Citizens seem to be clamoring for shutdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19. There is one major difficulty, however. Once an economy has been shut down, it is extremely difficult for the economy to recover back to the level it had reached previously. In fact, the longer the shutdown lasts, the more critical the problem is likely to be. China can shut down its economy for two weeks over the Chinese New Year, each year, without much damage. But, if the outage is longer and more widespread, damaging effects are likely.
A major reason why economies around the world will have difficulty restarting is because the world economy was in very poor shape before COVID-19 hit; shutting down major parts of the economy for a time leads to even more people with low wages or without any job. It will be very difficult and time-consuming to replace the failed businesses that provided these jobs.
When an outbreak of COVID-19 hit, epidemiologists recommended social distancing approaches that seemed to be helpful back in 1918-1919. The issue, however, is that the world economy has changed. Social distancing rules have a much more adverse impact on today’s economy than on the economy of 100 years ago.
Governments that wanted to push back found themselves up against a wall of citizen expectations. A common belief, even among economists, was that any shutdown would be short, and the recovery would be V-shaped. False information (really propaganda) published by China tended to reinforce the expectation that shutdowns could truly be helpful. But if we look at the real situation, Chinese workers are finding themselves newly laid off as they attempt to return to work. This is leading to protests in the Hubei area.
My analysis indicates that now, in 2020, the world economy cannot withstand long shutdowns. One very serious problem is the fact that the prices of many commodities (including oil, copper and lithium) will fall far too low for producers, leading to disruption in supplies. Broken supply chains can be expected to lead to the loss of many products previously available. Ultimately, the world economy may be headed for collapse.
In this post, I explain some of the reasons for my concerns.
[1] An economy is a self-organizing system that can grow only under the right conditions. Removing a large number of businesses and the corresponding jobs for an extended shutdown will clearly have a detrimental effect on the economy.
Figure 1. Chart by author, using photo of building toy “Leonardo Sticks,” with notes showing a few types of elements the world economy.
An economy is a self-organizing networked system that grows, under the right circumstances. I have attempted to give an idea of how this happens in Figure 1. This is an image of a child’s building toy. The growth of an economy is somewhat like building a structure with many layers using such a toy.
The precise makeup of the economy is constantly changing. New businesses are formed, and new consumers grow up and take jobs. Governments enact laws, partly to collect taxes, and partly to ensure fair treatment of all. Consumers decide which products to buy based on a combination of factors, including their level of wages, the prices being charged for the available goods, the availability of debt, and the interest rate on that debt. Resources of various kinds are used in producing goods and services.
At the same time, some deletions are taking place. Big businesses buy smaller businesses; some customers die or move away. Products that become obsolete are discontinued. The inside of the dome becomes hollow from the deletions.
If a large number of businesses are closed for an extended period, this will have many adverse impacts on the economy:
- Fewer goods and services, in total, will be made for the economy during the period of the shutdown.
- Many workers will be laid off, either temporarily or permanently. Goods and services will suddenly be less affordable for these former workers. Many will fall behind on their rent and other obligations.
- The laid off workers will be unable to pay much in taxes. In the US, state and local governments will need to cut back the size of their programs to match lower revenue because they cannot borrow to offset the deficit.
- If fewer goods and services are made, demand for commodities will fall. This will push the prices of commodities, such as oil and copper, very low.
- Commodity producers, airlines and the travel industry are likely to head toward permanent contraction, further adding to layoffs.
- Broken supply lines become problems. For example:
- A lack of parts from China has led to the closing of many automobile factories around the world.
- There is not enough cargo capacity on airplanes because much cargo was carried on passenger flights previously, and passenger flights have been cut back.
These adverse impacts become increasingly destabilizing for the economy, the longer the shutdowns go on. It is as if a huge number of deletions are made simultaneously in Figure 1. Temporary margins, such as storage of spare parts in warehouses, can provide only a temporary buffer. The remaining portions of the economy become less and less able to support themselves. If the economy was already in poor shape, the economy may collapse.
[2] The world economy was approaching resource limits even before the coronavirus epidemic appeared. This is not too different a situation than many earlier economies faced before they collapsed. Coronavirus pushes the world economy further toward collapse.
Reaching resource limits is sometimes described as, “The population outgrew the carrying capacity of the land.” The group of people living in the area could not grow enough food and firewood using the resources available at the time (such as arable land, energy from the sun, draft animals, and technology of the day) for their expanding populations.
Collapses have been studied by many researchers. The book Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov analyze eight agricultural economies that collapsed. Figure 2 is a chart I prepared, based on my analysis of the economies described in that book:
Figure 2. Chart by author based on Turchin and Nefedov’s Secular Cycles.
Economies tend to grow for many years before the population becomes high enough that the carrying capacity of the land they occupy is approached. Once the carrying capacity is hit, they enter a stagflation stage, during which population and GDP growth slow. Growing debt becomes an issue, as do both wage and wealth disparity.
Eventually, a crisis period is reached. The problems of the stagflation period become worse (wage and wealth disparity; need for debt by those with inadequate income) during the crisis period. Changes tend to take place during the crisis period that lead to substantial drops in GDP and population. For example, we read about some economies entering into wars during the crisis period in the attempt to gain more land and other resources. We also read about economies being attacked from outside in their weakened state.
Also, during the crisis period, with the high level of wage and wealth disparity, it becomes increasingly difficult for governments to collect enough taxes. This problem can lead to governments being overthrown because of unhappiness with high taxes and wage disparity. In some cases, as in the 1991 collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union, the top level government simply collapses, leaving the next lower level of government.
Strangely enough, epidemics also seem to occur within collapse periods. The rising population leads to people living closer to each other, increasing the risk of transmission. People with low wages often find it increasingly difficult to eat an adequate diet. As a result, their immune systems easily succumb to new communicable diseases. Part of the collapse process is often the loss of a significant share of the population to a communicable disease.
Looking back at Figure 2, I believe that the current economic cycle started with the use of fossil fuels back in the 1800s. The world economy hit the stagflation period in the 1970s, when oil supply first became constrained. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 seems to be a marker for the beginning of the crisis period in the current cycle. If I am right in this assessment, the world economy is in the period in which we should expect crises, such as pandemics or wars, to occur.
The world was already pushing up against resource limits before all of the shutdowns took place. The shutdowns can be expected to push the world economy toward a more rapid decline in output per capita. They also appear to increase the likelihood that citizens will try to overthrow their governments, once the quarantine restrictions are removed.
[3] The carrying capacity of the world today is augmented by the world’s energy supply. A major issue since 2014 is that oil prices have been too low for oil producers. The coronavirus problem is pushing oil prices even lower yet.
Strangely enough, the world economy is facing a resource shortage problem, but it manifests itself as low commodity prices and excessive wage and wealth disparity.
Most economists have not figured out that economies are, in physics terms, dissipative structures. These are self-organizing systems that grow, at least for a time. Hurricanes (powered by energy from warm water) and ecosystems (powered by sunlight) are other examples of dissipative structures. Humans are dissipative structures, as well; we are powered by the energy content of foods. Economies require energy for all of the processes that we associate with generating GDP, such as refining metals and transporting goods. Electricity is a form of energy.
Energy can be used to work around shortages of almost any kind of resource. For example, if fresh water is a problem, energy products can be used to build desalination plants. If lack of phosphate rocks is an issue for adequate fertilization, energy products can be used to extract these rocks from less accessible locations. If pollution is a problem, fossil fuels can be used to build so-called renewable energy devices such as wind turbines and solar panels, to try to reduce future CO2 pollution.
The growth in energy consumption correlates quite well with the growth of the world economy. In fact, increases in energy consumption seem to precede growth in GDP, suggesting that it is energy consumption growth that allows the growth of GDP.
Figure 3. World GDP Growth versus Energy Consumption Growth, based on data of 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy and GDP data in 2010$ amounts, from the World Bank.
The thing that economists tend to miss is the fact that extracting enough fossil fuels (or commodities of any type) is a two-sided price problem. Prices must be both:
- High enough for companies extracting the resources to make an after tax profit.
- Low enough for consumers to afford finished goods made with these resources.
Most economists believe that an inadequate supply of energy products will be marked by high prices. In fact, the situation seems to be almost “upside down” in a networked economy. Inadequate energy supplies seem to be marked by excessive wage and wealth disparity. This wage and wealth disparity leads to commodity prices that are too low for producers. Current WTI oil prices are about $20 per barrel, for example (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Daily spot price of West Texas Intermediate oil, based on EIA data.
The low-price commodity price issue is really an affordability problem. The many people with low wages cannot afford goods such as cars, homes with heating and air conditioning, and vacation travel. In fact, they may even have difficulty affording food. Spending by rich people does not make up for the shortfall in spending by the poor because the rich tend to spend their wealth differently. They tend to buy services such as tax planning and expensive private college educations for their children. These services require proportionately less commodity use than goods purchased by the poor.
The problem of low commodity prices becomes especially acute in countries that produce commodities for export. Producers find it difficult to pay workers adequate wages to live on. Also, governments are not able to collect enough taxes for the services workers expect, such as public transit. The combination is likely to lead to protests by citizens whenever the opportunity arises. Once shutdowns end, these countries are especially in danger of having their governments overthrown.
[4] There are limits to what governments and central banks can fix.
Governments can give citizens checks so that they have enough funds to buy groceries. This may, indeed, keep the price of food products high enough for food producers. There may still be problems with broken supply lines, so there may still be shortages of some products. For example, if there are eggs but no egg cartons, there may be no eggs for sale in grocery stores.
Central banks can act as buyers for many kinds of assets such as bonds and even shares of stock. In this way, they can perhaps keep stock market prices reasonably high. If enough gimmicks are used, perhaps they can even keep the prices of homes and farms reasonably high.
Central banks can also keep interest rates paid by governments low. In fact, interest rates can even be negative, especially for the short term. Businesses whose profitability has been reduced and workers who have been laid off are likely to discover that their credit ratings have been downgraded. This is likely to lead to higher interest costs for these borrowers, even if interest rates for the most creditworthy are kept low.
One area where governments and central banks seem to be fairly helpless is with respect to low prices for commodities used by industry, such as oil, natural gas, coal, copper and lithium. These commodities are traded internationally, so it is not just their own producers that need to be propped up; the market intervention needs to affect the entire world market.
One approach to raising world commodity prices would be to buy up large quantities of the commodities and store them somewhere. This is impractical, because no one has adequate storage for the huge quantities involved.
Another approach for raising world commodity prices would be to try to raise worldwide demand for finished goods and services. (Making more finished goods and services will use more commodities, and thus will tend to raise commodity prices.) To do this, checks would somehow need to go to the many poor people in the world, including those in India, Bangladesh and Nigeria, allowing these people to buy cars, homes, and other finished goods. Sending out checks only to people in one’s own economy would not be sufficient. It is unlikely that the US or the European Union would undertake a task such as this.
A major problem after many people have been out of work for a quite a while is the fact that many of these people will be behind on their regular payments, such as rent and car payments. They will be in no mood to buy a new vehicle or a new cell phone, simply because they have been offered a check that covers groceries and not much more. They will remain in a mode of cutting back on purchases, not adding more. Demand for most kinds of goods will remain low.
This lack of demand will make it difficult for business to have enough sales to make it profitable to reopen at the level of output that they had previously. Thus, employment and sales are likely to remain depressed even after the economy seems to be reopening. China seems to be having this problem. The Wall Street Journal reports China Is Open for Business, but the Postcoronavirus Reboot Looks Slow and Rocky. It also reports, Another Shortage in China’s Virus-Hit Economy: Jobs for College Grads.
[5] There is a significant likelihood that the COVID-19 problem is not going away, even if economies can “bend the trend line” with respect to new cases.
Bending the trend line has to do with trying to keep hospitals and medical providers from being overwhelmed. It is likely to mean that herd immunity is built up slowly, making repeat outbreaks more likely. Thus, if social isolation is stopped, COVID-19 illnesses can be expected to revisit prior locations. We know that this has been an issue in the past. The Spanish Flu epidemic came in three waves, over the years 1918-1919. The second wave was the most deadly.
A recent study by members of the Harvard School of Public Health says that the COVID-19 epidemic may appear in waves until into 2022. In fact, it could be back on a seasonal basis thereafter. It also indicates that more than one period of social distancing is likely to be required:
“A single period of social distancing will not be sufficient to prevent critical care capacities from being overwhelmed by the COVID-19 epidemic, because under any scenario considered it leaves enough of the population susceptible that a rebound in transmission after the end of the period will lead to an epidemic that exceeds this capacity.”
Thus, even if the COVID-19 problem seems to be fixed in a few weeks, it likely will be back again within a few months. With this level of uncertainty, businesses will not be willing to set up new operations. They will not hire many additional employees. The retired population will not run out and buy more tickets on cruise ships for next year. In fact, citizens are likely to continue to be worried about airplane flights being a place for transmitting illnesses, making the longer term prospects for the airline industry less optimistic.
Conclusion
The economy was already near the edge before COVID-19 hit. Wage and wealth disparity were big problems. Local populations of many areas objected to immigrants, fearing that the added population would reduce job opportunities for people who already lived there, among other things. As a result, many areas were experiencing protests because of unhappiness with the current economic situation.
The shutdowns temporarily cut back the protests, but they certainly do not fix the underlying situations. Instead, the shutdowns add to the number of people with very low wages or no income at all. The shutdowns also reduce the total quantity of goods and services available to purchase, regardless of how much money is added to the system. Many people will end up poorer, in some real sense.
As soon as the shutdowns end, it will be obvious that the world economy is in worse condition than it was before the shutdown. The longer the shutdowns last, the worse shape the world economy will be in. Thus, when businesses are restarted, we can expect even more protests and more divisive politics. Some governments may be overthrown, or they may collapse without being pushed. I fear that the world economy will be further down the road toward overall collapse.
“The dairy industry mirrors a larger problem. Across the country [UK] the food supply industry – which has developed and evolved to be part of a globalised, international world operating on a just-in-time supply basis – has begun to falter and fail.
“In some cases, we don’t have the ability to produce food. In other cases, we can produce it, but don’t have the ability to process and package it. It’s resulting in an industrial-scale food crisis.”
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/farming-crisis-coronavirus-industrial-food-waste
“The sudden shift from restaurant dining to at-home eating, coupled with panic buying at grocery stores, is causing major disruption in the manufacturing, distribution and sales of food products.
“Dairy farmers are dumping excess raw milk, while meat companies are scrambling to meet demand.”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/04/16/coronavirus-shopping-chicken-shortage-meat-covid-19/2990212001/
Great articles, thanks.
So, many sub threads in there to chew on, just mention one out of many, they note how potential new hires for picking fruits/veggies would like to commit only for few hour shifts per day and NOT the nonstop drudgery the JITs industry became used to.. Another facet of the unraveling age of clock-worky techno-sphere..
On another vibe, not long ago (few centuries) at times not every peasant had even enough allotment for a single family cow the idea of throwing milk away (or suppress volume) would be considered unreal.
In terms of food the situation around Q3 later this year could evolve into spotty supplies (unobtanium), inflation pick up in essentials etc. Or not, depending on your locale.
The Wired article sounds like a good one to reference in articles.
Thousands replied to a call to arms for pickers – though the good news story is undermined in part by the reality. “We’re really thankful people have come forward,” stresses Sarah Boparan of Hops. But only 16 per cent of those who expressed an interest have completed an online interview required – and only ten per cent have passed it. The sticking point? “People are happy to do a couple of days a week or a few hours, but this is a full-time role we need people to commit to.”
= Much more fun to play Facebook watch Teevee and get free money from gov’t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUaeUEmTOO0&feature=youtu.be&mc_cid=bd15bd4114&mc_eid=7528f3418e
“People are more afraid of hunger than the virus itself.” – from Tondo, Manila, the Philippines, about the effects of the enforced quarantine there
“Vulnerable parts of the developing world, particularly in Africa, are at risk of sliding into famine as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, while humanitarian relief efforts are being hindered by lockdowns and travel restrictions, according to the UN.
“Experts raised the spectre of unrest similar to that seen in 2007-08 when food price rises sparked riots around the world, destabilising fragile states and fuelling conflict in ways that are still being felt…”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/16/race-against-time-to-prevent-famines-during-coronavirus-crisis
BREAKING – village where our two munchkins hail from were reporting small shops selling food ran out a week or so ago… and closed…
Now hearing that canned goods not available even in the nearby larger towns….
When the rice we purchased was distributed … people came a long way from a mountainous area when they heard there was food.
Organizing more rice next week.
Lockerdown Lockerdown!!! (must remember that humans are vicious beasts… need to be put in cages)
Is ~everything going through Australia (warehouse) into NZ or do you have also some direct import links from Asia-US in terms of food security, kind of sounds like this island ended up as proverbial last knot on the line there..
Once you mentioned no interest in farming-gardening, which is kind of bummer because when combined with storage you could have been locked down nicely for many yrs, the joy of listening to robo news cast over the old radio world band stations after that ultimate last crash..
The village is in Luzon…
Gave up on growing food — too many other people are not growing and will shoot me dead and raid my garden.
This lockdown reinforces my belief that life without BAU is not worth living… I cannot imagine being trapped on a piece of land gardening all day long… anyone who thinks that is a wonderful existence needs to try it — I mean really try it. Don’t leave your home for a month.
Now if I had some concubines …. that might make me change my mind… but even then there are those pesky 4000 spent fuel ponds ….
Based on this and your other past comments about permaculture-type methods, I assume you farm. Is that correct? Have you managed to become completely self-sustainable without fossil fuels and industrial inputs? Tim Groves seems to have reached that point, if I interpret some of his past comments correctly.
Not involved in farming large scale anymore.
I’m confident “perma-culture-type” methods can lessen dependence on some inputs, but the combination of “doing it right” and having ample surplus for trade-export is impossible for longer periods IMHO. The spare parts and inputs which must be always incoming are simply immense. To put it simply, you can razor sharp your quality tools for say 10-25yrs or even few generations at best, but it is still “lossy” albeit slow process of entropy after-all, you have to (re)manufacture it again at some point incl. source new raw resources, hence the need for industry or at least local community of trades and crafts, which is basically some sort of low intensity civilization with all the myriad of problems and complexities around.
Perhaps it could succeed with way lower population and more frugality (less meat and distant cargo) but today’s overall output is truly an industrial creature only.
Anyway, even most of the “successful showcases” of these methods just shift off farm resources, depend on BAU-JITs, corner specific high income clients/markets, supplement their nice profitability/income from marketing, volunteer work etc. So, it can’t scale beyond the pre existing system for everyone.
I’m sorry I missed that Tim’s post, not sure he meant it as relatively self sufficient
household or commercial farm enterprise.
In summary I’m skeptical enthusiast on the topic since we must do/perform something in the end, and this is the best we invented so far, crudely mimicking and corralling natural processes.
I wonder if there are any preppers who have eschewed the organic farming thing… realizing it’s unworkable… and gone the whole hog and learned how to be hunter gatherers…
Perhaps not because they would see that as too difficult …. too horrible … Also I don’t think that would work if you tried to fly solo … you would need a group of people buying in…
Thank you, Worldof, for your reply.
As a hobby, I’m seeing how much I can grow with limited industrial inputs/support, most of which would not be needed post-collapse. For example, fencing to keep out deer and rabbits might not be essential if they could be shot without concern for neighbors, rules, etc. Otherwise, I’m using primitive methods. Maybe this year I’ll produce 25% of a single person’s diet, if I’m lucky.
I’m under no illusions that I could continue post-collapse. I realize, as Fast Eddy has said, that my small operation would be a 7-11 to the hungry horde.
Tim Groves, if you read this, please give us a description of what you are doing/have done. It seems several of us would be interested to learn how it’s worked for you.
Famines are precisely the problem. Lockdowns cause famines.
Police said they arrested about 120,000 quarantine violators since last month, including people who engaged in cockfighting and drinking sprees. (sounds like fun!)
Some irate local officials have taken enforcement of his coronavirus lockdown to extremes, including a village guard who locked five drunken curfew violators in a dog cage and others who paraded violators to shame them in public or made them sit under the scorching sun for hours. (sucks)
https://www.wellingtontimes.com.au/story/6726476/duterte-threatens-harder-lockdown/
Resorting to medieval practices. When jails and fines don’t work, some other punishments must be thought up.
in medeival societies, there was no money available for long prison sentences—hence instant punishments, like the stocks, the pillory, floggings or death, to cover most offences.
Sort of like the situation we are reaching now. I am sure that the prison system tended to breed disease, as well.
And even much later, in XVIII century Portugal the state didn’t always provide the food to prisioners, who were expected to be fed by their families, by friends or by pious walkers. At least in small village jails that’s was the norm, or so i was told, since my house was built as a small municipal jail around 1770 and functioned as that till 1836 (when it became a farm house of sorts).
Coronavirus: Two claiming lockdown makes them illegally detained, sue Jacinda Ardern
Men suing Jacinda Ardern over the Level 4 lockdown’s legality have made claims including an allegation a business leader and the Prime Minister conspired to ruin New Zealand’s economy.
On Friday, one man told the High Court in Auckland the United Nations Secretary-General should have been consulted before lockdown restrictions were imposed.
The man, currently serving a home detention sentence, and another sued Ardern and asked for a writ of habeas corpus. The writ is a legal order stating anyone detained must appear before a court before they can be forced to stay in prison.
Effectively, the men told Justice Mary Peters the lockdown made them unlawfully detained. Both have interim name suppression.
“It’s not a pandemic. It’s a panic-demic and she’s running the show,” the first applicant said, referring to Ardern.
“She has a cup of tea with [Sir Stephen] Tindall and they both decided to ruin the New Zealand economy and take away my rights.”
He said lockdown amounted to imposition of authoritarian rule.
Even his home detention sentence allowed him away from the house from 8am to 5pm, he said.
New Zealand’s coronavirus death toll is now 11 but at the time of the court hearing it was nine.
He cited a quote attributed to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”
“Nine doesn’t even make a statistic,” he said.
A model predicting 80,000 New Zealanders would die without lockdown was in his opinion an inaccurate “well-woven yarn of complete decimation,” he said.
He said restrictions on hunting and swimming followed a “fallacious” premise hospital emergency rooms were too busy.
“We’ll be dealing with a corpse, the corpse of rights,” he added.
The second applicant told the court Ardern based lockdown decisions on no real evidence.
More https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/121078372/coronavirus-two-claiming-lockdown-makes-them-illegally-detained-sue-jacinda-ardern
END ARDERN — END ARDERN!!!! MARCH ON WELLINGTON NOW!
A person would think that when elections come around, people who make decisions that are too unpopular would be voted out of office.
Too late for that …. lots of tractors here… maybe the Kiwis should pull a France and drive into the cities and block all the roads….
Hey anyone know what a Mourron is? Is that French for M ore on?
https://cdni.rt.com/files/2016.01/original/56a672bec46188db078b45e2.jpg
Scheiße, it’s the French Resistance!
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-relentless-march-europe-clouds-185729054.html
“New coronavirus infections climbed in Spain, Italy, France and Germany…”
that was reported for Thursday April 16th…
hey, let’s flatten the curve!
How about we fatten the curve and then we’d get over this …. not gonna happen .. not part of CDP.
So Eddy you believe all this is fake? Well what are you doing on this site? Because if it is then everything that Gail has said is fake as well. So is Gail full of sh** put your money where your mouth is and please tell us with your massive ego …..I mean I Q………..
You mean the flu virus that’s going around? Naw… it’s not fa ke.
Mo o n landings 100% f ak e.
Peak Oil .. real
God? f ak e.
The jury is out on re is our entire existence some sort of virtual re al ity… (i.e. ight be f ak e).
Even I (with big fat IQ) am unable to prove or disprove that …. there is that slight problem of how did all this get started…. even if the Big Bang or whatever other theory says that’s how … then how did the Big Bang happen….. how do you make something out of nothing? And if this is VR then who created the VR game or whatever this is????
I am optimistic that all will be unveiled shortly when we all get to die….
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/isn-t-flattened-curve-were-220023017.html
sure, try to flatten the curve, but:
“Those are not symmetric curves. They go up fast, flatten out and then descend slowly. How slowly? It’s still hard to tell, but the shape strongly suggests that the bad news won’t go away nearly as quickly as it arrived.”
the steep upward curves get flat, sort of, but the downward curves are barely downward…
one conclusion would be that the virus will never go away…
If the whole purpose is to flatten the curve, then we could keep going this way indefinitely, except that that doesn’t work either. There is way too much of the economy shut down to provide even the basic necessities for today’s population.
You may be right for the world as a whole but here in New Zealand, basic necessities aren’t in short supply.
Not yet. Wait a while.
New Zealand produces way more food than it needs (much/most is exported) so even a downturn there will not result in too little food. It’s a fairly wet country so water is not too much of an issue (though there are often droughts which have nothing to do with the economy). Most people are housed and it generally doesn’t get very cold so I think it may take more than “a while” for the basic necessities not to be met.
Remember, Gail, you claimed that there is too much of the economy shut down to provided the basic necessities. This isn’t true for New Zealand and probably won’t be for quite some time. Of course, “necessities” are a subset of “wants”.
Odd… I lived in the Nelson area for some years… lots of orchards and farms…..and all the food growing is done with irrigation — I recall going weeks without a drop of rain….
I have driven around the south island extensively — and one sees these everywhere
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jjRxmsH0OTE/maxresdefault.jpg
Virtually all farming in NZ is industrial i.e. it involves chemical fertilizers and pesticides…. Ravensdown may make some of the stuff but the raw ingredients come from all over the world…
You bust the supply chain and forget about growing much of anything in NZ….
https://news.trust.org/item/20200416221715-8qig8
“Deaths rose by nearly 2,200 on Thursday, with a few U.S. states yet to report, after a record single-day increase of 2,507 Wednesday.”
for comparison, 2017/18 USA flu “related” deaths peaked at about 1,000 per day… and of course, obviously of course, there was no social distancing back then…
Meanwhile … https://nypost.com/2020/04/09/central-park-coronavirus-field-hospital-near-capacity/
https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/central-park-hospital-2.jpg
meanwhile:
“Deaths rose by nearly 2,200 on Thursday, with a few U.S. states yet to report, after a record single-day increase of 2,507 Wednesday.”
for comparison, 2017/18 USA flu “related” deaths peaked at about 1,000 per day… and of course, obviously of course, there was no social distancing back then…
it is vitally important to keep on acknowledging those 2017/18 statistics…
stop posting lies – the period below is December to end Feb… the flu season…
Call it 100 days… 45,000,000 infections total — that’s NOT 1000 per day…
The overall burden of influenza for the 2017-2018 season was an estimated 45 million influenza illnesses, 21 million influenza-associated medical visits, 810,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, and 61,000 influenza-associated deaths
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm
You are correct it was not 1,000 per day deaths, only 610 due to flu, yet 45m infected in total. If Coronavirus had been allowed to spread to 45m people the death rate would be in the millions, hence why it was all locked down, to prevent deaths of that magnitude and the economic destruction it would bring.
I am wondering if some of this was figuring out nursing home deaths that has previously been left out.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/sp-500-etf-jumps-2percent-after-hours-on-report-gilead-drug-showing-effectiveness-treating-coronavirus.html
“… a Chicago hospital treating coronavirus patients with Remdesivir in a trial were recovering rapidly from severe symptoms.”
so perhaps Remdesivir is superior to hydroxychloroquine…
Perhaps the world economy is saved, at least in the eyes of investors. It would need to be ramped up awfully quickly and cheaply to be very helpful.
“Both Gilead and the hospital urged caution. “Information from an internal forum for research colleagues concerning work in progress was released without authorisation,” said University of Chicago Medicine. “Drawing any conclusions at this point is premature and scientifically unsound.”
“Even if the positive findings from Chicago are confirmed when they are officially released, probably later this month, sceptics will point out that it is what researchers call an “open label trial” in which everyone knows that remdesivir is being infused. The progression of Covid-19 is variable and unpredictable — and the positive results might have been good luck.
“Statistically valid evidence will come from the large “randomised controlled studies” that Gilead is carrying out with medical collaborators around the world. In these trials, patients are divided at random into two groups, one receiving remdesivir and the other a placebo that looks the same but contains inactive ingredients. The studies are double-blind, meaning trial investigators and participants would not know who is receiving remdesivir or placebo.
“Even if remdesivir gives positive results in these controlled trials, questions will remain about whether Gilead can produce enough remdesivir to satisfy what would be a huge demand worldwide.”
https://www.ft.com/content/063912aa-047d-4b7f-97e7-c9cb9133264d
How about not smoking (ewww) exercising and eating right. Corking the wine bottle after half a liter. It feels good. It beats obsessing about ronarama and begging big pharma to save you from death. Newsflash. We all got it coming.
I wonder how important supply chains will be for necessary ingredients.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/17/coronavirus-live-updates-singapore-new-record-high-china-numbers.html
“Singapore reported 728 new cases as of noon on April 16, yet another daily record high this week and drastically higher than the previous high of 447 reported for Wednesday.”
even extremely thorough and careful Singapore can’t contain the virus…
try to contain it in February and March, and it surges in April…
BTW – we have a friend in SG who is a nurse…. she was actually messaging M Fast yesterday commenting on how crazy NYC is…. and mentioning how it would be terrible if SG were to be like that (aka it’s not).
M Fast (on my suggestion) sent her this https://nypost.com/2020/04/09/central-park-coronavirus-field-hospital-near-capacity/
She was like WTF????
no one claims that the virus will be evenly spread throughout all parts of the world…
it’s a STRAWMAN arrgument to point out localities where cases are low…
it was predicted here at OFW in January that there would be “bursts” and “hotspots” and that is exactly what we have been seeing…
good for Singapore…
to their credit, C19 “related” deaths are very low…
447 new cases, then 728 new cases yesterday…
looks like the trend is heading downward… (sarc)…
The problem with your line of reasoning is that you are assuming you are not being lied to…
The MSM is filled with so many lies it becomes impossible to know what is true …
So you need to apply common sense — which to me says why does NYC have so many cases — but empty tent hospitals… and no other place in the world comes remotely close????
Of course you need to have common sense otherwise….
https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/cbs-admits-to-using-footage-from-italy-in-report-about-nyc/
https://nypost.com/2020/04/09/central-park-coronavirus-field-hospital-near-capacity/
So its just like everything else. They may be lieing but they may not. Sheep assumes they are truthful. Tinfoil assumes they are lieing. Neither knows. I dont know. After seeing this take off warning my friends in January (your crazy) to having those same friends scrub down their house 5x a day my conclusion. I DONT KNOW.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/cbs-admits-to-using-footage-from-italy-in-report-about-nyc/
+
https://nypost.com/2020/04/09/central-park-coronavirus-field-hospital-near-capacity/ (see photos)
=
Lying
It an be difficult to understand how the mind of FE works … it’s sort of like this …
http://www.laurenscorijn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/BoosterAnim.gif
A empty hospital is not free fall velocity through a path of most resistance. Generally liars lie. Sometimes they tell the truth. If a liar always lies than they cant say “I am lieing”.
I dont know.
I will never know.
So what?
You are making this far more complicated than it is….
Full or Empty
https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/central-park-hospital-1.jpg
Full or Empty
https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/central-park-hospital-2.jpg
Italy or NYC
https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/cbs-admits-to-using-footage-from-italy-in-report-about-nyc/
Trying to contain coronavirus is a fools errand. It is strange that epidemiologists haven’t figured this out yet.
If it is indeed a lab creation with long term effects on the organs and t cells they may not know what else to do. Just because the tiger is going to eat you sooner or later doesnt mean you go in his lair.
John Williams at http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
he calculates USA unemployment at 22.9% for the END of March…
so that contains the first giant week of unemployment claims, but not the next 3 giant weeks in April…
According to shadowstats, the true unemployment rate (including those who dropped out of the labor force, presumably because they could not earn enough to justify the cost of transportation/childcare/new clothes, etc.) did not drop down far from about 22% after the end of the 2008-2009 recession. So now it will be rising from there. Couples in which one person previously lost a job may now face the other person losing a job, for example.
Going slightly off topic here….
Anyone been to Fez? The call to prayer is hauntingly magnificent …. you really need to be there as this will not do it justice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EUqafJWCqo
Anyway – since visiting there some years ago I’ve become a bit of a fan of the call to prayer… Borobudur is another good place to experience that…
Then when I was in Uzbekistan later year I was able to experience the magnificence of ancient muslim architecture in Bukhara Samarkand and Kiva…. no call to prayer though cuz they don’t allow that….
The whole Muslim thing is a great song and dance show… very impressive stuff…. and then that black box thing in Mecca … now that is seriously cool…
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ExpI2Wl7uz0/VKMs7E_L0EI/AAAAAAAAs9I/YCszeiPgock/s1600/52768490158447759501.gif
FE would like to join the Muslim thing… just to feel that sense of belonging …. because FE feels drawn to the overall concept…. it’s the only religion that has any appeal…
My question is — can one be a member if one does not believe in Allah?
Try playing the video while watching the people go round and round the black box… crazy … huh?
Yet strangely compelling…. almost spiritual….
Now drop a tab of acid and try that
Eduardo Paniagua’s CD ‘Almuedano’ has 17 beautiful and atmospheric tracks of calls to prayer from around the Mediterranean.
Wow that is genius….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3UKXrFEuSU
I wonder how he’d sound covering a Justin Bieber tune?
Not that he’d ever do that….
FE would enjoy praying in the so do my position?!
i agree on the calls to prayer, drifting over the Nile on a warm eveinng at dusk—could sit and listen all night, must be one of the best forms of music in the world
until
the next one kicks off—and the next, until there’s half a dozen ruining it for everybody
they all know which mosque they go to—why not have an arrangement for a call rota?
or does that sum up the rivalries of the arab world—never agree on anything
FE was complaining about Trudeau dressing up in ethnic gear as mocking the Third Worlders. Now he wants to do the same – in yucky bare feet, prim it ive robes, ar se in the air. Pure hypocrisy, and what a yucky sight.
i honestly lose track of what FE complains about
I think he does too
moaning should be reserved for those times when it might mean something
I’m so far out in the sticks and untraveled the first time I even heard the Muslim call to prayer live was in Lebanon last May. It reminds me of Christian Chant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB3B3flMjsM
How was Lebanon – I’ve never been … I hear there are some wild disco parties there….
I wanted to go because I read that you can take the short drive into Damascus… which I understand is an amazing historical city…
M Fast vetoed anything to do with Syria (she’s worried the CIA might toss some more chemical weapons into a neighbourhood and blame it on Assad and I might be caught up in that…)
http://eaworldview.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SYRIA-DEAD-CHEMICAL-WEAPONS-ATTACK-e1477955084378.jpg
“Borobudur is another good place to experience that…”
Cool place, i visited there in 2014. there sure are a lot of Buddha statues. after decending, i told a Muslim friend that the message was we are all Buddhas. this was difficult for my friend to comprehend.
We all need to belong to groups. If nothing else, belonging to groups gives a way for young people (or their parents) to meet prospective spouses for the young people. This way, marriages don’t need to only be among first cousins or other close relatives.
We don’t think of belonging to groups as a necessity, but it really is. A lot of people today are lonely. Internet groups can be helpful, as a type of belonging, but it is not quite the same thing. I would image the lockdowns would give a boost to internet dating sites, except that people have a hard time really getting together to meet each other.
With globalization and capitalism in collapse mode, individualism has come to an end. Community is everything now. Bond with your neighbors or … i’m affraid the ultimate outcome will be the same anyway, but at least there will be more people at the last party.
Only when you marry a Muslim. Theoretically one can become a Muslim but in practice that is not encouraged.
I had a Muslim girlfriend once… Malay Singaporean …. she worked for Cathay Pacific… so she’s probably unemployed now and looking for other options 🙁 I wonder if M Fast would allow me to take a second wife… so I can get my membership card?
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YDCNOoHb4BQ/hqdefault.jpg
This is a link to the University of Minnesota website that shows links to Michael Osterholm’s audio tapes on COVID-19. He is a fairly sensible epidemiologist.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars
I don’t know if he differs a whole from Chris Martenson but in Chris’ more recent articles he says/claims that the Coronavirus can have lasting effects: “ In addition to the lungs, it injures the heart, kidneys, nervous & circulatory systems, intestines and liver”
Did he miss something? How about the coronavirus making people jump out of airplanes with no parachutes, only wearing their Speedos 😉
https://www.peakprosperity.com/the-coronavirus-is-even-more-dangerous-than-previously-thought/
your doubt may be warranted…
it could be hospitals/doctors/ventilators/meds that cause many or most of those “injuries”…
though I suspect those “injuries” are at least ten times greater than treatments for the average seasonal flu…
of course, with C19 and with the flu, it is mostly older weaker unhealthier persons who die from these, yet C19 kills perhaps ten times more of those types of persons…
so it might make sense that “injuries” would happen to those who survive, but at a higher rate of injury for C19 than for flu…
‘….the C-virus can have lasting effects.’
Yep, the ‘treatment for C-virus’ has put the final nail in the BAU coffin. This will cause lasting effects through multiple-harms and many many premature deaths. Crazy times ahead.
This whole story is a bit like being a passenger in a car in an out-of control skid;
the car is overloaded with not enough seat-belts for all (over population),
we were on the road to nowhere (economists),
we have hit the brakes (lockdown),
we have hit the juice (billions have appeared),
we have too many backseat drivers (experts)
we continue to over-correct (w.a.rs anyone?)
Pass the bottle, share the dr.u.gs, get ready for the car crash…..
BTW – M Fast is growing despondent as this lockdown drags on — she is a very social person with friends — I on the other hand am quite antisocial (I do the hockey thing and the gym… very seldom will I meet anyone for beers because that just turns into an enormous bender… next thing you know it we’re at Gents… usually ending in a massive brawl with the bouncers after someone ‘touches’ …. ) ..
Anway … observing M Fast’s despondency and it has me thinking about this lockdown CDP…. no doubt psychologists were consulted and it was determined that the longer someone is in lockdown the more their apathy grows…. they become listless… less likely to riot…. and just sink into a catatonic state (combine that with some hendricks and you’ve got yourself a great pre dinner drink…) … not that M Fast is catatonic or anything like that … but you can see where it all leads too…
Fortunately I was able to organize some meth (essential service it seems…) and some nice red wine so MF will get over her Wuhan Lockdown Blues shortly….
Fauci trying to force the virus out using pressure https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g0f9pSaNIlc/hqdefault.jpg
Wuhan Virus controlling woman’s eye
https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/haunting-mental-asylum-portraits.jpg
Virus Tomatizes Old Woman
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0b/34/07/0b3407224c11313e12832921cabdb1b8–bedlam-asylum-insane-asylum-patients.jpg
This is a link to Trump’s new guidelines for opening up the economy again.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/politics/read-guidelines-for-opening-america/index.html
One of the things that is bothering about these guidelines is that in both Phase 1 and Phase 2 (out of 3 Phases, with the third one being back to normal) “Visits to Senior Living Facilities and Hospitals should be prohibited.” This is terrible for the elderly. In fact, it is pretty bad for cancer patients and others who are concerned about what is ahead. People will pull their relatives out of senior living facilities, before they put of with this. Of course, some people don’t visit their elderly relatives at all in these facilities.They just want to unload them. They won’t care.
Another thing that I dislike is the fact that Phase Two is for “States and Regions with no evidence of a rebound and that satisfy the gating criteria a second time” – We need to expect that rebounds will most likely always happen, at least until we can get up to herd immunity level. If immunity level does not last long, we are likely to still get lots of rebounds.
“Of course, some people don’t visit their elderly relatives at all in these facilities.They just want to unload them. They won’t care.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmugNt66Jv4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXVjhSNcqww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsrjdMmD4kM
😀
-GBV
Good point.
Most people actually hate going to visit these old people and are secretly wishing they’d just get it over with.
I had to visit someone like this recently — they had dementia — now that was a hell of a chore. The good thing is you don’t have to think of small talk… you just keep repeating how about that weather out there… nice and sunny …huh?
Years ago I had to visit an aunt in a publicly funded place that stank of urine and sh it… thank fooooking god I am a 50 hour flight away from all that stuff so I don’t have to make regular visits …. once every 5 years is more than enough….
I am sure if there was as referendum on this — most people would insist on allowing visits … most would probably vote for offering free beer and snacks open to the general public in a ‘come have a look at our community home for the aged’ day…..
And btw (not that it will ever come due to the … imminent end of the world)….. but there is no way in hell FE ends up on one of those places — that’s why Fentanyl is for….
And if one has enough aches to get into one of those grim dungeons (imagine living in a place where the highlight is the daily bingo game and some sad ba s tar d banging out Kenny Rogers songs on an organ interspersed with pathetic jokes … I kid you not when I went to the Dementia Institute that was what I saw – sounds almost as bad a cruise… at least if you are in a home like that you know you’ll be dead soon… with the cruise there is no escape)…….. then surely it’s easy to get the doc to prescribe enough Fenties … to take down an elephant….
Now that’s the way to go… always good to die with a bit of dignity…
http://krapps.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/LadyHuhFINAL.jpg
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A lot of small business owners i know do it just as a hobby. They dont make that much and they understand without their business the jobs would not exist. The new normal how are you protecting your employees? What is your employee contact tracing system? They wont reopen if they have to deal with that just call it good.
Adding overhead to businesses makes it harder for them to operate profitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM4ltPGXU48
Still think COVID is serious? Gerald explains how non-serious it is…
Z, thank you so so so much. Spot on. and a thank you to Gerald.
Gerald lives just the other side of the Hudson River fro me.
Back in the ?? 70s ?? There was a TV show the 51st state based on the premise NYC should be a separate state from the rest of NY as the two have radically different values.
Ed,
My pleasure. I have known a number of people from NY and make the same claim that the rest of the state is vastly different from NYC. Makes sense to me.
Moreover, the real issue here is the upcoming System collapse that is going to occur. Yet, we see the same script being rolled out worldwide…..isn’t that odd? No one seems to want to question that and just think everything is normal…..obviously major things are taking place here.
The numbers prove that COVID-19 at this time is a non-issue for the majority of people, as seen in the video it is affecting .0018 people in the State of California and similar marks elsewhere. Even the real cases of it are only affecting those who are compromised or in well advanced age.
It is obviously being used as a major distraction. This is why Tigers in Zoos are getting it and other such insane things like people dying in emergency rooms from heart attacks can be labeled as Covid-19 deaths due to guidelines put out by the CDC.
Yep – NYC is an Apocalypse (with Full but Empty Hospital tents)…. there is no apocalypse anywhere else… but people still believe this is a global apocalypse….
It’s kinda like the m ooooon thing… the more obvious it is … the more people insist its not….
Crazy … huh?
Coming soon everywhere :
Duterte threatens martial law-like enforcement
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/asia-today-duterte-threatens-martial-law-enforcement-70200116
CDP.
There are definitely two different points of view on this.
Gail,
Have you ever considered that eCONomies are run by the sociopaths for the sociopaths?
Who do you think really owns the Federal Reserve?….you know it is a private bank right?
Do you know how easy it would be for the Owners to approach the WHO (Setup and owned by the Rockefellers) and offer Tedros millions to declare Corona a pandemic?
Like Tedros has a choice….if he does not go along…..he would be killed.
If it were me I’d do like Obama — take the $400k speaking gigs…. and Live Large!!!
What’s the point of ending up like this?
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uM-E27UHSsI/WhL48LKEkmI/AAAAAAAAHV8/KYsVobwopWw2uzQrl9Dt-TBl2SozStc7gCLcBGAs/s400/Groden+2+vs.+JFK+.jpg
The Kennedys made enemies everywhere……The FED, the MIC, the CIA, the MAFIA, etc.
They had it coming unfortunately when you get in bed with the Sociopaths.
Poor bastard
Headline: NZ Government Announces the End of the World is Guaranteed within the Next Year
We now take you to our super star analyst Fast Eddy for comment on this breaking story:
This just arrived from the accountant:
Please find attached your tax advice notices in relation to the 3rd instalment of 2020 Provisional Tax which is due for payment to the IRD by the 7th May 2020.
If you are unable to pay the tax on time we have been told by the Inland Revenue that they will write-off any penalties and interest on delayed payments due to the impact of Covid-19.
Thanks for that Jacinda …
‘Provisional tax is not a separate tax from income tax. It is a method of paying the income tax liability in advance, to ensure that the taxpayer does not remain with a large tax debt on assessment.”
FE is thinking …. what point is there in paying ‘provisional’ tax…. when there will not be a next year…. and since there are no penalties (YEE HAW) why would Fast park a bunch of cash with Jacinda and her friends (to blow on this Lockdown which Fast does NOT support) when Fast will almost certainly have a much reduced income or more likely no income next year.
In Fact FE is expecting to be dead long before the tax man comes knocking next year….
At first glance this looks to be the work of a GRADE THREE TEACHER.
But if one is of the opinion that Jacinda has occult powers …. then one should not dismiss her so easily as a total imbasill …..
Might this not be a coded message saying ‘you are a dead man walking … why would you advance pay your taxes if you are dead…. instead keep the money and blow it on hewkers, whisky and white powders and enjoy the end of days in a haze of gov’t sponsored largesse’
All is forgiven Jacinda….
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IVvkjuEAwgU/hqdefault.jpg
New one from Tim Morgan:
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/170-at-the-end-of-new-abnormality/
Skipped to the end because Tim has nothing new to say … and I knew this was going to be the conclusion:
It doesn’t require a Pollyanna approach to understand that, just as “growth” has been a mixed blessing, de-growth offers opportunities as well as threats.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yKdcycwAXzg/VLVrlFy3w8I/AAAAAAABRLo/yr-2bpyLqR4/s1600/09-funny-gif-133-donkeys.gif
Tim is like Wolf – not allowed to disagree with him…
Wolf was mocking FE a month ago saying ‘this is a recession – it will be over in two months – the sky is not falling’
Fast every so often pops a comment in about how we should not worry because this will be over shortly … it’s just a recession.
It’s ok for Wolf to mock — but when someone gently mocks him… he does not publish the comment.
I’d love to run into Wolf on the ice… ooops sorry Wolf…
https://www.totalprosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MATT-HENDRICKS-huge-hit-hockey-hit-body-check-gifs.gif
Shark, paper, wolf
Shark beats Wolf
https://bestanimations.com/Animals/Fish/Sharks/shark-catches-fish-eats-animated-gif.gif
Wolf must learn to keep his head up …. terrible terrible things happen when you look away
https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tN7h12fUKaFDPEAl6VuXhry50RU=/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6434625/hit1.0.gif
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Someone has some sense. I see a chapter near the end is titled:
“Energy Revolutions Are Still Beyond the Horizon.”
Sort of beyond the horizon—-
https://i2.wp.com/digbysblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tenor.png
that is one stunning read
i recommend using this link where it is full size pdf though—thanks lastcall
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Moo—-nshot Policies and the Challenge of Scale………………………5
Hmmm….. is he comparing the New Energy Economy to the M0-on Shot? Another thing that never has and never will happen.
Why are you recommending this Norm — are you On Board now?????
give it a break Eddy
this forum pulls in about 4000 replies—then we figure out half come from you
they used to be amusing. now they are just tiresome.
Hear, hear, Norman. I skip past his comments so quickly that I sometimes miss genuinely interesting stuff. It’s up to Gail, of course, but I sometimes wonder how she tolerates the comments section being simply a bit of scrap paper for one person to scrawl their random thoughts.
Mike – you know when the comments pile up to 200 or 300? What I do is as I go through them… I first filter and delete the obvious ones (that brings me down to about 100) … then as I make my way through the rest if I come across something that is the product of an obviously feeble mind… I copy and paste that into the filter and delete those as well….
It’s a very effective strategy.
Alternatively — I’ll buy you a one way ticket to China — where you will live Happily Ever After.
https://nationalinterest.org/sites/default/files/main_images/xijinping_0.jpg
Oh come Norm… when you wake up in the morning …. admit it —-you do so with great anticipation … a new … meaning to your life…. as you eagerly fire up the computer … logon …and excitedly (like a 4 year old ripping open the presents Santa has left behind) what sort of ruckus Fast has delivered…. (if not it’s quite easy to filter ‘Fast Eddy’ and hit delete…. but then you’d miss out…)
https://media.tenor.com/images/ab36a8d44b7a84c28a7ef9e4851758ce/tenor.gif
knowing thyself is the first step in healing thyself
And back to our normal OFW diet, to see what awaits ‘After Covid’ … so unlike previous disruptions there are no reserves left to re-ignite the engines of growth.
I have only just come across this, but maybe it has been referenced before?
THE “NEW ENERGY ECONOMY”: AN EXERCISE IN MAGICAL THINKING
‘This paper highlights the physics of energy to illustrate why there is no possibility that the world is undergoing— or can undergo—a near-term transition to a “new energy economy.’
‘The annual output of Tesla’s Gigafactory, the world’s largest battery factory, could store three minutes’ worth of annual U.S. electricity demand. It would require 1,000 years of production to make enough batteries for two days’ worth of U.S. electricity demand. Meanwhile, 50–100 pounds of materials are mined, moved, and processed for every pound of battery produced.’
Wow!
This answer could perhaps interest you, Gail:
https://www.niskanencenter.org/renewables-do-not-rely-on-magical-thinking-they-are-winning-on-price/
I haven’t looked at this particular piece, but our biggest problem, since the day of hunter gatherers, has been “intermittency.” Hunter gathers had to keep moving around, because no one plant provided all of the food they needed, all year around. Storage was difficult for most food. It was only when it became possible to grow and store grain that the food intermittency problem was solved. Keeping herds of animals alive was another way of working around the food intermittency problem.
Wind and solar have been “sold” to us by equating intermittent electricity output with dispatch able electricity output. Dispatchable electricity is useful. In fact, level electricity output is also useful. But electricity output that is more or less random (wind) or “gangs up” at a particular time of day and year (solar) has very little real use. Yet researchers insist on equating two very different things.
The illusion of being equal comes from an extremely inequitable pricing system. Over the longer term, the pricing system looks likely to collapse the electric system.
It’s worth taking a closer look at i think. He tries to do the math and has a lot of references.
I agree, especially if I am writing an article on the subject. The issue is so politicized that it is hard to reference anyone else’s work. The things Mills is writing about are obvious, and have been obvious for a long time. But no one wants to even think about these issues. Each “side” is convinced they are correct.
Regarding how politcized the RE issue is, Gail, this read is a must. Their claims are so over the top that It’s hard to believe what you are actually reading.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/opinion/which-world-do-we-want-after-covid-19/
Let’s start the day with checking in on the Grade 3 Teacher who is experiencing an Alice in Wonderland moment:
New Zealand Seeks to Wipe Out Virus After Early Lockdown Success
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-16/new-zealand-seeks-to-wipe-out-virus-after-early-lockdown-success?srnd=premium-asia
She seems to not understand that even though the reported cases (tested) are low … there will be lots of people who are showing or minimal symptoms who will not get tested … and pass on the virus….
So this will go on and on and on … as the virologists have told her …. but nooooooo…. she is more knowledgeable and smarter than them….
She has taught grade 3 science studies… Jacinda knows better….
In fact she has her star pupils advising her… there’s Sarah (7 gold stars last year)… Edward (9 gold stars) … and the the Teacher’s pet Jenny (12 gold stars)…
She has assembled a Grade 3 Dream Team.
And guess what Jacinda – even if your magical wish comes true…. NZ MUST remain closed to the world….
Meanwhile … the economy dies another death every day you keep it locked down in your Futility Quest…
Kiwis are so docile compared to Americans … no quarantine busters here… everyone remains compliant… locked in their homes… (waiting like good little boys and girls .. to starve).
Groceries sure are expensive… $500 bucks yesterday — no booze… no caviar… nothing out of the ordinary…
Wiping out the virus is for dreamers. These are the same folks who think that wind and solar will save us.
And I thought NZ was ridiculous
UK extends coronavirus lockdown measures by at least three weeks
“Now is not the moment to give the coronavirus a second chance,” Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-uk-lockdown-measures-extended-by-at-least-3-weeks.html
These cats seem not to understand that the virus will decide ….
Actually of course they understand … have we ever been able to eliminate a virus with a lockdown?
How did we get rid of smallpox? By locking it down?
A vaccine is the ONLY way … and we still don’t have a vaccine for SARS….
Notice how you can still prance around in the UK without a mask? Guess they haven’t decided if a mask is helpful…
They don’t understand that the main way that people pick up viruses is by touching them on railings door handles etc… then sticking their fingers in their mouths….
If you refuse to accept that then I can see why you’d think masks are useless.
http://media.agonybooth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/01074539/idiocracy-camacho-splash.jpg
Come the foook on … of COURSE they know all that ….
But that would defeat the CDP…. you can’t collapse the global economy if everyone wheres masks and the infections are not ‘apocalyptic’
M Fast informs me that there was a Covid Tent in the supermarket parking lot yesterday — free testing for all — what’s that cost – a hundred bucks USD a pop?
How about we just pass a law every citizen MUST get tested twice per month for the next two months till we stamp this thing out!!!!
4.5M x USD100 x 4 = … a LOT of USD…. then of course Jacinda is paying people 80% of their wages up to a certain limit … not to work…
All Hail Jacinda… the greatest Gr 3 Teacher ever!
https://www.speechbuddy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Preschool_kids.png
Hey Jacinda — you seem not to be too happy with that cake yesterday ….
Fast has been In the Kitchen:’
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/c7/05/9b/c7059b8553edb9562ed42844cd833929.jpg
And today is Slap Shot Day (no knife fighting on Friday’s because it is against Fast’s religion)…. on Friday’s Fast moves the car out of the garage…. drops a piece of wood on the floor …. and a cushion against the wall… and blasts a rubber puck over and over…
But today is a Special Day — Fast has printed out 100 copies of Jacinda in her Pout…. and will be blasting the puck at those … over and over….
Jacinda, like so many on her team, are fresh out of academia. So they went straight back to their alma mater and asked their professors there how to get an ‘A’ for their Covid assignment. Hence a bunch of academics from Otago Uni, with no skin in the game (all on fool(s) pay) are running this country into the dust.
No alring of alternate, views, or criticism has been allowed on the MSM. Indeed the media are running adverts about Cov 19 ceaselessly; plenty of Govt money keeping them on-side.
Those running this country into the ground live in ivory towers where the windows haven’t been opened for years.
Not a bad summary of NZ situation here. https://nopunchespulled.com/2020/04/13/the-coming-economic-crisis-and-its-political-consequences/
This dovetails with the Druids recent post …
‘As I discussed two weeks ago, the seven decades since the managerial class took power have proven beyond any question that the most thoroughly educated experts in the world can embrace embarrassingly stupid policies with appalling human costs, especially if they go out of their way to shield their fellow experts from the consequences of their mistakes.’
https://www.ecosophia.net/toward-the-next-america/
I think that the stupid ideas reflect too much specialization and too much distance from the real world.
A person would think that if ideas were voted upon, there would be more balance. But, then you get back to the one-sided media, and the fact that economists don’t really understand the damage that these closures do to the system. With economists on the same side as epidemiologists, the decision-making becomes very one-sided.
I think that Jacinda is capable of understanding that a lockdown has dire economic consequences.
In addition to her star science student consultants — she will have star economics student consultants.
Someone would surely pull out a PHD (perhaps a Korowicz paper) explaining that after a certain period businesses will collapse and they will not restart…
We are most definitely well past that threshold with loads of businesses gone for good in NZ.
Yet she insists on extending the lockdown. There cannot be a recovery from this.
Might it not be that she is following the CDP ….
Let’s dig up Henry Ford and ask him what he thinks:
“The only statement I care to make about Fast Eddy’s assertions is they fit in with what is going on”
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bMz1Kk6fn08/U8mspaVzZII/AAAAAAAA6V4/3Z2WUoa_AaA/s1600/henry+ford.jpg
How many trained economists have ever run businesses I wonder? Certainly none of the academic stars.
Epidemiologists are also necessarily ignorant as to how things work in real life, having followed a research path and lived off grants and institutional salaries their whole lives.
It is difficult to think of two groups less qualified to have a determining input – except perhaps former school teachers or lawyers masquerading as serious politicians.
Thanks for those.
Jacinda … and that is what everyone calls her — as if she is a caring big sister or auntie…. can do no wrong.
Don’t they know it’s against the rules to call the teacher by her first name!!!
If I was allowed to go out and speak to anyone I would not dare to overtly mock her… I wouldn’t say much at all … because I am sure I’d be met with many HOW DARE YOU stares….
I might even be told to piss off back to Canada …. to which I would respond … it’s actually worse there… they are trying to pass laws that force you to call freeaks whatever the freaaaks want to be called by… no more he or she… its x or f or whatever…
Prince (the symbol) would have been all over this!
There is no need to restart dead businesses. Just a pressing need to get rid of the resulting useless eaters.
Or, if we must, work houses.
«Our cover this week asks whether China will be the pandemic’s big geopolitical winner. Its attempt to cover up the virus was disastrous, but its lockdown seems to have worked. The number of newly reported cases of covid-19 has slowed to a trickle. Factories in China are reopening. Researchers are rushing candidate vaccines into trials. Meanwhile, the official death toll in China has been far exceeded in Britain, France, Spain, Italy and America. Some, including nervous foreign-policy watchers in the West, warn that the pandemic will be remembered not only as a human catastrophe, but also as a geopolitical turning-point away from America. Are they right?»
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/04/16/is-china-winning?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/2020/04/16n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/E/452381/n
Now more than ever it is question of how much affordable coal and oil exists?
The Economist has its own view: Rah Rah renewables, closing economies, etc.
On my journey to uncovering our predicament….I soon realized many economists are glorified astrologists.
https://youtalk-insurance.com/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_twitter/public/crystal_ball_1.jpg
The fancy math they use to justify their most outlandish claims is useless, imo .
The quality of their research is not rigorous.
They start with a theory and then work backwards by doing research to reaffirm that theory.
The give forecasts that politicians and other hiring them will like. If the economy grew before, assume that it will grow indefinitely in the future.
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“Govt. & Wall St. trying, but they have no idea what’s going on in the economy. Hard data mostly lags. It’s a time for anecdotal data, which mainstream economists despise. My sources: 50% (retail), 90% (office) rents not being paid. Many small businesses will fail; never reopen.”
Jim Richard
I don’t know about offices, not paying. A lot of folks are working from home, for now.
Another 5 million unemployed today, so we have a total now of 22 million unemployed in the US. I’m reading estimates this morning of a real United States unemployment rate between 18-21%, which is just staggering. This is likely to continue to increase by millions for many more weeks, pushing the real unemployment to 25% or beyond very quickly. This is getting out of hand so quickly in fact, that I’m seeing “worse case scenarios” type of predictions being beaten within hours of printing. JPMorgan for example said they expect unemployment to hit 14% in Q4 under a worse case and we just blew past that today in the beginning of Q2.
Just insomuch as jobs lost in the last 4 weeks, which is going to become its own self-reinforcing negative feedback loop for the US consumer driven economy, all jobs have been wiped out that were gained in the last 11 years. This trend is going to worsen in the coming weeks. I see no way out of this collapse in jobs other than outright handing people money and long term unemployment benefits. In reality this is just a backdoor approach to more bank bailouts as the money these people obtain will end up in bank’s coffers anyways (auto loans, mortgages, & bank balance sheets).
I’ve looked over a few of the different plans and approaches going around for how to restart an economy. All will fall miserably short of stopping the ongoing collapse of the global financial framework to include the United States. Worse yet, many of the less important parts of the economy will be told to remain closed, basically bankrupting them and forcing a bigger draw on bailouts/free money giveaways. Little businesses make up a large part of most world economies and we can reasonably expect at least half of them to disappear due to lack of customers, demand, broken supply chains, or forced bankruptcies.
These kind of reports are a dime a dozen and extremely disturbing. They call 22% occupancy in Chinese hotels on the mend. Isn’t China a couple months ahead of us in this whole ordeal?
“Hilton says occupancy rates are currently ~17% for the Americas region and ~13% for the EMEA region. China is on the mend, with an occupancy rate up to 22% from a low of 9%.” “We cannot presently estimate the financial impact of this unprecedented situation, which is highly dependent on the severity and duration of the pandemic, but we expect it will continue to have a significant adverse impact on our results of operations.”
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3561364-hilton-gives-first-look-shutdown-impact
No kidding! 22% occupancy rate has a long way to go.
Last week the St Louis FED forecast 46million more unemployed in 2020.
Fun! Did it estimate when pensions will stop? Or will they continue, since all it take is more funny money?
I would pensions fall into the “let’s just paper that over” category now. I would be shocked if politicians or the Fed wouldn’t lend or backstop that somehow. That said, they may take their sweet time and things just keep right on collapsing anyhow. I see right now they’re nowhere close to be done with a deal and the SBA loans are going to run out today. So that was $365 Billion in less than 2 weeks they used to bailout small businesses, which I’m sure includes things like hedge funds.
This deterioration is going to rapidly start spreading into cities. My kids home school program just called and cancelled for the entire next school year because their funds for next year were pulled. I anticipate this is going to be happening pretty much everywhere right now. Also the brokerage where I clear traffic over the US/CA border has seen declining volume of 30% so far the last 2 weeks. That’s bad, that’s actual raw trade goods like steel, lumber, diesel, plastics, and more. That’s lagging too so it’s likely higher by now like 35% or maybe even 40%.
I would *say* pensions fall into…
It’s the real goods that make a difference. If they are lagging by 35% or 40%, that is a problem.
I concur. The oil market is a ticking time bomb as well. There’s no papering over some of the things that are about to happen. Physical goods shortages is a real problem. I forgot to mention that my hours have been reduced by about the same amount as the traffic crossing the border. So I’m working about 28 hours a week right now. I imagine my story is pretty common right now. The economy reopening won’t mean much in the near term. That demand for physical goods isn’t going to just magically reappear.
The more tightly social distancing has been implemented, the less well the economy will work going forward. For example, New Zealand is going to need a lot of physical goods. I am wondering what they will trade for them, with the level of social distancing they seem to have in effect.
That’s cuz there won’t be a next year…..
Oh, THERE WILL be a NEXT YEAR! Perhaps without YOU or ME, but the world will go on with or without us……
As the World Turns
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n5ud6CF9IF4
Yep. All good things must come to an end, my friend
A gentle reminder…
http://straighttalkmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SpentFuelPool1.jpg
I wonder if a few, smaller yet, businesses will be able to take hold instead. Perhaps hairdressers and physicians, working out of their homes, seeing some local clients, for example.
Gail, there are something called regulations. Precisely to prevent such small outfits competing against big, fat companies. These people will be prohibited from practicing from their homes since whatever they do won’t be covered by insurance.
Once revenue for the government dries up, the government won’t be able to afford staff to enforce these regulations. In fact, the top level(s) of government may disappear. What remains will seriously atrophy.
Pluses and minuses:
Our food supply is closely monitored, it is very safe; recent experience casts doubt on open air markets. Our homes are criticized by the artist builders, but they are pretty good, streets are well laid out, standards for water,sewer, etc. You have traveled and see the difference.
A consequence of building codes is firemen being less at risk and having to take a ladder truck for a medical emergency, there are fewer fires than I recall as a kid.
Dennis L.
Building codes are regulations. Despite codes like the National Electrical Code being for safety, they have a way of expanding in scope and cost with each revision to benefit certain groups like … electricians, who have a lock here in the US on implementing them. With each revision of the NEC some new requirements are always inserted as a result of perhaps one person somewhere doing something to create an electrical hazard. Take for example the requirement to have GFCI in garages and on home exterior outlets. This adds extra costs to new construction as well as for bringing used homes into compliance.
And it is all overkill. Let’s say some kid somewhere sprayed a water hose on an exterior outlet. So they change the code. Overkill.
You say “there are fewer fires than I recall as a kid”
Well I do not recall any fires in any home when I was a kid.
At some point the ever expanding requirement of the NEC could become prohibitively. Expensive for many homeowners, for little actual needed improvements in safety.
But the electricians are benefitting.
“Seriously atrophy” I feel we passed that sign long ago.
NZ govt funds are going to seriously atrophy now that they are not collecting provisional tax…
This is different from receiving ‘a trophy’ for being ‘green’
I think they will if there’s any new normal to be had on the other side of this thing. More businesses will go online instead of physical is another trend you can count on right too.
Impossible to re-start economies as they were before the shut-down.
They talk as if there were an On/Off switch for complex economies: well, there is an Off, but……
Thinking of one mate who has had zero revenue for nearly 4 months now. He’s dumped almost all staff retaining just a couple of key people cutting their salaries… got his landlord to halve his rent… he has his burn rate down to about 10 seconds of what Airbnb is ripping through at the moment…
He reckons he can hang on for 6 more months like that… even if this comes back it will be slow and painful – it will be a struggle — he will need to continue to absorb losses…. there will be no V.
Most businesses do not have cash in the bank to survive 9 months – when they fold they lose all their staff… they lose their place of doing business… their customers are gone … to restart they need serious dollars …. but the problem is again there will be no V … so even if you can find the cash to restart it would be a long long road to turning a profit….
Reminds me of my trip to the east coast 7 years ago — talking to some fisherman about the collapse of the fisheries… in spite of the ban on most fishing … 20+ years later (closer to 30 I think) there are still no fish …. no recovery… lots of lobster though!
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Something up….not too hard to figure out either…The Government is hoarding it’s GOLD
Bloomberg) — The clamor for retail investors to get hold of precious-metals coins is about to get more urgent.
The U.S. Mint said Wednesday it’s temporally halting production at its West Point facility in New York because of the risk to employees from the coronavirus. The site makes gold, silver, platinum and palladium coins which are sold through a network of distributors.The shutdown comes as convulsive swings in financial markets spur a surge in demand among retail investors for precious metals as haven assets. Last month, the Mint said it sold out of American Eagle silver coins, while the gold coins it offers were snapped up in March at the fastest pace in over three years.
“The timing is awful,” said Everett Millman, a precious-metals specialist at Gainesville Coins in Florida. “It’s going to exacerbate the supply shortage” in the coin market when demand is soaring.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-mint-halts-coin-output-195900161.html
Also, the Central Bankersters been buying the yellow metal at a record pace…
While the poor masses are selling because they are broke!
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1659461/business-economy
Gold surged to a seven-year high on Tuesday to $1,731.25 an ounce, following global moves led by the US to reinflate economies with trillions of dollars of stimulus measures.
That has boosted the price of gold across the world, tempting many to sell their stocks of the precious metal at a time of economic hardship without recent precedent.
Many Thais buy gold jewelry as an investment in times of plenty, to be sold when prices rise or belts tighten.
In Bangkok, where a virtual lockdown has taken root for a fortnight, hundreds flocked to Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown, to trade bracelets, necklaces and rings for cash as local gold prices jumped more than 20 percent.
“I don’t have any savings so I decided to sell the gold I have for cash to keep me afloat during this time,” said Thanakorn Promyuyen, a 39-year-old street vendor
Here in the UK you can’t buy gold coins for delivery. Begs the question what is the true price of real gold in your hands?
Over in Germany a proposal for a law on a background check buying GOLD!
December 27, 2019 – Graham Smith)
Reports have emerged depicting long lines in front of a physical gold sales location in Germany, in view of pending legislation which would once again lower the anonymous purchase limit, this time from €10,000 to €2,000. The last drop happened in 2017 when the limit was set at €15,000. A draft bill from the German finance ministry is being pointed to as the reason for the change, which is scheduled to take effect from Jan. 10, 2020.
In a tweet posted Wednesday, precious metals consultant and analyst Dan Popescu shared a picture of a long line of people waiting in front of “Degussa store to buy gold in Köln.” Popescu described, “From Jan. 1, 2020, the limit to buy gold anonymously drops from €10,000 down to €2,000. Only two years ago the limit was €15,000.” One user posted his own photo and replied “This is me line at Degussa in 23rd. The employees said they haven’t seen anything like it before.” To give an idea of the relatively small amount of gold €2,000 (~$2,224) can buy, even a 50g gold bar is currently too expensive.
After the new legislation takes effect, reports from German media state that purchases of the precious metal over €2,000 will now require customer identification for buyers, including criminal background checks for businesses. The news outlet details
https://www.mintstategold.com/investor-education/cat/news/post/germans-rush-to-buy-gold-as-draft-bill-threatens-to-restrict-purchases/
All they want you to have is their funny money..😭
If gold goes to $10,000…. I won’t be able to sell any … cuz I am in Lockdown 🙂
Hey Steve — are you around? How is gold supposed to save me if I can’t sell it?????
http://flink.com.au/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/fly-in-ointment.png
OK Eddy, keep your $$$ in the mattress and don’t forget to buy back your end of the world storage trailer!😜.
I’ll do what the Central Bankersters are currently doing, thank you!
Oh, maybe you should click on the tube and create a buy in Bitcoin!?
That should be better, since you luvs to be on the computer 24/7
P.S. just got 500 more ounces of Silver….I was lucky to find it!
Imagine that!
Let’s think this through Herbie…
Let’s assume this is the end… already we are seeing cracks in the supply chain … did I mention the cheaper canned and long life food are much harder to come by in the Philippines?
Here in NZ grocery prices are spiking… supply vs demand Herbie…. you know the deal…
Fast forward a month or two …. the supply completely ruptures …see those empty grocery stores last month? Well when the rupture happens they stay empty… permanently.
The banks will end… all shops will end … the guys who deal in PM will what – sit on the corner and shout ‘sell your PMs sell your PMs here!!!’
What will they give you for your PM Herbie? Worthless USD bills? Euros? That world will be over… because we will have fallen back a thousand years literally within days… all of that will be gone…
What do you think – the PM dealer will give you a box of turnips for your ounce of silver?
The problem is there will not be any turnips —- as you may know well over 99% of our food supply is reliant on chemicals and pumped irrigation … there won’t be chemicals… so the soil will grow nothing… absolutely nothing… and there won’t be any electricity to power the irrigation pumps…
Even if the PM dealer could miraculously get a box of turnips (when millions are running riot eating bark grass and roots – and young children)…
Do you think he’s going to say — Herbie — I’d love to have your shiny thing — here you take my box of turnips and feast… I’ll sit and starve and admire the shiny thing.
You are wasting your time Herbie — Steve is no different than Elon Musk…. he’s a huckster selling you false hope…
Take your cash or your PM while they still have value — and buy your missus a perty dress… and some whisky…. trust me – you will regret not doing that.
I’d heard odd reports of this but I haven’t experienced the spike myself. There are normal ups and downs in the produce section, and other shelves, but I haven’t seen a prolonged noticeable increase anywhere.
Hmmm…. could it be that M Fast is back on the powder… and fa king the higher grocery prices… and using the cash to Feed Her Habit??????
I will need to monitor her more closely…..
“More than 22 million American have lost their jobs in the last four weeks as the coronavirus pandemic has swept across the US, according to government figures…
“The torrent of layoffs has swept across the country, and every sector of the economy, leading to backlogs and anger at state unemployment offices as people have struggled to make claims. The delays are likely to trigger further spikes in the figures in coming weeks.
““It’s akin to the entire country being hit by a hurricane,” said Jason Reed, assistant chair of finance at the University of Notre Dame. “And we don’t know when the hurricane is leaving.””
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/16/us-unemployment-coronavirus-economic-toll-jobless
It is hard to believe that this has happened. It is hard to see how this can end well.
If more people share this then more people will take to the streets and demand the lockdowns end… it might even kick off a civil war 🙂
https://twitter.com/hashtag/filmyourhospital?lang=en
Lord Jacob Rothschild
The richest Russian oligarch Khodorkovsky who owned the Russian oil company Yukos, was taken down and his oil company was nationalised by Putin due to “tax fraud”.
Before he was arrested he transferred his shares to the real owner: Lord Rothschild.
Putin became the enemy of the free world.
NATO declared that they would expand into Georgia and Ukraine. Colour revolutions followed. Russia responded with military force.
Putin was named Hitler. Sanctions on Russia followed.
European Human Rights Court ruled that Russia must pay $50B to Yukos share holders for stealing the oil company.
Russia declared the the European Human Rights Court has no jurisdiction over Russia.
And so on……..
It’s dangerous to go against the Lord.
Sounds like kiddie pool kind of CT to me, do you really try to suggest there is a pecking order (crime syndicate cloud like) among billionaires or even bordering on the idea of perennial, multigen rich (el-ders) circles above int law of visible govs? That sounds like incoherent mumbo jumbo to me, and even if you are correct that would mean Night equals Day, and I was not brought up in the world of bad people, perhaps next time you would try insinuate also that concentration camps never happened – finally I nailed you here aha wink wink – that must have been your bottom line right?
/sarc off whle adopting Norm’s more-ounic style
I really have a hard time to understand your comments Hanuman. I try my best though.
But I guess that the elite are children fighting in the sand box just as the rest of us.
The elite do not plan to die though.
“I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, … The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.” Nathan Rothschild
“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation’s laws. … Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.” — Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister 1935-1948.
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” – Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence
“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” ― Woodrow Wilson
The power is now so ingrained… so established… so omnipotent…. that nobody even dares to mention it now…. nevermind question or challenge it…. why do that when you get paid so nicely not to rock the boat….
Barack Obama to make $1.2m from three Wall Street speeches
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/barack-obama-speeches-fee-wall-street-latest-a7954156.html
Again … the biggest lies and scams are … hiding in plain site 🙂
Yes, indeed, Mr. McGibbs, STRANGE DAYS…
Jim Morrison sung it best with the rest of the band The Doors..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zEmvUaSHGoA
Yes, Jim, the Lizard King, had great insight
n the book The Doors: Unhinged, John Densmore gives some insight into the meaning of “Strange Days.” Around the time that Morrison wrote the song, the other three Doors band members decided to sell “Light My Fire” to Buick so that the song could be used in a commercial. Morrison went absolutely “ballistic,” calling his lawyers to tell them to tell Buick that he would smash a Buick to pieces on stage if they didn’t drop the contract.
Even after resolving the issue and getting Buick to retract the commitment, Morrison felt that something had changed for the worse and that the Doors were now on a slippery slope to selling out. He began seriously proposing that they all move to an island and start all over again. These thoughts were on Morrison’s mind when he wrote “Strange Days.” As Densmore reports, he was “saying that our old way of making music was being destroyed and we should find a new town. He was trying to get back, to renew that elusive quality that was with us in the rock ‘n roll garage many years before..
https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-doors/strange-days
Yes, it’s a great sell out…get in line Folks with your hand out!😜👍
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Lord Rothschild and S atanist Abramovic Infront of “S atan summoning his legions”.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVgibQnWoAUl1VV?format=png&name=900×900
The world debt is today 300% to world GDP.
So when the defaults begin, the banks will own everything: the governments, corporations, real estate, natural resources…everything.
Maybe just maybe the elite plans on surviving the collapse.
Bank not collaps you think? They are the most exposed
I don’t know. You have to ask Lord Rothschild.
Bank be fine, you are in paradise, you have a fine history, Rome was(is) in Italy, Leonardo da Vinci was Italian, what a wonderful history to build upon.
Life goes up and down, it is easy to imagine a farmer in Gettysburg, beautiful location and then some clowns start polluting the land with lead and almost 50K casualties. For what? Maybe a beautiful national park, some are still fighting that war, seems like an argument which got out of control. Most likely from my viewpoint, it self organized. When the course of history was changed, the farm remained. Many nihilists here, doesn’t work.
The doomsayers have always been wrong, it is a bit of turbulence in the cosmos, it will pass. The Norman’s of the world will find themselves recycled with only a smug satisfaction that by waiting long enough it did end, for them. The world has been called “Mother Earth” for along time, it nourishes us, not all children are everything a mother could want, life self adjusts.
I am becoming an outlier here, don’t really find much of value, throw out a few ideas, more observations. Tough with so few social activities these days, tried video dance lessons, nah, just isn’t the same. Many posts get self discarded, but it is a way to organize one’s thoughts amongst all the noise. Some get posted, it is a way to see how people react to you, listen, adjust and move forward.
There is order in all this, it has worked for a long time, most likely it will continue to do so. Self organization is a way to view the events of our time. The world is not linear, it is not deterministic and some very good mathematics suggests economic predictions are good for at best 30 days forward. That sounds about right given recent events.
Chianti is good, it goes well with spaghetti served along a canal in Venice, a wonderful Italian City with a bit of a water problem.
Enjoy your day,
Dennis L.
I hope you are right. I dont think you are. Things are not what they were in your examples for many reasons. Tell the many refugees “The doomsayers have always been wrong”. I agree on one thing its not the end just the end of IC, The transition will not be boring.
Every eurozone member state has its own central bank and printing press.
Italy can sell bonds to its own central bank. No problem.
Italy just don’t want it to show up on its own balance sheet. A euro bond would hide Italy’s debt.
Germany knows that Italy invented the modern banking system…and knows that Italian banks have three books:
1 the official
2 the real one
3 the one for the wife
Anyway…the eurozone is a sham.
The other thing is bigger is better. A individual countries bond thats just that. A EUROBOND. Talk about too big to fail. And how it rolls of the tongue. Much sexier than TREASURY.
I wonder if one of the dinosaurs had similar thoughts…
Of course the dinosaurs did not have 4000+ spent fuel ponds so I know for sure they did not have FE’s thoughts…..
As for dancing .. this is … cool?
https://68.media.tumblr.com/99d6d4846d1d9c019c2a28453945064c/tumblr_mu0i4hw4UE1s837teo1_500.gif
But it is possible to play games with debt for a very long time. It is supply lines that break and missing end products that cause the real problems.
Perhaps there is a way of hiding the financial problem a while longer. I am sure governments/banks will try.
“Western Canadian Select, Alberta’s benchmark heavy oil, hit a record low below US$3 per barrel Tuesday, dragged down by a worldwide price slump…
“”Crude oil prices in Western Canada are well below the level producers need to achieve breakeven cash flow…””
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/storm-rocks-oil-market-but-alberta-faces-hurricane-1.1422057
“Brazil has suspended its 17th licensing round which would have seen the state oil regulator ANP offering 128 offshore exploration blocks throughout the country, fearing that the plummeting oil prices and unprecedented declines in global crude demand entailing double-digit-percent CAPEX cuts will set the stage for another fiasco.
“With two failed pre-salt licensing rounds in November 2019 tarring the overall successful year of both Brazil and Petrobras, clouds are growing heavier around the upstream future of Brazil…”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/20-Oil-Could-Crush-Brazils-Offshore-Oil-Boom.html
“Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), bought about $1 billion worth of shares in four major European oil companies…
“The timing of these massive purchases – on the eve of OPEC’s historic production cut agreement – is at best curious and at worst a flagrant case of insider trading…”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2020/04/15/sec-should-examine-massive-oil-stock-purchases-on-eve-of-opec-deal/#4a3a4f226365
Maybe Crown Prince Bin Salman just feels lucky!
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/scaled/2013/08/28/article-2403742-1B7EC094000005DC-954_308x185.jpg
So Saudi Arabia believes oil prices will rise, and these oil companies are a “buy”?
A pretty good depiction of corruption in Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mechanism_(TV_series)
since the oil era kicked off, we have been assured that it was ‘forever’
since oil started polluting our environment we have been assured that it didn’t matter
since covid came on the scene we’ve been told we’ll ‘get back to normal’ (see above)
since we haven’t been able to use our oil, it has no value anymore
since we stopped using oil, our skies have cleared
since the world doesn’t need us, it would seem like an excellent disposal strategy
the end of the superfluous))
This is certainly a problem for Canada. If the US needs the heavy oil, maybe it needs to pay them not to produce, temporarily, as well.
Cathay’s Passenger Traffic Just 1% of Usual After ‘Drastic’ Drop
The Hong Kong-based airline said it is impossible to predict when demand will improve as the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic is intensifying. On one day earlier this week, Cathay and Cathay Dragon carried only 302 passengers.
Social distancing should not be a problem on such empty planes.
I’ll have an extra pillow please … as I push back the armrests on 4 seats…. and prepare my long haul bed!
Peru (for the ruins) was my last key bucket list (and the Wakhan Corridor…) but looks like that’s not going to happen….
Meanwhile – Wow wow WOW
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/04/16/week-4-of-u-s-labor-market-collapse-unemployment-claims/
https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/US-unemployment-claims-2020-04-16-detail-.png
Closed businesses are closed businesses…. Most will not re-open…
Also people will have burned through savings and taken on lots more debt….
So they will not rush out and spend even if this ended today — keep in mind pre-Virus numbers were already crashing…. there will be no V recovery…
V- for Victory! MOTHER is dancing a jig.
“Ecuador is planning to auction off three million of the country’s 8.1 million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies, Jonathan Kaiman of The Guardian reports.
“The report comes as oil pollution forced neighboring Peru to declare an environmental state of emergency in its northern Amazon rainforest.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/ecuador-selling-its-rainforest-to-china-2013-3?fbclid=IwAR1KLAsJV-ir0bbFYsuXP9gJDptCpZ5ZSZ6LzwewP8OjjSOCxF0i8MWJ_Lo&r=US&IR=T
“Brazil’s Economy Ministry is talking with banks about providing bailouts to sectors such as airlines, automakers, power companies and large retailers to help them survive the coronavirus crisis, bank executives confirmed on Wednesday in live presentations.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil-banks/brazil-government-banks-in-talks-about-bailing-out-companies-idUKKCN21Y037
“Several liquor stores in Cape Town [South Africa] and surrounding areas have been looted in the last few days of the Covid-19 lockdown.
“Community safety MEC Albert Fritz said food stores were looted on Tuesday in the Cape Town suburbs of Manenberg, Sherwood Park, Nyanga Junction and Gatesville.
“Fritz said even though he understood that many people were struggling to put food on the table, “looting will not be tolerated”.”
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-04-14-police-help-cape-bottle-stores-move-stock-as-looting-spreads-to-food-shops/
well there’s a surprise
Albert Fritz must be getting used to this sort of thing by now.
In 2017, outside a church, some ruffians pointed a gun at him and tried to steal his phone and the incident snowballed.
I don’t know if Albert had time to say, “Go ahead, make my day!”
The ANC was quick to express outrage after an MEC was attacked at gunpoint in Cape Town on Saturday.
Social development MEC Albert Fritz’s bodyguards killed one robber and seriously wounded another after they tried to steal the Democratic Alliance politician’s cellphones.
ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs said he heard of the incident‚ outside the Assembly of God church in Zwelitsha Drive‚ Nyanga‚ with shock and dismay.
“When looking at the Western Cape’s crime statistics over the last eight years‚ one would note that violent crime has increased on average annually at an alarming rate and today we saw again that these criminals‚ who continue to torture our communities‚ do not discriminate‚” he said.
https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2017-08-12-anc-dismayed-after-gunmen-try-to-rob-cape-mec-albert-fritz/
Might be difficult to lock these sorts of people down….
Hey what ever happened to the retired oil guy who had set up that Kurtz-like end of days camp in that remote part of South Africa?
A rather unfortunate place to make a last stand….
They have a strange way of recycling used tyres
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-06AlLSSVenA/UJw_OgAgEWI/AAAAAAAAAQY/mRwz9VjXPpU/w1200-h630-p-k-nu/tumblr_mcz3yxK6oL1rgbm67o1_500.png
I notice:
“To receive the funds, companies would have to present a restructuring plan to BNDES.”
So we will give you funds, if you cut way back or fire employees. Doesn’t really sound helpful.
Thank u
Thank you Harry McGibbs!!
You are both very welcome. It is a pleasure to follow Gail’s limits to growth story in the media as it unfolds.
yes
but it was only ever supposed to be a STORY
what happened to the ‘happy ever after ‘ bit?
I suppose if you are desperate. Strange, with oil prices so low now.
https://www.imf2020.org/press
That is strange. All the press coverage I have seen states that the debt-cancellation for the countries in debt distress is for a six-month period only but official IMF press release you have posted does not mention this.
“International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s… message contained a concrete pledge to grant temporary relief from debt servicing obligations to 25 countries. This boils down to real debt relief as lost installment payments are covered directly by the IMF’s Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT).
“The CCRT is a special IMF fund that was set up during the 2015 Ebola crisis to serve exactly that aim — allow poorer members to temporarily suspend installment payments to the IMF, which in reality will then be forgiven. Hence it seems only logical that the same mechanism is being used again amid the COVID-19 scare.
“”It’s good to see the IMF getting into gear,” said Jürgen Kaiser, political coordinator of the erlassjahr.de association, a group supporting debt relief for developing nations. But Kaiser is not completely convinced, noting that the money in question will be taken away from resources originally meant to support development projects.”
https://www.dw.com/en/just-how-helpful-is-the-imfs-debt-relief/a-53130319
This seems to be the IMF fact sheet link:
https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/08/01/16/11/Debt-Relief-Under-the-Heavily-Indebted-Poor-Countries-Initiative
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“The IMF said the eurozone economy would crash by a staggering 7.5 per cent this year, a free-fall not seen since the 1930s Great Depression…
“The European region overall was predicted to have the worst performance of any region in the world.”
https://www.nst.com.my/business/2020/04/584339/imf-says-eurozone-economy-will-crash-2020
“Eurozone faces economic strains as government debt piles up. Single currency area’s debt-to-GDP ratio nears 100 per cent as borrowing swells.”
https://www.ft.com/content/a58cbfba-9f3e-4a91-85ca-e5090d2489bd
“Italian bonds gave up all the gains they made since the European Central Bank launched an emergency stimulus programme to tackle the economic impact of coronavirus, as investor concerns about the lack of a coordinated euro zone response deepened.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/eurozone-bonds/update-1-italian-debt-remains-under-pressure-after-eurogroup-plan-idUKL5N2C32UC
“Italian banks have a solid liquidity and capital position to face the coronavirus crisis but some smaller lenders may not be able to sustain its impact, the central bank warned on Wednesday.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-italy-banks/bank-of-italy-warns-virus-crisis-may-tip-some-smaller-banks-over-the-edge-idUKKCN21X115
More than 7.5%, I expect.
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“When Germany’s top car executives dialled in to a crisis call with Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month, they were not just concerned with their rapidly evaporating revenues.
The heads of Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler discussed the dire effects of the coronavirus pandemic on their thousands of smaller suppliers, whose survival is key to restarting production once the outbreak that shut their plants across Europe and the Americas finally eases…
“We are very worried about [suppliers’ liquidity],” Frank Witter, VW’s chief financial officer, told the Financial Times…
“The pace of the disintegration of auto supply chains has surprised even those who reinforced their procurement plans after the previous financial crash and the Fukushima nuclear disaster by identifying back-up contractors for every crucial component.”
https://www.ft.com/content/9d3b2243-5e26-4890-918f-ec1daee33ffb
“The rapid shutdown of much of the U.S. economy delivered unprecedented shocks to the largely separate systems that supply businesses and consumers. Both rely on vetted networks of producers and distributors and other middlemen to deliver goods in ways that are tailored to specific markets.
““All those contracts produce lots of rigidity,” said Nallan Suresh, a professor of operations management and strategy at the University at Buffalo School of Management. “You’re not able to easily shift supplies from one channel to another.””
https://www.wsj.com/articles/divided-supply-chains-are-challenging-producers-retailers-11586974088
We are seeing daily proof that complex supply-chains disintegrate – if BAU is in any way impeded, for whatever cause – in a matter of weeks, not even months.
Buying on the net here in the UK, the ‘Out of Stock’ notice is plastered over almost all the sites I go to.
If you have the cash, of course, more expensive alternatives are still available, but not for much longer, as they too will soon be hoovered up in desperation by those who can see what is happening.
For those who are paying proper attention, this is a real-time course of instruction in how things work and how they crumble.
It shows up the nonsense that ‘De-growth’ as a viable path really is.
i’ve been trying to point that out about degrowth for years
“With the world in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the shipping industry is already feeling the impact as the global economy heads into a deep recession.
“Hundreds of ship sailings have been cancelled as first ports in China, and then across the globe, have seen trade fall away – with millions of workers and consumers in lockdown.
“Caught in the centre of this have been the world’s 1.6 million seafarers, on 50,000 tankers and cargo carriers. Many of them are unable to leave their ships, or find themselves stuck in hotels without pay and unable to get flights home.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52289303
But at least former workers on boats are getting food and a place to stay, if they can remain on the boat. The situation is worse for those stuck in hotels without pay.
How are the shelves in the Mitre 10 not empty if the ships are not moving…. oh right – Mitre 10 is closed so maybe they are empty….
https://www.naylorlove.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/Mitre-10-Mega-Queenstown-5.jpg
Economies of scale work. Going backward doesn’t.
Xabier – do you mind dropping a few links to sites where this is happening… I am fascinated.
Supply lines for complex things like cars are a big question mark. How many cars can be manufactured this year?
“Alarm bells are ringing as Asia’s financial system strains to fund struggling companies, from such small Chinese developers to Indonesian oil exporters and Singaporean airlines.
“As the International Monetary Fund predicts a global slump unmatched since the Great Depression, the region’s borrowers are queuing up for credit. Only the largest, safest names are confident of securing funds.”
https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3080030/asian-financial-crisis-20-banking-system-creaks-under
“After two months of a severe lockdown on people and businesses to curb the spread of the virus, economists fear that China’s economy may have shrunk in the first quarter, the first time it has done so since records began.
“Beijing is due to announce the figures on Friday.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/great-fall-chinas-economy-gdp-set-historic-plunge-200416042331706.html
“India’s economy may be heading for its first full-year contraction in more than four decades after the government extended the lockdown to contain the coronavirus.”
https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-s-economy-may-see-first-contraction-in-40-years-on-lockdown-extension-120041600074_1.html
Will we believe the figures that China publishes?
‘May’ have shrunk? hahaha gotta love the MSM…
‘May’ have not collapsed is more appropriate
All employees of the IMF will, of course, be nobly taking a substantial cut in their salaries and emoluments, having due regard for the suffering into which so many are -through no fault of their own – about descend.
Those that don’t get credit will drop out of supply lines.
“The world economy already faces an economic downturn worse than the Great Depression. But this could be followed by another “possibly much worse downturn”, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
“World governments are giving trillions of dollars in stimulus packages to help prop up their economies. Sovereign debts that they are racking up may push the global economy into a second recession, the EIU warns…
““Many of the European countries that are among the worst affected by the pandemic, such as Italy and Spain, already had weak fiscal positions before the outbreak,” said Agathe Demarais, the EIU’s global forecasting director.
““A potential debt crisis in any of these countries would quickly spread to other developed countries and emerging markets, sending the global economy into another – possibly much worse – downturn,” she added.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52306001
“World leaders have committed almost $8 trillion (£6.4 trillion) to battling the coronavirus and its economic fallout as countries go into lockdown across the world, driving public debt up to dangerously high levels…
“At the same time tax revenues will slump as the economy grinds to a halt.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/04/15/8-trillion-bailout-record-spending-spree-world-fights-coronavirus/
“At times over the last 12 years, it has felt as if the world were reliving the period of 1918 to 1939, but as if told by a forgetful student who was getting the events out of order. That era also featured a global financial collapse; a rise of authoritarian governments; the emergence of a new economic superpower (the United States then, China now); and a pandemic, though not in that sequence.
“We may not know exactly where this crisis will lead, for the world economy or anything else. But one thing seems clear: History sure can be scary when you don’t know how it ends.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/upshot/world-economy-restructuring-coronavirus.html
COVID-19 isn’t our only problem. We have many other infectious diseases and plant diseases that keep evolving to work around the “cures” that we have found. There are also not enough jobs that pay well, in any country. There are many reasons why growth stops.
The moderator of this site has to take responsibility for the cesspit of ignorance and vitriol it has become. Are you completely devoid of judgement ? Whichever way the cookie crumbles,those who are seventeen years old now will have a life of far greater suffering than the life of the wealthy priviledged ridiculing them now.They don’t deserve attacks from cowardly individuals hiding behind pseudonyms.
the deeper the cesspit, the more stirworthy it becomes—and think of the recyclable gas it gives off
but having a long pole helps, not good to stand in it and stir at the same time
hmmm—we who only stand and stir—has a certain ring to it
Sorry! People are really worried. It shows in the comments they make.
Fast Eddy is particularly anxious…. this lockdown is very stressful…. having a Grade 3 Teacher as PM is very difficult for Fast as you can imagine (particularly when Fast knows he’d make such a fantastic dictator)…. then there are these pylons scattered all over the place…. it’s tiring walking around them so sometimes you just have to give one or two a big kick…..
It sometimes feels like it’s the end of the world …. that humans are about to go extinct… yes that is very stressful (tee hee)…. very unhappy times here at the Goat Ranch.
Hey Dave – are you referring to my HIT on GEeeeta?
If so you are not worthy of a response… but Fast is in an absurd lockdown so has a little time on his hands…. and he’s happy because he was just handed a get out of paying provisional tax card 🙂
If so then Hey Dave — don’t attack FE — cuz that’s illogical.
She’s a 17 yr old who insists that everybody is ruining the world — HOW DARE YOU! Seen that? I am sure you have.
Think about that Dave. Does Geeeeta live in a hut in the bush.. kill rabbits with her bare hands and gnaw on the skins to make soft gloves?
No she doesn’t — she’s as knee deep and in love with oil just like everyone else.
She certainly seems to be leading a life of privilege… fancy sailing yachts! …. first class diesel train rides…. visits to meet world leaders… the UN…. award ceremonies all over the world!
Ooooh pooor pooor geeeeta — the poor thing…. and the poor poor children
They so wanted enjoy the fruits of MOTHER — but we have already burned them all up!!! (How DARE WE not LEAVE some for THEM to BURN UP!)
They were so looking forward to burning more on their smart phones and their computers and their SUV rides to school….ooooh poor children … we have ruined it for them!!!!
So Dave… who’s the ignorant one here? Who’s the one making a fool of himself?
Who’s the censorship-demanding NA.ZI???????
You are witnessing 700IQ turbo power here on OFW and you want a governor put on that?
What would you recommend Dave?
Would you like Gail to provide an IQ test for all members — anyone scoring over a 100 should not be allowed in? Yes I can see how you would like that because then you’d be a ‘player’… maybe not a star… but you’d … fit in….
Wait… let’s not stop there …. how about we eliminate all the talented players from the NFL, NHL, MLB, Premier Soccer league…. or better still only people with one leg and who are legally blind are allowed to play…. then you could be a player… but not a star…. there as well!!!
Anything else you’d like to drag down to mediocrity? Maybe we can ban all decent wine? (Xabier will not like that….)
Feel free to exhibit your Lash Reflex… get it all out…. we’d had to see you end up like this
http://fscomps.fotosearch.com/compc/CSP/CSP319/k3196721.jpg
Somehow I am thinking that this is the last we’ll hear from Dave….
Hi Gail, thanks.
Some history :
Professor Joseph Peden’s 50-minute lecture “Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire,” given at the Seminar on Money and Government in Houston, Texas, on October 27, 1984.