The world’s number one problem today is that the world’s population is too large for its resource base. Some people have called this situation overshoot. The world economy is ripe for a major change, such as the current pandemic, to bring the situation into balance. The change doesn’t necessarily come from the coronavirus itself. Instead, it is likely to come from the whole chain reaction that has been started by the coronavirus and the response of governments around the world to the coronavirus.
Let me explain more about what is happening.
[1] The world economy is reaching Limits to Growth, as described in the book with a similar title.
One way of seeing the predicament we are in is the modeling of resource consumption and population growth described in the 1972 book, The Limits to Growth, by Donella Meadows et al. Its base scenario seems to suggest that the world will reach limits about now. Chart 1 shows the base forecast from that book, together with a line I added giving my impression of where the economy really was in 2019, relative to resource availability.
Figure 1. Base scenario from 1972 Limits to Growth, printed using today’s graphics by Charles Hall and John Day in “Revisiting Limits to Growth After Peak Oil,” with dotted line added corresponding to where the world economy seems to be in 2019.
In 2019, the world economy seemed to be very close to starting a downhill trajectory. Now, it appears to me that we have reached the turning point and are on our way down. The pandemic is the catalyst for this change to a downward trend. It certainly is not the whole cause of the change. If the underlying dynamics had not been in place, the impact of the virus would likely have been much less.
The 1972 model leaves out two important parts of the economy that probably make the downhill trajectory steeper than shown in Figure 1. First, the model leaves out debt and, in fact, the whole financial system. After the 2008 crisis, many people strongly suspected that the financial system would play an important role as we reach the limits of a finite world because debt defaults are likely to disturb the worldwide financial system.
The model also leaves out humans’ continual battle with pathogens. The problem with pathogens becomes greater as world population becomes denser, facilitating transmission. The problem also becomes greater as a larger share of the population becomes more susceptible, either because they are elderly or because they have underlying health conditions that have been hidden by an increasingly complex and expensive medical system.
As a result, we cannot really believe the part of Figure 1 that is after 2020. The future downslopes of population, industrial production per capita, and food per capita all seem likely to be steeper than shown on the chart because both the debt and pathogen problems are likely to increase the speed at which the economy declines.
[2] It is far more than the population that has overshot limits.
The issue isn’t simply that there are too many people relative to resources. The world seems to have
- Too many shopping malls and stores
- Too many businesses of all kinds, with many not very profitable for their owners
- Governments with too extensive programs, which taxpayers cannot really afford
- Too much debt
- An unaffordable amount of pension promises
- Too low interest rates
- Too many people with low wages or no wages at all
- Too expensive a healthcare system
- Too expensive an educational system
The world economy needs to shrink back in many ways at once, simultaneously, to manage within its resource limits. It is not clear how much of an economy (or multiple smaller economies) will be left after this shrinkage occurs.
[3] The economy is in many ways like the human body. In physics terms, both are dissipative structures. They are both self-organizing systems powered by energy (food for humans; a mixture of energy products including oil, coal, natural gas, burned biomass and electricity for the economy).
The human body will try to fix minor problems. For example, if someone’s hand is cut, blood will tend to clot to prevent too much blood loss, and skin will tend to grow to substitute for the missing skin. Similarly, if businesses in an area disappear because of a tornado, the prior owners will either tend to rebuild them or new businesses will tend to come in to replace them, as long as adequate resources are available.
In both systems, there is a point beyond which problems cannot be fixed, however. We know that many people die in car accidents if injuries are too serious, for example. Similarly, the world economy may “collapse” if conditions deviate too far from what is necessary for economic growth to continue. In fact, at this point, the world economy may be so close to the edge with respect to resources, particularly energy resources, that even a minor pandemic could push the world economy into a permanent cycle of contraction.
[4] World governments are in a poor position to fix the current resource and pandemic crisis.
In our networked economy, too low a resource base relative to population manifests itself in a strange way: It appears as an affordability crisis that leads to very low prices for oil. It also appears as terribly low prices for many other commodities, including copper, lithium, coal and even wholesale electricity. These low prices occur because too large a share of the population cannot afford finished goods, such as cars and homes, made with these commodities. Recent shutdowns have suddenly increased the number of people with low income or no income, pushing commodity prices even lower.
If resources were more plentiful and very inexpensive to produce, as they were 50 or 70 years ago, wages of workers could be much higher, relative to the cost of resources. Factory workers would be able to afford to buy vehicles, for example, and thus help keep the demand for automobiles up. If we look more deeply into this, we find that energy resources of many kinds (fossil fuel energy, nuclear energy, burned biomass and other renewable energy) must be extraordinarily cheap and abundant to keep the system growing. Without “surplus energy” from many sources, which grows with population, the whole system tends to collapse.
World governments cannot print resources. What they can print is debt. Debt can be viewed as a promise of future goods and services, whether or not it is reasonable to believe that these future goods and services will actually materialize, given resource constraints.
We are finding that using shutdowns to solve COVID-19 problems causes a huge amount of economic damage. The cost of mitigating this damage seems to be unreasonably high. For example, in the United States, antibody studies suggest that roughly 5% of the population has been infected with COVID-19. The total number of deaths associated with this 5% infection level is perhaps 100,000, assuming that reported deaths to date (about 80,000) need to be increased somewhat, to match the approximately 5% of the population that has, knowingly or unknowingly, already experienced the infection.
If we estimate that the mean number of years of life lost is 13 years per person, then the total years of life lost would be about 1,300,000. If we estimate that the US treasury needed to borrow $3 trillion dollars to mitigate this damage, the cost per year of life lost is $3 trillion divided by 1.3 million, or $2.3 million per year of life lost. This amount is utterly absurd.
This approach is clearly not something the United States can scale up, as the share of the population affected by COVID-19 relentlessly rises from 5% to something like 70% or 80%, in the absence of a vaccine. We have no choice but to use a different approach.
[5] COVID-19 would have the least impact on the world economy if people could pay little attention to the pandemic and just “let it run.” Of course, even without mitigation attempts, COVID-19 might bring the world economy down, given the distressed level of today’s economy and the shutdowns experienced to date.
Shutting down an economy has a huge adverse impact on that economy because quite a few workers who are in good health are no longer able to make goods and services. As a result, they have no wages, so their “demand” goes way down. If the economy was already having an affordability crisis for goods made with commodities, shutting down the economy tends to greatly add to the affordability crisis. Prices of commodities tend to fall even lower than they were before the crisis.
Back in 1957-1958, the Asian pandemic, which also started in China, hit the world. The number of deaths was up in the range of the current pandemic, relative to population. The estimated worldwide death rate was 0.67%. This is not too dissimilar from a death rate of 0.61% for COVID-19, which can be calculated using my estimate above (100,000 deaths relative to 5% of the US population of 33o million).
Virtually nothing was shut down in the US for the 1957-58 pandemic. When doctors or nurses became sick themselves, wards were simply closed. Would-be patients were told to stay at home and take aspirin, unless a severe case developed. With this approach, the US still faced a short recession, but the economy was soon growing again. Populations seemed to reach herd immunity quite quickly.
If the world could somehow have adopted a similar approach this time, there still would have been some adverse impact on the economy. A small percentage of the population would have died. Some businesses might have needed to be closed for a short time when too many workers were out sick. But the huge burden of job loss by a substantial share of the economy could have been avoided. The economy would have had at least a small chance of rebounding quickly.
[6] The virus that causes COVID-19 looks a great deal like a laboratory cross between SARS and HIV, making the likelihood of a quick vaccine low.
In fact, Professor Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of the AIDS virus and winner of a Nobel Prize in Medicine, claims that the new coronavirus is the result of an attempt to manufacture a vaccine against the AIDS virus. He believes that the accidental release of this virus is what is causing today’s pandemic.
If COVID-19 were simply another influenza virus, similar to many we have seen, then getting a vaccine that would work passably well would be a relatively easy exercise. At least one of the vaccine trials that have been started could be reasonably expected to work, and a solution would not be far away.
Unfortunately, SARS and HIV are fairly different from influenza viruses. We have never found a vaccine for either one. If a person has had SARS once, and is later exposed to a slightly mutated version of SARS, the symptoms of the second infection seem to be worse than the first. This characteristic interferes with finding a suitable vaccine. We don’t know whether the virus causing COVID-19 will have a similar characteristic.
We know that scientists from a number of countries have been working on so-called “gain of function” experiments with viruses. These very risky experiments are aimed at making viruses either more virulent, or more transmissible, or both. In fact, experiments were going on in Wuhan, in two different laboratories, with viruses that seem to be not too different from the virus causing COVID-19.
We don’t know for certain whether there was an accident that caused the release of one of these gain of function viruses in Wuhan. We do know, however, that China has been doing a lot of cover-up activity to deter others from finding out what actually happened in Wuhan.
We also know that Dr. Fauci, a well-known COVID-19 advisor, had his hand in this Chinese research activity. Fauci’s organization, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, provided partial funding for the gain of function experiments on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan. While the intent of the experiments seems to have been for the good of mankind, it would seem that Dr. Fauci’s judgment erred in the direction of allowing too much risk for the world’s population.
[7] We are probably kidding ourselves about ever being able to contain the virus that causes COVID-19.
We are gradually learning that the virus causing COVID-19 is easily spread, even by people who do not show any symptoms of the disease. The virus can spread long distances through the air. Tests to see if people are ill tend to produce a lot of false negatives; because of this, it is close to impossible to know whether a particular person has the illness or not.
China is finding that it cannot really contain the virus that causes COVID-19. A recent South China Morning Post article indicates that roughly 14 million people are to be tested in the Wuhan area in the next ten days to try to control a new outbreak of the virus.
It is becoming clear, as well, that even within China, the lockdowns have had a very negative impact on the economy. The Wall Street Journal reports, China Economic Data Indicate V-Shaped Recovery Is Unlikely. Supply chains were broken; wholesale commodity prices (excluding food) have tended to fall. Joblessness is increasingly a problem.
[8] If we look at deaths per million by country, it is difficult to see that lockdowns are very helpful in reducing the spread of disease. Masks seem to be more beneficial.
If we compare death rates for mask-wearing East Asian countries to death rates elsewhere, we see that death rates in mask-wearing East Asian countries are dramatically lower.
Figure 2. Death rates per million population of selected countries with long-term exposure to the virus causing COVID-19, based on Johns Hopkins death data as of May 11, 2020.
Looking at the chart, a person almost wonders whether lockdowns are a response to requests from citizens to “do something” in response to an already evident surge in cases. The countries known for their severe lockdowns are at the top of the chart, not the bottom.
In fact, a preprint academic paper by Thomas Meunier is titled, “Full lockdown policies in Western Europe countries have no evident impacts on the COVID-19 epidemic.” The abstract says, “Comparing the trajectory of the epidemic before and after the lockdown, we find no evidence of any discontinuity in the growth rate, doubling time, or reproduction number trends. . . We also show that neighboring countries applying less restrictive social distancing measures (as opposed to police-enforced home containment) experience a very similar time evolution of the epidemic.”
It appears to me that lockdowns have been popular with governments around the world for a whole host of reasons that have little to do with the spread of COVID-19:
- Lockdowns give an excuse for closing borders to visitors and goods from outside. This was a direction in which many countries were already headed, in an attempt to raise the wages of local workers.
- Lockdowns can be used to hide the fact that factories need to be closed because of breaks in supply lines elsewhere in the world.
- Many countries have been faced with governmental protests because of low wages compared to the prices of basic services. Lockdowns tend to keep protesters inside.
- Lockdowns give the appearance of protecting the elderly. Since there are many elderly voters, politicians need to court these voters.
[9] A person wonders whether Dr. Fauci and members of the World Health Organization are influenced by the wishes of vaccine and big pharmaceutical companies.
The recommendation to try to “flatten the curve” is, in part, an attempt to give vaccine and pharmaceutical makers more time to work on their products. Is this really the best recommendation? Perhaps I am being overly suspicious, but we recently have been dealing with an opioid epidemic which was encouraged by manufacturers of Oxycontin and other opioids. We don’t need another similar experience, this time sponsored by vaccine and other pharmaceutical makers.
The temptation of researchers is to choose solutions that would be best from the point of their own business interests. If a researcher gets much of his funding from vaccine and big pharmaceutical interests, the temptation will be to “push” solutions that are beneficial to these interests. In some cases, researchers are able to patent approaches, even when the research is paid for by governmental grants. In this case they can directly benefit from a new vaccine or drug.
When potential solutions are discussed by Dr. Fauci and the World Health Organization, no one brings up improving people’s immunity so that they can better fight off the novel coronavirus. Few bring up masks. Instead, we keep being warned about “opening up too soon.” In a way, this sounds like, “Please leave us lots of customers who might be willing to pay a high price for our vaccine.”
[10] One way the combination of (a) the activity of the virus and (b) our responses to the virus may play out is as a slow-motion, controlled demolition of the world economy.
I think of what we are experiencing as being somewhat similar to a toggle bolt going around and around, moving down a screw. As the toggle bolt moves around, I picture it as being similar to the virus and our responses to the viruses hitting different parts of the world economy.
Figure 3. Image of how the author sees COVID-19 as being able to hit the economy multiple times, in multiple ways, as its impact keeps impacting different parts of the world.
If we look back, the virus and reactions to the virus first hit China. China’s recovery is moving slowly, in part because of reduced demand from outside of China now that the virus is hitting other parts of the world. In fact, additional layoffs occurred after Chinese shutdowns ended, because it then became clear that some employers needed to permanently scale back operations to meet the new lower demand for their product.
Commodity prices, including oil prices, are now depressed because of low demand around the world. These low prices can be expected to gradually lead to closures of wells and mines extracting these commodities. Processing centers will also close, making these commodities less available even if demand temporarily rises.
As one country is hit by illnesses and/or shutdowns, we can expect supply lines for manufacturing around the world to be disrupted. This will lead to yet more business closures, some of them permanent. Debt defaults tend to happen as businesses close and layoffs occur.
With all of the layoffs, governments will find that their tax collections are lower. The resulting governmental funding issues can be expected to lead to new rounds of layoffs.
Natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and forest fires can be expected to continue to happen. Social distancing requirements, inadequate tax revenue and broken supply lines will make mitigation of all of these disasters more difficult. Electrical lines that fall down may stay down permanently; bridges that are damaged may never be repaired.
Initially, rich countries can be expected to try to help as many laid-off workers as possible with loans and temporary stipends. But, after a few months, even with this approach, many individual citizens and businesses will likely not be able to pay their rent. Default rates on home mortgages and auto loans can be expected to rise for a similar reason.
We can expect to see round after round of business failures and layoffs of employees. Financial systems will become more and more stressed. Pensions are likely to default. Death rates will rise, in part from epidemics of various kinds and in part from growing problems with starvation. In fact, in some poor countries, lower-income citizens are already having difficulty being able to afford adequate food. Eventually we can expect collapsing governments (similar to the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union) and overthrown governments.
Longer-term, after this demolition ends, there may be some surviving pieces of economies. These new economies will be much smaller and less dependent upon each other, however. Currencies are likely to be less interchangeable. The remaining people will need to learn to make do with many fewer goods than are available today. It will be a very different world.
“Record borrowing and an unprecedented collapse in retail sales have laid bare the devastating impact of the lockdown after Britain reported its worst ever week of economic data.
“The Treasury borrowed £62.1bn in April, the biggest single monthly figure in history, as tax revenues crashed and spending surged.
“It left a deficit far bigger than at the height of the financial crisis and without equal in peacetime – giving weight to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s warning earlier this week that the country is gripped by a “severe recession the likes of which we have not seen”.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/05/22/worst-week-ever-uk-economy-deficit-soars-retail-sales-collapse/
“As nations around the world attempt to dig their way out of a cataclysmic global recession, Britain is in a particularly tight spot of its own making.
“The country is in the middle of an economic disaster and a health crisis. The Bank of England has predicted that the United Kingdom is heading for its worst economic crash in more than 300 years, while its death toll from Covid-19 is the highest in Europe.
“Yet the United Kingdom is also racing toward a self-imposed deadline to construct a post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union, its single biggest market for exports, by the end of the year. Talks are not going well — raising the possibility of another major shock…”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/22/economy/uk-economy-coronavirus-brexit/index.html
“Loan sharks working for Italy’s mafia organisations are looking to take advantage of the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/22/mafia-cashes-turbulence-caused-italys-coronavirus-crisis/
“Nightly pot-banging protests and rising political tensions piled pressure on Spain’s minority government Friday as it sought to lead the nation cautiously out of lockdown and tackle the economic chaos triggered by the pandemic.”
https://www.france24.com/en/20200522-protests-political-tension-grips-lockdown-spain
Expect yet another postponement to brexit. I know it’s supposed to have happened, sort of, but the real deal is supposed to be by the end of the year. Not going to happen.
As I understand it, there’s a problem with the Irish doorstop.
No one’s figured out how to wedge the damn thing open.
https://www.killarneyprinting.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/LEPDOOSTO.jpg
The UK has a definite problem. I think, however that looking at the absolute number of deaths is not as helpful as comparing deaths to population. This is what the cumulative death chart looks like for some European countries and the United States. Asian countries are much lower. UK deaths are high, but not as high as those of Belgium and Spain, relative to population.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/united-kingdom-and-others-covid-deaths-may-23.png
“With the international travel picture looking unclear, and tourists a little skittish about booking flights in the midst of a pandemic, savvy countries are working to offer incentives to bring visitors back to their shores. First, Sicily offered to pay half of your flight costs to go visit, and now Japan is working on a similar scheme to entice travellers to the Land of the Rising Sun.”
https://secretmanchester.com/japan-pay-half-of-travel-expenses/
Are they offering to pay for the 14 day quarantine stay on arrival – with a free covid test at the end?
Probably have to do like in the Caribbean and have walled off tourist zones. The workers will have to live inside it, and have the quarantine period for workers entering and exiting, rather than for tourists.
But the tourists will likely bring COVID-19 also. So will the workers on airlines, whether flying cargo or passengers.
That will be an attractive option for many tourists…. because most of them are really only travelling so they can post photos on social media and brag about their ‘great adventures’
Most prefer to have as little interaction with the locals as possible while they enjoy hamburgers and chicken pot pie meals….
This is why cruise ships are so popular…. you get all the comforts of home + a shopping mall…
Thought I’d share with you fellas a bit of classical music I came across which seems a very apt depiction of our times.
The Growing Darkness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdoWNwCAvFk
Chaos, Confusion and Everything Turning Upside Down
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBe14rzCS6I
After the Collapse
And after enduring the harrowing experience of listening to the above (assuming anyone here has), you want a little something more gentle and calming.
“Nouriel Roubini does expect things to get better before they get worse: He foresees a slow, lackluster (i.e., “U-shaped”) economic rebound in the pandemic’s immediate aftermath. But he insists that this recovery will quickly collapse beneath the weight of the global economy’s accumulated debts.
“Specifically, Roubini argues that the massive private debts accrued during both the 2008 crash and COVID-19 crisis will durably depress consumption and weaken the short-lived recovery.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/why-the-economy-is-headed-for-a-post-coronavirus-depression-nouriel-roubini.html
“Data this week continued to show the severe economic disruption from coronavirus mitigation efforts worldwide..
“Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week, offering insight into the latest developments in the global economy:”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-22/charting-the-global-economy-nations-pushing-envelope-on-relief
Interesting charts! I can see why Germany and Sweden would be unhappy about the help given to countries in the South of Europe. The chart on central bank purchases puts the current problem in perspective with 2008. I didn’t realize how long Hong Kong schools had been off.
The police are a lot less heavy handed when they enter these neighbourhoods… no doubt they are aware that if they take out an eye of an Algerian immigrant …. that would spark complete and utter mayhem…
Paris is a a massive powerkeg….
https://youtu.be/DUNTWWoV18c
Those fireworks look so pretty. It’s a pity they aren’t being fired for festive purposes.
It’s a sad world we live in.
I thought you’d prefer to perish from a drug overdose or a heart attack from eating too many Big Macs.
Where is Charles Martel when the French *really* need him?
Paris:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1263287339331334146
https://twitter.com/i/status/1263254621436416000
Argenteuil?! The setting of some of Monet’s loveliest paintings. Well, there’s a change to be appreciated…..
In America, no-go zones are called warzones. They’re like no-go zones but with more guns.
What else is happening? Is there arson?
Are thugs looting the abandoned and boarded up stores?
I thought riots were a right-wing phenomenon in France. What are the immigrants in no-go zones rioting about? Europe has a lot more social welfare than Europe. They should be content.
This is an excellent series depicting neighbourhoods in Naples that are no-go zones…
I read Saviano’s book years ago…
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2049116/
Let up on “stay at home” orders and there seems to be more riots. We start understanding the real reason for these orders. What tourist would really like to visit an area such as this?
“The beaten-down banking sector will remain under pressure through 2025 even as the economy recovers, the International Monetary Fund said Friday.
“In its latest “Global Financial Stability Report,” the IMF found banks across nine advanced economies will struggle to generate profits over the next five years as the coronavirus pandemic causes a sustained period of low interest rates.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/22/imf-says-banks-will-struggle-to-be-profitable-through-2025.html
“After years of stress testing, financial companies might have been better positioned to withstand a market shock such as that triggered by the coronavirus. Instead, they’re standing out as persistent losers.
Down 29 per cent since January, banks and insurers have trailed the S&P 500 by 20 percentage points, their worst performance at this point of a year on record.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/banking/us1-trillion-wiped-off-us-financial-stocks-in-echoes-of-2008
“UK banks have hit out at the prospect of negative interest rates…
“With big British lenders on track to boost reserves to £18.5bn for bad debts in 2020, the Bank of England’s admission this week that it was eyeing negative rates for the first time in its 324-year history has caused deep concern in the sector.”
https://www.ft.com/content/f5339e6b-9bb4-48dd-8aad-aadd5f6f0d4f
Banks not making profits is likely to lead to bank collapses, especially with the high level of debt defaults that are taking place currently. An economy really needs profitable banks.
“Covid-19 is unique in how it hijacks cells
“The result is essentially no brake on the virus’s ability to replicate itself.”
https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/21/coronavirus-hijacks-cells-in-unique-ways/
It’s all getting rather weird.
The latest ‘scientific’ report on COVID in the UK states that it can’t really be caught if you sit next to (!!!) an infected person or back-to-back with them, for instance on a train or bus.
You need to do fairly direct ‘plume’ inhalation, or, one supposes, French kiss them.
This directly contradicts earlier tracing studies which showed how one infected person spread it to everyone they had a meal with over an hour or two, or half the passengers in a bus (one assumes no kissing on the bus). Maybe those US meat packers who fell sick and died are gay, who knows?
Estimates of contagiousness, lethality, etc, are now all over the place, but there is clearly a drive to down-play things so that restrictions can be relaxed. Stand 1.5 or 1 m apart, not 2, etc. Simply laughable.
The only thing to do is wait for the re-opening and see just what transpires in real life.
I may get a badge ready: ‘Kiss me if you’ve already had it!’ -in the pure spirit of British double-entendres. Until then, the visor stays down.
There are just so many contradicting claims about the stupid virus nowadays — where it came from, what can protect against it, etc etc.The whole trouble is that so many of the people who are supposed to give us the answers just have a big, fat axe to grind.
This is a strange phenomenon. The article seems to be arguing for giving people a particular type of interferon in advance of catching COVID-19. I wonder whether Vitamin C and Vitamin D might not work almost as well.
Interferon seems to already be in use, in treating hepatitis, AIDS, and some kinds of cancer. https://www.webmd.com/drug-medication/interferons-guide#1
“I wonder whether Vitamin C and Vitamin D might not work almost as well.”
It doesn’t.
Interferon?
It may in early stages– but nothing significant.
In stage 2, probably harmful.
A least that is what my virology comrades have discovered.
Don and Tim are best mates…..
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/05/22/study-20-of-students-may-not-return-to-college-in-fall/
“Let’s look at it the other way around: About 80% of students say they plan on enrolling in the fall. They’re planning on enrolling in the same institution and continuing with their education. I think that students get it. Families get it,” Mitchell said.
families must be planning on all of their newly unemployed adults getting their jobs back by September…
good luck with that…
When you go back to the original study, one of the authors says,
“When you look at current college students, there’s always attrition especially between freshman and sophomore year. So that’s usually around 8%-10% so add on top of that another 10%.”
So the change is not quite as dreadful as the 20% headline would suggest. But it still means smaller enrollments and a likely need to lay off staff at universities.
On the other hand, an entering freshman who failed to enroll would not automatically be admitted for a later semester, as a returning sophomore probably would. Some unknown percentage of sophomores, juniors, and seniors will probably decide to wait until they can attend class in-person–certainly in the case of majors like music or art, which can’t effectively be taught at a distance.
And remember, even a small decline in enrollment can have a huge impact on university budgets. A 20 percent drop (which I think is realistic) would be huge, and result in the closure of hundreds of US colleges.
i often hear about the legacy oil fields does anyone know how many barrels per day these legacy oil fields produce as the worlds total
I am afraid I don’t. The thing that often gets lost in the discussion is the fact that even legacy fields need constant new investment to maintain production. The higher the oil price, the greater the investment in expensive new technology that can be used.
The amount of oil that can be extracted from a given reservoir is highly variable. According to Adventures in Energy:
As long as price can rise higher and higher, it looks like more and more of the oil in place can be extracted. But once price falls too low, extraction everywhere is likely to fall, almost simultaneously. Legacy doesn’t really matter a whole lot.
I remember reading/listening to interviews with Matt Simmons in the mid 2000s, and one of his main points was the continued investment that was required in equipment of all types as the oil industry is capital intensive.
He spoke of Saudi Arabia and their massive seawater injection and water-cuts, how much oil-stained brine was actually coming out of the wells which then had to be separated, more gear.
He used one word “rust” with respect to the rigs, pipelines, valves, all of this stuff out in the elements needs constant maintenance, upgrades.
We generally do not appreciate the scale of this industry.
just finished watching plandemic thank you tim best short movie on the covid19 i have seen it has proven to me just what is really going on genocide we all have a choice in life sink or swim. i advise all finite worlders to watch this movie it was posted on one of Tim Groves comments yesterday
It’s interesting that if you type “Plandemic” into Google, you will see the extent of the full-frontal attack on the movie and on Dr. Mikovits from all across the big pharma and corporate media matrix. They really really really don’t want members of the public watching this film and possibly starting to question the official line on COVID-19 and also on AIDS.
I don’t know if she’s correct or not or if her motives are sound or sordid, but she is taking an awful lot of flack, and you don’t take flack unless you are over the target, or unless you disturb a nest of very angry hornets.
it is my understanding that she is pointing the finger at Bill Gates/Big Pharma and suggesting they stand to make billions off of a vaccine.
I’ve even had a epidemiologist suggest to me that this is the motive.
The problem I have with this is that there is no way in hell the PTB would allow anyone to wreck their empire. Bill Gates would get a bullet in the back of the head if he dared.
Whatever the story is it is NOT going to get leaked. This plan would carry the highest level of classified stamp…. nobody will say jack sh it… and if they did they’d immediately be attacked as being a nut job… and ruined… (can you imagine Ardern holding a press conference and exposing the CDP….)
And they’d be sitting back in cattle class.
http://7summitsproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/crowded-plane.jpg
What I suspect is that this vaccine thing is misdirection … it’s aimed at keeping everyone off the scent…
The PR men are clever — they know that if they fill page after page with CT stories involving Mikovits… that the suspicious people are going to look at that and say — if the PTB are accusing her of being a CTist… then there must be a grain of truth to her story…
The one thing I do believe is her assertion that this was made in a lab….
End of the day all of this white noise serves to further confuse and scare the cattle … and confused and frightened cattle are obedient cattle…
Good analysis. The omerta will be pretty tight about this whole scheme, and plenty of false trails will have been laid to keep any investigators busy.
Confused puppies are resigned and catatonic puppies,
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2020/05/11/lockdown-learned-helplessness/
Aaron Wissner did a Zoom interview of me, which he called, “Will the Financial System Collapse?”
He put it up on You Tube. This is a link:
https://youtu.be/Pmb6C9vrmq4
I tried watching and could only make it thru 8 mins. The interviewer is polite but not very engaging. And that’s a 2 hr plus interview.
Different people like different things. I think this interview is for an audience of people with an interest in sustainability and not a lot of other background.
I will be doing a different interview this next week with someone who reads OFW on a regular basis.
If you could get back onto Peak Prosperity that’d be just swell.
The second half of the interview gets into some sort of frightening things. Aaron wanted to go slowly to that point.
It is a very good picture of you.
Dennis L.
I listened to the entire interview.
I had planned to write in “none of the above”, this Nov. as I did in 2016,
but now I must in be a responsible grandparent and write in Gail Tverberg for President.
It is always important to consider the final outcome, but first is –
Always Do The Right Thing.
Thanks Gail for all you do. There is just this one more thing.
New interview with Art Berman (George Gammon show).
Art: Oil prices can only go up from here. This tells you where you should be investing.
Interviewer: Oil prices are one of the few things that the Fed can’t manipulate. (I don’t really believe this. The presence of absence of QE has made a huge difference in oil price, IMO.)
Everything that’s munted about the U.S. economy in two graphs:
M2 Money Supply (M2)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png
Velocity of Money Supply (M2)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png
it’s interesting that the velocity of money, after plunging during the 2008/2009 financial crisis, has been moving steadily down since then…
it’s another sign that the economy is going to continue to self-organize, this time by resetting at a lower level…
it’s not the end of the world…
https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/radiation-gif-9.gif
What happened in 1995/6 to turn the velocity down and accelerate the money supply?
I am not an economist, nor even a gynecologist, but might it have had something to do with the establishment of NAFTA, which went into effect on January 1, 1994?
In the second 1992 Presidential Debate, Ross Perot argued:
We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It’s pretty simple: If you’re paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, … have no health care—that’s the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don’t care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
… when [Mexico’s] jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it’s leveled again. But in the meantime, you’ve wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.
Tim, I think you make a good point. Labour arbitrage ia a good way to ruin a country. It creates a need for debt to make ends meet, and debt tends to reduct the velocity of money, because debt repayments are not paid on, so the amount of money that will be paid on is slowly diminished. And it is now close to zero, because the consumer base has no real income and the government handouts are mostly going to debt service. People are eating their children’s and grandchildren’s prosperity, but alas have no other choice.
This is what happens when unions become too powerful…. the jobs get offshored… free trade deals get announced…
Otherwise we’d end up paying $200 for a plastic waste bin.
Fast Eddy, I agree about the unions, having lived through the havoc they wrought in Britain. But corporations that get too big are also a problem. That includes the US education, health care, and insurance cartels, which rip people off blind. It also, and especially, includes the defence contractors. The Department of Defense spent $200 million on Ada compilers. When working for UK MoD, I wrote a compiler for their tame language (Coral 66) in six months, working half time. A big help was using no “compiler construction” tools whatsoever.
Yes the corporations are generally no better – and usually worse.. but they ultimately have more power and they devise work-arounds
Oops, I think that I messed this up for you. I removed the part that follows .png, and the file doesn’t appear. There seem to be more tricks than I know regarding fixing charts to show without having to click on them.
This is another US M2 Money Supply Chart that especially shows the recent period. You can see that recent money supply is way, way up. The earlier years aren’t too interesting, except that some are flatter than others.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/us-m2-money-stock-1980-to-2020-fred.png
This is a chart of the percentage change in the M2 money supply, compared to a year ago. The chart starts much earlier (1959) but only goes up to 2017. I could have tried to include the recent period, but the percentage change would have been so large as to dwarf all prior periods. A person can see that generally, M2 falls before recessions. As more borrowing is done to get the economy out of recessions, M2 rises, because the new debt creates new money. To the extent that the quantity of M2 is rising, there is no need for the velocity of M2 to rise; to some extent they do the same thing.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/percent-change-from-year-ago-in-money-stock-fred-1959-to-2017.png
This is a chart of the velocity of M2, from 1959 to 2020. We can see that for many years, the velocity of M2 seemed to stay in the 1.7 to 1.8 range. Then after 1991 (and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the huge problems of countries in its sphere of influence), the velocity of M2 increased dramatically. By about 1996, a maximum velocity had been reached. The velocity has been falling ever since.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/velocity-of-m2-money-stock-1959-to-2020-fred.png
Perhaps the reason that the money velocity has been falling is because the US has increasingly been trying to grow the economy with ever-lower interest rates and ever more debt. This debt is not really being used by companies planning to increase their production of widgets. It is being used to run up asset prices, instead. This is not a productive use of all of this extra debt.
.…the reason that the money velocity has been falling is because the US has increasingly been trying to grow the economy with ever-lower interest rates and ever more debt. This debt is not really being used by companies planning to increase their production of widgets. It is being used to run up asset prices, instead.
A.k.a. A Potemkin economy.
Thank you, Gail. I think the underlying reason for all this is that the US economy is almost totally corrupt. Every big organisation tries to cheat the hapless consumer as much as possible. But what one steals is then not available to buy goods and services from another, so yes, velocity falls. The answer is a free market with open competition, but that requires reform no Congress would dare to undertake, because they need money from the big corporations to pay the equally greedy mass media for air time.
Which leads me to the reluctant conclusion that the only way forward is to demonetise the US dollar and simply erase the phantom wealth these organisations have accumulated.
I bet if you hooked a monitor up to your brain …. then looked at this …. the fear neurons would fire wildly….
That would be the Beast inside you panicking….. (and getting ready…)
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/empty-grocery-store-shelves.jpg
People think that’s not possible but It’s quite probable in the not too distant future.
surely coming soon to NZ…
stay safe, FE…
http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1155838/penaltyy.gif
This is what the comic shops look like RIGHT NOW !!!
Classy photo:
https://i.imgur.com/CzMw48O.jpg
even as high rise buildings are becoming increasingly uneconomical, they are still being built…
think Easter Island…
though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeddah_Tower
“There was steady progress but in January 2018 building owner JEC halted structural concrete work with the tower about one-third completed…”
“JEC has said they plan to restart construction in 2020.”
ha ha… one third complete… and never will be restarted…
Tip: if you want a photo to show up, make certain that the URL is on separate line from other text. (I fixed this one for you.)
A different thing to fix (for others) is the need to look and see if the file name ends in PNG or JPG. If it ends in something else, such as the size at which the file is displayed, just erase the part that comes after the PNG or JPG, it you want it to show up correctly.
Best to use this engine – images… you will normally get the jpg file
Google images no longer displays that option
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=hg
In the last 6-7 weeks, Sweden’s new cases are stabilized in the 500/day average. Deaths have also clearly stabilized. I suppose they can go on with the rules they currently have, and remain confident that the health system won’t be overwhelmed. And Sweden’s GDP only contracted 0,3%, against 3,8% in the Eurozone in the first quarter (but we should compare it rather to its Scandinavian neighbors, which are similar in almost everything). Sadly, Volvo’s and Saab’s exports are expected to fall
If Sweden’s GDP only contracted 0.3%, it is doing quite well, in the whole scheme of things. Simply having a lot of people out sick will tend to reduce GDP.
Saab exports fell somewhat earlier, the company having gone bust in the financial crisis.
Adam and Eve walked naked, dumb and happy in Paradise. S atan offered them to taste the fruit of knowledge.
Since that day humans have tried to used their intellect to try to create a paradise for them selves.
https://youtu.be/_ZKIfCJZvZo
Not a single boring day after that.
S atan
S atan reads the Bible backwards.
https://youtu.be/9QEG2Mk184A
The universe is made of energy. We are obviously not running out of energy, we are just running out ideas.
If backmassed Satanic messages are bad, then wouldn’t reading the Bible backwards be good?
Amen. people God’s with be Jeezus Lord the of grace The
… beginning the In
those ancient Heebrew superstitouss texts make no sense when read forward anyway…
all to peace…
You *are* reading those superstitious Hebrew texts right to left, aren’t you?
Th lphbt s hrd t mstr;
Rdng bck t frnt’s dsstr.
Nlss h’s rd th clssfds,
whr trth, bbrvtd, hds,
th wld-b rdr f th Bbl,
prsntd wth th txt, s lbl
t trn nd rn wth shrks nd hwls-
th hbrw Scrptrs hv n vwls!
there are a few fusion energy solutions out there, being ignored or perhaps improperly pitched. either way, too much money is being thrown at dead ends because of politics and bad physics assumptions. now, the clock’s runnning out. just my dos centavos.
I think the owners want to get the global human population down to 500 million before they go there. Even if plastic straws were banned, eight or ten billion people all tapping into fusion power would create the mother of all environmental burdens.
I vaguely recall seeing a cartoon entitled “Why Adam and Eve could not have been Chinese.” It showed the apple still on the tree while Adam and Eve barbecued the snake.
did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?
Everyone has a belly button, David.
It happens because when God creates each batch of babies from gingerbread flour and clay, He bakes them in a special oven until they are just right and then, before handing them over to the Stork for delivery, He checks each newly baked baby in turn by poking it’s belly with His finger and says, “You’re done!… You’re done!… You’re done!…”
thanks T G!
good to know…
and I had thought Godd and S atan and angels and deemons and Adam and Eve were all the mere inventions of the minds of superstitouss unknowledgeable ancient men…
has fayke news been around for thousands of years?
who knew?
It’s the other way around, actually. “Simulation Theory” is true, and the real world turns out to be the one with angels and, uh, uglier angels. Gives a whole new meaning to “God mode,” doesn’t it?
Read the Genesis text very carefully. You will discover that the only character who always told the truth was the serpent. His name is Ophion, and the unfallen world was ruled by him and Eurynome, before Chronos (“time”) dethroned them, and created entropy.
my top favorit
The End
https://youtu.be/ZeMlQEWEg2Q
Lets embrace koombaya since we are a species.
Alas, it was written about breaking up with a woman, always a woman.
Dennis L.
Apocalypse Now Opening Scene—
Not about a woman.
Duncan,
Generally I try and follow things back a bit, I well recall the movie you reference, that damn war was my college years with much turmoil; at Madison it perhaps culminated with blowing up Math Research on the UW campus. With still great emotion I remember my patients at the VA returning from Nam missing various parts, painful.
The song was earlier than the movie of 1979, “The End” was the last track recorded by the doors in 1966 and released in 1967 and according to Jim Morrison:
“[E]very time I hear that song, it means something else to me. I really don’t know what I was trying to say. It just started out as a simple goodbye song … Probably just to a girl, but I could see how it could be goodbye to a kind of childhood. I really don’t know. I think it’s sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be.”
The best known track was “Light My Fire.” It was the time of State Street adjacent to and part of a great liberal University.
Life has never been easy.
Dennis L.
I’m thinking about breaking up with Mother Earth…
she is very unreliable, almost on a daily basis…
her moods change like the weather…
she also has way too many children…
doesn’t she know money doesn’t grow on trees?
perhaps I can do better…
ooh, Venus sounds quite alluring… I hear she’s hot…
1967– one of the all time music years.
It is still part of my permeant neural pathways.
just a weak buildup to 1970-1975…
when 1970 came, and 16 track recording became widely available, the megamazing sounds of outrageous rock gods flowed down as if from Olympian heights…
unlike the 1960s, many listeners didn’t even need drugs to be mesmerized by that music… 😉
Sorry-
You missed it.
1967? Wasn’t that the year before you went to Woodstock and got hooked on root beer?
Naw–
I was living collectively in Big Sur during that time.
Passed on Woodstock.
Did attend the Big Sur Folk Festival:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur_Folk_Festival
I was born a bit too late to really enjoy live rocking in the sixties. I did do some camping at Reading and Knebworth in the seventies, but at least for me seeing Dylan, the Stones and Led Zep firing up the crowds didn’t make up for getting drenched, running out of beer, and having to wait ages to use the communal lavvies.
One of my all-time favorite artists went to Woodstock, though, and penned the words:
We were so close there was no room
We bled inside each other’s wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace
Somehow, Dick Cheney has made a cameo appearance in this video.
Graphic content. Apache engages taliban. ADULT VIEWERS ONLY!
I wonder will the US ever have an attack helicopter called a “Taliban”.
“Taliban” is plural. Surely just one would be called a “Talib.”
Calling mockingjay. Ah that was fiction. Riding into sunset.
While doom and gloom is the fashion these days, there may be some incredible, positive changes coming.
Amazon changed the retail market, no one thought it possible, Warren laments missing something obvious in retrospect.
Education may be next. Harvard is good at networking, raising money, and maybe education, certainly the students a very bright. But, there are hints, I have not read this, the quality of their online education is being questioned.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14907
Recently I completed a course via Zoom, it was good. Perhaps the future of education will require a different skill set. Coursera and MIT have also pioneered this area, all that is lacking is credentialing and we have the example of medical boards.. We have a president who is getting rid of regulations and with that probably a fair number of people who administer them. Medicine seems to be opening, once credentialing is possible, a classroom becomes a luxury with associated costs.
Large universities are probably not the most adaptable organizations in the world, if a lecture is given in the room and there is nobody to hear it, will it make a sound? Well, a stretch.
It seems NASA does distance monitoring of astronauts, most of the technology is probably present for clinical medicine.
It’s not all bad. Think of Amazon like reviews of physicians, hospitals, schools, universities, etc. When you shop, do you look at the Amazon rating? I do, if it is not positive next.
Underlying all of this is scarcity of raw materials.
Interesting times,
Dennis L.
If universities don’t have enough funds, the cheapest classes are those taught by adjunct faculty, over the internet, to large classes. Today’s expensive textbooks often come with slides for a faculty member to use, to give his/her talks to students. There are even some classes (in math, for example) where computer programs give a student three chances to solve a problem, before giving a new problem. Faculty members are given a large test bank of questions to select from for exams. The computer will grade the courses.
Of course, testing long distance becomes somewhat of a problem. How does one prevent cheating, for example?
That is being done, there are testing centers for licensure where nothing is allowed in the testing room, all personal belongings are placed in a locker prior to the exam, there is a time limit on the exam and when it ends, the testing program ends, this is done for many state licenses.
The problem sets in math, Knewton in my case as they currently stand tend to want an exact answer, it is easy to use a modern day calculator such as TI nspire and not learn much. To do well on the exam, get problems in the form of the exam; this used to be called a gouge in the fraternities. Everyone is different, for me to learn, get out a notebook, make notes, do problems by hand. It is really two different games.
There are also very good programs, e.g. Mathematica alpha which are free to students or at a nominal charge which will take any problem and not only provide a solution but walk through it step by step. I suspect Mathematica would be superior to many of the problem sets out there, but Mathematica does not sell textbooks, same old game. Mathematica basically is office hours in place of a professor.
The text books have become very good, some things do improve. But then, you know all this as your husband is a math prof. Much is in place, someone is going to use it, commercial firms such as Pearson are going across not only academics but professional areas as well.
Note: As in so many areas the value added is moving outside to central entities. Knewton and the like are addons, the money goes to the corporation, the teaching staff is adding less value.
Dennis L.
Those taking the tests need to get to the testing sites. This is not always possible.
Dennis, when working for a university, I stipulated that students were free to bring calculators into the examination room. I then made sure to set questions for which calculators would be no help whatsoever. Example: verify Pappus of Alexandria’s proof of the “pons asinorum” (Euclid, Elements, Book I Proposition 5)
Laughing quietly, there is always one like you.
Thanks,
Dennis L.
home schooling will increase and cheating would be impossible to stop my sister is a teacher and was told that she would have to teach online classes she done it for a week and said she could not handle it , if this became the new normal she would quit her job that is why i think home schooling will replace schools
“Amazon changed the retail market, no one thought it possible”
They did but in reality they are just a progression of the “Big Box” formula. They decided to create an online Big Box store but let us take a look at their business model. It’s all dependent on cheap energy. Amazon for the BILLIONS in revenue they take in, their profits are really low. So what will happen to Amazon if the trucks stop rolling or the ships no longer come in from China as frequently?
Amazon is pretty susceptible as a business model to the flow of cheap energy. It’s one reason why they started their own freight company and dumped UPS. The USPS gives Amazon some reduced prices but there are several US Gov’t officials who want to remove those advantages.
Amazon is constantly forced to raise prices, they now charge sales tax in most States which was another advantage for them. Amazon may be the last man standing but they will also suffer defeat along with other Big retailers such as Walmart.
Good points!
In part what you say is true, but energy wise for me it is a ten mile round trip to the big box hardware store(I go there because they have variety, searching takes time), I just finished purchasing a $6 part and it will be here Sunday. Using my car at $.50/mile would cost $5 plus the part. Paying sales tax does not bother me, I am part of a society.
At a big box there is no voting on the shopping experience or the goods sold. Take it, lump it, return it and stand in line for the one or two staff members at a counter. Amazon, request a return, if it is their issue, free pickup and choice of refund or similar item. I use the rating system to shop wisely. If you are not in a hurry, sometimes they give a credit for a free movie.
In math education a Field’s Medal is not necessary to do a good job teaching the first two years of college math – that two year education is a very powerful tool in learning other things. In a university education we are subsidizing the upper level professors with tuition paid for mostly lower level courses. There is an irony here. If the student is so good he/she requires a Field’s Medal level teacher, there are so few of those students that universities will fight over them and most likely give them scholarships. Modern materials have changed, distance learning is pretty damn good, currently it seems to stop about the second year, but Mathematica may go further(disclaimer, there are probably others, this is what I know.)
All the best,
Dennis L.
50 cents a mile? what do you drive around in a dump truck? Also, who’s wife is going to let them wait 3 days every time they need something from the hardware store. You sound like an oldtimer telling yarns about them gold old days.
100,000 miles is $50K. Fuel, insurance, license, maintenance(tires, etc.) and depreciation fairly close number. Ford F150’s were the largest proportion of vehicles sold in MN in the last few years, make that $.75/mile. I have a Camry hybrid, drive them into the ground, battery failed at about 100k miles, $4K plus to replace.
I am an old timer now, 73, next year, diff. eq., keeping my resume polished, you never know. I have a positive outlook on life and I can’t garden worth a damn. Latin would be nice so I could keep up with Robert.
Dennis L.
If the cloud service revenues are stripped out (much of that cash is generated by employing lobbyists who secure lucrative government contracts … using bribery of course)… I think Amazon would be losing money as I believe the core business is not profitable.
It would be interesting to know for sure how that works out.
“Pandemic strains shipping, air and rail freight operators:
“It would be easy watching the freight trains rumbling through Camden Road station in central London to assume that everything in the world’s logistics system was working as normal…
“Yet the apparent normality masks a profound trauma affecting the world’s logistics system. Earlier this year it was hit by coronavirus-related disruption in China’s factories and is now suffering from an unprecedented collapse in demand in North America and Europe.”
https://www.ft.com/content/8403ddbc-9363-11ea-899a-f62a20d54625
“Ten years ago, oil was one of the first industries to emerge from the crisis relatively unscathed, with demand strong and prices in the $80s.
“Now, it is likely to be among the last ones to recover from the double blow of demand destruction by the pandemic and the excess supply resulting from excessive production. And it may never recover fully.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Oil-May-Never-Fully-Recover-From-This-Crisis.html
Not to mention, all of the oil now sitting in storage. Without the airline industry, demand will remain low.
Excellent article: with freight volumes down that much we must surely see lots of problems with the unavailability of both basic and essential goods through to 2021.
It’s unlikely that this happens in many places
” Over the last two months unemployment in the United States has risen to levels not seen since the Great Depression. However, US billionaires got even richer during the same period of coronavirus pandemic.
“A new report by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies showed their fortunes soared by $434 billion or 15 percent during the nation’s lockdown between mid-March and mid-May. The billionaires’ combined net worth rose from $2.948 trillion to $3.382 trillion.”
https://www.rt.com/business/489466-billionaires-wealth-growth-pandemic/
More and more wage and wealth disparity, as we approach limits!
No problem for me. I am not rich. Not in the way it is normally intended.
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-25583,00.html
https://biblehub.com/matthew/19-24.htm
It almost seems pointless to focus on these numbers anymore. If someone is 1000 times more wealthy than me or 10000 times the end result is similar.
It’s more of a question of confidence in the system, to keep it functioning on the whole so the upper crust can continue to enjoy their position.
I think the EROI vise is closing hard now and the pressure will only increase. If its true that gross energy/materials were still rising into the 2010s allowing the agencies to show us graphs that continue to rise, while the “net” available to society was slipping.
If we now have slippage in the gross numbers, its going to become pretty obvious to most, then what?
“When the United States and China signed their historic trade deal in January, many believed that mounting tensions were beginning to thaw. I wrote then on these pages that the Phase One trade agreement was a mere cease-fire in an ongoing conflict between the world’s dominant superpower and its near-peer competitor.
“I was also incredulous over the Administration taking China’s promises to purchase $189 billion in US goods and services by 2021 at face value. Over $30 billion of those were earmarked for importing U.S. energy products.
“Today it is clear that China is nowhere close to meeting its January promises… The Phase One Agreement has failed dramatically.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2020/05/21/phase-one-us-china-trade-deal-fails-in-energy-and-beyond/#574dc0b86d3a
“Even if China’s imports of U.S. energy rise in the months ahead, the trade deal commitments will be impossible to reach. Again, it’s simple math: Fulfilling the energy part of the deal would require China to spend an average of $2.9 billion per month from April through December to buy U.S. energy—at $30 per barrel (the U.S. government’s projected average price for 2020), that’s equivalent to about 3 million barrels of oil per day, or the total of all U.S. daily crude exports in 2019.
“That China would buy every last drop of exported U.S. oil is unrealistic enough—but today, that oil is not even available, as U.S. oil exports are projected to fall this year along with the collapse in U.S. shale output, which is projected to drop by roughly one-third over the next year.
“Moreover, China could not take 3 million barrels per day of U.S. crude oil even if it were available. Even if China were to replace all of its oil imports from Saudi Arabia, currently its largest supplier, with U.S. oil, that would only be 1.8 million barrels per day. Beijing could meet its targets by buying other fuels as well, but other types of energy such as liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, and coal represent only a fraction of the value of crude oil exports. China would need to dramatically shift its entire energy import portfolio from its current suppliers to the United States. Even then, the math does not add up.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/22/trump-trade-deal-china-dead-coronavirus-pandemic/
There is definitely an affordability issue with respect to the goods that the United States supposedly is selling to China this year. It can’t happen!
In September world Will declare peace and safety and After big distruction Will be. In october Will start a great tribulation as never was before and never Will be more
That could be. The programs put into effect are temporary and very expensive.
What makes you think that October will start the great tribulation?
What’s a great tribulation?
Biblical reference to the end times.
This is someone’s view of what the Bible has to say about the Great Tribulation.
https://activechristianity.org/what-does-the-bible-say-about-the-great-tribulation
https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.verses/ID/238/Great-Tribulation-The-verses.htm
A great tribulation. How come there has been before? It will never be more people will throw gold and silver on the streets because it will have no value. hence hyperinflation. then famines. famines. hyperinflation.
Bad Bronze Age Fiction (some bad Iron Age also).
If you are into violence, it has its strong points.
Interesting that the video references “Our Bloodthirsty Blble” in reference to slavery. I s lAam has practiced slavery more than any other.
History is full of slavery. That seems to have been a primary source of energy for “wealthier” economies.
There is sure to be a wailing and a gnashing of teeth!
And in November, if none of this happens, you will admit your error?
well, Italy would have to still have the internet etc…
in its own particular way, the beginning of the “school year” brings a certain sense that things are going “back to normal”… Summer and its vacation season is a change of pace from the “normal” lives of many/most people… September comes, the Labor Day holiday on the first Monday, and then families are back to parents working, children back to school…
that’s the USA version that most readers probably know…
so when September 2020 rolls around, what happens when most families still have one or more unemployed adults, and many of their older teens can’t go back to college, and can’t get a job either?
October won’t be the end of the world, but by then there will be no possible propaganda to deflect most people from the new normal of a severely lower reset economy…
it will be fascinating to see how this unfolds…
probably shocking to those who lack an OFW type education…
There will definitely be a more severe food crisis by this fall, on top of the economic depression. This will lead to political instability and ultimately, mass immigration and war over time.
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The Economists view of the crisis:
But as we explain this week (see article) the pandemic both reveals the size of the challenge ahead and also creates a unique chance to enact government policies that steer the economy away from carbon at a lower financial, social and political cost than might otherwise have been the case. Rock-bottom energy prices make it easier to cut subsidies for fossil fuels and to introduce a tax on carbon. The revenues from that tax over the next decade can help repair battered government finances. The businesses at the heart of the fossil-fuel economy—oil and gas firms, steel producers, carmakers—are already going through the agony of shrinking their long-term capacity and employment. Getting economies in medically induced comas back on their feet is a circumstance tailor-made for investment in climate-friendly infrastructure that boosts growth and creates new jobs. Low interest rates make the bill smaller than ever.
Take carbon-pricing first. Long cherished by economists (and The Economist), such schemes use the power of the market to incentivise consumers and firms to cut their emissions, thus ensuring that the shift from carbon happens in the most efficient way possible. The timing is particularly propitious because such prices have the most immediate effects when they tip the balance between two already available technologies. In the past it was possible to argue that, although prices might entrench an advantage for cleaner gas over dirtier coal, renewable technologies were too immature to benefit. But over the past decade the costs of wind and solar power have tumbled. A relatively small push from a carbon price could give renewables a decisive advantage—one which would become permanent as wider deployment made them cheaper still. There may never have been a time when carbon prices could achieve so much so quickly.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/05/21/countries-should-seize-the-moment-to-flatten-the-climate-curve
This mentions growth. So renewables will power endless growth, albeit downsized? Of course, it will also be top down and centralized?
These economists live in “La-La Land.” The world needs inexpensive to produce energy. Our problem now is that it is not available. So-called renewables do practically nothing for us. There will be no economy to tax, because it will collapse. Forget this idea.
Quite so: it talks about the ‘fossil-fuel economy’ as if there were any other…..
“Rock-bottom energy prices make it easier to cut subsidies for fossil fuels and to introduce a tax on carbon.”
This makes zero sense. How are you going to tax fossil fuel producers more when they are going bankrupt? These economists are in for a rude awakening…
Sorry, I might have misunderstood. They probably meant increased tax at the pump.
It is close to the same difference. You can raise the price at the pump with a tax. The consumers cannot afford to pay more, so the quantity sold falls and the price tends to fall even further. The government perhaps gets a little in taxes (small quantity, low price). The oil companies end up worse off than they were before, because of both the low quantity and low price.
“Rock-bottom energy prices make it easier to cut subsidies for fossil fuels and to introduce a tax on carbon.”
Are they really that stupid? I rather think not. Energy prices are at rock bottom. So producers of energy cannot make a profit. The proposal: fewer subsidies and more takes, so pushing the producers further down the hole. Until they stop producing, and the taxes yield no revenue.
No, they are not that stupid: they are pushing their green propaganda even in the face of reason.
In other words, no, they’re not that stupid, they’re even more stupid than that.
Fast Eddy…have you started your survival garden yet!? Just asking…😜
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cSSFAGx3GNY
Eddie, you got to get online…start a YouTube channel!😳
The survival garden was tried and rejected when FE gave up his DelusiSTAN passport.
One quickly realizes when on on tries the FE Challenge … that it is futile… someone will kill you for an apple and gardening without BAU is drudgery and doomed to failure(that’s why no doomie has ever tried it)..
Then FE stumbled across the spent fuel pond issue and said to himself ‘what the fkkkk am I wasting my time pulling these fkkkking weeds… when I could be enjoying the winter in the mountains of Otago’
A few days after that epiphany FE and M Fast were in the car to QT to look at houses… and within two months of that the moving van was in the driveway….
I have thought about a YT channel where I film myself doing various FE Challenges… then forcing doomies to tune in to see their future….
That inevitably would end up with me cursing and bitching about how brutal it is cutting and splitting a tree with an axe then dragging the wood to the house…
One episode I’d planned (actually written the script) would have involved M Fast spending an entire day washing clothes using a rock … she of course nixed that asking me if I’d lost my mind….
Needless to say… there shan’t be a FE YT channel anytime soon.
Very well described, cut to music in the background: “It don’t come easy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvEexTomE1I
Dennis L.
You guys are bleak, I like pulling weeds.
I’m ultra bleak, I love weeds (free soil nutrients) and I like to pull them (gratifying exercise).
As clint eastwood would say it; there’s (at least) three kind of people in this world, my friend.
I thought weeds were dip sticks that God gave us so we could pull them up and check the conditions in the root zone, so we’re know how things are for our plants. And while you’re already down on your knees, your all set to give some thanks.
I’m afraid my knowledge of plants don’t go that deep. I’m a shallow gardener. I’m not as good as happy at it.
There are basically two kinds of weeds: those that are decorative and a pleasure to behold; and those that are a bloody pain and simply have to be pulled.
Sometimes it’s a matter of where a weed is growing that makes it a weed. I know people who treat Goldenrod as an ornamental, but I suspect most people eradicate it without mercy.
https://piedmontmastergardeners.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Giant-Goldenrod-Photo-Credit-Pat-Chadwick.jpg
If you are into gardening, you are likely armed with a vision in your imagination of how you would like the lawn, the shrubbery or the veggie patch to look, and weeding is one of the strategies you can employ to make what you see in the real-world more closely resemble what you envision in your imaginary garden.
“Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it’s not labour.” In all my fieldwork endeavors, I apply that philosophy, which was elaborated laboriously by D.H. Lawrence in his poem A Sane Revolution
If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don’t make it in ghastly seriousness,
don’t do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.
Don’t do it because you hate people,
do it just to spit in their eye.
Don’t do it for the money,
do it and be damned to the money.
Don’t do it for equality,
do it because we’ve got too much equality
and it would be fun to upset the apple-cart
and see which way the apples would go a-rolling.
Don’t do it for the working classes.
Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own
and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.
Don’t do it, anyhow, for international Labour.
Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of.
Let’s abolish labour, let’s have done with labouring!
Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it’s not labour.
Let’s have it so! Let’s make a revolution for fun!
Tim, I eliminate unwanted weeds by pulling them. If you do it enough and for enough years you “may” eliminate it from your land. It is hard work that many are too lazy, or unable to do. We eliminated well entrenched deadly nightshade on my place in Tx. Here in Alabama, I am clearing my place of some Kudzu patches (easy) and then Invasive Chinese Privet (hard). Then there is Japanese Honeysuckle and Cogon grass (dangerous). All of these weeds are invasive. Chinese privet is extremely dangerous as it will destroy forest completely over time.
I once had a Roundup resistant Palmer Ameranth crop up on my place seemingly overnight. I pulled all of it by hand, and eliminated it. It is extremely dangerous.
These are not plants that are just irritating to look at, they can destroy complete ecosystems. The average person has no comprehension of what lies before us when machines and chemicals no longer can be used to fight these weeds. Utter destruction of ecosystems, crops and wild lands. The weed apocalypse.
Thanks for making some interesting observations and experiences, Jesse.
The land in my rural part of Japan is mostly mountains and canyons and 90% or more is currently forested. The Japanese honeysuckle hangs down some of the cliffs and steep banks that were carved out of the mountains when building roads. It’s in bloom now and the fragrance is wonderful. I’ve been watching it every year and it hasn’t taken over anywhere. It seems to expand for a few years and then die back.
Kuzdo is a bigger problem but it can be mowed, and wisteria vines will grow as thick as your legs and strangle even the largest trees to death if you leave them in peace for enough decades. But perhaps our biggest invasive species is Phyllostachys edulis, the moso or tortoise-shell bamboo. It’s a very useful plant, but again, if left untended for enough decades, it can spread through a forest and kill off all but the tallest trees by depriving them of sunlight.
It makes sense that Japanese honeysuckle would be a native, non-invasive plant in Japan. If it is adapted to that environment, it should be able to maintain a balance with its ecosystem and not take over, wiping everything else out.
We seem to expand .. and never die back… spent fuel pond radiation will take care of that.
There is a type of bamboo (invasive) here in Alabama….the word is once it gets established you CANNOT get rid of it. Even bulldozers will get stuck when trying to scrape the roots out.
The Japanese Honeysuckle is rated the worst invasive species here in Alabama and probably much of the south.
What is often called “bamboo” in my part of the US is Japanese knotweed (. I have terrible problems with it (has invaded the foundation of my garage). It does very strange things to the soil around it, too, making it loose and crumbly and nothing else wants to grow there. They have huge problems with it in the UK, as well, to the point where you may not get a mortgage if the property is deemed to have it. It has turned large swathes of native riparian zones into a knotweed monoculture.
Twitch is fun! If you leave even a tiny bit in the ground it will unleash itself…. The only way I could control it was to dig half a metre into the ground and pull as much of it out as possible….
Try that when you have a dozen raised beds that are 6m x 1.5 m…..
Fortunately it was around this time that I discovered the spent fuel pond issue
My solution to that nightmare?
https://images.happycow.net/venues/1024/15/23/hcmp152364_545858.jpeg
“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A staggering 70% of businesses in Dubai expect to close their doors within the next six months as the coronavirus pandemic and global lockdowns ravage demand, a survey by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce revealed Thursday.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/coronavirus-dubai-70percent-of-companies-expect-to-close-in-six-months.html
The Dubai article says:
Hope springs eternal, however. Work proceeds on a new offshore vacation spot for travelers from Europe. http://tradearabia.com/news/CONS_368195.html
http://tradearabia.com/source/2020/05/21/heart06.jpg
This was a good article written about Dubai’s predicament in Feb 2019 – one of many economies that could really have done without this pandemic:
“A debt-fueled crisis is headed to Dubai, the trading hub of the United Arab Emirates.
“Despite Dubai’s diversification away from oil over the past few decades, the entire region is still dependent on energy revenues. The fall in prices for crude oil over the past half decade have squeezed Gulf governments and private enterprises alike. Brent crude oil, the European benchmark, fetched more than $100 a barrel in mid-2014 versus around $65 recently, according to data from media company Bloomberg.
““The slowdown in global trade hasn’t helped Dubai either. In a similar way to Singapore and Hong Kong in the far east, Dubai has set itself up as a trading hub in the Gulf, benefiting from the flow in international trade. However, the recent slump in trade, combined with growing protectionism means that the city’s business will suffer…
““”The backdrop of weak growth across the Gulf and the risk of overcapacity after the 2020 World Expo means that the GRE’s revenues could be weaker-than-expected, harming their ability to service these debts,” the Capital Economics report continues.
“In other words, unless something changes to help Dubai’s economy, the debt problems could sink the city.””
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2019/02/26/multi-billion-dollar-debt-crisis-looms-for-dubai/#2478ffd537ab
I can believe that debt problems will sink the economy. I found an article from November 19, 2019 https://www.businessinsider.com/dubai-air-show-deals-planes-sold-airbus-boeing-plane-makers-2019-11 talking about all of the new airplanes being bought by airlines in Dubai.
Where will they possibly get passengers for those airplanes?
2018-11-18 Celi – EROI compagnie petrolifere.pdf
This is a reference to a summary of article published in Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality journal in November, 2018. The summary is in Italian, but can be read with Google Translate.
https://www.aspoitalia.it/attachments/article/374/2018-11-18 Celi – EROI compagnie petrolifere.pdf
My impression is that the paper has found a way of calculating EROI for individual companies, using CO2 emissions reported in financial reports, but I do not see output that corresponds to this calculation. I probably am confused.
“With global hunger projected to increase dramatically this year as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, humanitarian relief experts are calling on the U.S. government to play a leadership role in ensuring that global food supply lines remain open…
“…time is of the essence if the United States wants to ease what could become the worst food crisis in a century – which could lead to political destabilization in countries where Washington has national security interests, such as Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
https://www.postguam.com/the_globe/world/fears-of-worsening-global-food-crisis-if-us-does-not-lead/article_0a0af51a-9b1d-11ea-8595-070232a9dbc1.html
“Strict coronavirus lockdowns in Guatemala and El Salvador have so battered local economies that hundreds of families are flying white flags outside their homes or waving them in the street: not in surrender, but to seek food and assistance.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-guatemala-elsalvad/as-hunger-spreads-under-lockdown-guatemalans-and-salvadorans-raise-white-flag-idUKKBN22X2HQ
“After about two months of quiet due to pandemic concerns, Iraqi protesters returned to the streets soon after the formation of the new government.
“As summer approaches, the protests are expanding in the southern provinces over a lack of electricity and clean water.”
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/05/iraq-kadimi-protests.html
“The coronavirus pandemic will further exacerbate the humanitarian situation for millions of people in embattled north-eastern Syria, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned on Thursday.”
https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/coronavirus-multiplies-humanitarian-crisis-in-ne-syria-red-cross-says/news
Iraq was going completely out of control pre covid … problems with electricity supply etc… lots of protesters shot dead
It’s gone pretty silent …. a whopping 140 people have died of covid (or maybe some of them had covid but were killed while at a wedding party by a US drone … and counted as covid deaths)
Oh good… Iraq is starting to boil again …
“More than 2.4 million people applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week in the latest wave of layoffs from the virus outbreak that triggered widespread business shutdowns two months ago and sent the economy into a deep recession.
“Roughly 38.6 million people have now filed for jobless aid since the coronavirus forced millions of businesses to close their doors and shrink their workforces, the U.S. Labour Department said Thursday.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nearly-39-million-people-have-sought-u-s-jobless-aid-since-pandemic-began-1.5578333
“Bankruptcy doesn’t need to mean the end of a company. It can be a shot to shed debt, reorganize and come out stronger.
“But during the coronavirus pandemic, bankruptcy filings are increasingly spelling doom for US retailers. In turn, it threatens thousands of more workers in an economy that has already suffered tens of millions of lost jobs.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/coronavirus-crushes-bankrupt-retailer-hopes-for-rebound-threatens-jobs.html
“Unemployed rates are now twice what they were in 1933 at the depths of the Great Depression. This trend is even more pronounced in the travel and hospitality segments of the economy.
“At least eight million of the 15.8 million travel-related workforce that existed in the US just three months ago have evaporated into thin air. ”
https://www.benzinga.com/news/20/05/16086804/as-the-global-economy-weighs-fears-of-a-recession-travel-is-already-in-a-depression
“The PMI data doesn’t lie, and it’s telling you in no unequivocal terms we are still solidly on the downward slope towards the abyss.
“Global growth hasn’t bottomed, there is no recovery in play, and you can darn well expect more downside from here.”
https://www.moneyshow.com/articles/tebiwkly08-54259/there-is-no-recovery/
“Bankruptcy doesn’t need to mean the end of a company. It can be a shot to shed debt, reorganize and come out stronger. ”
Or on the other hand it could be the end of all of your savings, your marriage, family, health and all hope.
“Lending credence to the dire forecasts rating agencies and brokerages had been lately making, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das today said that India’s GDP growth would likely remain in the negative territory in 2020-21.”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/india-runs-out-of-options-first-full-year-contraction-in-4-decades-all-set-to-be-reality/articleshow/75886233.cms
“India’s Covid-19 lockdown has turned into one of the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times, with millions of migrant workers stranded in cities across India battling hunger…
“Now, a shocking video highlighting the extent of this hunger and desperation, has emerged on social media which shows a starving man allegedly eating a dead dog on the Delhi-Jaipur highway.”
https://www.india.com/viral/shocking-extent-of-hunger-starving-man-found-eating-dead-dog-near-jaipur-viral-video-stuns-india-4036210/
Oh wow… so we are not far from the eating rat roasted over a fire fueled by plastic bags…
https://twitter.com/i/status/1263179845300744197
https://twitter.com/i/status/1263051328651235334
As many as 55 million people worldwide may have died in the so-called Great South India Famine of 1876-78, which was an El Nino-related event that affected not just India but also China, South America and Africa. In southern India itself the figure was between 3.5 million and 5.5 million.
Over just two years it must have been horrific but it hardly makes a blip in the historical consciousness of most people. The Spanish flu took about 17 million in pretty short order. How many so far for Wuhan?
“How many so far for Wuhan?”
And let’s put in perspective, out of a population of around 1.4 billion
Where is Winston Churchill in all this? He so enjoyed a good famine….
Wow… what will the zombies turn to when all the dogs are eaten?
Hogget
https://www.friendshipcircle.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Baby-photo-e1445192938596.jpg
India and China were at one time pulling the world economy forward. No longer is this true.
And, as you have previously pointed out, Gail, it was becoming less true before Covid-19 came on the scene. This is from October 2019:
“China indicated growth this year could be as low as 6%, the slowest on record, while India’s expansion was the weakest in six years in the June quarter. The two nations’ auto sales tell the story. China’s sales of sedans, sport utility vehicles, minivans and multipurpose vehicles fell for the 14th time in 15 months in August, the same month that India’s car sales had their biggest annual decline on record.
“Even though their growth rates are still higher than most other countries, the slowdown is critical for the two developing nations. China needs to keep up the pace of expansion to deal with a pile of debt amassed during its boom years. And youthful India is relying on a robust economy to absorb millions of new job seekers each month.
““The old drivers of growth are really running out of steam,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, Singapore-based economist for Capital Economics. ”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-09/a-third-of-the-world-s-consumers-are-suddenly-nervous-to-spend
“Since the Great Recession following the 2008 financial crisis, China and India have powered much of the world’s economic growth. Now, activity in both countries has plunged, raising the risk of a prolonged global slump.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/22/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html
“Covid-19 has killed more than 32,000 people in Italy and wreaked havoc on the healthcare system and economy. But as the country creeps out of lockdown, the toll on mental health is beginning to become apparent.
In a recent survey by Italy’s order of psychologists (CNOP), eight in 10 Italians said they needed psychological support to overcome the pandemic.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/italy-lockdown-mental-health-psychologists-coronavirus
“…tourism is what is keeping Italy’s economy afloat. Last year, for instance, Italy’s industrial output shrank by 2.4 percent while tourism grew by 2.8 percent…
“In a country plagued by unemployment, tourism offered jobs for guides, restaurateurs, waiters, cooks, and cleaners. The fact that Italy has a high percentage of home ownership allowed many families to turn their apartments or weekend houses into bed-and-breakfasts or Airbnbs. In the aftermath of the crisis, tourism provided a social safety net.
“But the coronavirus lockdown changed all that…”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/21/without-tourism-italys-economy-faces-disaster/
“Over a thousand Costa del Sol citizens took to the streets of Malaga [Spain] this evening to march against the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
“The public rattled pots and pans in protest of the Socialist PSOE and Unidas Podemos coalition government’s handling of the pandemic and its strict draconian measures, which they blame for leaving millions unemployed and the economy potentially facing a deep recession.”
https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020/05/21/watch-over-a-thousand-costa-del-sol-citizens-march-rattling-pots-pans-in-protest-of-spanish-governments-handling-of-coronavirus-pandemic/
People like Tim Morgan refuse to acknowledge this reality: in many towns, tourism IS the economy – income from April to September puts everything right for the year. It is not ‘just 10% of the economy’ and that income will not be got some other way.
“The looser lockdown has not spared Egypt an economic crisis, however. The private sector, weak to start, is in free fall…
“Citizens were already struggling after years of political turmoil and austerity; the state lacks the resources and reach to deliver large amounts of aid. Egypt may be first, but similar problems will clobber the Arab world’s other non-oil states in the coming months.
“First to suffer was tourism, which employs one in ten Egyptians…”
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/05/23/egypt-chose-a-looser-lockdown-its-economy-is-still-in-crisis
Tourism in NZ is in the region of 10% of the economy … however that’s only the tip of the iceberg…
Let’s consider all the Airbnb homes that get built to accommodate those tourists… the money from the land sales….the property agents… landscape people… the tradies…. the taxes … the furniture and appliance retailers….etc… that does not get filed under tourism GDP … but if there are far fewer tourists then all of those industries will get hammered as well…
This impacts the overall GDP — it also means fewer jobs in those industries — which hits retail.. auto sales.. home sales etc etc etc… as people have less to spend.
It is just plain silly to suggest that if you cut tourism in a major tourist centre by half that the impacts do not go far beyond the tourism industry.
If that’s what Tim is suggesting then he’s probably taken to hard drink day and night because it sounds like he’s pickled his brain.
For some reason I am thinking of Keith Floyd… remember him… he was the alcoholic chef who would get sloshed during his cooking show… he’d pour some wine into a dish then take a smash himself… he never looked particularly healthy … and I believe he lived in Thailand… one has to wonder if he spent most of his time in Patpong s e x dens …. he does have the look of someone who indulged in (much) more than just red wine….
Might have been a sequel happening .. Fear and Loathing in Bangkok….
He died a couple of years ago … no surprise there.
Keith Floyd was the only chef I ever watched (decades ago) – as you say, he got increasingly tipsy through each programme, argued with the camera man and producer while filming – it was hilarious. Died in 2009. Not sure he ever lived in Thailand though.
I think he ended up there on the downside of his career — seems he owned a restaurant in Phuket (and may have been interested in young boys afterall…)….
Keith Floyd in Thailand collapse
August 27, 2007
BOOZY celebrity chef Keith Floyd was rushed to hospital in Thailand after collapsing in his restaurant.
The TV cook, 63, was holding a glass of wine when he fell off his seat on Saturday night.
Witnesses at Floyd’s Brasserie on holiday isle Phuket feared he may have had a heart attack or stroke. He was released from hospital yesterday.
A witness said: “Keith was chatting to a young lad when he suddenly slipped off his stool on to the floor. He was clutching a glass of wine which smashed to pieces.
“He was lying there holding his chest and having a kind of fit.
“It looked like some kind of heart attack or a stroke, and was very distressing for everyone who saw it.”
GMTV star Floyd, a renowned boozer, was ordered to take three months’ rest last year after docs diagnosed exhaustion and a stomach ulcer.
He launched his Thai restaurant in the exclusive Burasari Resort on Patong Beach earlier this year.
A spokesman for the resort said yesterday: “Mr Floyd’s resting.”
https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/139595-keith-floyd-in-thailand-collapse/
A life well-lived I’d say … although the ‘young lad’ thing is troubling….
Heavy boozing is such a horrible thing…. I knew a guy in Ubud who ran a very successfully bar/restaurant…. he died at 54 from the bottle… towards the end he has literally pickled his brain and was exhibiting extreme paranoia….
I often would be out on my bike at 8am and drive past… he’d already have t’eed up a cold one (might not have been his first of the day…)
Some of his mates shipped him to a dry out clinic in Thailand …
M Fast and I were at his restaurant when he returned… he stepped out of the car … stat down with us … chatted a bit … he looked at my beer and he said … it’s good to be back and I could really use one of those…. I said… maybe not the a great idea… he didn’t order the beer but he was getting up every 10 minutes or so and sneaking into the back and taking smashes of hard stuff (M Fast could see him….)
Stone cold dead within a year of that…..
Tim Morgan is an excellent analyst of the system as a whole, but distinctly lacking in a sense of reality these days, and not worth arguing with on the point.
His blog is now best called ‘The View from Fantasy Island’, as disconnected as Ugo Bardi’s worst renewable delusions.
I imagine that if you are a fairly well-off, single, retired ‘expat’, living on a small sunny island and still able to buy all the food you need, it must still all look pretty bearable. He;s probably not a huge consumer or very active at all. Just like all the upper-income people and academics now home-working in this village. I’m enjoying the tranquility myself.
But when I came back from the deserted town yesterday all I could think of was the likely misery of long-term unemployment awaiting all the shop workers needless thrown out by the lock-down.
The optimism of the cattle is so… cute?
The manager of the restaurant where we celebrated the end of L3 10 days ago (which was empty except for our group)…. was gleefully telling us things were looking up … they had two guests inbound for the weekend (I later found out they had cut their rates by 1/3 to around $200/night + were offering roughly $100 in free F&B on two night bookings)….
Reality is slowly sinking in — I received an email yesterday from that restaurant announcing ‘Locals Deals’ — 241 on pizzas every day of the week (dine in or take out)…. with every 4 mains ordered a free bottle of wine…
They could offer me free everything … and I’d not get excited… sitting in a morgue having a glass of wine (at any price)… just doesn’t do it for me.
What people do not understand is that this is as good as it gets…. and that’s only because governments are paying people who have no jobs…. those people can sense what is coming and are saving their money — those with jobs fear losing them…. so they save as well…
There can be no recovery because huge numbers of businesses are already vapourized… and many more will follow.
Here is another sign that reality is intruding….
The number of houses for rent in QT has been hovering around 170 (that is off the charts as most owners prefer short term rentals because the ROI is much higher) …. in recent days the 200 mark has been breached… 205 today https://www.realestate.co.nz/residential/rental/central-otago-lakes-district/queenstown
I suspect what is happening is:
1. Owners were hoping that when we went to L2 and domestic travel was unlocked – they would start to see bookings in advance of ski season.
2. They failed to consider that there are thousands of empty hotel rooms in QT … and with no international travel (70% of the tourists in QT are from outside of NZ)…. the hotels will be fighting for their lives in a race to the bottom…. they will lower rates and because many have restaurants they can offer F&B … (btw – the hotel I often stay at in HK costs USD150-200 per night — the rate is USD40 per night … and I suspect it’s pretty much empty even at those insanely low rates…it was already VERY empty when I was there pre-covid Sept > Dec…. I was told under 30% occupancy … due to the protests)
3. So the bookings are not materializing…. and panic is setting in…..
4. What to do what to do… oh I know — let’s target long stays… let’s post on RE.com or Trademe.com…. at least we can get 2 or 3k a month…. we might just be able to cover the overheads if we dig into our savings …. this disaster will surely be over by summer…. surely it will… let’s limit the lease to 6 months so we can get them out as the good times return…
5. Having posted an ad the owner then checks their listing and yowza…. they see 204 other listings in QT…. and they see that their asking rent is far too high for the current market…. but they cannot drop it too much otherwise they will not be able to come anywhere close to covering overheads….
6. Now the waiting begins…. day after day … no enquiries … then suddenly ‘ping’ we’d like to make an offer — we’ll give you 1k per month…. (have a mate in Bali who has a couple pretty flash villas….they normally rent for over USD1000 per NIGHT …. a group of stranded tourists offered him $1000 per MONTH the other day…. it will cost him more in AC and other running costs to put them in the property so he rejected it). The owner turns down the 1k … hoping for a miracle….
7. The next mortgage payment comes due…. the owner is on interest only so that helps… but there are also rates and utilities and other costs… and the owner’s savings are depleting… the owner’s business is also taking major hits…. or if he has a job his hours are cut…..
8. The vice is tightening…. relentlessly…. the owner is praying that NZ follows Australia and offers mortgage payment holidays… if so he MIGHT… just MIGHT be able to survive until the good times return in December….
9. The owner thinks of selling … but realizes that he’s in a negative equity position…. and even if he discounts there are so very buyers… people have no jobs/money…. and most of those with money are on the sidelines waiting for the bloodbath…. (personally I would not buy a QT property even it is was down 90%…. but then I know what is coming….)
Hope springs eternal… until you are eating a dog that was tenderized by 500 vehicles running over it….
The word is that this fella owned a few rental properties in Kerala…..
https://twitter.com/i/status/1263051328651235334
Yep, about as suspicious as being a white male living in Morocco, ‘for the culture’.
25 euros apparently buys you a boy for the whole day, and with the unemployment rate there is no shortage of takers…..
Never occurred to me … but perhaps Floyd was there for the young boys rather than the bar girls…
Come to think of it…. there is something a bit off about him
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/23/article-2329709-0013A32600000258-699_468x286.jpg
Mates?
https://www.sott.net/image/s7/157387/large/335203_UK_Jimmy_Savile.jpg
Sounds like animals caged in a zoo, and living unnaturally, developing psychological problems. People are turning a bit odd everywhere.
Thank God the lock-down in England has been more relaxed than in Spain and Italy, at least one could take a proper walk.
But to keep people banged up in crappy little apartments with no exercise and the police hovering about outside…. And it will happen again this winter, we can be fairly sure.
‘Save lives! Wreck the Economy! Destroy Mental Health! ‘
Gosh, wasn’t 2019 idyllic in retrospect?! And all we did was belly-ache about how bad things were……
The fact that I won’t likely get beyond the south island of NZ ever again leaves me feeling a bit claustrophobic….
I can’t remember ever being in one place for more than a few months …
I need to see a shrink to help me deal with the intense anger I feel whenever a Covi id iot says ‘stay safe’… I feel the desire to do this
http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1155838/penaltyy.gif
LOL 😀
I always found it hard to pay much attention to pro sports, but I must admit a good hilight reel of hits/plays is entertaining.
“Japan’s core consumer prices fell for the first time in more than three years in April on an annual basis, as weak oil prices and coronavirus lockdown measures heightened deflation risks.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-inflation/japans-core-consumer-prices-slip-into-deflation-for-first-time-in-three-years-idUKKBN22X2X6
“Japan’s central bank unveiled its own version of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s “Main Street” lending programme on Friday, to channel nearly $280 billion to small businesses hit by the coronavirus and stop the economy sliding deeper into recession.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-boj/bank-of-japan-launches-its-version-of-feds-main-street-lending-scheme-idUKKBN22X2PV
Good luck to Japan!
“China wants to bypass Hong Kong’s legislature by imposing its own national security law on the former British colony, in a move that spooked markets on Friday..
“In the most emboldened of a series of aggressive foreign policy moves since the coronavirus outbreak, China outlined a draft law which would allow it to set up “agencies” to safeguard national security in the city that is supposed to retain its autonomy until 2047.
“Pro-democracy lawmakers said the move was a gross breach Beijing’s commitments to Britain when the city was handed over to China in 1997 and threatened to Hong Kong’s future as a regional financial centre.
“Fearing a loss of independence, there were calls for protesters to return to Hong Kong’s streets on Friday night.
“The proposed new law, which will exacerbate rising hostilities between Beijing and Washington, would allow China to punish any act to “subvert state power, organise and carry out terrorist activities and other behaviours that seriously endanger national security”.”
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-moves-on-hong-kong-as-trade-war-worsens-20200522-p54vjm
“China made a rare decision not to set a target for its economic growth for 2020 due to uncertainties about the impact of the coronavirus.
““I would like to point out that we have not set a specific target for economic growth this year,” Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in an English-language text of the work report delivered on Friday.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/22/china-will-not-set-gdp-target-for-2020-as-coronavirus-batters-economy.html
“While economists say China’s economic data can’t always be trusted, they now have a new dilemma – there is no data.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-52754782
The BBC article says that while coal use is back up and pollution levels are again high, one of the things that is down in the spending of Chinese workers, many of whom are unemployed.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/china-retail-sales-may-22-2020-bbc.png
This is no doubt part of what is keeping commodity prices low.
Stand with Hong Kong (fkkk CCP)
The state help for the businesses during coronavirus in a Slowak way:
I have heard that when you have a business and apply for some coronavirus compensation due to the closed business during the coronavirus emergency, the state tax authorities send you the tax inspection first and you can get a penalty for some non-compliance with the tax laws which surpasess what you are applying for.
That way the businesses are scared to apply…
When this hoax began, I thought that it was about control and centralization – it always is – but also about avoiding blame for a big collapse and a cover up for more money stealing. But this kind of thing definitely reinforces the view that they really want to smash demand and small business entirely. They want complete control, obedience and dependence and they want it now.
They have places to be things to do. Chop chop. Pyramids didnt get built without making a omelette or two.
I am sure illegal immigrants in the US have second thoughts about visiting hospitals with COVID-19, also.
Outstanding! More SIRENS!
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/CDC.png?itok=PCQ0sFo4
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/CDC.png
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hertz-crushes-used-car-prices-it-dumps-fleet-corvettes-avert-bankruptcy
I’m sure this will be bullish for used car prices… 😐
Cheers,
GBV
LOL!
We could sort of see this coming. We can all have extra cars sitting around in our driveways, if we would like.
Wolfstreet posted an article about this very same topic a couple of days ago.
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/05/20/used-vehicle-market-begins-to-unfreeze-pent-up-supply-looms/
The auto industry and peripheral businesses that supply it…. employ many many millions of people … I wonder what they are all doing right now? Are they still mostly ’employed’ but not working… and receiving wage subsidies?
https://www.pdpauto.com/sites/default/files/blog/Facade.jpg
Lockdowns and Flight Bans Smash the HK Hotel Industry
The situation is “worse than the Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2003,” said Michael Li Hon-shing, executive director of The Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, with 86 members running about 200 hotels and employing some 80,000 workers.
“With no tourist arrivals, hotel operators had to undertake a price war to fight for guests, but a lot of rooms are still sitting empty.”
As few as 4,100 visitors arrived in Hong Kong in April, compared with 5.57 million in the same month a year earlier, according to data by the city’s Tourism Board.
That pushed the average daily income that an available hotel room can contribute in Hong Kong to a 17-year low of HK$290 at the end of April, a 78 percent plunge from a year earlier.
https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3085596/hong-kongs-hotels-are-down-their-knees-two-three-rooms-sat-empty-asian
Ha ha ha …. 4100 vs 5.57M….
Meanwhile the CCP has decided to blow off the Basic Law altogether and turn the city into another mainland sheethole hahahaha … not sure what they are thinking — HK is what it is because of rule of law … they are killing their golden goose…
Difficult to impose a totalitarian system on people who have lived free — they tend not to react very well… we will either get mass violence and actual terrorism — or the heavy hand will just force people to protest passively – as in they will not consume much…
This won’t end well… I have a mate who is in the emigration game in HK – and he is Licking His Chops!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/china-proposes-controversial-national-security-law-for-hong-kong
China badly needs Hong Kong for the financial role it plays.
Belarus most infected than all. 1000 new every day.
Population 10M
185 deaths.
I am betting 99% of those deaths are old burned out KFC Big Gulpers…. similar to the people who are dying around the world from covid
CBS should send a team to organize a fake queue of covid patients in Belarus
Isn’t it amazing how this story has disappeared.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/06/cbs-news-edits-testing-story-after-project-veritas-exposes-clinics-line-stuffing-ploy/
Belarus has lots of new cases, but so far not many deaths. We can hope that they are simply more conscientious about reporting new cases.
CBS Fa.ke News Crew is on the way to Belarus….
“Things are worse than they were 100 days ago … We can’t even afford groceries anymore.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/lebanon-pm-marks-100-days-office-protestors-storm-ministry-200521195050194.html
Lebanon recently defaulted on its debt and its currency has lost 60% of its value since last summer. Electricity supply is inadequate. Sad situation.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/trump-says-he-wont-close-the-country-if-second-wave-of-coronavirus-hits.html
“… President Donald Trump said “we are not closing our country” if the U.S. is hit by a second wave of coronavirus infections.
“We are going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country,” Trump said. “We can put out the fires. Whether it is an ember or a flame, we are going to put it out. But we are not closing our country.”…”
and this is the guy who wanted to reopen the USA on April 12th…
too bad that he was somehow convinced to relent…
other countries may go back to lockdown (too bad), but if the POTUS gets his way, we are not…
The thing is, much of the power lies with the States. The federal government did not force any lock downs, they are all State lock downs. Having layers of authority, especially when different layers may be under the control of different ideologies, makes things pretty interesting.
true…
the message from the POTUS could be actively fought against by D states and their D governors…
because he says no going back to lockdowns, they may feel compelled to lockdown again at the slightest sign of a second wave…
I’m still in the camp of personal freedom… end all lockdowns and let people do the activities they want…
and the people who want to hide at home 24/7 can do their thing too…
Ok enough of emails regarding expired server warranties and all that jazz… B.O.R.I.N.G
M Fast is over there getting down with her new hobby painting… and I am over here thinking about .. s e x dolls… because I saw some baseball team in Japan was fined for putting s e x dolls in the stands…
And I asked M Fast … so if a s e x doll company approached you and said hey we want to make a new doll and use you as the model… and we’ll give you a royalty of USD100 per doll sold … with a minimum of 50k guaranteed for the first 3 years…
Would you do it?
No.
But why? I don’t understand… it’s not like it’s actually you .. it’s just your face…
No.
But it’s at least 50k per year!!! That’s quite a lot of cash…
No.
Why not?
It’s disgusting.
Well if someone offered me half that I’d definitely do it.
Ha ha – nobody will offer you anything so don’t worry about it.
good one tell her u want one for xmas lol
A robotic THOT, now that would have been something.
Today’s populations of the wild animals are greatly dependent on the food produced by the industrial agriculture. Often, the hunters illegally kill the predator animals in order to have more wild game for themselves.
The point is that with the decline of the industrial agriculture and the increased protection of the crops, together with the protection of the predators by the law, the amount of food for hunting falls sharply.
We live in the era of protection of the plants and animals, which further curbs the human population growth.
is there a possibility that everything is orchestrated or planned to reduce population by any means i say yes who wants the world to die if population is not brought into balance with the worlds available resources based on price fluctuations
You are contradicting yourself. You pledge market balance but want god’s hand getting it
listen avocado i dont understand your reply sorry
Sorry, I was almost asleep. I mean you say the end of planned depopulation would be to get a balance based on price fluctuations (which I assume to be a free market, as opposed to a rigged one existing now), but depopulation itself would be an intervention, not a free market mechanism
we need a higher oil price to survive depopulation will increase energy per capita
the world population continues to increase by about 200,000 per day…
there is an estimation that this will reverse in the near future, due to the massive economic damage caused by illlogical lockdowns, specifically mass starvation, but as of now there is just average starvation…
if there is a spike of starvation in the near future, such as 200,000 more per day, first we will need to see how the UN etc “orchestrates” plans to stop the mass starvation…
the UN seems to be in the business of planning ways to get more food to food-insecure people, and to reduce deaths by diseases especially in third world countries…
should those plans be eliminated?
At some point, broken supply chains make feeding all of those people impossible.
Must See Video (26 minutes):
Interview with Dr. Judy Mikovits, The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19
https://videos.files.wordpress.com/AcHeTmnh/plandemic-movie_dvd.mp4?_=1
This video answers a lot of our questions. Although I have no idea if they are the correct answers, we need to listen to this expert’s claims. If this video doesn’t play for you, you can see it at this link.
https://houstonenergyindustrynews.com/2020/05/06/must-see-video-the-hidden-agenda-behind-covid-19/
thanxs tim good find
“This video answers a lot of our questions. Although I have no idea if they are the correct answers…”
thanks for the bruutal honesty…
when you have a better idea what the correct answers are, I would be willing to read your opinion…
“when you have a better idea what the correct answers are, I would be willing to read your opinion…”
Strange statement. I read it and I think about it and I turn it over and look at it from different angles but I can’t work out what it means.
Of course, I do know full well that it is intended as snark, but beyond that I really can’t work out what else it is supposed to mean. Does it mean
“When you ARE SO FULL OF YOURSELF THAT YOU CLAIM TO SPEAK WITH UTTER CERTAINTY, I would be willing to read your opinion…”
Is that what you mean? That seems to be the closest meaning that I can glean. Sincerely, what are you trying to suggest by this very odd statement?
really?
T G was very direct when he wrote “Although I have no idea if they are the correct answers…”
and I, as of now, have no plans to watch that video, partly because T G was so clear that he has “no idea” if the video contains “correct answers”…
same goes for you, too…
if you watch the video and have a good idea what the “correct answers” are, I would be willing to consider your opinion also…
Try googling her name…. page after page after page after page of attacks… far more than on the Nobel Prize winner who also said this virus was made in a lab…
it would appear that someone wants to… discredit her
She has that part of the story right — this was made in a lab and released on purpose…
What she doesn’t understand (or perhaps she is just distracting)… is that there is no way in hell we would collapse the global economy so some people could make money.
And even if someone made big money off of this — what’s the point — when we are extinct.
We also know that the PTB know that the cheap to produce oil was well past peak and the global economy was about to collapse pre Covid…
So again – that deep sixes her assertions
I think the first video is sometimes called, “Plandemic.” TPTB are trying to get rid of it off the internet. Wikipedia says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plandemic
ino-Soviet-American relations during 1969 followed a chaotic course. Scholars have asserted in the past that the Sino-Soviet border conflict in March led to Sino-American rapprochement in December. However, evidence from China, the former socialist world and the United States undermines the interpretation of a purposeful and planned policy of any of the three actors to the others. None had a formulated policy or strategy in place. China lacked the governmental ability to chart a clear course, the United States underwent a presidential transition, and neither it nor the Soviet Union had meaningful diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic. In this context, the border clashes, intended by China to reassert territorial claims on a small island, led to a complex web of actions and interactions between the three countries that was based on mutual misunderstanding, lack of communication, exaggerated threat perceptions and improvised decision making. Thus the outcome at the end of the year, the start of a friendly relationship between Beijing and Washington, was by no means the result of well-formulated and implemented policies.
On Dec. 10, 1974, the U.S. National Security Council under Henry Kissinger completed a classified 200-page study, “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” The study falsely claimed that population growth in the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) was a grave threat to U.S. national security. Adopted as official policy in November 1975 by President Gerald Ford, NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth in those countries through birth control, and also, implicitly, war and famine. Brent Scowcroft, who had by then replaced Kissinger as national security adviser (the same post Scowcroft was to hold in the Bush administration), was put in charge of implementing the plan. CIA Director George Bush was ordered to assist Scowcroft, as were the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and agriculture.
The bogus arguments that Kissinger advanced were not original. One of his major sources was the Royal Commission on Population, which King George VI had created in 1944 “to consider what measures should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend of population.” The commission found that Britain was gravely threatened by population growth in its colonies, since “a populous country has decided advantages over a sparsely-populated one for industrial production.” The combined effects of increasing population and industrialization in its colonies, it warned, “might be decisive in its effects on the prestige and influence of the West,” especially effecting “military strength and security.”
But USAID never promoted birth control in Africa… Nothing was ever done to prevent overpopulation, which suggests real depopulation wouldn’t be an elite’s choice. But they can change their minds…
They may want to depopulate the West first. Couple of reasons:
1) The West is where the big individual over-consumption is
2) Once the West is no longer functioning (if, say, it collapses) dependent economies such as in Africa will also collapse. Two birds with one stone.
3) If they believe that they will be able to remain on top of a significantly reduced population, they will of course also have given some thought to the ideal make-up of the remaining subservient population.
They may think that begining depopulation in the West will have political advantages with regard to the racial composition of the subsequent societies. This kind of thing has been standard policy of dictators since before even Alexander of Macedonia (he had a plan to repopuilate Greece with Persians, but died before he could implement it).
In this view, they may believe that it would be easier to run a world where there is less intelligent opposition (subject peoples). That would imply that it would be better to fracture and Brazilianize (if not completely destroy) the cultural, ethnic and racisl identity of the West, (as has been the goal of the mass immigration programs to the West of the last 70 years and other related social programs and propganda) who might otherwise challenge the elites.
Haha… some intelligent yeast bending their biological needs?
Lol. The Ottomans had a plan to depopulate the rebellious province of the Morea (Peloponnese) during the Greek War of Independence 1821-30. The funny thing is that Greece has been depopulated and repopulated several times since the classical era. First by the Slavs in the 8th century, and then by the Albanians after the 14th century. The fustanella, a white kilt, synonymous with the country is in fact a traditional dress associated almost exclusively with Albania.
https://readtiger.com/img/wkp/en/Souliotis_in_Corfu.jpg
This man fought on the Greek side against the Ottoman Empire, but his outfit and shaved head betray his Albanian heritage
Hard to believe ancient Greeks would had accepted barbarians at home. At that moment Macedonians themselves were still considered by many as half Greeks, as upstarts, and what you say brings in another possible reason for the murder of Alexander by the means of poison, which is a recurring hipotesis among historians
It’s not impossible Alexander had this idea, given the other things he did -contradicting Aristotle’s advice, which was “treating Persians as animals or things”-, and the rumor could had worried many
But it’s hard to believe anyone is going to replace any population with another in any place today. No migrations in Lockdown Age
Besides, who would want to go somewhere else? No jobs for the Mexicans in the US, at least in Mexico the govt may hand them some money. I’ve read that 2.5000 euros have been paid to leave Spain on a boat heading North Africa just after travel ban was imposed. Even the Islamic State advised against going into Europe at that point of the outbreak
This is a link to the study. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab500.pdf
It took place two years after “The Limits to Growth” was published. It was at a time that oil prices were sky high, and everyone was worried about running out.