corporations in general), and the waste produced by the energy, resources and manufacturing associated with renewables and fossil fuel systems then all we need to do is stop consuming.”
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-25/anger-complicity-in-a-time-of-limits/
Corbyn talking… please make him stop, lol:
“Bringing our emissions down to net zero won’t happen by itself. It will only be possible with massive public investment in renewable energy and green technology.
“That’s not a burden. It’s an opportunity to kickstart a Green Industrial Revolution that will create hundreds of thousands of high-skill high-wage unionised jobs as we triple solar power, double onshore wind and bring about a seven-fold increase in offshore wind projects.”
I have been thinking about it.
Please do
Please do
“… (the money apparently coming from a £250bn national transformation fund that Labour will finance through extra borrowing).”
ah, there be the rub…
the UK can create 250 billion on their CB computers and lo and behold…
they can “afford” their Green New Deal…
every country should do this!
sheer genius!
IC is saved!
BAU FULL THROTTLE tonight, baby!
We will see: 1/ Deepening irrationality; and 2/ Fantastic mal-investments.
GND is just, in effect, a cargo cult, but sounds oh so great to career politicians who need to make promises.
Wind turbines will be our Easter Islands statues……
Cargo cult that is oh so good. Wind turbines will be our Easter Islands statues that is oh so scary.
Interesting look at the suspended collapse in Greece, vegetative survival UBI like pensions, dwindling tourist interest, and if anybody comes they are oh the horror posh natgas Putinized Turks, moreover as many argued before the Greek situation is just a precursor for others.
Exhausted (corner of the) planet snapshot endgame(?):
[.. even older mother (of ~70yrs protagonist) recalls they used to get much more when they fished with dynamite..] hah, and then they blew the cash on the wedding festivities anyway..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCZr4j24dsg
These (now) barren islands were mistreated for at least past 5-8k yrs..
Marine ecosystem full scale Armageddon vs FR-ESP-DE-IT- .. (slower one) which can momentarily for now switch to other foods (soil+fossil energy) in order to set aside some fish sanctuary zones for which Greece doesn’t have money nor political will to successfully manage. But eventually in further collapse it could end up in the very same downward spiral as in the Greek case.
For all that our civilization is so technologically advanced, it’s ending up like just all the others which saw merely local collapses: over-population, soil, water and bio and mineral -resource exhaustion.
This seems the be the iron law of civilization, inescapable, never to be defied or more than slightly delayed…..
in general terms, it would seem that every civilisation grows and expands on the certainty of ‘forever’
Egyptian Roman, spanish British empires had technology that was at its peak, this was seen as part of that ‘forever’ part—ie would overcome any obstacle or enemy etc.
when an empire has existed for say, 100 years, no one is alive who can recall a time when it didn’t exist.
thus it becomes the status quo so to speak, politicians have to promise the ‘forever’ part, and the electorate have no choice but to believe them. They become locked in the waltz to oblivion, and neither can break the embrace
The same applies to the global economic system—the waltz to oblivion.
We have no choice but to collectively believe it is forever, while individually knowing full well that it isn’t.
“Egyptian Roman, spanish British empires had technology that was at its peak…”
I suppose it could be the case where many humans throughout history have thought that they were living in the ultimate peak technological time…
a psychological bias of some sort… (which bias would that be?)
but how about us?
are we “really” living in the ultimate peak of technology?
I strongly say yes…
but is that a bias?
or who thinks that this technological time period will be the peak one… forever?
we certainly see ourselves at the peak of ‘technology and biological superiority’
every species is in a sense biased towards its own superiority , that’s called survival.
But ants and bees have been around and survived in their current form for 50 m years, while we have only been around for 1m or less. Our technology won’t allow survival/consumption for another 50m years, so which species is at its peak?
And here is direct evidence that supports your thesis:
“We have not (and long may we be without) the stern excitement of martial strife, and we see no captive standards of our European neighbours brought in triumph to our shrines. But we behold an infinitely prouder spectacle. We see the banners of every civilized nation waving over the arena of our competition with each other, in the arts that minister to our race’s support and happiness, and not to its suffering and destruction.”
Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy: The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. Written in 1851, the year of the Great Exposition, and perhaps the pinnacle of British power, Sic transit gloria mundi. (This much at least: even at the peak of her hubris, there were Romans who knew better)
just so sad
and so predictable
fishing themselves to death
have they tried coastal fish ponds? in Hawaii, overfishing of reefs and deep ocean fisheries led to widespread use of fish ponds, guarded by the strict kapu system.
If I’m not mistaken they even briefly show in this very video some of the few existing coastal floating ponds, but this is somewhat *capital intensive given the current bleak situation of Greek economy, plus as the bottom line said they can’t even manage the short seasonal ban on fishing early in the season as performed among any other “developed” countries.. And as shown in the port segment the Greek trawlers are operating the deeper sea areas for the very last fish stock remaining, while the very near shoreline (for small scale fisherman) is almost out of larger fish species for past ~40yrs or so anyway..
—
* you firstly need to install it, operate/service it, and feed it continuously = this seems beyond their economic possibilities as of now, perhaps there are other more suitable areas for such ponds within Greek coast/archipelago
The overfishing is a consequence of the tools and fishing methods which is provided by IC.
Peak fish.
[.. even older mother (of ~70yrs protagonist) recalls they used to get much more when they fished with dynamite..]
wow…
fishing with dynamite just isn’t as good anymore!!!!!!!
a sure sign that The Collapse is creeping closer…
Hom.Sap.: ‘ That was another great explosion! Now, where are all my fish?!!’
Mother Earth: silence (final) ………..
“Few of us are investing directly into China. But what happens there, in that second largest global economy, does matter. Not just for businesses that export there directly either, nor is it all about trade tariffs and such arguments.
“A significant slowdown in China would mean a significant slowdown in the entire global economy. And the thing is, we are seeing that slowdown.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4293105-chinas-economy-definitely-slowing-bode-well-global-economy
“One of the fascinating tidbits to come to light in the wake of the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s crude facilities was China’s disclosure that it has enough oil inventories to last 80 days… the information is vitally important from a medium to longer term view of the crude oil markets…
“…the risk for the global crude market is that sometime in the next six months, and possibly earlier, China may dial back the amount of crude it is buying for storage… If China does ease purchases of crude for storage, it will put a sizeable dent in global crude demand growth [as] …China is responsible for about two-thirds of the global demand growth for crude.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/column-russell-crude-china/rpt-column-bearish-signal-for-crude-as-china-closes-in-on-filling-oil-storage-russell-idUSL3N26E10Z?rpc=401&
“The US is no more immune from a slowdown in China and the Eurozone today than China was immune from a slowdown in the US and the Eurozone in 2007. Decoupling theory is silly. The US will not decouple. Either the Eurozone and Chinese economies pick up, or the US slides with them.”
https://moneymaven.io/mishtalk/economics/us-will-follow-germany-eurozone-china-into-recession-cmPuLAi1OkGTrV2eReUVjg/
I wonder how much of the world’s downturn is related to Europe and China’s push toward electric cars and lower emissions. Hardly anyone will, in practice, buy these, pushing total vehicles down. Only rich people who have an ICE vehicle, and who want to avoid public transportation, will buy a second car that is an EV. The way the world economy expands is through cheaper, more efficient, transportation options. EVs work in the wrong direction.
Negative interest rate bonds also tend to push the economy down, because they no longer distribute income. Instead, they are net takers. So this is another downward push on economies.
Well, debatable, China being China is doing things a bit differently.
Big chunk of their large and growing (mandated) EV and PHEV fleet (manuf capacity) are not luxury/upper middle models only as we know them almost exclusively in the US/EU/SKorea/JAP.. context.
In fact even foreign joint ventures ala Chevy/Buick are producing slow 80kW EVs with ~200km city range (= sub 100km true hw range). Obviously such cars are not good for true highway speed safety nor distance endurance as understood in the west (Tesla), hence won’t be exported (soon). But they are gaining share on the domestic China market as just good enough daily work horses.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=buick+velite+6+ev
But obviously the top efficiency combo same as ever:
HSR + local tram/trolley (or e-assist bicycles) or eventually + regional train / subway etc.
—
So, that’s very interesting while almost all western tiny econobox EVs start at ~50kWh capacity and more (luxuries ~100kWh), China is trying to cap it bellow 40kWh even for compact station wagons.. Simply by denying (on purpose) the public the following (non)critical “frivolous” features of car transportation within “antsy” formed societies:
– acceleration
– range
How much China is putting in storage is a huge factor in world oil demand growth. According to the report:
The report also says:
Comparing the 940,000 bpd stock build to China’s total demand growth of 859,000 would seem to imply that all of its growth (and somewhat more) have been the result of stock builds. As soon as China stops it stock build, world demand is likely to flatten (if it hasn’t sooner).
“…the Fed is back where it was roughly a decade ago, effectively buying U.S. Treasuries from banks on an indefinite basis. But the difference this time? There’s no financial crisis in sight, just the uncomfortable fact that private capital markets once again need public support.
““For all intents and purposes, this will be equivalent to QE, with scheduled purchases of securities…” the Bank of America wrote in a research note.”
https://fortune.com/2019/09/23/repo-market-big-deal-400-billion-bailout-unnerving/
“The extraordinary amount of nothing short of cheating by the US Federal Reserve, US Treasury and lawmakers – swiftly followed by the European Union, Japan, Canada and Australia during the dark days of the “credit crunch” that expanded into the global financial crisis – has left big scars.
“This level of wholesale cheating by printing money, purposely manipulating fixed income return profiles and pushing repurchase facilities in ways unconducive to supposedly free and liberal open markets was nothing short of shaking the devil’s hand and accepting a Faustian pact…
“…the problem with such a Faustian pact is that it can only lead to more manipulation. This in turn distorts already-askew market mechanisms, which then encourages repression and more cheating under the guise of unconventional monetary policies.”
https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/why-central-bank-manipulation-must-end-20190923-p52tx9
“Growing acceptance of negative interest rates has reached “vaguely troubling” levels, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has said.
“Recent switches back into economic support mode by central banks including the European Central Bank and Federal Reserve has led to a record $17 trillion (£13.7 trillion) of bonds trading at negative rates. This is equivalent to roughly 20 per cent of the world’s GDP, BIS noted in a new report.”
https://www.cityam.com/acceptance-of-negative-interest-rates-vaguely-troubling-says-bis/
“In 2016, back when the monetary union was on the brink of deflation, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi called Friedman’s ‘Helicopter Money’ theory “interesting.”
“Three years later, the question is whether the ECB’s new monetary policy measures will have a significant impact on economic activity. If they don’t, then the idea dropping banknotes from a helicopter (or more likely, sending an ECB check to every household in the eurozone) could make a comeback.”
https://www.worldcrunch.com/business-finance/could-milton-friedman39s-39helicopter-money39-formula-finally-fly
Why not send the helicopter money to the people in Venezuela? Or Argentina? They really need it. Sending it to Eurozone countries will likely send the Euro lower. Perhaps that is what they want, anyhow.
Negative interest rates should be a whole lot more than “vaguely troubling. What bank, or insurance company, or pension plan wants these bonds on their balance sheet?
Right. It is amazing to me how these surreal distortions of risk and value have become so rapidly normalised. *$17 trillion in negative-yielding debt* – just bananas.
Interest rates, without all of this manipulation, are set by the physics of the system.
With this manipulation, all kinds of useless investments seem useful. Europe and Japan can feel free to support their increasingly elderly population. They think that they can push their carbon-free agenda.
Will $400 billion (as Bank of America estimates before year end) be anywhere near enough? Probably not.
then won’t the Fed just create more?
Isn’t FED claiming it’s not that way (cumulative), but rather these REPOS are merely day/day supportive cushion thing canceling itself out next day. It would be strange if BoA called the bluff so openly on the system.. Yet, again people perhaps don’t care anymore, so what’s .4T per few months these days among friends..
“Investors are increasingly fearful of a global recession, according to a survey of many of the world’s biggest asset managers. The likelihood of a downturn in the next year — driven by concerns over geopolitical uncertainty and trade tensions — stands at 52 per cent, according to the findings from Absolute Strategy Research.”
https://www.ft.com/content/10a85b94-dbbd-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17
““There’s more caution and fear of the public equity markets among ultra-high-net-worth investors,” said Timothy O’Hara, president of Rockefeller Global Family Office. “That has more people thinking about private investments, alternative investments or cash.””
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-23/world-s-wealthiest-families-stockpiling-cash-on-recession-fears
“Gold prices rose after weak economic data from Europe raised new fears of a slowdown in global growth and pushed some investors toward assets considered safer.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gold-prices-rise-on-fears-of-economic-slowdown-11569260056
Bizarre developments over the past weekend’s HK protest..
Color me r-word, but there is something creepy antsy into this Asian ver. mano a mano culture, e.g. aroused HK-jugend here in the clip gang banged on mainland appearing(accent?) elderly guy. Interestingly, part of this opening ~2min scene has been reedited by Aussie SBS channel for the western audience as portraying the beaten guy in the role of the instigator.. Well, somewhere somebody is working over time on these..
Funnily, another clip showed HK-jugend’s multitude creative ways of desecrating the national (mainland) flag by sequentially trashing it by various ways and finally throwing in the harbor, but the best moment was kinder garden gang marching style stepping on it.. wtf.. lolz
Beyond destroying infrastructure, throwing more petrol bombs, plus first attempts to snap cop’s side fire arm and or early signs of attacking shopping centers visitors, overall the mood seems definitely more exalted and escalating violence over the past ~100days.
So the Politbüro finally enabled the scorched earth tactic by escalating violence as a strategy of shifting the importance of HK to other Chinese cities with marginal British and US influence.
Nobody wants to do business in an area of conflict and civil unrest.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about this rioting and violence on the streets.
When push comes to shove, the Chinese have some very effective ways of handling dissent.
https://youtu.be/gGYoeJ5U7cQ
Yes, although I was more into the HK-wider Asian *peculiarities:
– youngsters gang bang lynching single ~elderly (often from behind)
– the lost generation effect as many of these rioters know their “social sore” is damaged enough by this point (police databases) so their future in “orderly” society is compromised anyway – hence they go mental
– HK shaping up as best maladaption case for colonial rule side effects, these guys are not Chinese anymore and obviously nor are they British despite first name nomenclature and twisted cultural-psycho layers..
– HK will likely end up as 2nd/3rd tier city of no great value to anybody
– overall megacity dystopian vibes
—
*which is kind of important when Asians in aggregate are finally taking over this planet
Interesting analysis, but the focus on physics seems to impky a causation factor that I just don’t see and it tends to ignore other potential causative influences
It is a difficult subject, I will admit. You perhaps need to read other posts of mine as well.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2016/02/08/the-physics-of-energy-and-the-economy/
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/03/31/tainters-law-where-is-the-physics/
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/07/10/why-stimulus-cant-fix-our-energy-problems/
Not strictly energy, but a good example of what happens when customers can’t afford to pay prices that are needed for companies to survive
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2019/sep/23/thomas-cook-travel-chaos-insolvency-leaves-150000-stranded-on-holidays-live-updates
Thomas Cook limped on via loans for several years, then the collapse came quite suddenly
And in case you missed it from a couple of weeks ago:
“Thirteen thousand air passengers are currently stranded overseas after French airline Aigle Azur filed for bankruptcy… The vast majority — 11,000 people — are stuck in Algeria, according to Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, France’s secretary of state for transport.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/10/business/aigle-azur-stranded-scli-intl/index.html
Oh, dear! These airline bankruptcies are starting again.
For most people, airline travel is a luxury, and so voluntary. Airlines once recognised this, and gave their passengers good treatment. As I well remember, flying on BOAC in the 1950s, back when it did not treat its customers like dirt.
Then somebody decided to make air travel cheaper and more affordable. By cutting out all the luxury, of course. So the budget airlines became just a way to get from A to B, hoping the while that the experience would not be too terrible. Then came the cutthroat competition, and a classic “race to the bottom”: ever lower prices, ever lower standards of service, and proliferating scams to squeeze extra fees out of those who didn’t read the small print.
They had a good run, because they scooped up a large market who had never flown and had no idea what a good experience it could be. One generation later, the game is over.
That’s about it, Robert. Economy class international air travel costs about a third of what it commonly did 30 or 40 years ago and is about a third as comfortable.
They don’t make air hostesses like they used to either.
https://youtu.be/qUlwclCaFJY
You are right about flying being a third the price and a third as comfortable as it was 30/40 years ago (or even 50 years ago, as I remember), but I don’t remember air hostesses like these!
Not all bad….
Thomas Cook Collapse Sets Up $250 Million Hedge Fund Windfall
Katie Linsell
BloombergSeptember 23, 2019, 6:39 AM EDT
Bloomberg) — Not everyone lost out with the collapse of 178-year-old Thomas Cook Group Plc that put 21,000 jobs at risk and left travelers around the world stranded.
Speculators including Sona Asset Management and XAIA Investment GmbH stand to earn as much as $250 million from the bankruptcy.
They invested in derivatives that pay out when a company defaults. The fate of those securities was at the heart of the battle over whether Thomas Cook lived or died.
Thomas Cook will be the latest of several big payouts this year for hedge funds and traders who bought these so-called credit-default swaps. The list includes U.K. fashion retailer New Look and Rallye SA, parent of French supermarket chain Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA. More are set to follow as Europe’s economy slows and a growing number of companies come under stress.
The decision to trigger payouts on Thomas Cook CDS lies with a panel of traders called the Determinations Committee. The group is meeting on Monday to debate whether last week’s Chapter 15 U.S. bankruptcy filing was sufficient for payment. Now, it’s also being asked to assess Thomas Cook’s liquidation
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/thomas-cook-collapse-sets-250-094906671.html
See, collapse can be profitable!
good times!
in some ways, the UK is on the leading edge of The Core…
ah, the sun never sets on the British Empire…
oh…
“my” USA will get their blast soon enough…
it has already begun with repo problems…
good times…
All right, I’m an unregenerate believer in civilisation. But people who seek to profit from the collapse of a company should still be required to face lions in the Flavian Amphitheatre.
Things fall apart:
https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2019/09/23/thomas-cook-collapses-why-and-what-happens-now/23817811/
“The global economy is a zombie walking towards a cliff. Bizarrely, the world’s stock markets are watching an unfolding disaster but don’t seem perturbed.
“The zombie walk is driven by a US-initiated tariff war aggravating a cyclical slowdown that is bringing to an end a decade of economic expansion. As Democrats prepare for the 2020 presidential election they espouse the same protectionist policies as Donald Trump. In America, it’s all aboard the Zombie Express.
“If this analysis appears too sombre, consider last Thursday’s OECD report which sharply downgraded its 2019 global economic growth forecast… Earlier in the month the World Bank also downgraded its growth forecasts, its president warning just last week that US$15 trillion of bonds with zero or negative yields indicated that investors accept “the market’s premise of very low or even negative returns for years, even decades”, adding that “this frozen capital implies slower future growth”. Zombie capital locked into zombie firms and zombie economies…
“In truth, the global economy has never properly recovered from the great crash of 2009. The life-draining effects of feeble productivity growth have been disguised by the extraordinary stimulus from unconventional monetary policy applied after interest rates plummeted to zero.
“The zombie economy can’t be brought back to life simply by further unconventional monetary stimulus. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell knows this…”
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/global-zombie-lurching-to-the-cliff-edge-20190923-p52u07
“… it has clearly been Fed policy that has caused the wealth and income gaps to widen. Worse yet, such unconventional techniques are now being used as the main engine of monetary policy in every major central bank in the world, now even to the point of seemingly irrational negative interest rates. My gut tells me that this can’t end well.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/09/22/a-strange-new-world-economic-slowdown-liquidity-issues/#21543eb189ff
>>>My gut tells me that this can’t end well!
Thanks Harry, you’re posts are great. The author of this article is an ETF manager, I wonder what he tells his clients to do with their money? He mentioned swine flu but I keep wondering when the next human pandemic will start. That would probably be enough to push us over the edge at this point.
You are welcome, Flipper!
Pandemics/disease/pestilence, will, along with starvation and violence, be the way that nature winnows out the population. It’s the time honoured way. However, because, the earth is so degraded now, due to the ecological overshoot of humans, the crash will be so hard, we may not make it out the other side.
https://i1.wp.com/images.slideplayer.com/16/5025385/slides/slide_7.jpg?zoom=2
Possible and likely, although in terms of severity of the collapse I’d tend to differ a bit.
For one thing, the cat is out of the bag already in terms of “organic” low impact agricultural practices, also the knowledge is well spread around the continents, simply to root out this meme out of existence would be very problematic from now on..
So, I’d imagine even slightly modified humanoids of the future, say less than 1,5m in height, occupying some remaining climatic/resource niches favorable to them, and around the nature doing its long term game in parallel, introducing new (semi-)dominant species etc.
But try tell that great news to your neighbor,
“.. hey don’t panic about the future doom my friend, your grand-grand… children will be just fine, albeit a bit pigmayish, half naked and somewhat wilder.. also living elsewhere..”
It’s quite hilarious how people like to project ‘their genes’ in to the future, which is always rosy. Vanity is simply incurable.
As the Spanish folk song – jota – cheerfully says: ‘When you’re dead they forget you, even your family!’ Much nearer the truth. Nice tune, great to dance to…….
Lowering interest rates creates the wealth effect, because it makes asset prices rise (because the monthly payment to but those assets is lower). Eventually, we reach the end of the line on fixing the economy with ever-lower interest rates.
WB: “..negative returns for decades..” – that will surely rise some attention.. or not.
Thanks for digging it up.
Trump has been bankrupt 6 times:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/live-updates/general-election/real-time-fact-checking-and-analysis-of-the-first-presidential-debate/fact-check-has-trump-declared-bankruptcy-four-or-six-times/
(although he only admits to 4)
Is this a surprise?
Maybe Trump is experienced in the area he needs to be experienced in today.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
It could be just divine sense of very black *humor to task Donald with that specific grand historical role be it in his first or perhaps second term to oversee the biggest bankruptcy of his career as POTUS.
Well, in fact we could have gained sort of favorable opinion about him after-all, as he evidently managed to kill as few people as possible, considering his predecessors.
Perhaps it’s because of large family-kids around, also factoring his spouses were Slavic, albeit of the money pot persuasion..
—
*humor or horror this is the question – because the psycho generals taking over would likely mean nukes flying or in the more optimistic scenario very gloves off dictatorship over the FUSA territory
Possibly—
Being a experienced bankrupt “scammer” might be ideal “job” for a late stage capitalism “President”.
If nothing else, a quick collapse might be good for the survivors (if any).
So a slow death by Dems might be worse.
I’m trying to keep positive.
Trump hasn’t been bankrupt 6 times. 6 of Trump’s businesses have gone into bankruptcy. There’s a big difference. He has dozens or maybe even hundreds of entities in his business empire. Basically every building or individual point of business is under its own LLC or S-corp.
The fact that 6 of his (many) entities have gone belly-up over the course of a 45 year career while the rest have made money shouldn’t raise any eyebrows – you win some, you lose some.
The MSM phrases the headline to imply that he personally went into bankruptcy six times, sequentially. Fake news.
Yes, that’s more correct picture, I recall pre-election time that msm was dissing him along the lines as to he should have had rather parted with everything of his inheritance in the 1970s and bought some early digital stock instead, and today be much more serious “real billionaire” than pretending to be one.. lolz..
Was it really trump or financial enities of his creation that went bankrupt.The word bankrupt is a curious word. IMO its one of those words that we think is solid with meaning but is actually quite malleable. On a individual level it means a choice- give up credit to extinguish (non student loan) debt. This choice is really a choice of consumerism.. Long vs short term. Usually bancruptcy of busineses is ssssssssss is also a choice abandoning a idea that didnt pan out.
By historical standards using a 10-1 fractional reserve every bank in the world is banrupt. So the line got moved. With sovereign debt taking the metric of debt to gdp both the how gdp is measured and ratio are quite mallable.
Banruptcy in it idea was a great idea. It kept things honest. the idea remains. the actual practice as originally defined does not..
Every western government in the world is bankrupt. every bank is bankrupt. Surly you know people have have chosen banruptcy? Our money is debt issued by bankrupt financial institutions. It is part of the financial world mallable.
Desperate attempts to find meaning in the world by creating villains as all we know proves false. EGO. Righteous rage. IM sure your social network applauds such garbage. Myself i cant stomach the deceit.
“As the global economy crawled out of the wreckage of the financial crisis, Beijing’s huge stimulus efforts were vital in kickstarting growth again. China’s fiscal and monetary boost was unprecedented in scale… this time China is struggling to revive its ailing economy, warn senior economists. China’s biggest tax cuts package ever has not had “any impact on the real economy”, said Commerzbank chief economist Joerg Kraemer.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/09/22/china-reeling-recession-fears-mount-say-economists/
“Protesters and police have clashed in Hong Kong in another weekend of unrest as tensions escalate in the run-up to a significant political anniversary for Beijing… The confrontations mark the 16th consecutive weekend of mass protest for the semi-autonomous Chinese territory…”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/22/hong-kong-pro-democracy-protests-turn-violent-again
The world really needs the Hong Kong dollar to remain, to keep the system operating. Too much violence does not work in the right direction.
To the contrary it works just beautifully to tie-occupy China with additional agenda (domestic and int damage control) and slowing down her regional and geopolitical drive for setting up trade blocks and other coalitions.
The foreign sponsored meddling (activating HK psycho youth) is basically desperate short term ankle kicking.. It works for a while, just for another hour more let us breath the smell of unipolar trading-reserve currency status and other assorted goodies heading to a sunset..
You might be right.
+++++++++
“Denmark is about to become a test case for what happens when banks start charging a lot of customers to store their money.
“That’s because one of the country’s biggest banking groups just changed the rules of the game, by removing the floodgate that had shielded most retail depositors. Until Friday, only people with roughly $1 million in surplus cash at their banks were facing a negative rate. Now, the threshold has been reduced to just over $100,000, with no guarantee it won’t go lower.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-22/banks-just-changed-the-rules-of-the-negative-rate-game-for-danes
“Profits for European private banks dropped by the most since the global financial crisis last year as muted investor inflows, weakness in financial markets and rising costs combined to reduce earnings.”
https://www.ft.com/content/c8bbcd6d-c025-3c30-93b2-10ec007899cb
How long with Deutsche Bank last?
It depends if the goal is to hammer Germany(EU) down or not at this specific junction.
There will be factions supporting such fatal blow ASAP and there will other voices..
As we have seen with Macron assertive agenda some elite factions from old money pedigree are looking for way out of US/UK and looking for Euro Asian boltholes.
From the shadows the big players are casting these days I’d say it’s ~50/50 chance occurring before 2021-23, which seems as not very favorable odds for Germany.
And now with their gov transitioning such blow will hurt even more, decisions, decisions…
Good question. It’s a race between the bank’s ability to add fake debt (in violation of ECB regulations), Merkel’s ability to shield them from honest oversight, and the power of their creditors to gnaw on the bones while the managers consume the flesh. Germany, welcome back to the Weimar Republic, but this time without tanks.
Probably until the moment before the general collapse of everything.
I can imagine Danish individuals and companies suddenly looking for ways to park their accounts in countries that don’t have negative interest rates.
Yep, $100k is not much in Danish/Norwegian (upper?) middle class circles these days..
September flash Germany manufacturing PMI at 41.4 (123 month low), from August 43.5.
That is a terrible figure. Germany is in recession whatever the official GDP figures say for Q3.
“The flash eurozone manufacturing purchasing managers index fell to an 83-month low of 45.6 in September, down from 47 in August…
““The eurozone economy is close to stalling as a deepening manufacturing downturn shows further signs of spreading to the services sector,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/eurozone-manufacturing-pmi-drops-in-september-to-worst-level-in-nearly-7-years-2019-09-23
Ouch!
Wow!
Zerohedge weighs in on automation:
“A ‘Smart Pig’ can detect, measure and locate a corrosion indication within mm’s. The fixed cost of the equipment is high but the incremental cost per use is low. Manpower and equipment has gone from 12 workers to 4-5 depending on size. The information found can prevent loss resulting in environmental damage and economic loss to the pipeline owner.
Less people doing more work to find problems. Using technology instead of manpower.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/automation-and-crisis-work
And fewer buyers for end products, making the system as a whole not work.
THE ATTACK ON SAUDI OIL WAS AN ATTACK ON THE “WORLD ECONOMIC SYSTEM,” MNUCHIN SAYS
Isn’t this sort of thing precisely what Greenpeace, Greta and Gore, et. al have been advocating? We need to take positive, nay, aggressive action to reduce or even eliminate oil production? Banning plastic straws simply isn’t cutting it.
I didn’t think that economists thought that energy was very important in the whole scheme of things. Mnuchin is not following the economists standard story, I am afraid.
Thomas Cook Travel collapses
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-23/british-travel-firm-thomas-cook-collapses/11538276
It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of incompetents. But I bet the CEO keeps the $20 million in bonuses he screwed out of a collapsing company.
How hard is it to book an airline ticket and hotel rooms online these days? Do we really need a middle man for this simple procedure?
Apparently not.
Well, earlier this year I had a rather difficult airline journey: Malta => Singapore => Chengdu (Sichuan Province) and back. So yes, i visited a local travel agent, a two man operation, and they did everything in 20 minutes. Saved me a lot of online hassle with booking companies with wretchedly bad IT systems.
I have found this to be a pervasive IT problem: the programmers have no idea of customer service, neither do their managers, and the whole carbuncle is safe in its silo where it can do what it pleases.
Once a person moves outside of the US/Europe arena, language becomes a much bigger issue.
When we visited Japan, we discovered that virtually no one speaks English. A few people read English, but speaking English is not a skill they have learned. Trying to get problems fixed, when a person cannot find anyone who speaks English, can be an issue. We discovered that signs on a map showing stops on the subway lines were all in Japanese characters, for example. There were no live workers to talk to; everything was online.
I have also had problems in Italy and in Spain, in the not-too-distant past.
Thomas Cook was in debt to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars before its collapse. A zombie company, propped up for years, flushed away in an instant. Imagine the carnage once this financial sh*t show finally comes to an end?
It’s another powerful reminder we are into the world of dozens and hundreds of $T (systems speaking), as we left the old $B counting (“mom and pop” scale joint) “small” world behind us for good.. What a madhouse this planet became as of lately..
Don’t know about Fast Eddy, but I’m still alive at the ripe old age of 38. Though I am suffering from a mid life crisis for more than a year.
Collapse is boring, it’s a process, not an event. It’s no way to live your life. From the dawn of time until the present, people have been occupied by sex, money, power, their own status within the system. And our mortality rate is 100 percent, collapse or not.
Collapse…boring!?
It is what you make it Dolph.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H0sUMe1Z8-0
Hope this helps😜
“Collapse is boring, it’s a process, not an event.”
dolph, that’s the same conclusion I came to about a year ago. There’s a certain amount of stuff, resources, and it’s getting used, wrung out over time (diminishing returns), but unlike a book with a last chapter and last page, it just rearranges itself to use what’s left for those that can use it, and for those that fall by the wayside it’s unfortunate, but for those that can still use what’s left it’s BAU.
That’s why I’m convinced we are not only in a game of musical chairs to stay in the game, but the stakes get higher as the competition for what’s left narrows, pressed harder as population increases. It requires everyone to push that much harder to learn new skills faster, to do as the red queen does, run in place faster just to stay in place. And some make so much currency, they are able to sit back and watch the fray desperately seek remaining chairs to remain in the game of holding on to BAU.
In many senses it would be merciful if the situation had a last page, because it would end the desperation in a sudden, brief period of chaos, but really the circumstances will just get tougher as the what’s left narrows incrementally.
A bit like being a German (who never voted for Hitler) : it all unfolds and gets worse and worse, maybe with some bright spots, but essentially one is helpless to affect the course of events. First the terrible late 1920’s and early 1930’s; then the dictatorship; the war, not too bad at first; the grind of the last years of the war and the downfall of the dictatorship; then Russian invasion, with mass rapes, murders, semi-starvation; then you find yourself still alive in a totalitarian Communist dictatorship in which you die. Worse with every turn of the screw…….
These are our golden years, best to enjoy them and be grateful.
We can make a case that the global economy began to hit decrepitude in the early 70’s with fiat currencies and an increasingly complex and surreal financial system papering over the cracks – but don’t let the length of the ageing process relative to our human life-spans fool you into thinking that there cannot be a death.
As a growth-dependent civilisation operating on a finite resource-base we are up against the law of physics. At some point we will experience a loss of socio-economic complexity that will be self-reinforcing.
That being said, perhaps there are more years of hot showers and fresh groceries ahead than the more pessimistic amongst us might imagine. This possibility had not even crossed my mind, for example:
“If and when economic recession comes, there will be few places to hide. Monetary policy has been stretched to near its limits already (unless you are a modern monetary theorist) while governments are too highly borrowed to finance a bailout. But could the corporate sector act as a kind of deus ex machina?
“The idea that big business corporations might emulate the “gods from the wings” of ancient Greek and Roman drama, and offer salvation when all seems lost, may seem far-fetched. And yet many of them are so stuffed with cash that they have the means (if not yet the will) to mount such a rescue.
“We are talking sums that make government fiscal reserves look puny in comparison. Nowhere is this more true than in Japan where corporate cash balances easily outpace the size of Japan’s gross domestic product. They are very big too in the United States and in Europe – Britain especially.
“Why would companies distribute the cash mountains they have built from restraining wage growth, cutting capital investment and other Scrooge-like behaviours? It could be a matter of enlightened self-interest to prevent the global economy from imploding.”
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3029666/global-recession-looming-will-cash-rich-corporations-swoop-rescue
That’s an interesting concept, although I tend to suspect these corp cash reserves are in today’s overall system only of pure synthetic (ether) nature. So, not really deploy-able midterm-long term. In this sense however one has to admire the Japanese or Chinese drive on the public infrastructure realm, as purely individualistic driven societies tend to lapse without such buffer into very fast paced disorderly realignments.. which is a double edged sword as it nurtures immediate swift reallocation of resources and “progress” on the mega trend upswing but at major thresholds it’s just quick one way road to ruin..
But perhaps this “corp cash mountain” could stabilize-suspend a fall into collapse proper for a few years nevertheless..
Yes, dropping helicopter money into to the wallets of plebs inevitably only produces inflation since all physical goods and services ultimately are priced in energy/natural resources by the means of the fiat currency (petrodollar) proxy.
I am afraid you may be right:
” . . . we are not only in a game of musical chairs to stay in the game, but the stakes get higher as the competition for what’s left narrows, pressed harder as population increases. It requires everyone to push that much harder to learn new skills faster, to do as the red queen does, run in place faster just to stay in place. And some make so much currency, they are able to sit back and watch the fray desperately seek remaining chairs to remain in the game of holding on to BAU.”
In biology, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould popularized the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium; instead of a slow, continuous movement, evolution tends to be characterized by long periods of virtual standstill (“equilibrium”), “punctuated” by episodes of very fast development of new forms.
I see economic evolution following a similar path. Periods of relative stability are punctuated by episodes of very fast change. If we are anticipating collapse, it could come as a staircase of events over decades, years or months, or it could hit as fast as a stack of falling dominoes. On the other hand, it might be staved off by the very fast development of something not even on our current horizon that I’m not going to speculate about.
A game of soccer, Rugby, American football, cricket, baseball, even ice hockey (if you’re a canadian) is exciting: it’s a process, not an event. It also conforms to the punctuated equilibrium idea. Periods of nothing much happening are often punctuated by goals, tries, strikes, runs, points, wickets, etc. And the spectators are riveted.
Whether you find sports or economic developments or watching the local finches evolve boring or interesting is partly a matter of where your interests lie and and partly a matter of how short or long your attention span is.
There’s a time to be born, a time to die, a time to be occupied by sex, by money, by power, by one’s status within the system, by mowing the lawn, watching the grass grow under your feet, and for every purpose under heaven. You’ve got all the time in the world—until suddenly you haven’t—and you have a fair amount of choice as to how you use or waste it. What’s more, you can multi-task. You can do the things you want to do and the things you feel you have to do, while simultaneously waiting for collapse, for the Rapture, or for Santa Claus.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+3&version=KJV
Well, well looky here folks:
http://www.english.iswnews.com/7313/lack-of-gas-in-gas-stations-of-saudi-arabia/
In this footage, Saudis are reporting from lack of gas and long lines to get gas. According to our sources, lack of gas in Saudi Arabia is more critical than Saudi officials thought.
They reached for their strategic reservoirs until fuel (gas and diesel) arrives from other countries.
Big Oil’s Future May Rest on Climate Debate Over Natural Gas
Kevin Crowley
BloombergSeptember 22, 2019, 7:30 AM EDT
Bloomberg) — Championed by Big Oil as the fastest way to reduce emissions and reviled by environmentalists who say the world needs to ditch all fossil fuels — the debate over natural gas may be one of the controversial aspects of climate change.
The arguments will get an airing as politicians, activists and business leaders gather for Climate Week in New York. On Monday, CEOs of the world’s largest oil companies are expected to speak at an event organized by the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative where they’ll likely defend the idea that gas is integral to a low-carbon future.
Here are six key arguments about gas, starting with the case for the fuel
1. Gas is killing coal
2. Gas helps bring down emissions
3. Gas will be affordable long-term
And here the case’ against gas
1. Gas means carbon is unavoidable
2. Gas is being wasted
3. Gas leaks
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-oil-future-may-rest-113000674.html?bcmt=1
This “Clapper” person sounds a lot like the beloved “Fast Eddy”:
—————————————————————-
“A Dark Age is coming – challenge your values!
“It’s time for good people of impeccable character — like you…”
“Impeccable character”???? Really??? We’re heading into a decline, a collapse, … death, starvation and desperation. School teachers will be had for $20 (like in Greece) or only $2 (like in Venezuela) …. not for an hour, but for a whole night… but only if they’re young and pretty! Wink, wink! I’m not joking, this is what happens when society BEGINS to falls apart. When society enters the final Dark Age collapse, values have to change rapidly, or you die, Die, DIE!!!!!!
So from Crapper, here’s a few pointers to expand your imagination. Hate and violence will be winning attributes. That’s right… and that’s only the start. Connect with your inner self and embrace the hate. Then get yourself off to the local fight club and learn how to take a whack to the head without losing one’s senses. This is just the beginning of preparation.
Any community you connect with must look like you – and skin color/colour is EVERYTHING! If you think you’re gonna be accepted by a bunch of people who don’t look like you just because you want to hold their hands and sing kumbaya then you’re kidding yourself. Racial slaughter is standard fare in a Dark Age.
And one further note to wet those mental juices: where are you gonna get the protein when the famine sets is? Chickens? Yeah, maybe. But they’re best used as bait, for thieves…. lots of protein on those “two-legged pigs” we see all around us every day. You think I’m ridiculous? Outrageous? Disgusting? Abhorrent even? Study up on famines as I have. Study Dark Ages throughout history as I have. It opens one’s preconceived ideas of how the world should work and how it does work when the proverbial doo-doo hits the fan.
This civilization is doomed…. just like the Titanic. I say crack open a beer and enjoy the show… but be connected with your inner savage for when you jump on the first life boat, laughing with manic glee at those left behind with a raised middle finger… and enter the dark night of what we once knew.
The Age of Disintegration starts in the coming decade (only a few months away). Our world will change rapidly, and so much our values. What won in the age of ascent will lose in the age of decent. Very sad… but very true.
I’m off to holiday in Southern Europe next week … I’m all stocked up on $20 notes (just kidding!).”
https://www.peakprosperity.com/the-importance-of-a-resilient-life/#comments
Haha, Crapper not Clapper
Fast Eddy is ALIVE! Maybe? Boy, that is a relief and so nice his head popped up somewhere else.
Does anyone have Fast Eddie’s last entry post here at OFW? Did he give a swan song goodbye?
I picture him nawing at a turnip and some kale or vacationing in the Italian Riviera on the coast dining by the sea view.
Hard to say. Maybe had a spat with Gail, who knows.
In memory of Fast Eddie
A hoax photo that claims to show rubbish left behind by Australian climate strike protesters is circulating on Facebook, despite being revealed as fake months ago.
Though it lacks any verification, and was debunked in April, the image and false caption have been shared 19,000 times in 12 hours, and thousands of times from copycats.
On Friday, an estimated 300,000 Australians, and millions of people around the world, took part in protests against inaction on the climate emergency.
Hours later, an Australian pro-coal page reposted the photo, which originated in April. It was captioned: “Look at the mess today’s climate protesters left behind in beautiful Hyde Park.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/21/climate-strikes-hoax-photo-accusing-australian-protesters-of-leaving-rubbish-behind-goes-viral
BURN MORE COAL🐯
For what it is worth, this is a link to Fast Eddy’s last post.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2018/11/07/why-we-get-bad-diagnoses-for-the-worlds-energy-economy-problems/comment-page-36/#comment-193478
It is a +++++++++++ response to an earlier comment by Duncan Idaho.
The thread is on a discussion of this link:
THE END OF A WORLD (3/6) – Collapse, nuclear and capitalism: interview with Jean-Marc Jancovici and Yves Cochet
The discussion has to do with the problem with maintaining an adequate food supply in a crash, given the degraded nature of soils.
Rodster, on cannibalism as a consequence of collapse:
“You think I’m ridiculous? Outrageous? Disgusting? Abhorrent even?”
Yes to all the above. But not wrong: that is exactly what happened on Easter Island.
This seems to be sort of a “Mad Max” world, if violence really solved anything then some of the most heavily armed nations would be paradise to say nothing of Baltimore.
Bending the thread a bit, those of us who are older are going to need to be useful to those younger than us which means providing something more than capital. My grandmother when her husband was killed in her thirties lived with my parents and was a babysitter for me as well as worked in the garden and helped with canning – she was useful.
The idea of sitting in an easy chair in Fl may appeal, but even with digital wealth Washington can change the rules and instantly less claims on wealth, or back to work.
I see my tenants who work my farm during harvest take a nap when it is raining to try and catch up on the sixteen hour days when it is not . A CDL on my part would help, someone gets to take a break. I cannot drive the sixteen, but I could pitch in for six.
I keep returning to the generational issue. We have robbed our children by not paying for their advanced education, the government stepped in, loans, and the horrible escalation in costs. It is our jobs as parents to put children first, practically speaking had an adult been paying the cost, things would not have gone off the rails and BAU in buying a house, having a family might still be going on. I am not alone in this generational thing. It is not our children’s job to pay off our debts for a good time.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hedge-fund-cio-generational-conflict-will-be-top-theme-coming-decades-enter-mmt
As for values, some do some don’t. The Amish around me seem to have kept theirs and ironically they do fairly well as farmers and food is never a problem. The horse trainer along a road I drive now has a cow grazing the ditch, grass is grass I guess. He is already practicing storing food for winter, the cow just doesn’t know it yet. He must read OFW at the library, don’t you know.
Dennis L.
Strangely enough, even when parents try to help their children avoid higher education debt, the children can still get themselves into it. My daughter’s view was, “but all my friend have college debt.” She wanted to take a third year in a graduate program in creative writing, which theoretically could have been finished in two. She didn’t think we should pay for it. Now, In retrospect, she has figured out that the degree was not really helpful financially. (We had raised the issue earlier.)
I see your point.
Dennis L.
Hint:
Education is not always a capital investment.
Actually, when it is, you are just in “training”.
(but I had a almost free UC education)
I guess your daughter developed skills of understanding that she can use in teaching, marketing, advertising, journalism, writing papers or decision making one day. We know more than we realize and if she had a strong interest this interest leads to some job skills sooner or later. All is about developing the brain – and job descriptions are not as narrow as they seem. I am glad to hear you were able to provide your daughter the education she has dreamed about. It is not necessary to fullfil all wishes but it is good to walk the path we dream of. It pays at the end. Life is long.
She has a job she likes now, working for an acoustical society as an editor of some of its publications. She works from home, with occasional meetings. I don’t think the job pays very well, though. She also writes fictional short stories that she posts on a website, aimed that young people in their thirties, in her spare time.
“It pays at the end. Life is long.”
ha ha…
good joke!
What I liked he was enough sport to admit that his initial “NZ relocation” reflex reaction was a very bad mistake on almost every front and angle.. Otherwise he did not contributed that much of value in later stage. This warning about 2020s threshold shift sounds plausible as there are many factual as well as psycho-social clues that stuff will indeed start to happen around this time even for the IC hubs – regions..
The text sounds lot of like him, albeit tuned down, perhaps for a new audience.
So is it now “FE / TM / C(l/r)apper” ?
FE was an object lesson in not running about like a headless chicken trying to escape. I’m sure his Chinese business interests must have run into serious trouble -what was it, air purifiers?
I think people who have visited Asia knows how air purification works in a practical sense over there.
https://japantoday-asset.scdn3.secure.raxcdn.com/img/store/34/0f/882462caa7fff3a5b3bdef658e1b311cb847/masks.png
One species expands, others contract
U.S., Canada have lost 3 billion birds since 1970. Scientists say ‘nature is unraveling.
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/u-s-canada-have-lost-3-billion-birds-scientists-say-ncna1055961
For a study published Sep. 19 in the journal Science, Marra joined with other scientists and conservationists to analyze nearly five decades of population data on 529 species of North American birds. The results were staggering: Since 1970, the continental U.S. and Canada have lost more than 1 in 4 birds. The total bird population in the two countries has fallen by almost 3 billion, with grassland birds such as western meadowlarks and American sparrows and shorebirds such as green herons taking the biggest hits
The population of birds at the start of breeding season in the U.S. and Canada has fallen from just over 10 billion to a little more than 7 billion in the last 50 years, the research showed
Habitat loss seems to be the biggest issue. By clearing forests and grasslands to erect buildings, roads and farms, humans have encroached on the ecosystems in which birds thrive. And the use of neonicotinoid insecticides has fueled the decline both by poisoning birds and by eradicating insects, depriving birds of a key food. Cats are estimated to kill more than 1 billion birds in the U.S. each year.
The study authors agreed that lawmakers can help shore up bird populations by enacting legislation to conserve federal lands and curb the use of neonicotinoid insecticides. Bird lovers, they said, can help by keeping cats indoors, eating organic food to help reduce the use of pesticides and taking part in bird surveys like the Audubon Christmas Bird Count
And so …..
Trump administration announces plan for expanded hunting, fishing access across 1.4 million protected acres.
https://www.foxnews.com/great-outdoors/trump-administration-plans-expand-hunting-fishing-protected-acres
Trump wetlands rule rollback makes about 6 million acres in Florida unprotected
https://www.tampabay.com/environment/trump-wetlands-rule-rollback-makes-about-6-million-acres-in-florida-unprotected-20181213/
Got to keep expanding…BAU demands it, Sonny
Prof Tim Garrett remains one of the best collapse thinkers we have.
As a physicist professor of Atmospheric sciences with interests in Civilization and Thermodynamics, his overall thinking about collapse issues is astute.
– With BAU growth, our total consumption of raw materials and energy products must double in 30 years. And with BAU growth, double again in the following 30 years after that.
– If we think about environmental destruction today, the sixth mass extinction, terrestrial vertebrates collapse, ecosystem collapse and CO2. Also those, must therefore double with BAU growth in 30 years. And the environmental destruction must double again in the following 30 years, after that.
= Therefore BAU Growth ad infinitum is simply.. impossible.
– Tim Garrett sees energy as a support mechanism. When GDP grows, energy is what sustains and maintains the finished product. Energy is not according to Garrett, the primary engine for growth. But is the only engine that supports the value of the products that growth has been able to produce.
= Maintaining the civilization we have today, without growth, would also mean the level of environmental destruction today, would also be maintained at current levels. Maintaining raw material extraction, energy products extraction and environmental destruction levels at this level we have today, is.. impossible.
Therefore the only way we have is.. down. A collapse.
There is an amount of inertia in the incredible growth momentum of our global civilization we have today. Because of the inertia of our global economy and delays in all of the environmental destruction we already have caused, it looks like we will be in a double collapse scenario. The inertia of the global civilization collapsing, fast or slow, will nonetheless drag down the environment with it. The environment will be different in 30 years, from what is is today, and it will be much different in 60 years, and unrecognizable to us in 1000 years. These changes are already locked in..
Therefore a double collapse is in the pipeline. But there remains questions.
An global economic meltdown is inevitable, but how long can that be staved of by CB smoke and mirrors tricks?
This human species of ours has been inventive in the past. There is no guarantee we wont yet see a miracle technology or two. Though there simply is no miracle that can change the double bind described above..
How fast will the environmental collapse procede? Earth systems also have inertia.
And how bad will the environmental collapse be in the end? What will the earth look like in 10.000 years from now?
Tims blog
http://nephologue.blogspot.com
The article lost me when it started talking carbon. All of the others statements about impact on the environment are true.
Thanks! In many ways, what Tim says is common sense. But people don’t want to believe it.
I think energy consumption depending on all historic GDP is not intuitive.
What energy goes into maintaining earlier spending (ie repairing a bridge) is new GDP and should only require energy in proportion to the new GDP.
The consumerism is shifting from the material to the immaterial. It is most obvious with crypto currencies. It is totally manufactured symbols of wealth and trade. Let the roads, bridges and other devices of mass psychosis rot away.
Good fucking riddance.
Tim Garret, and others are saying all consumption is material. So and so many dollars per MWh .
No material artifact is being manufactured in the process where the item of consumption is immaterial/intangible, such as a service on the Internet. For example: WordPress hosting OFW is such a service where Gail creates the content and manages the comments and replies.
A better measurement of immaterial transactions would be units of transmitted Data per Watt and Computation per Watt as well as the Engineering effort per Watt for enabling these services. No actual good or service in the traditional sense is being part of this transaction, thus his analysis is shallow and fail to account for the increasing immaterial/intangible consumption.
As FW issues mount, the shift from material to immaterial will only accelerate since real physical goods and services ultimately becomes prohibitively priced due to the physical resources required to extract the natural resources, manufacture the artifacts in factories, shipping and ultimately end up as expressions of frivolous items of mass psychosis before finally being recycled or disposed in garbage heaps.
The Repo spiked because U.S and foreign banks that operate in the U.S refused to use their USD 1.4 Trillion in reserves parked at the Fed in the Repo market.
They refused to hand over money to banks that needed liquidity even if they offered treasuries as collateral.
So the Fed had to step in as the lender of last resort.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/these-are-banks-where-feds-14-trillion-reserves-are-parked
I may be overlooking something, as honestly the whole thing makes my brain hurt, but the article seems to explain the proximate problem but does not explain *why* some banks are so scared to lend and others are so desperate for liquidity.
This Forbes article agrees that a pivot towards the relative safety US debt is a factor:
“This [USA] is the only major nation or region that is growing or has good prospects for growth. Europe is stagnant, China decelerating, formerly major places like Argentina on the precipice of a currency crisis. “Good collateral” increasingly does not include debt instruments from places like these, at least in comparison to American debt.
“If haircuts could be imminent in the bonds of all sorts of places, on account of entrenching no-growth or slow growth or even nationalization, why take the risk of holding that debt when the haircut happens.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/briandomitrovic/2019/09/22/the-age-of-deficits-has-taken-a-new-turn/amp/
The economy slowing down and there is stress in the markets. The treasury yields have inverted with the Effective Federal Funds Rate and with the Interest On Excess Reserves.
The primary dealers must take part in the treasury auctions according to BIS lll rules, but they are not forced to hold on to the treasuries, but can’t find buyers to them.
The banks have become bag holders to the U.S government debt, which is growing by USD 1 Trillion annually…as the treasury is flooding the market with new treasuries.
The treasuries have become toxic?
The banks are saying no to more treasuries and trying to force the Fed to start buying treasuries again by restarting QE?
That’s my 2 cents.
Thanks, Yoshua. Some of the financial plumbing is so arcane and abstruse. My mind boggles!
I’m probably wrong though, since falling treasury yields indicates high demand for treasuries.
I’m lost on this one too.
The thing that strikes me is the fact that commodity prices were close to high enough for producers up until 2014. Then when the US stopped QE, and later switched to QT, the Federal Reserve bank balances dropped. Commodity prices in general fell at the same time. Without more reserves in the system, commodity prices don’t seem to stay high enough.
This chap is worth a watch if you have a spare half hour. He thinks the negative-yielding bond bubble has started bursting and the repo issues are a symptom of that:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DMiC5Xw_p3xQ&ved=2ahUKEwid9fDq7ePkAhXuXRUIHSLhDK0Qo7QBMAB6BAgAEAI&usg=AOvVaw2aM1ZQg45aD_XQEaMc6kKD
Sorry, I am traveling this weekend. So time and privacy are limited. I will try to watch when I am home.
Thanks for the summary, but as we all know, the QE print fest was a global phenomenon, virtually everybody printed in sort of baton passing fashion: FED, BoC, ECB, BoJ, ..
There were nuances but everybody is on the scheme.
Except the US stopped printing, and in fact started to buy back what had been printed. This raised the level of the US currency relative to other currencies. It also allowed US interest rates to self-organize at a level above those of other countries. In fact, the currencies of other countries are providing negative yields today. It is the fact that no one wants to hold the 17 trillion dollars worth of debt with negative yields to maturity that is causing a problem now. Banks, insurance companies, and pension funds all need positive yielding debt.
Understood, but to me this supposedly FED’s QE pause moment looks more of as (zoomed in) unfinished sequence rather than a deliberate feature/strategy vs the other top CBs going into another direction..
In other words the print will resume shortly in one way or another.
/PS besides it could be easily also a ploy setting up (willingly) the BoJ & ECB as the primary debt sterilization machines while FED will posture as the more sane adult overseeing (benefiting) from it..
Afterall anything is possible since we are dealing with a very old and cunning hydra of int finance., so overall zoomed out perspective is also important.
But there is still a huge problem of banks, insurance companies, and pension funds really not being able to hold this negative yielding debt on their balance sheets to maturity. The only way it temporarily works is as a trading item, during the period when interest rates become more negative. But as interest rates turn around, the owner of the bond gets whipsawed with a big decrease in value of the bonds. That problem, plus the need for frequent payments to the bond issuer, makes these bonds highly undesirable.
Worth a watch for sure, if you ask me!
Yes, I thought it was very good. The fellow who makes these videos seems to be Peter Burke, CEO of an organization called Strategian. This is a link to his YouTube Chanel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClZY-A9DGiR10ZlUMTLjDBQ
Burke is talking about all of the debt with negative interest rates that is being issued in Europe and Japan, which banks in those countries are required by law to buy. They don’t really want to hold it, so they purchase derivatives to enable the bank to invest in positive-yielding US securities. But there is a shortage of US $ for this purpose, if I understand him correctly.
Interest rates should be set by market forces, but in Europe and Japan, there is so much interference through the use of QE that interest rates are nowhere near the correct levels. The existence of all of this debt at artificially low interest rates means that investment decisions are badly distorted. Derivative instruments used to theoretically stabilize cross-border investments are likely to encounter more and more problems, as the amount of negative debt grows. On bank balance sheets, these bonds act more like liabilities than they do assets, since they require future payments, rather than generating income. When the bubble of negative-yielding debt collapses, it could bring down the whole system.
The negatively yielding debt is enabling a lot of socialistic policies in the countries with negative interest rates. These policies will have to go away, as well.
Thanks for the synopsis, Gail – helped crystallize the information in my brain, which is finding some of these concepts very slippery!
I have asked my friend who is a quant to look at this issue a bit as well. Burke’s book is likely helpful as well.
Looks like Peter Burke has written a rather intriguing book, which appears to predict a deflationary death-spiral for the global economy:
“A series of Crises are primed to explode, devastating the world economy. They will happen concurrently. The net effect will be to cause the greatest deflation and hardship since The Great Depression, and the irony is that most people won’t know what hit them!”
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00T2HL15K/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8
The problem with this book is that it was published in 2015, predicting a great Chinese debt crash in 2016. I am sure there are good things in it, but it needs some updating.
Times simply moved on, as we are entering 2020s, his preoccupation with single digit $T unbalances given the overall global throughput (both in GDP and debt leverage, and other liabilities) is sort of “chicken little mentality”, although I watched his recent YTch material and it’s not bad introduction into these schemes.
Just note that the economics ground is shifting under our feet now. The much maligned MMT is suddenly killing off the decrepit mainstream. It just got a vital lift when AOC mentioned it in Congress as a support for the Green New Deal. Suddenly all the Nobel prize economists were hard at work building straw men to demolish, but begrudgingly they can see it is just descriptive of real economics. There are myriad blogs destroying the mainstream. Lars Syll among the most outspoken;
https://rwer.wordpress.com/2019/09/22/do-models-make-economics-a-science/
Then we have Bill Mitchell ‘s daily blog, Here’s a typical one;
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=43238
These are just typical examples. There are thousands more to study, textbooks included
From now on to make relevant comments on economics one has to avoid the mainstream or risk being sidelined and overlooked.
Cheap Gas Is Killing Nuclear, Green Power May Finish the Job
Will Wade
BloombergSeptember 21, 2019, 6:00 AM EDT
(Bloomberg) — The natural gas boom is killing America’s nuclear industry. Wind and solar may finish the job.
While nuclear plants struggle to compete with the flood of cheap gas coming from the nation’s shale fields, they still offer a key advantage, supporters say: They generate 24-hour electricity without producing carbon emissions. Renewables, meanwhile, haven’t yet nailed down the storage capacity needed to do that. Proponents insist it’s only a matter of time.
Battery prices have plunged 85% from 2010 through 2018, and huge storage plants are planned in California and Arizona. Meanwhile, science is advancing on new technology — including chemical alternatives to lithium-ion systems — with the potential to supply power for 100 hours straight, sun or no sun.
“All signs point to the acceleration of renewable energy that can out-compete nuclear and fossil fuels,” said Jodie Van Horn, director of the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 campaign, a group seeking a grid powered solely by renewables.
The drive for grids that are 100% emissions-free is being pushed by a growing number of U.S. states citing increasingly aggressive time frames. In July, New York mandated that 70% of the state’s power come from renewables by 2030, and 100% by 2040. Seven other states, including California, have similar mandates, and Virginia’s governor earlier this month announced an executive order calling for 100% clean energy there by 2050.
Still, there remains a gap between now and 2050. “To get to 80%-to-85%, you can see a path to get there with today’s technologies,” said Yayoi Sekine, an analyst with BloombergNEF. But using renewables to achieve the final 15%, “that’s where the challenge really is.”
So if these states cant meet these renewable mandates they go dark? Not. Nice mandating “things” with dates when you are out of office. Yup solved the crisis. Humanity can thank me. Its amazing what can be achieved with visionary goals such as what I have. Someone has to take on the billionaire class fossil fuel climate criminals!
If people are so detached from reality that they think that just imagining things makes it so our future will be interesting.
Renewables and nuclear will provide 100% of societies energy. Not clear how much energy per person, not clear cost per KwH. Of course when the state of New York says 100% renewable by 2040 they are thinking today’s level of use plus some at today cost plus at most 10%. That will not happen.
Inherent to this legislation is the premise that energy use will continue at present levels. New reactors. Not! Both renewables an nuclear are fossil fuel dependent. Lst i checked new york is a cold climate. Dwellings are heated with fossil fuels. Where are you going to use your daily 10kw cindy? I thought i would use it heating my closet. ive insulated it with leftover bubble wrap!. living within our “renewable” (lie) means will not occur. No ed the super elite will not be existing in a tech supplied energy world with massive depopulation as you envision.
“Meanwhile, science is advancing on new technology”
This sentence… It says nothing. It has no deliverable. It does not address fundamental thermodydamic and EROI problems of alternatives. What does it do? Presents a IMAGE. We have become IMAGE believers. We have lost all capacity for critical thinking. The great and powerful oz . And theres no Toto to pull the curtain.
We don’t learn critical thinking in our education and upbringing, except learning which sources that are “trustworthy”… That’s why it is so easy to dismiss stories that don’t fit the main stream narrative. Only a few brave souls can see through all the lies and understand that it is all boils down to human psychology. We want more cheese, because if we don’t get it then the competing rat eats the cheese and increases his survival prospects (food and copulation) and decreases our own. This psychology is hard wired in all living organisms and we can not change this basic behavior. So just sit back and enjoy the show.
++++++++++++++++
“The drive for grids that are 100% emissions-free is being pushed by a growing number of U.S. states citing increasingly aggressive time frames.”
I don’t see 2030 and 2040 and 2050 as being especially “aggressive time frames”…
“But using renewables to achieve the final 15%, “that’s where the challenge really is.””
no, that’s just not true…
the real challenge is to get to 85% as the world experiences decreasing net (surplus) energy over the next 3 decades…
and not merely challenging…
but virtually impossible…
I agree. And the big intermittency is from summer to winter. Also from year to year, when someone tries to use hydro in a dry area. Wind, too, is variable from year to year. We could never produce enough batteries to store all the energy needed from summer to winter. Year to year would be a huge hurdle as well. Pumped storage wouldn’t work as well either.
Some thoughts. First, nuclear power is not “emissions free”. Over 65% of the energy generated by the reactor is emitted as waste heat, and this is heat that otherwise would not exist. Secondly, forget batteries of any composition. Trying to store electrical energy as chemical energy has always been a losing proposition, and still is. No matter how cheap the batteries are, they cannot evade the laws of physics.
Last thought: our current renewables are intermittent, and necessarily so. The only reliable sources are geothermal, which is insufficient even for Japan, and ocean thermal, which nobody is looking at because nobody is willing to fund the research. But even with that (immense!) source, the problem of energy flux density (very low) would remain.
Bottom line: we cannot generate enough energy to meet our current needs. The only workable answer is therefore to reduce those needs to require only what we can generate. Which we as a species are biologically programmed not to do, and where we have set up societies where those who consume the most energy are rewarded with the most power: like the 10,000 steaks the Democrat candidates have just consumed.
I think people forget that there is an in-and-out loss of energy, whenever electricity is stored in a battery. This is the physics issue you refer to. I am not certain the amount- ten percent or so.
There is another problem. Batteries slowly leak energy, and the bigger the battery, the faster it leaks. We don’t usually notice this because small non rechargeable batteries (like the ones in this keyboard) can last for several years without much degradation. But a large rechargeable battery expected to store its charge for six months plus is not a good idea.
Lithium based batteries, for example, under the best storage conditions lose about 4% per month. That’s more than 20% over six months (0.96^6, do the math). The phenomenon is called “self discharge”, and you can look it up. Moreover, this phenomenon causes incremental and irreversible degradation; slow, but significant enough that you probably need to replace the battery every five years. (Warrantywise recommends every three years for car batteries, but that’s assuming no preventive maintenance)
Would you invest in an energy source (well, buffer, actually) that lost 4% of its value every month? I thought not.
Well, single crystal lithium batteries charged to max 90% of rated voltage lasts in excess of 20 years.
“Well, single crystal lithium batteries charged to max 90% of rated voltage lasts in excess of 20 years.”
So says Tesla. I await independent confirmation from a reliable source.
In “battery land” a lot is based on accelerated performance assumptions.
The past 5+ yrs of mass manuf and usage by public clearly indicate that shallow/gentle charge-discharge around ~15-90% might very likely guarantee ~15-20yrs of dependable longevity.. also on the condition of not frequent fast charging, car sitting in temp garage etc..
And now they are retooling into even much better performance for the next gen batts.
But as alluded previously, the spillover effect into price drop will be minimal as people would naturally tend to spent this excess rather on either faster or heavier(larger) cars segments. Even econobox cars ala VW Up will remain at least double the price of similar ICE equivalents.. and they still skip some important equip. like active batt temp management which is included in proper higher segment etc.
Similarly for home/utility energy storage, where ~10-20kWh capacity was deemed enough for many it will be shortly just bare minimum or not at all as the tech evolves..
A battery is a magic box that contains energy! If we need more energy we just make more and improve the product! It may cost a little more of our debt based money but hey saving the planet is worth it!!!
I’d like to see the details on the supposedly ~85% (@?!) drop in price of batteries..
It’s not happening in the real world at least what I consider “batteries” – setting aside the cheap short cycle mass manufactured disposable stuff everywhere for toys, tools and appliances.. The more stable or quality chemistry like LiFePO4 (or other even exotic) did not decrease in price as much or at all.. Well, perhaps for a reason, the patents did not lapse so far, plus the more powerful reason which tends to rhyme with the Jevon’s paradox, the advantage is simply burned off immediately on other improvable “concerns” like ever increasing range for batt cars, industrial power packs etc. Simply, there is relatively big market for $60-100k carz segment and people just adore that 400km range at highway speeds of today vs half (or 2/3) of that for the ~same car and price 5yrs ago..
Furthermore as we posted earlier, e.g. Musk is now retooling for newer much shorter assembly lines for his battery packs, but this won’t affect the product pricing that much. Instead, what you simply get is your new expensive car with gigantic new range and mid luxury car with huge range.. The money will “evaporate” in retooling and new factories, eventually stock price/dividends, and also elsewhere in the “value added” niches of car industry like further research into AI etc..
Where the honey pot resides is the partially used batt packs churned/disposed off from these new industries, that’s where the price for energy storage is competitive today, obviously this arena is/will fluctuate to demand-availability so at some point it will be reformed into a business with decent margin, hence the entry price point again crippled for most outsiders.. But for now and immediate future it’s the good times..
Forget batteries synthetic liquid fuels like https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Oil-Gas-Methanol-Economy/dp/3527324224
In all our talk about energy sources the two questions are how much can we afford to build and what will be the cost per unit of energy. There is also the question of availability how often and for how long will it produce less than the design point 100%.
The issues are (1) Cheap, (2) Work in the current infrastructure, and (3) available in huge quantity.
The cost and timing of the changeover is surprisingly slow if a new fuel does not work in current vehicles.
“Cheap” is an amazingly big issue. There is plenty of oil and gas in the ground, if we could just get the price up high enough. Can these fuels be made for $10 to $20 per barrel or less?
“The cost and timing of the changeover is surprisingly slow if a new fuel does not work in current vehicles.”
Gail, I have doubts about this one. It seems to me that it wold make more sense to fit the vehicles to the fuel, not the fuel to the vehicles. Replace cars with public transport, plus last mile runabouts for the mobility impaired. Put freight between densely populated areas back on the rivers, canals and railways, with 3 ton trucks collecting individual loads from “distriparks”. I saw exactly that in Singapore, and it worked very well. No 30 ton trucks on their roads!
Sparsely populated areas: relocate the inhabitants and restore the land to its original form, or to sustainable (organic) agriculture.
Yes, I guess few weeks ago I posted late ~1940s bw docu video how freight transport worked around the major IC hubs at the time. The trains and individual wagons where sorted by various clever (yet pre IT times) means for specific cargo offload and the last mile dealt with smaller short distance trucks, boats, animal/human powered carts etc..
This network used to be everywhere inside the perimeter of the big cities, but it has been deleted shortly after WWII from most US/Euro lands in favor of stuuupid RE developments and obnoxious individual car culture..
What a grave mistake and detour.
I have a hard time seeing public transport lasting very long. Public transport needs to be subsidized by governments. Europe and Japan are already deep into financial trouble, as evidenced by their negative interest rates on bonds. They will need to cut back on borrowing. Jobs will be going away in city centers, as well, resulting in less need for transport to city centers.
To the extent any part of the economy can continue, it will be the transport of the rich, in forms that don’t require much subsidies. I would expect cars with ICE engines will last as long as anything. Walking will again become much more the primary form of transportation.
Relocating of inhabitants to rural areas will need to take place by the inhabitants themselves. Most rural old homes have disappeared, as farmers have expanded the size of their fields. New residents will need to do with make-shift homes that they and their friends can put together with locally available materials. Probably no electricity or piped in water.
“The global debt bonanza has begun to show cracks as investors increasingly yank cash out of leveraged loans to companies with low credit ratings.”
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/Investors-edge-away-from-risky-leveraged-loans-in-echo-of-2008
“When Alan Greenspan ran a consulting firm and wanted to know where the economy was headed, he would often look at sales of men’s underwear as a guide.
“Mr. Greenspan, who later served as chairman of the Federal Reserve, believed that when times were tough, men would stop replacing worn-out underwear, which no one could see, before cutting other purchases.
“By that measure, India is in a serious slump.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/09/21/business/economy/india-economy-trade.amp.html
India is supposedly one of the fastest growing countries in the world, yet it keeps coming up with problems. Something doesn’t add up.
Sounds reasonable. Socks, too: my Dickensian holey socks were quite a sight after the 4 -year slump in orders I experienced, when paying the mortgage – and eating – were the only priority.
Still, on the bright side, if people are hanging on to old underwear,etc, less land-fill!
Not mentioning the silky smooth feeling effect you get ONLY with properly long term over washed-holey textiles..
The analogy with IC is striking.
Just as the garment smoothness peaks, they are prone to fast disintegration, with collapse starting in the weak seams.
Exactly, that’s so intuitive yet overlooked comparison.. thanks for bringing it up.
Thank you for a good, informative article. So, India’s banks are in trouble because of “excessive” lending. No: they are in trouble because they don’t consider the borrower’s ability to repay, but rather his caste, status, and willingness to pay bribes.
And India’s two biggest industries, agriculture and textiles, are in deep trouble. That is what reckless industrialisation always does, and India’s peasant farmers, the backbone of her food supply, are being driven to suicide by a system that strongly favours agribusiness, which down the road will create famine.
The government’s answer: more subsidies to the auto industry, which any sane government in its predicament would shut down, because if you count the externalities (pollution, shortened lifespan, child mortality, congestion and general misery) it subtracts value from the country as a whole.
But I guess the ethnic cleansing of Kashmir is Modi’s highest priority.
Trump is a SOCIALIST!.
!Trump telling American companies to stop doing business in China is the “type of edict that might come from the leadership of the old Soviet Union, Cuba or even today’s communist China,” he said. “It is the ultimate in government interference with the free market.”
His belief that he has the right to direct American commerce “is a startling blunt exercise in socialism,” Gregg added. The tariffs, seen as a massive new tax on the U.S. consumer, are also right out of the socialist playbook, he said.
“The fact that U.S. companies need to compete in an international market requires them to be international is lost on this president and his people,” he said. “They set up a clear list of businesses they deem enemies of the state, and they do not hesitate to use the powers they have to berate them.”
Other socialist-leaning ideologies espoused by the president that Gregg lists in his piece include the desire for a weaker dollar DXY, +0.19% as well as the push for running up debts and deficits.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-trumps-startling-blunt-exercise-in-socialism-is-overlooked-by-his-backers-2019-09-16?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
Think he forgot a few…like permanent tax cuts for the super rich…LOL
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KKHRyspiBrM
Yada, yada, yada
See, it’s working….
More than 2,300 companies around the globe from a variety of industries, including law, tourism and technology, have joined the Not Business As Usual alliance and pledged to support their workers to strike with students on Friday.
Thousands of tech workers joined the protests in the middle of their workdays, showing a renewed level of political activism in Silicon Valley, where software engineers and other employees traditionally haven’t spoken up in public against their bosses.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/global-climate-strike-protests-expected-draw-millions-n1056231
Just because I want it so, make it so!
Easy Peasey….just like magic…
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice said it expected more than 1,600 employees would walk off their job sites to protest what they called the company’s lack of action in addressing the climate crisis.
On Thursday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos offered a prebuttal to the strike, pledging that the retail giant would get 80 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2024, up from 40 percent now.
And Jeff will colonize Litter Space too!
L.O.L.
Well, we shall see, we shall see….said the blind man!
For those who are interested in Eurodollar, repo, etc, this guy Jeff Snider is good.
https://www.alhambrapartners.com/commentaryanalysis/
My bad, this is an overnight loan. So,m the amount is fixed. The question is – why did it happen? Is it because of a much bigger issue that is not being told?
The shortage of workforce in Austria leads to another creative idea: the truck driving license for 16 year olds:
https://www.etrend.sk/ekonomika/kuriozny-napad-rakusko-navrhuje-znizenie-veku-pre-vodicov-kamionov-na-16-rokov.html
Interesting. The work pool of CEErs and Balkaners is after several decades suddenly drying out for Austria’s advantage as next gen Turks or newly incoming Africans don’t desire though working jobs anymore.. And Musk is still late with his AI trucking schemes..
“Stop paying the warlords, leave the country and forget about it.”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/cia-celebrates-18-years-of-war-in-afghanistan.html
https://youtu.be/HRY0cs26Zvo
Well, chaos is out there:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/969ce97a241dfe4346576dd32acf45bb54cfa6d5bb6e297b829b67ece0ef77e8.jpg?w=800&h=536
Alternatively, kill all the warlords, convert the population to Greek Paganism, and install a philosopher king as autarch. After all, it worked for Alexander, and it made Bactria one of the richest countries in central Asia.
“The Federal Reserve added liquidity for a fourth straight day to a vital corner of the funding markets, helping further stabilize rates as investors remain concerned that fresh bouts of stress may be felt in the weeks ahead.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-09-20/fed-injects-cash-for-fourth-day-as-funding-markets-stabilize
Ever since the 08 mortgage meltdown there has been intervention to stabilize this, that and the other. The fear of another meltdown apparently necessitates the financial adjustment valves turning when needed. I liken it to a wave that just keeps cresting higher (rising debt) and we know what happens to those eventually.
“What cannot go on for ever must eventually stop”
A lesson modern economists repeatedly fail to learn.
it is planned to continue through October 10…
https://news.yahoo.com/ny-fed-pump-75-bn-money-markets-daily-154943871.html
After October 10, the New York Fed will “conduct operations as necessary to help maintain the federal funds rate in the target range, the amounts and timing of which have not yet been determined.”
“Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell this week downplayed concerns about the money market’s cash crunch, saying it was not a sign of problems in the wider economy or a concern for monetary policy.”
see? this is not a sign of any economic problems…
Keep Calm and…
BAU Tonight, Baby!
The way it has stretched out from a “glitch” to a prolonged injection of emergency liquidity is unsettling.
The more I read about the origins of the crunch the more confused I get. There are so many competing theories out there.
Now this is concerning! 4 days in a row of asset purchases in order to stabilize the overnight repo market. How is this different than Quantitative Easing and almost 300 Billion in a week is a ridiculous sum of money?! Did a derivative debt bubbled collapse or something? Why would banks need hundreds of billions of dollars in funding over a few day period?
The amounts are not addictive, I am told. It is still a problem.
Here’s a self-interested justification for shortening the lifespan of solar panels and boosting production/sales:
“A new study shows that, contrary to widespread belief within the solar power industry, new kinds of solar cells and panels don’t necessarily have to last for 25 to 30 years in order to be economically viable in today’s market.”
http://news.mit.edu/2019/short-lived-solar-panels-economic-0919
I imagine this change in use would definitely make solar panels energy sinks (in the crude sense of more energy used in manufacture than produced during operation).
The title of this is
Study: Even short-lived solar panels can be economically viable
Research shows that, contrary to accepted rule of thumb, a 10- or 15-year lifetime can be good enough.
One big issue with all of this stuff is “What do you do with the solar panels, later in their lifetimes?” With longer lifetimes, the “plan” such as it has been, seems to be to send the stuff off to some less-developed country, and let the poor folks there get a little use out of them. Then they can deal with the pollution problems associated with trying to dispose of these device.
If we talk about shorter lived panels, then we are talking about two to three times as much waste from used panels. There is also less opportunity to dump them in a less developed country. So one needs to deal with the mess that they cause for waste/recycling oneself. (Not a topic in the article.) When I looked up Perovskite-Based Solar Cells, I found this ScienceMag article. It lists the most common molecule used as triiodide (CH3NH3PbI3). Not being a chemist, I don’t know much about this, except that it seems to include both iodine and lead. I don’t think I would want either of them in my water supply? Does this compound leach off the panels, if they should happen to break? I know that this seems to be an issue with other panels, when they break.
I found an article called More solar panels mean more waste and there’s no easy solution. Recycling is not economically viable for the long-lived panels. I can’t imagine it would be for the shorter lived panels, either. No one in EROI analyses has paid attention to end-of-life issues. If these things are to be kept out of landfills, there must be a system set up at the front end, to charge more for them, to include the cost handling the end-of-life issues. I wonder what adding a charge for these issues would do to the financial viability of these shorter-lived solar panels?
Thank you, Gail. Solar panels were advertised as investments that would pay you back over 25 years. That was wrong, because the payback was denominated in money, not energy: it ignored the (huge) energy cost of their manufacture and counted only the monetary cost in third world countries with dirt cheap labour and no control over pollution.
And now, as many sane engineers had predicted, they don’t work that long. The calculations were done for large arrays with permanent maintenance teams on site, and then applied to the panels on your roof.
The decommissioning costs, of course, were ignored, and now they are beginning to bite. So, dump the problem on countries with a lot of landfill and no environmental protection, and pocket the money.
Solar panels and wind turbines is a cute gimmick for the feeble minded. And similar to the other frivolous gizmos and trinkets in our empty lives – they are fun for a little while. Then they end up in the garbage heap leaking out all sorts of poisonous juices from which they are made out of.
True, however it’s still the most plug&play ready “alt energy” solution known to little guys – as micro hydro, biomass burning for electricity or wind are even more complex in terms of installation, upkeep and financing, not mentioning seasonality swings..
In terms of the small scale, the only workaround is simply to go without electricity completely (doable-possible) or to limit it for such tiny tasks that only very small PV array is necessary, hence the future trade off in leaching a bit of lead and various acids after few decades is bearable (speaking about the silicon type not the more toxic thin film)..
Moreover it’s even possible to prepare on your property small diy long term storage depot which would stabilize-absorb the leaking stuff at lest till the next severe ice age terra forming age (or similar scale event), so good enough in my book.
But 99% humanoids don’t think in above terms, at least for now as several past centuries of continuous techno massage (and dependency) completely changed the narrative of core believes/needs/wants/..
Once again, I agree completely with your post. (I seem to be agreeing a lot. Either i’m getting old and uncranky, or this really is one of the most intelligent discussion fora on the net. Many thanks, Gail.)
Yes, you can downscale your energy use if you decouple from the grid, and then replace unsustainable solutions with sustainable ones. And yes, micro hydro is far less expensive (in terms of energy) in both construction and maintenance. That’s why the Middle Ages could grind corn with water wheels.
Yes, we have to be thankful for sanctuaries for discussion like OFW/Surplus and few others to some extent as well. I hope mil-industrial contractors don’t milk it for easy idea$ too much, lol.
Now on the topic, apart from doing without, in terms of energy downscale concept through energy savings it’s really overspecialization at hearth. For example, the current megatrend in electronics is small energy sipping parallel processors able to displace most of the traditional high wattage PCs functionality, basically a mid segment mobile phone can do it today already (running-editing multimedia, accounting spreadsheets, lab simulations etc) and lowend phone could do it tomorrow..
But as in every pointy peak driving “ecosystem” it’s a very fragile situation afterall. When these JITs and factories don’t suddenly churn out anymore the complexities of achieved energy savings are so huge it becomes non repairable junk after the lifetime of the device concludes (~10-20yrs).. and then it drags down everything connected/affiliated with it.
Well, the complexity isn’t in the manufacturing steps. It is (E)UV lithography with semi-advanced software for optical control systems to align the multi-layer plumbing inside a modern SOC.
The complexity is in the design, validation and manufacturing software as I have been reiterating. A software system isn’t prone to the same inherent flaws as a corruptible, decadent, error prone and forgetful humanoid centered organizational structure.
Yeah, the they are plug ‘n play for sure, still crap though. At least compared with proper industrial mega-scale installations. The reliability and robustness of gigawatt sized nukes and hydro power stations is spectacular.
I can not remember the last time I had a power outage in Sweden. It just does not happen with nukes as thermal base load and large scale hydro as dispatchable power. Still they are centralized single points of failure. Sooner or later inevitably stuff will go horribly wrong. It’s only a matter of time.
It is the above ground distribution lines that fail most often in the US. We have a lot of wind storms that lead to outages. But there seem to be other problems as well, including transformer problems.
The study did suggest “They used NREL benchmark parameters for U.S. solar systems and a variety of assumptions about future progress in solar technology development, financing, and the disposal of the initial panels after replacement, including recycling of the used modules”
Some hazy figures no doubt, but they did take recycling onto account.
I am not sure what the new studies assumed. I know that older studies tended to assume that the panels would have enough salvage value at the end of some period so that there would be no problem.
All of these studies are based on models of what might happen over the life of the panels. In fact, the system acts on a calendar period in and out principle. So, how much is spent upfront becomes very important. You are basically digging a big hole with energy consumption and trying to get out of it. With batteries, you never get out.
Global Climate Strike kicks off with thousands skipping school or work for demonstrations across the world
Lucia I. Suarez Sang By Lucia I. Suarez Sang | Fox New
The worldwide climate protest partially inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg kicked off Friday in major – and smaller – cities around the globe Friday with hundreds of thousands of students hitting the streets.
“I have basically been told that because it is not a valid reason to be missing school — it is not a medical reason or anything — I am going to get a zero on the test if I don’t actually sit it,” Sutton said.
Thunberg, who has staged weekly demonstrations under the heading “Fridays for Future” over the past year, has been calling on world leaders to step up their efforts against climate change. She is expected to speak at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York City on Monday
Are they connected? Or just a coincidence?
The creator underestimated the allure
Matty Roberts was just joking. He didn’t believe anyone would take him seriously when, on June 27, he created a Facebook page for an event entitled “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us.”
But Roberts may have underestimated the allure of Area 51, the highly classified US Air Force base in southern Nevada. It’s long been a topic of fascination for conspiracy theorists and paranormal enthusiasts who believe it to be the location where the US government stores and hides alien bodies and UFOs. Just this week, the US Navy acknowledged that some videos of UFOs are indeed images of objects that can’t be identified.
Roberts said he came up with the idea for the meme page after podcaster Joe Rogan interviewed Area 51 whistleblower Bob Lazar and filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. Lazar claims that he worked with an alien spacecraft while he was employed in one of Area 51’s underground facilities
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/area-51-raid-weekend-event-trnd/index.html
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns
She reminds me of the coached ambassador’s daughter who testified abou all the babies being pulled out of their incubators in Kuwait as a reason to go to war with Iraq. But what do I know? not only are they excellent actors, but they are also professors.
The Nayirah testimony was a false testimony given before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990 by a 15-year-old girl who provided only her first name, Nayirah. The testimony was widely publicized, and was cited numerous times by United States senators and President George H. W. Bush in their rationale to back Kuwait in the Gulf War. In 1992, it was revealed that Nayirah’s last name was al-Ṣabaḥ (Arabic: نيرة الصباح) and that she was the daughter of Saud Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign, which was run by the American public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government. Following this, al-Sabah’s testimony has come to be regarded as a classic example of modern atrocity propaganda.[
The ambassador has stated that his daughter had witnessed the atrocities she described and that her presence in Kuwait could be verified by the United States Embassy in Kuwait.[53] He also stated “If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn’t use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it.”[69]
Pegado was the acting Vice President of Hill & Knowlton at the time of Nayirah’s Testimony. It was later confirmed within the Kuwaitis investigation that Pegado was responsible for coaching Nayirah in what was proven to be her false testimony.
Kuwaiti officials do not discuss the matter with the press.[44] In order to respond to these charges, the Kuwaiti government hired Kroll Associates to undertake an independent investigation of the incubator story. The Kroll investigation lasted nine weeks and conducted over 250 interviews. The interviews with Nayirah revealed that her original testimony was wildly distorted at best; she told Kroll that she had actually seen only one baby outside its incubator for “no more than a moment.” She also told Kroll that she was never a volunteer at the hospital and had in fact “only stopped by for a few minutes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
Fascinating extensive writeup about it all in the above link.
I’m remember it very vividly, The Bush Administration pandered it a great deal as a cause for US intervention.
It worked!
Today it sounds ridiculous but..
The fourth turning concept calls them (their generation archetype) the hero generation, they surely fit many of the specifications calm, focus oriented, comunitarian..
For now in their late teens they adhered to dubious theory pushed on them by msm/govs prefabricating the narrative for other hidden motive (smoothing the attempted degrowth/collapse phase). However, that doesn’t negate what they are likely going to do as they age into their 35-50s.. and possible wise up a bit also due to forcing of very changed world and personal circumstances by that time.
Maoist and Bolshevik mass murderers were also focus-oriented and communitarian in principle: they often killed quite calmly, too. These are not necessarily admirable qualities.
What I do not like is that their brains are being messed about with by propaganda from a very tender age: what happens when they realise they were sold a false paradigm?
Possibly they will lapse into drug addiction and despair; maybe they will look for scapegoats. The record of humanity is not very good regarding profoundly disillusioned and frightened masses.
The sweet, determined, little child carrying a ‘Save the World’ placard might well be the torturer of 2035.
This particular generational archetype is supposedly not drugs friendly nor prone to scapegoating violence.. Perhaps counterintelligence they will be good “back to landers”, despite their initial lack of experience and today’s fixation on cell phones, social networks etc., this could be to a large degree easily re-mediated in public space on the public square daily interactions so to speak.
Instead I’d be worried more about the generation who currently and in next ~15yrs will have access to the doom console, actually as of now they produce the smoke screen of theories and operational doctrines that nuclear strikes are kind of mellow event taking only few% of pop down etc.
error: ..counter-intuitively..
“Secret Notes From Iran: Diary Of An Undercover Journalist
By Nadim Siraj
“… Siraj argues that the US hostility arises from Iran’s refusal to join the ‘petro dollar’ system. “Another reason is Iran’s fortuitous success in the Iranian Oil Bourse.
The book contains strategic analysis on Iran and West Asia, including a sweep of history from the 1953 “Oil related coup” to the present US abrogation of the P5+1 “Iran Nuclear Deal” of July 14, 2015. He sets the tone of analysis by quoting Noam Chomsky, his inspiration, to whom he has dedicated his book: “Iran is a highly independent nation and surely not a proxy of any other country”. He argues that the reason for American hostility is Iran’s refusal to join the “petro-dollar” system through which oil revenue has to be stashed in American banks. Another reason is Iran’s fortuitous success in starting the Iranian Oil Bourse (IOB) in Kish Island. America’s traditional policy was to put down countries defying its diktat. He quotes Gen.Wesley Clark’s 2007 interview in Democracy Now on a Pentagon plan “for taking out seven countries in five years”, including Iran.”
https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/books-as-the-shiraz-soured/302133
The Fed pumps another $75 billion into markets — its 3rd straight daily injection
https://images.markets.businessinsider.com/image/5d822d792e22af49ab1428e2-2000/2019-09-18t073615z4lynxmpef8g1nqrtroptp4usa-economy-poll.jpg
The Federal Reserve jumped into financial markets for a third straight day on Thursday in another attempt to keep interest rates from moving higher.
The central bank has injected a total of $203 billion into markets this week — $75 billion on both Wednesday and Thursday, and $53 billion on Tuesday.
This week marked the first time the central bank has taken such steps since the global financial crisis 10 years ago.
Texas Is Drowning Under One of the Wettest Storms in US History
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/nBS9VWCyRMLikVZKVYJEEM-970-80.jpg
The last of these monster 1,000-year-storms was just two years ago…
I remember early in my actuarial career seeing a lot of architect and engineer claims, in which buildings or other structures failed very quickly, even though they were supposed to withstand one in 100 year events or even greater odds. For example, the roof on a large building would collapse, after a somewhat larger than normal snowfall. I quickly came to the understanding that the models underlying these analyses were not really correct. Perhaps they assumed a normal distribution of outcomes, because that distribution is easy to work with, rather than a much “fatter tailed” distribution. Or they left out important variables, such as wind speed. The nuclear plant at Fukushima was build to withstand very unusual events, supposedly. But in practice, these models often don’t work very well.
Hi Gail. I saw this in action myself at the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture (I was their tame IT guy for a few years). In former times, architects and engineers studied the science of materials (for what to build) and the science of meteorology and seismology (for what might go wrong).
Then came CAD, which used algorithms crafted by computer nerds who knew none of these subjects. For example, probabilistic events were usually simulated by a Normal (Gaussian) distribution, which was wrong. Weather events, for example, usually follow a negative binomial distribution, which more accurately estimates the probability of rare events. And CAD stress analyses could not cope with torsional forces, and so ignored them.
The latter deficiency has been the cause of several major roof collapses, for example the Hartford Civic Center collapse in 1978. the former was one of the contributing factprs to Fukushima: the builders knew that four tectonic plates almost came together just offshore, but their bad models of earthquakes made them overconfident.
Bad models are very distinctly worse than no model at all. People depend on these models. They assume that they tell them more than they really do. By the time the model gets passed on through three or four levels of reports (official and lay reports, plus newspaper reports), enough people have heard the story that people assume the computer results must simulate everything that is important. This is definitely not true.
Lets compare the raw computational power of the 70’s and with todays:
https://bjc.edc.org/bjc-r/img/6-computers/mooreslaw_graph.png
In the 70’s we basically had no computational power to speak of. Thus the software and models used back then were severely limited by the available compute.
The FEA software of today is vastly superior in every aspect, which is why a car and a building of today can withstand everything up to and exceeding its design specification.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9BTClejXGc
Then on top of that comes the mass dampers and suspension systems of modern buildings. 9+ on the Richter scale, no problems.
But the people doing the programming are no smarter. In some ways, they are less smart. Those who worked on problems early on had learned to observe carefully and not be overconfident of what they were doing. They added a large margin for error. With more computational power, it is easier to make mistakes.
The mathematicians and scientists of today is no smarter than those of yesteryear, yet new science and math sees the light every single day because there are vastly more people working with this than ever before in the history of mankind. And just like that modern day software is engineered and refactored from older programs into new more accurate, optimal and expressive software systems.
The same is true of the (CAD/CAM/FEA) software used for constructing and simulating structures. They are built and improved upon every day, and then validated using real-world test benches. Basically all modern engineering is driven by software. This software encodes much of the former complexities of engineering into a computational representation.
Thus the complexity of maintaining modern civilisation is shifted from people and organizations to computational structures. It is a groundbreaking paradigm shift where irrelevance looms at every level for the keepers of societal structure (nomenclature) which is specially prone to this transformation.
Sigh. Another believer in the creed of “wrong answers faster”. The computers may be faster, but they are still being programmed by humans, who in my 50 years’ experience in this discipline, display every year more ignorance and more hubris.
Remember the prophetic words of Alfred Korzybski: “The map is not the territory”
Times move on, so does tech, science and the validation methods of which they are made to be grounded in reality.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b0/3e/5c/b03e5c210f6d643c8930c6e7d251dd8d.jpg
Therefore, most people believe any kind of nonsense they hear about science and technology solving all of their problems.
An idiotic essay by K on how computers have made us smarter. This is nonsense …since dumbed down engineers now believe anything a computer program tells them, even if it is wrong.
Computers have definitely made us dumber. But they have become part of the landscape because they allow us dumb bunnies to get lots of things done far cheaper, faster and more productively and efficiently than our smarter ancestors could manage—not necessarily any better, though.
Tim: except for the little problem that IQ is rising continuously. Younger generations score higher on IQ tests than their predecessors.
“The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
It is quite obvious that the crowd here is quite, uhm, how should I put this. Cough. Cough. Never mind.
You’d figure they would at least factor in an earthquake followed by a Tsunami. That said there are now a total of “6” active tropical storms in the tropics, supposedly a new record.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/19/hurricanes-tropical-storms-atlantic-pacific-set-record-kiko-humberto-jerry-imelda-mario-lorena/2373241001/
Indeed they did “figure it out”. Build strong enough to withstand the shock of an earthquake: if earthquake has force X, build resistance of 1.1X. Problem solved.
Except they got the equations wrong, because they forgot about resonance effects. The same effects, as it happens, that took down the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. Of course, with today’s amazingly fast computers, they could have computed the wrong answer a million times faster. Such is what today we call progress.
“Iranians have been forced to sell their organs for up to $50,000 with the country’s economy in freefall, an opposition group has claimed.
“The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is based in Paris, says the organ trade is a ‘booming business’ as the economy struggles under the weight of U.S .sanctions.
“According to their report, one street in Tehran is so covered in scrawled offers of organ sales that the alley has become known as ‘Kidney Street’.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7482799/Iranians-turn-selling-organs-make-ends-meet.html
Sounds sad! At one time, I know that people low on funds used to sell their blood to get funds. This didn’t work well, because the people selling their blood had too many things wrong with their blood.
Gail, I was a regular blood donor for many years, until I hit the age limit. Being O negative, I thought it an easy way to help my fellow men. No doubt a capitalist would condemn me, for depriving some HIV positive prisoners of extra pocket money. But there are some things too valuable to be monetised. A lesson many have forgotten, but that in the Long Emergency we are destined to relearn.
I don’t think that there is an upper age for blood donation in the US. I know that I was surprised at the age of some donors, when I worked as a volunteer, way back when I was a teenager, helping check donors in. One site says that hasn’t changed. [Oops! Another link says that some centers have an upper limit, so check locally.]
There is an upper age limit in Europe and other parts of the world, according to Wikipedia.
Sorry for not being clearer. The age limit in Singapore is 60, which I think absurdly low, but that’s the way it is.
“Brazil’s Central Bank has slashed interest rates to a record low for the second time in less than two months, as Latin America’s biggest economy struggles to grow.
“The bank cut its main rate to 5.5 percent from the previous historic low of six percent, citing risks of a “more intense slowdown in the global economy.””
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/brazilian-central-bank-cuts-interest-rate-to-record-low.phtml
“Buenos Aires, Argentina – More than 100,000 Venezuelans now live in Argentina. They have left one country in crisis only to find themselves in another mire…
“A persistent recession with high inflation, growing Argentine unemployment – and a 25-percent currency collapse in a single day last August – make finding a job incredibly difficult for most people who live in the South American country.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/venezuelans-argentina-economic-crisis-190918232818561.html
“Shuttered schools, hospital services pared back to a minimum, officials on strike — Argentina’s southern oil-producing province of Chubut is a microcosm of the country’s crippling economic crisis.
“The debt-burdened Patagonian province is suffering the same explosive cocktail of galloping inflation, a plummeting peso and colossal debt.”
https://www.france24.com/en/20190918-strikes-as-recession-squeezes-argentina-s-oil-rich-south
These are examples of organizations whose demand for fossil fuels is lower because of the way the system is working now. The oil price isn’t high enough to keep the whole system going, and Argentina is not in a position to borrow more, to make up for the deficit. Someone needs to print some money and give it to Argentina. I suppose more quantitative easing might work in this direction, because it might lower the dollar relative to other currencies including Argentina’s. This would raise the price of oil.
“A coastal Alaska fishing town will soon be cut off from vehicles with the closure of its ferry service because of state budget cuts, officials said.”
https://www.apnews.com/da5a1502a2dc4d8cafdf811dec81bb59
I am sure that the ferry needs a subsidy and this is why it is being cut. According to the article:
So the result is more than the loss of the oil use to power the ferry. There are likely to be a lot of businesses closing and residents leaving.
Residents of Islay get subsidised flights to Glasgow and our ferry operator, the state-run company Caledonian MacBrayne, was subsidised by the Scottish Government to the tune of £136.8m last year, up from £128.3m the year before.
One wonders how long that can go on, given that Scotland depends for a third of its government revenues on North Sea oil, which is barely profitable now.
Buses and commuter trains are generally subsidized as well, I understand. If there are cutbacks, these could see service eliminated.
How much of the food for Islay comes by ferry? Or are there shipping companies that make deliveries to Islay?
Gail, there is some locally produced meat but there is no longer a slaughterhouse on the island. Islay had a creamery but that was shut down in 2000 due to a UK-wide price slump in milk and dairy products. A bit of fruit and veg is grown locally and there is some excellent locally caught seafood.
But almost all of our food is brought in by ferry and sold in stores on the island, the largest of which is the Co-op in Bowmore. We call it a supermarket but it is tiny compared to most on the mainland. The ferries are cancelled when the the winds are gusting over 40mph and if you have consecutive days without ferries, the shelves start emptying pretty quickly. You get a strong sense of supply-chain vulnerabilities here, that’s for sure.
https://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/99/04/990461_ca72bea9.jpg
I lived in Cordova for several years. Beautiful place. It was the epicenter of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and they are still suffering from the effects to this day. The herring fishery has collapsed – there is none. The ferry runs to Valdez and Whittier from which you can drive to Anchorage. Factoring the driving and parking fees into the equation I would just fly and load up (coffee, booze, ammo, etc.).
Cordova is where the prized Copper River salmon come from.
“World economic growth is “fragile” and “under threat,” former International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde says, and is over-reliant on the actions of central banks.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/world-economic-growth-is-fragile-lagarde-says-and-central-banks-arent-always-the-answer-2019-09-19
“What is especially challenging now is that there seems to be little room for policymakers to respond if – or perhaps we should say “when” – a recession hits.”
https://theconversation.com/feds-rate-cut-signals-a-recession-may-be-ahead-and-it-may-not-have-enough-ammunition-to-fight-it-123850
“Further evidence was on full display Thursday that top central banks are doing little more than pushing on a string in an attempt to spark their economies by flooding the financial system with ever more cash. The European Central Bank’s offer to provide money to lenders free resulted in it handing out just $3.4 billion euros ($3.8 billion), far less than estimates of 20 billion to 100 billion euros, according to Bloomberg News.
“The result is a clear message from banks that there’s just no real demand for loans from their customers, no matter the cost.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-19/when-free-money-no-longer-appeals-watch-out
“Marathon Asset Management CEO Bruce Richards said government bond yields trading at negative levels “is the most absurd thing central banks have done and it will blow up in their face,” at the CNBC Institutional Investor Delivering Alpha conference on Thursday…
“Richards said investors may be tempted to reap as much gains as they can from this year’s relentless rally in government bonds, but said it was a “fool’s game.””
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bond-investor-says-negative-yields-are-most-absurd-thing-central-banks-have-done-2019-09-19
I find it very difficult to comprehend all the info here and its consequences. I was wondering how to express the shortfall in renewable compared to consumption using a metric we can imagine. We
have often used the Wiki article “Cubic Mile of Oil” as a yardstick. Using a similar metric renewables can be compared with a similar scale. Are you able to do that, Gail?
Hardly any renewable protagonist gets the scale of our use.
Thanks John
The thing about intermittent electricity is that it really doesn’t substitute for much of anything, other than somewhat reducing the need for fuel for power plants of various types, including natural gas and coal. So any image of it replacing oil doesn’t really make sense. And even if it were scaled up to theoretically 100% of the cubic mile of oil (and beyond), it would still do very little for the economy.
BP computes “barrel of oil equivalent” for wind, solar and hydro, making the very generous assumption that the value of this electricity is equal to the oil that would have burned to create this electricity. Using this generous approach, in the year 2018,
Wind amounted to 2.1% of world energy supply.
Solar amounted to 1.0% of world energy supply.
Wind plus solar amounted to 3.0% of world energy supply.
The International Energy Association does not give as much credit for electricity as BP does. It would count wind and solar (total) as something between 1% and 2% of world energy supply. No matter what numbers a person uses, the percentages are tiny. Anyone should be able to figure that if we have been subsidizing these things for over 20 years, we should be a whole lot farther along than this.
Hydroelectric for 2018 amounted to 9.9% of world energy supply.
Wind and solar require the mining of huge amounts of materials, processing these materials using fossil fuels, and transporting these materials long distances. Calculations of EROEI usually miss the long-distance transport, because this can vary, depending on the location of the solar panels or wind turbines. They likely also miss a lot of the mining costs. There are many other reasons that they tend to give hopelessly optimistic indications.
And then there’s this. It had to come up sooner or later.
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/attack-on-saudi-oil-facility-looking-like-a-false-flag/
What else is new?
It does look awfully suspicious. The article seems to make the assertion that these are natural gas tanks. Another article I read suggested that they could store liquids, such as those awaiting processing. The damage certainly looks minor, and not something that a long-range drone could do.
The Economist devoting a whole issue to climate change.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/09/19/the-climate-issue?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2019/09/19n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/E/311424/n
They have to find something to write about.
Extinction is a good topic— especially when it is happening to you.
Most want to ignore it at all costs.
Still waiting to put a solar water heater on the roof here in South Florida….like most all Floridians…..
RENEWABLE ENERGY
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1059983772
Solar water heaters bloom on China’s rooftops but not in the U.S.
Annually, China installs 6 million solar water units. “The U.S. market is relatively small, with 8 million water heaters sold every year and only about 30,000 being solar water heaters,” explained Merrigan of NREL. “There has been some increase in recent years from before, when only 6,000 or 7,000 were sold.
Got to use the natural gas for something!
Yeah, the trend is going in the right direction…sarcasm